CALL NOW TO SUPPORT HUNGER STRIKERS DEMANDS

Pelican Bay Warden Greg Lewis: 707-465-1000 x500
Secretary of CDCR Matthew Cate:  916-323-6001
Governor Jerry Brown:  916-445-2841

The demands:

1.
Eliminate group punishments. Instead, practice individual accountability. When
an individual prisoner breaks a rule, the prison often punishes a whole group
of prisoners of the same race. This policy has been applied to keep prisoners
in the SHU indefinitely and to make conditions increasingly harsh.



2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status
criteria. Prisoners are accused of being active or inactive
participants of prison gangs using false or highly dubious evidence, and are
then sent to longterm isolation (SHU). They can escape these tortuous
conditions only if they "debrief," that is, provide information on
gang activity. Debriefing produces false information (wrongly landing other
prisoners in SHU, in an endless cycle) and can endanger the lives of debriefing
prisoners and their families.



3. Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and
Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement. This
bipartisan commission specifically recommended to "make segregation a last
resort" and "end conditions of isolation." Yet as of May 18,
2011, California kept 3,259 prisoners in SHUs and hundreds more in
Administrative Segregation waiting for a SHU cell to open up. Some
prisoners have been kept in isolation for more than thirty years.




4. Provide adequate food. Prisoners report unsanitary
conditions and small quantities of food that do not conform to prison
regulations. There is no accountability or independent quality control of
meals.



5. Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite
SHU inmates. The hunger strikers are pressing for opportunities “to
engage in self-help treatment, education, religious and other productive
activities..." Currently these opportunities are routinely denied, even if
the prisoners want to pay for correspondence courses themselves. Examples of
privileges the prisoners want are: one phone call per week, and permission to
have sweatsuits and watch caps. (Often warm clothing is denied, though the
cells and exercise cage can be bitterly cold.) All of the privileges mentioned
in the demands are already allowed at other SuperMax prisons (in the federal
prison system and other states).

For more
information and continuing updates, visit Prisoner Hunger
Strike Solidary Blog or www.prisons.org/hungerstrike.htm