October 31 through November 5 tens of thousands of people in downtown SanFrancisco came face to face with the stark reality of life inside theSecurity Housing Units (SHU) in California prisons. On the busy corner ofMarket and Powell streets activists erected a mock SHU in a five day vigil toexpose the brutality of these torture units. The activists collectedsignatures on a petition calling for the closure of the SHUs. At final countthe protest gathered 1328 signatures. The fight has not ended and peopleinterested in participating can download a petition and continue collecting signatures.
Organized by the All People's Coalition Against the U.S. Occupation andTerror, the SHU protest included a hunger strike inside the SHU with adifferent persyn every 24 hours, and activists on the outside talking topassers by. MIM was an active participant in this event, sending an activistto take up a post outside of the SHU for several hours each day of theprotest, along with a flyer designed by MIM detailing the brutality in theCalifornia SHU and the history of these control units across the country. (Acopy of the flyer can be downloaded at http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/prisons/campaigns/ca/cashu_flyer.pdf).The SHU is a prison within a prison. It consists of 6x9 foot cells withprisoners locked up at least 22 hours a day, in conditions of sensorydeprivation: no daylight, no human contact, no training or educationalactivities, and no phone access. Guards subject prisoners to strip searchesand shackles every time they leave their cells. The only regular release fromthe cell is to an exercise cell that is just a larger version of the SHUcell. As a former SHU prisoner commented, "I wouldn't wish that on my worseenemy."A federal court found conditions at the Pelican Bay SHU facility to beunconstitutional in 1995. The court ruled that prisoners suffered gratuitousand racist beatings and that medical facilities were inadequate. Prisonersreport that little has changed since that ruling. Corcoran prison is infamousfor its "gladiator fights," staged between 1988 and 1996. MIM met one man whohad been in the Corcoran SHU in 1995 "in the thick of the mess." He explainedhow guards sent him to the SHU on the pretext that he had attacked them witha ballpoint pen--while he was on the ground handcuffed behind his back. Hesaid that false charges such as this were common grounds for lockup in theSHU.A poster on the side of the protest SHU in San Francisco quoted a Pelican BaySHU prisoner:"...the most ridiculous information is used to support our validation and SHUplacement, i.e. assisting each other in legal work, signing a card for adying prisoner and just about any speech or association that has anything todo with gang activity or a violation of law or prison code."...CDC refuses to define 'gang activity' and so in the eyes of CDC,everything and anything is gang activity. And, should a prisoner have no gangactivity, there is an exception clause that allows them to keep us in the SHUanyway."...the means for obtaining release from the SHU [are] paroling, debriefing,dying, and the loss of sanity."SHU prisoners at Pelican Bay started another hunger strike October 19th toexpose the conditions there. This action in San Francisco was timed topublicize their struggle. Although the protest received no direct mainstreammedia attention, the Pelican Bay hunger strike received sudden interest bythe media after several days of this vigil on the outside. But even if nomainstream media attention had been gained this action was an overwhelmingsuccess. It was a demonstration of the numbers of people that a few dedicatedactivists can reach and educate, and the magnitude of impact we can have.A number of former prisoners stopped to sign the petition. Those who had notbeen in the SHU stressed how bad the conditions are in the prisons evenoutside of the SHU. Guard brutality, medical neglect, lack of education andinadequate food are commonplace throughout the California prison system. Aformer guard in the California Department of Corrections who spoke outagainst guards' abuses signed the petition. Speaking out cost him his job.The vigil took place in an area containing a cross-section of San Francisco'spopulation, including business people and homeless. Activists came face toface with the reality that Amerika has the highest imprisonment rate in theworld. All who volunteered outside the SHU were struck by the large numbersof people walking by who had been to prison. Many of the homeless had been toprison.A large number of tourists also stopped at the exhibit. Tourists from othercountries were uniformly shocked that the SHU form of solitary confinement islegal in the United $tates.The U.$. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than China;even though China is four times the U.$. population. In this so-called "freecountry" freedom is imprisonment. The U.$ imprisons more Black people thandid apartheid South Africa before Mandela was president.As in the rest of the country, people from oppressed nations are imprisonedin California at a disproportionate rate. In 1998 the CDC reported that 34%of the population in all CDC institutions was Latino, and 31% was Black. Thepopulation of the Security Housing Units (SHUs) is even moredisproportionate. 82% of those in SHUs were non-white, and 52% of those inSHUs were Latino. This compares to a California population that was 32%Latino, and 7% Black in 1998.Back to SF Bay News