The battle against torture in California prisons is heading for a
breaking point with unity running high among prisoners and resistance to
change stiffening within the state. Since the third round of strikes
ended in early September the promised state legislature hearing around
the Security Housing Units (SHU) occurred and Pelican Bay SHU
representatives met with California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) officials. Yet the actions taken by the state in
response to the protests have been the same old political repression
that the SHU was created to enforce, not ending conditions of torture.
One comrade from Corcoran reports:
I read in your latest publication that you guys hadn’t had any news of
the concessions Corcoran SHU made in order to bring our hunger strike to
an end. For the most part, the demands made here are not even worth
articulating, as they don’t incorporate, in any way, the push towards
shutting these human warehouses down completely.
The demands put forth here are simple creature comforts, which have not
even been met by the administration, to pacify those who seem to have
accepted these conditions of confinement.
Worse than the petty reforms, is the blatant political repression of
strikers just as the world’s attention is on them. The state knows that
if it can get away with that now, then it has nothing to worry about. As
another comrade from Corcoran SHU reports:
I stopped eating state food on 8 July 2013 and as a retaliatory measure
I and a bunch of other prisoners were transferred from the Corcoran SHU
to the Pelican Bay SHU. Only the thing is, when we got to Pelican Bay on
17 July 2013 we were placed in the ASU instead of the SHU, which made it
so that we would have a lot less privileges and we couldn’t even get a
book to read. So we were just staring at the wall. On 5 August 2013
others and myself were moved to the SHU where we were again just staring
at the wall. On 7 September 2013 we were again moved back to the ASU to
sit there with nothing. On 24 September 2013 I was moved back to the SHU
and I just received all my property last week.
So we were moved around and denied our property for 3 months or more.
But that seems to be it right now and I can finally settle in. But I’m
telling you that was a long 3 months. Other than that no new changes or
anything else has happened around here. I did, however, receive a 115
rules violation report for the hunger strike, along with everyone else
who participated, and in it it charges that I hunger striked as part of
some gang stuff so it was gang activity. This is ironic since the hunger
strike was about the CDCR misusing the validation process and what is
considered gang activity. So now that 115 can and will be used as a
source item of gang activity to keep me in the SHU longer.
While that comrade was sent to Pelican Bay, our comrade below is being
“lost” in Enhanced Outpatient Program (EOP). Organizing in California
has gotten so advanced that the CDCR is moving people out of Administrative
Segregation to isolate them. But with a third of the people actively
participating in protests, there is no way for them to brush this
movement under the rug.
I am writing to say that it’s been over 5 weeks since our peaceful
protest was suspended. I am a petitioner in the Corcoran Administrative
Segregation Unit 2011 strike and am a participant and a petitioner in
this 8 July 2013 one. I have been moved around and retaliated against. I
went from ASU-1 to Cor 3B02 on 24 July 2013. I was moved back to ASU-1
on 16 August 2013 and then on 19 August 2013 I was moved to where I am
currently housed in isolation with no access to anything although I am
not “EOP.” I am being housed against my will and the correctional
officers here tell me I don’t belong here but that they can’t do
anything because it’s above their pay level. No one seems to know
anything about why I am being housed here but all come to the same
conclusion: that someone above them has me housed here. I’d like to know
if there is anyone out there that you may have heard of that find
themselves in similar situations or am I the only one?
We haven’t heard anything yet. But don’t let their games get to you
comrade.
Another indication of the strength of change in California comes from a
story being circulated by representatives of the Pelican Bay Short
Corridor Collective. Multiple versions have been circulating about a
historic bus ride where these “worst of the worst” from “rival gangs”
were left unshackled for an overnight bus ride. It was reported that not
one of the O.G.’s slept a wink that night, but neither did any conflicts
occur. At least some of these men self-admittedly would have killed each
other on sight in years past.(1) This amazing event symbolizes the
extent to which this has become about the imprisoned lumpen as a whole,
and not about criminal interests.
The CDCR keeps telling the public that they are instituting reforms,
while in reality they are torturing people for being “gang members” for
reasons such as protesting torture. Outside supporters can up the
pressure to end this system of repression by letting them know that we
know what they’re doing, that their words mean nothing, and that going
on hunger strike is not a crime. There is a campaign to call the CDCR
out on their hypocrisy by contacting:
M.D. Stainer, Director
Division of Adult Institutions
Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation
P.O. Box 942883
Sacramento CA.
94283
(916) 445-7688
Michael.Stainer@cdcr.ca.gov
Those on the outside who want to do more after they make their phone
call should contact
MIM(Prisons) at our new email address.
As we reiterated last issue, it is prisoners who determine the fate of
the prison movement. And the only way prisoners can actually win is by
building independent power. As long as this is a campaign for certain
reforms, the state will go back to business as usual as soon as the
outside attention fades. Torture cannot be reformed, and neither can an
exploitative economic system that demands it. Of course prisoners can’t
end imperialism alone, but wherever we are we must focus on building
cadre level organizations that can support independent institutions of
the oppressed.