He’s lost over 40 pounds “and getting smaller by the day” Day 30

[annm4peace]

In America today.. actually in California. We are letting our fellow citizens starve to death
It doesn't matter if your Governor calls himself a progressive Democrat.

http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/letters-from-inside/

Letter from PBSP dated July 28, 21st day of hunger strike: He’s lost over 40 pounds “and getting smaller by the day” — all fat gone, body eating muscle now. “There are several who already fell out from effects of the HS and we have some who have been placed in the hospital and the prison specialty clinic. But there are many of us who will see this out to the end. We are still strong.”

Postcard from PBSP dated July 29: “[…] they moved 14 of the reps [and others accused of being reps] to Administrative Segregation to further isolate them. The top brass ordered […] by the top brass out of Sacramento. […] But nothing changed, my sista. We are now on our 21st day and maintaining our course.”

Postcard from Corcoran: “There has been retaliation within the Health Care Department where policymakers have apparently decided to subordinate what’s in the best medical interest of prisoners to Custody.” Unlike Pelican Bay, Corcoran must be holding mail. The postcard is dated July 21 but not postmarked until July 30.

Everyone’s writing reflects the strain the hunger strikers are under and the increasing weakness, both in what they say and how they write it down. I’m very familiar with their handwriting and writing style and can see the effects of the struggle. One striker wrote “Let me say this next week we will be having major complications from the HS.”


August 5, 2013 at 9:35 am
Pelican Bay is withholding mail as well… even prisoners not striking are having their mail withheld.


Call Governor Jerry Brown
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Suggested script: I’m calling in support of the prisoners on hunger strike. The governor has the power to stop the torture of solitary confinement. I urge the governor to compel the CDCR to enter into negotiations to end the strike. RIGHT NOW is their chance to enter into clear, honest negotiations with the strikers to end the torture.

[prefunk]

1. Wouldn't the best way to deal with prison conditions be to not do something that gets one

sent to prison?

While I am very soft on most drug offenses and other "victimless" crimes, perhaps not breaking the law is the starting point?

I am not a pro-prison person. I think that our entire prison system needs an overhaul, starting with the DE-privatization of them all, then ending the drug war.

At the same time, I find it difficult to sympathize with those who are unable to live within the parameters we as a society have set as law. Is the law unjust? Lets discuss that.

The 5 core demands that these folks want seem reasonable, yet I find it hypocritical that they want better treatment for themselves when they likely took away others' rights by committing their crimes.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. it all depends on whether you believe humans have iinalienable rights and deserve dignity

what they did to get there is in many ways their morality, how we as a society treat them while they are there are a reflection of ours.

[prefunk]

6. They do derserve it, right up until they dont.

When they break the law and take away others' rights and dignity, they deserve neither.

There is more to this issue than meets the eye.

[NuclearDem]

10. Being sent to prison doesn't deprive people of their basic human rights

This bloodlust bullshit that prisoners deserve neither rights nor dignity is exactly why the prison system fails so miserably in this country. It becomes about petty punishment and an eye for an eye rather than rehabilitation and making the prisoner a contributing member of society.

If we treat our inmates like shit, then we're shit.

[prefunk]

18. Your point is taken.

There is no easy solution.

How do you suggest we deal with violent criminals? Telling me "not like this" isn't a solution.

[cui bono]

34. It may not be a solution to stop torture, but just because it isn't doesn't mean it should continue.

You can't justify something just because the people who say it should be stopped don't have a solution to keeping people from committing crimes. You seem to just be playing a game here rather than really trying to grasp the subject and discuss it rationally.

[prefunk]

39. I'm not discussing it rationally? Are you sure that is the word you meant to use?

If so, I don't think you are using it correctly.

I haven't tried to justify anything. I'm trying to figure out how to make the system better. You seem able to only tell me how badly it is broken, and unable to propose any plausible solutions on how to fix it.

[HiPointDem]

63. #1: by not creating so many criminals in the first place.

