Amid a massive hunger-strike being waged across the state of California by thousands of prisoners in several facilities, officials may move to begin force-feeding inmates if it could prevent a larger uprising from occurring.
California is one of only three states where prison physicians
are barred from using force-feeding in instances where inmates
refuse to eat, but ProPublica journalist Christie Thompson has
noted that the courts there have also allowed for an exception in
the event that not intervening might cause chaos to unfold within
a facility.
Now one week after prisoners at 22 state prisons and four
out-of-state facilities started refusing meals, officials could
consider taking the route that physicians have adopted at the
Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation only
recognizes a fasting streak as a hunger-strike if inmates forego
nine consecutive meals. The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday
afternoon that the number of prisoners who have reached that
point has dwindled down to 4,487 from the original 30,000 inmates
involved in the strike one week earlier. As calls for reform
within the California prison system continue, though, officials
could see inmates – even in dire numbers – neglecting to eat in
the coming weeks.
And although the California Correctional Health Care Services’
director of legislation told ProPublica that “Force-feeding
inmates is not part of our medical protocol,” a provision
within established law leads room for the CDCR to start ordering
those procedures to take place if it’s imperative to the safety
of the prison.
A 1993 decision made by the State Supreme Court ruled that a
paralyzed inmate could “decline life-sustaining treatment,
even if to do so will cause or hasten death,” paving the way
for a provision that today keeps officials from intervening right
away in any attempts to protest. Elsewhere in that ruling,
though, the court ruled, “In another case, or in this case if
a change of circumstances warrant, we do not preclude prison
authorities from establishing the need to override an inmate’s
choice to decline medical intervention.”
“A custodial environment is uniquely susceptible to the
catalytic effect of disruptive conduct,” the ruling
continued, “and courts will not interfere with reasonable
measures required to forestall such untoward consequences.”
In other words, the decision stated, authorities can intervene
with medical treatment “when otherwise health prisoner’s
attempt to starve himself threatened prison disciple and
security.”
“However, such measures must be demonstrable ‘reasonable’ and
necessary,” not a matter of conjecture.
According to ProPublica’s Thompson, the prison officials might
reach such a conclusion should they feel threatened by the
current strike. Isaac Ontiveros, a spokesperson with the Prisoner
Hunger Strike Solidarity Network, told Thompson that “It
doesn’t need to come to that,” though, adding prison
officials “can end this very, very simply.”
“It’s a little bit of bad press if you force-feed
inmates,” bioethicist Dr. Jacob Appel added to Thompson’s
report. “It’s a lot of bad press if you have a lot of
protesting inmates and one of them dies.”
As of Sunday evening, strikes were continuing in 23 California
prisons and one out-of-state prison. According to the LA Times,
731 inmates have also refused to go to work or class.
Inmates at the facilities have released a list of demands to the
prison asking for, among other requests, an end to the state’s
practice of holding inmates suspected of internal gang
involvement in isolation indefinitely.
Republished with permission from: RT