April 3, 2004 - Activists held the second monthly protest to shut down California's Security Housing Units (SHU) in cities across the state. These protests the first Saturday of every month, organized by the United Front to shut down the SHU, are staffed by organizations and individuals active in this campaign in each city. This month we had people on the streets in San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles.

Protesters are taking to the streets in cities across the state of California to demand California prisons shut down the Security Housing Units (SHU). Like other control unit prisons across the country, the SHU are prisons within a prison. They are solitary confinement cells where prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day for years at a time. The one hour a day these prisoner sometimes get outside of their cell is spent alone in an exercise pen not much larger than their cell, with no direct sunlight. This long term isolation causes serious mental and physical health problems for many prisoners. And these torture cells are used to target politically active prisoners using a system of classification that makes it impossible for prisoners to appeal their assignment.

In San Francisco activists collected about 75 petition signatures in the two hours we were on the streets. The corner we choose, at Powell and Market streets, is an area with a diversity of pedestrians including many former prisoners who are very excited to see us working to abolish the SHU. Several men stopped to sign the petition and tell us how important this work is, describing their stay in the SHU as torture. One woman joined us for a short time, trying to explain the torture her boyfriend had endured in the SHU to passers by who did not stop to sign the petition. With the recent mainstream media publicity about prison brutality in California, many people who had never been inside a prison were familiar with the issues and the need for change. Most people were clear that abolishing the SHU would not eliminate the fundamental oppression that is a part of the Amerikan Criminal Injustice System. And activists staffing the table explained the need to fight for this reform while taking on the larger system.

The protest in San Jose, CalifAztlan at the Berryessa Flea market displayed a replica of a SHU prison cell from 7:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. A banner was hung which read: "Domestic War, Torture Programs in the California Prisons Must Go Now, Abolish the Security Housing Units NOW!". This Banner was done in Spanish and English. Many people came by and looked, and some asked questions. A flyer with information on the SHU conditions was passed out to many people along with a Press Release announcing the April 10th Statewide meeting and the April 26th Federal Court hearing in San Francisco challenging SHU classification. Everyone who stopped was asked to sign a petition. Those that knew of the SHU and were in the SHU quickly got their families to sign the Petition to shut it down. We are also protesting to CDC Warden Scribner, Gov. Schwarzenegger and Gloria Romero that Corcoran State Prison is holding the families of prisoners hostage by not allowing families to visits with their loved ones.

In Los Angeles RAIL and SLALA gathered 42 signatures at the Farmer's Market in Silverlake. The foot traffic here is made up youth, foreign students and Latin American Immigrants. Many of the people we approached had never heard of the SHU and wanted to know more about the SHU program. Most were appalled to hear that SHU's are used as retaliatory attacks against politically active prisoners and prisoners who have grievances against the prison system. One older Latin American womyn sympathized with those behind bars and linked SHU type of repression to the anti-immigrant sentiments rampant in Kalifornia. Her point about the SHU makes sense especially when the SHU is used to break the political will of prisoners who become aware of the economic and poltical causes behind the overwhelming incarceration of Blacks and Latinos in the U.$.

The city of Los Angeles is no stranger to political unrest sparked by the inhumane and unjustifiable acts of Amerikan injustice system. The SHU program re-visits these injustices on a daily basis and on a historically unheard of scale. We will continue to fight against the SHU in Los Angeles while exposing the root causes of all injustice and oppression.

We need more activists to help us expand the protests to other cities across the state of California. By May we hope to expand the protests to include Oakland and San Diego. At the demonstrations we set up a literature table with flyers and other information about the SHU and the criminal injustice system, and we collect petition signatures demanding the SHU be shut down. We use posters and banners to get people's attention, attaching them to the table and other structures. And in some cities we are setting up mock SHU structures to illustrate to people the small cell size and sensor deprivation that is part of life in the SHU. It only takes one or two people to get a protest going in a new city, and we can provide people with all the needed materials.

Contact us if you want to get involved in this important campaign against these torture units as a part of the larger battle against the Criminal Injustice System as a whole.

Protests will be held the first Saturday of every month at the following locations:

Los Angeles: Silver Lake Farmer's Market at Sunset Blvd. and Griffith Park Blvd.
11am to 1pm
Contact: mim136@mim.org or lizm9698@sbcglobal.net (818) 848-0402

San Francisco: Corner of Powell and Market
Noon to 2pm
Contact: mim124@mim.org (415) 267-4879

San Jose: Berryessa Flea Market
7:30 a.m. to 12:30
Contact: barriodefens@earthlink.net (408) 885-9785

Santa Cruz: Pacific Ave, the heart of downtown Santa Cruz
10am to 2pm
Contact: rufus4you@yahoo.com (408) 471-9098

Oakland: Broadway outside the 12th Street Bart
Noon to 2pm
Contact: mim124@mim.org (415) 267-4879