Violent crime was not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States from 1980 to 2003. Violent crime rates had been relatively constant or declining over those decades. The prison population was increased primarily by public policy changes causing more prison sentences and lengthening time served, e.g. through mandatory minimum sentencing, "three strikes" laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release. These policies were championed as protecting the public from serious and violent offenders, but instead yielded high rates of confinement for nonviolent offenders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Violent_and_nonviolent_crime


In multiple ways.

1. Jobs. Not enough, not stable enough, not enough decent paying, etc.

2. War on drugs & the role of government-associated actors in promoting the drug trade. Drug trade & drug use has expanded every year of the phoney WOD.

3. A 'justice' system that makes it near-impossible for people to escape it even with the best of intentions -- combine the increased punitiveness, fines that keep expanding with interest or if you put one foot wrong, which then ruin your credit record, making it more difficult to get work or housing, jail time for debt -- there are so many aspects to it. Then add to that the difficulty of getting stable jobs, period & it's a recipe for criminality.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. no there really is not. either you believe people regardless of whether you approve of them or not

have certain rights, like the right NOT to get tortured, or you don't.

it's really that simple.

[prefunk]

22. What is your solution?

[cui bono]

27. Not everyone in prison is guilty. n/t

[prefunk]

28. Agreed. Are any of the hunger strikers not guilty?

[cui bono]

30. What does that matter?

Should we have all protesters everywhere fill out questionares to see if they have a right to protest?

[prefunk]

33. I'm not sure, you tell me, since you brought it up.

Your previous post indicated that it did matter. Have you changed your mind?

[cui bono]

36. I'm not going to continue with you. You are disingenuous and probably a troll.

You are just playing word games on here and not really trying to discuss the topic at hand.

[prefunk]

40. If calling me names makes you feel better about your inability to have a coherent discussion...

Perhaps next time you should refrain from making asinine, vacuous statements. Then you might get a better conversation.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. This isn't about whether the law is just or unjust.

Do you think prisoners should be tortured? Because that's what long-term solitary confinement is.

[prefunk]

7. I agree.

But what do we do with those that refuse to function in society?

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. Prolonged psychological torture is only going to make them unfit for society

should prison be about punishment? Or rehabilitation? Or about warehousing undesirable and dangerous people away from everyone else? Other countries don't lock up as many of their citizens as the USA. Other countries also don't make extensive use of solitary confinement. And yet places like Canada and France and Germany are somehow NOT violent and lawless.

Are you aware of how many current prisoners in the US are imprisoned for non-violent drugs offences? And inmates in California get sent to "Secure Housing Units" after being "validated" as "gang associates". Signs that a prisoner may be a gang associate, according to the California correctional system: reading leftist or black nationalist literature, or literature on prisoners' rights, among other things. I wish I were making that up.

[prefunk]

14. Yes, upwards of 45% of the prison population are there for drug offenses.

Did you not read my initial post?

Are the hunger strikers in prison for non-violent drug offenses?

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. So if they're there for rape and murder it's okay to torture them?

[prefunk]

16. I'm unsure that anyone is being "tortured."

We could all use a bit more information and knowledge about what is actually happening before making such claims.

[annm4peace]

17. I posted the article and website so you can be informed

I can show the horse some water but I can't make it drink

[prefunk]

20. "torture" is a very strong word, and I'm unsure it is applicable here.

Let's wave a magic wand; you are now in charge of the prison system. Fix it. Ready, set, go..

I'm all ears.

[annm4peace]

41. well I guess you aren't the UN Special Rapporteur

Nor one of the signees on the Open Letter to Gov Brown.

http://www.stoptortureca.org/take-action/open-letter-to-governor-brown/

"Extended solitary confinement is globally recognized as torture."

"The UN's lead investigator on torture has called for governments to end the use of long spells of solitary confinement in prison.

Juan Mendez said such isolation could cause serious mental and physical damage and amount to torture."
*********************************************************************************************
and now I understand, you are using your ears instead of our eyes...
try your using your eyes on some of the links and see if it answers your questions.

and for your Magic Wand... lets start with this:

1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse – This is in response to PBSP’s application of “group punishment” as a means to address individual inmates rule violations. This includes the administration’s abusive, pretextual use of “safety and concern” to justify what are unnecessary punitive acts. This policy has been applied in the context of justifying indefinite SHU status, and progressively restricting our programming and privileges.

2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria -

Perceived gang membership is one of the leading reasons for placement in solitary confinement.
The practice of “debriefing,” or offering up information about fellow prisoners particularly regarding gang status, is often demanded in return for better food or release from the SHU. Debriefing puts the safety of prisoners and their families at risk, because they are then viewed as “snitches.”
The validation procedure used by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) employs such criteria as tattoos, readings materials, and associations with other prisoners (which can amount to as little as greeting) to identify gang members.
Many prisoners report that they are validated as gang members with evidence that is clearly false or using procedures that do not follow the Castillo v. Alameida settlement which restricted the use of photographs to prove association.
3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement – CDCR shall implement the findings and recommendations of the US commission on safety and abuse in America’s prisons final 2006 report regarding CDCR SHU facilities as follows:

End Conditions of Isolation (p. 14) Ensure that prisoners in SHU and Ad-Seg (Administrative Segregation) have regular meaningful contact and freedom from extreme physical deprivations that are known to cause lasting harm. (pp. 52-57)
Make Segregation a Last Resort (p. 14). Create a more productive form of confinement in the areas of allowing inmates in SHU and Ad-Seg [Administrative Segregation] the opportunity to engage in meaningful self-help treatment, work, education, religious, and other productive activities relating to having a sense of being a part of the community.
End Long-Term Solitary Confinement. Release inmates to general prison population who have been warehoused indefinitely in SHU for the last 10 to 40 years (and counting).
Provide SHU Inmates Immediate Meaningful Access to: i) adequate natural sunlight ii) quality health care and treatment, including the mandate of transferring all PBSP- SHU inmates with chronic health care problems to the New Folsom Medical SHU facility.
4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food – cease the practice of denying adequate food, and provide a wholesome nutritional meals including special diet meals, and allow inmates to purchase additional vitamin supplements.

PBSP staff must cease their use of food as a tool to punish SHU inmates.
Provide a sergeant/lieutenant to independently observe the serving of each meal, and ensure each tray has the complete issue of food on it.
Feed the inmates whose job it is to serve SHU meals with meals that are separate from the pans of food sent from kitchen for SHU meals.
5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.

Examples include:

Expand visiting regarding amount of time and adding one day per week.
Allow one photo per year.
Allow a weekly phone call.
Allow Two (2) annual packages per year. A 30 lb. package based on “item” weight and not packaging and box weight.
Expand canteen and package items allowed. Allow us to have the items in their original packaging [the cost for cosmetics, stationary, envelopes, should not count towards the max draw limit]
More TV channels.
Allow TV/Radio combinations, or TV and small battery operated radio
Allow Hobby Craft Items – art paper, colored pens, small pieces of colored pencils, watercolors, chalk, etc.
Allow sweat suits and watch caps.
Allow wall calendars.
Install pull-up/dip bars on SHU yards.
Allow correspondence courses that require proctored exams.
********************************************************

[prefunk]

46. Good stuff.

Prison administrators see SHU's and Debriefings as a way to deal with the myriad problems they face. How do you propose to deal with the issues that administrators face when dealing with the prison population?

We are on the same page AND the same team here. I want plausible solutions to the real problems, and I want plausible ways that they can be implemented. Calling for an "end" to these practices is fine, not having a plausible solution is not.\

Expand visiting regarding amount of time and adding one day per week.
Allow one photo per year.
Allow a weekly phone call.
Allow Two (2) annual packages per year. A 30 lb. package based on “item” weight and not packaging and box weight.
Expand canteen and package items allowed. Allow us to have the items in their original packaging
More TV channels.
Allow TV/Radio combinations, or TV and small battery operated radio
Allow Hobby Craft Items – art paper, colored pens, small pieces of colored pencils, watercolors, chalk, etc.
Allow sweat suits and watch caps.
Allow wall calendars.
Install pull-up/dip bars on SHU yards.
Allow correspondence courses that require proctored exams.

Mostly great ideas that should be standard operating procedure. Will these things placate the prison population and modify their behavior, keeping them out of more trouble?

[annm4peace]

56. I see the list as plausible.

and for many prisoners it is real problems.

The BIG solution would be to take the profit out of prisons... but if we could at least start with restoring human rights.. that would be a start. ... well that isn't the start.. the start could be the 5 demands I posted earlier.

[prefunk]

58. And BOOM goes the dynamite!

Yes, for-profit prisons ARE the problem, and abolishing them all is the first step we must take.

[annm4peace]

60. Isn't going to happen unless

we vote in some Greens...

Dems are taking prison lobbying money also....

Just like we can't stop the Military Industrial Complex

thought that was a given

[bravenak]

54. All great ideas.

I also believe we need more family visits and once a week contact parenting visits for a minimum of 2 hours. Also for married or equivilent inmates in good standing, bimonthly family visits in bungalows on prison compounds for two days. Wife/ husband and kids spend a couple of days together helping to ensure family reunification and strengthen bonds. It a privilege few would be willing to endanger with bad behavior.
More education and job training with certificates and licensing to help ensure employment when released.
Civics classes.
Ability to adopt and keep a small pet in cells. Some inmates have no family, they need love too.
Monitored Internet access at all prisons.
Ability to report abuses and make records them unhindered by CO's.

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. No, they're being tortured. Full stop.

Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.

Children provide the clearest demonstration of this fact, although it was slow to be accepted. Well into the nineteen-fifties, psychologists were encouraging parents to give children less attention and affection, in order to encourage independence. Then Harry Harlow, a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, produced a series of influential studies involving baby rhesus monkeys.

He happened upon the findings in the mid-fifties, when he decided to save money for his primate-research laboratory by breeding his own lab monkeys instead of importing them from India. Because he didn’t know how to raise infant monkeys, he cared for them the way hospitals of the era cared for human infants—in nurseries, with plenty of food, warm blankets, some toys, and in isolation from other infants to prevent the spread of infection. The monkeys grew up sturdy, disease-free, and larger than those from the wild. Yet they were also profoundly disturbed, given to staring blankly and rocking in place for long periods, circling their cages repetitively, and mutilating themselves.

At first, Harlow and his graduate students couldn’t figure out what the problem was. They considered factors such as diet, patterns of light exposure, even the antibiotics they used. Then, as Deborah Blum recounts in a fascinating biography of Harlow, “Love at Goon Park,” one of his researchers noticed how tightly the monkeys clung to their soft blankets. Harlow wondered whether what the monkeys were missing in their Isolettes was a mother. So, in an odd experiment, he gave them an artificial one.

In the studies, one artificial mother was a doll made of terry cloth; the other was made of wire. He placed a warming device inside the dolls to make them seem more comforting. The babies, Harlow discovered, largely ignored the wire mother. But they became deeply attached to the cloth mother. They caressed it. They slept curled up on it. They ran to it when frightened. They refused replacements: they wanted only “their” mother. If sharp spikes were made to randomly thrust out of the mother’s body when the rhesus babies held it, they waited patiently for the spikes to recede and returned to clutching it. No matter how tightly they clung to the surrogate mothers, however, the monkeys remained psychologically abnormal.

In a later study on the effect of total isolation from birth, the researchers found that the test monkeys, upon being released into a group of ordinary monkeys, “usually go into a state of emotional shock, characterized by . . . autistic self-clutching and rocking.” Harlow noted, “One of six monkeys isolated for three months refused to eat after release and died five days later.” After several weeks in the company of other monkeys, most of them adjusted—but not those who had been isolated for longer periods. “Twelve months of isolation almost obliterated the animals socially,” Harlow wrote. They became permanently withdrawn, and they lived as outcasts—regularly set upon, as if inviting abuse.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande

IT'S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS since I've been inside a prison cell. Now I'm back, sort of. The experience is eerily like my dreams, where I am a prisoner in another man's cell. Like the cell I go back to in my sleep, this one is built for solitary confinement. I'm taking intermittent, heaving breaths, like I can't get enough air. This still happens to me from time to time, especially in tight spaces. At a little over 11 by 7 feet, this cell is smaller than any I've ever inhabited. You can't pace in it.

Like in my dreams, I case the space for the means of staying sane. Is there a TV to watch, a book to read, a round object to toss? The pathetic artifacts of this inmate's life remind me of objects that were once everything to me: a stack of books, a handmade chessboard, a few scattered pieces of artwork taped to the concrete, a family photo, large manila envelopes full of letters. I know that these things are his world.

"So when you're in Iran and in solitary confinement," asks my guide, Lieutenant Chris Acosta, "was it different?" His tone makes clear that he believes an Iranian prison to be a bad place.

He's right about that. After being apprehended on the Iran-Iraq border, Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal, and I were held in Evin Prison's isolation ward for political prisoners. Sarah remained there for 13 months, Josh and I for 26 months. We were held incommunicado. We never knew when, or if, we would get out. We didn't go to trial for two years. When we did we had no way to speak to a lawyer and no means of contesting the charges against us, which included espionage. The alleged evidence the court held was "confidential."

What I want to tell Acosta is that no part of my experience—not the uncertainty of when I would be free again, not the tortured screams of other prisoners—was worse than the four months I spent in solitary confinement. What would he say if I told him I needed human contact so badly that I woke every morning hoping to be interrogated? Would he believe that I once yearned to be sat down in a padded, soundproof room, blindfolded, and questioned, just so I could talk to somebody?

http://www.motherjones.com/print/197186

18 October 2011 – A United Nations expert on torture today called on all countries to ban the solitary confinement of prisoners except in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, with an absolute prohibition in the case of juveniles and people with mental disabilities.

“Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit… whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique,” UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan E. Méndez told the General Assembly’s third committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural affairs, saying the practice could amount to torture.

“Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation, the aim of the penitentiary system,” he stressed in presenting his first interim report on the practice, calling it global in nature and subject to widespread abuse.

Indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days should also be subject to an absolute prohibition, he added, citing scientific studies that have established that some lasting mental damage is caused after a few days of social isolation.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40097#.UgHN7W03hkI

[prefunk]

21. What is your solution?

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. My solution is to not bother conversing with you anymore.

Since you're clearly too lazy to have bothered reading any of the links provided and can't be arsed to inform yourself sufficiently on the subject.

[prefunk]

24. How expected. Complainers tend to run away when the hard work starts.

It's easy to complain, isn't it?

Feel free to let me know when you have ideas on how we can fix the problem.

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. There's not much point if you're unwilling to inform yourself...

sufficiently to be able to even discuss the issue. You clearly aren't, so there's not much point.

[prefunk]

26. So you have no solution?

I've already made my point, and I have read and understand yours.

How do we fix this?

[Spider Jerusalem]

29. By not locking people up in solitary indefinitely, for a start

and not sentencing people to years or decades in prison for non-violent crimes, for another.

The USA has 5% of the world's population, and 25% of the world's prison population. Something is clearly very wrong there.

[prefunk]

32. So what do we do with them?

Sure, indefinite solitary is not the answer, but what is?

I agreed with most of what you stated in my initial post.

It's easy to say "don't do this, don't do that", but how do we actually fix this problem?

[Spider Jerusalem]

38. Repeal mandatory minimum sentencing laws and decriminalise drugs, for a start

get rid of the "three strikes" laws that see felony recidivists sent to prison for life without parole, for another.

[prefunk]

42. Great ideas. But they have been around for some time. How do we actually CHANGE the system?

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. By implementing some of these ideas? You have to start somewhere.

If these ideas have been around for some time, it's time to start trying them, no?

Although I sometimes suspect that America is irretrievably broken, and that the ugly Calvinist thirst for vengeance and righteous punishment that forms part of the bedrock of the American national character is in no small way responsible for that...along with the fact that a majority of America's prison population is black or Hispanic (racism is in no small part also responsible for the extremely fucked US "justice" system).

[prefunk]

49. YES! The hard part is "how".

Respectfully, these are not your ideas, nor are they new. Folks have been calling for these changes for decades, yet nothing ever changes.

HOW do we change the system?

[Spider Jerusalem]

50. How? I told you how.

Repeal the stupid three-strikes and mandatory minimum laws and abolish solitary confinement. That's HOW. The only problem is that politicians are spineless cowards who are terrified of being seen as "soft on crime".

[prefunk]

52. Man, I really feel like a broken record here, but you seem almost intentionally obtuse.

HOW do we repeal 3 strikes, mandatory mins, and solitary? None of the pols in office now are gonna do it. There is little political will to make these changes and alternative candidates who aren't beholden to big-money donors with the chutzpah to take the lead are few and far between.

YES, these are the changes that need to be made. HOW do we do it? The current system is BROKEN, and expecting the broken system that GAVE us these problems to FIX the problems is delusional.

[Spider Jerusalem]

57. So you throw up your hands and say "oh well, there's nothing to be done?"

The honest answer is that there may be some change in some states, but it'll be slow and uneven barring some sweeping federal court judgement that has broad applicability. And if "system" means "political system" and not "justice system", then, yes, that's broken too, and fixing it would pretty much require amending the Constitution.

If you think nothing can be done and there's no point in bothering, then why are we even having this conversation? Most other Western countries have managed to abolish the death penalty and reform their prison laws without too much trouble. What makes it impossible for the USA?

[prefunk]

59. Yeah, sure, that's exactly what I've been saying all along! You got me.

What. The. Fuck.


I'm unsure how to continue this conversation with you. Are you simply not reading my responses or are you having difficulty comprehending them?

[Spider Jerusalem]

62. There's nothing wrong with my reading comprehension.

It's not my fault if your communication skills suck.

[annm4peace]

51. we vote out all the Democrats and Republicans

and vote in Greens and then they will change the system.

done.

[prefunk]

55. Until the money is taken out of the election system, it matters little who is in office.

And Green dreams like the one you describe simply isn't going to happen.

I'm looking for real, plausible solutions to fix this fucked up system. Got any?

[LanternWaste]

65. Much as you've been doing in regards to responses you dislike.

"It's easy to complain, isn't it?"

Much as you've been doing in regards to responses you dislike.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other... insert rationalization here.

[annm4peace]

43. so everyone in prison has refused to function in society

that is very interesting.

I think I've heard that said about the homeless also.

and of the mentally ill.

very interesting

[prefunk]

47. Sweet jesus, is there something on the keyboards or what?

Why do so many, such as yourself, feel the need to distort and mischaracterize what others have said?

This is the second time in this thread you have done this. Why?

When you are ready to be honest, not only with me, but with yourself, let me know.

[annm4peace]

4. you argue with yourself prefunk

What if you not look at what the prisoners have or haven't done.

And instead look at what we as a society are doing, are paying for.

It is about US... the citizens of the United States. The citizens of CA.

We are torturing, Our tax dollars are paying for people to be tortured and to be treated inhumanely.

It is beyond shameful.

the British paper, The Guardian is reporting the Hunger Strike. Other countries know how we treat our fellow citizens.

Three times a day, a food tray slides in through a slot in the door; when that happens you may briefly see a hand, or exchange a few words with a guard. It is your only human contact for the day. Five times a week, you are allowed an hour of solitary exercise in a concrete-walled yard about the same size as your cell. The yard is empty, but if you look straight up, you can catch a glimpse of sky.

Imagine that a quarter of the people who live in this place are mentally ill. Some have entered the cells with underlying psychiatric disabilities, while others have been driven mad by the confinement and isolation. Some of them scream in desperation all day and night. Others cut themselves, or smear their cells with faeces. A number manage to commit suicide in their cells.

You may remain in this place for months, years, or even decades. The conditions in which you live have been denounced as torture by UN officials and by a host of human rights, civil liberties, and religious groups. And yet you remain where you are.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/19/solitary-confinement-congress-prisons

[prefunk]

8. It seems my point was lost on you.

[annm4peace]

9. No, I get your point

you prefer to blame the victim for being tortured, with our tax dollars.

[prefunk]

13. If it makes you feel better to completely distort my point, have at it.

But doing so tells me you are not interested at all in having an adult conversation.

[roody]

31. What a cruel response.

[prefunk]

35. What an empty reply.

[annm4peace]

5. CDCR head Jeffrey Beard's Op-Ed...

http://solitarywatch.com/2013/08/06/california-hunger-strike-approaches-one-month/

just a snip

CDCR head Jeffrey Beard wrote an Op-Ed in the LA Times yesterday, declaring the hunger strike as a “gang power play.”

Beard was previously head of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, a system known to house thousands in solitary, including hundreds diagnosed as seriously mentally ill.

Beard argues in the Op-Ed that the leaders of the hunger strike are self-interested gang leaders “directly responsible for at least five ruthless murders, 35 violent assaults, including stabbings, and they have racked up more than two dozen violations for possession of weapons and other contraband.

”Ad Hominem attacks against the hunger strike leaders, whatever their factual basis, have been an increasing element of CDCRs portrayal of the current round of mass hunger strikes as gang activity, orchestrated not out of frustration of spending an average of 6.8 years in a confined cell with limited outlets, but merely for the benefit of prison gangs.

CDCR has invoked this claim of “gang activity” as justification for restricting the release of information about the hunger strike; Public Information Officers at all facilities have been ordered to refer journalists to the CDCR press office.

Further, Beard notes that not all in the SHU are in solitary. In making this claim, he points to the ability of those in the SHU to have visitation and receive letters. Of course, this ignores the reality that not everyone in the SHU will receive letters and, given how remote SHU facilities are, not all families can afford visists to facilities as far north as Pelican Bay.

Having a cellmate in a SHU cell presents it’s own set of challenges.

Sharing a cell designed for one, with confinement in limited cell space for 22 1/2 to 24 hours a day, coupled with the humiliation of sharing toilets just feet away from where they will eat and sleep, has led some to tell Solitary Watch that having a cellmate can be an infuriating experience.

[Starry Messenger]

37. k&r

[bravenak]

45. The California prison system is cruel and unusual torture.

Inmates at California prisons spend years in solitary confinement. Years. Years years years. How the hell do you rehabilitate without human interaction? If a person were to leave a child in solitary confinement for 5 to 10 years they would likely produce a feral child unable to communicate or be in any way, shape or form a normal human being ever.
How do we expect humans to come out of prison after not having had human contact, except on rare occasions, for over five years and become contributing members of society? And not reoffend?
These fellow humans suffer from the psychological torture for the rest of their lives.
Some are unable to live outside the prison system again.
Many lose the will to live.
This is the fault of our profit driven prison system. Once we make it to where no one Profits financially from locking humans in cages, our society will finally start rehabilitating our inmates.
We can start by ending the " war on drugs" racket.

[herturn2016]

48. Expected this to be about Chris Christie. /nt

[annm4peace]

53. thanks prefunk

for getting some many comments on this thread... helps get the word out..

couldn't have done it without you.

[sabrina 1]

61. This country is a disgrace! Sometimes I am just heartbroken at what it has become.

[Little Star]

64. +1