{"id":50910,"date":"2013-07-17T06:29:41","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T05:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/inmates-in-california-enter-second-week-of-statewide-hunger-strike\/50910\/"},"modified":"2013-07-17T06:29:41","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T05:29:41","slug":"inmates-in-california-enter-second-week-of-statewide-hunger-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/inmates-in-california-enter-second-week-of-statewide-hunger-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Inmates in California enter second week of statewide hunger strike"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\n

\n By
\n Richard Vargas
\n
17 July 2013
\n <\/h5>\n

On Monday, July 8, approximately 30,000 inmates across more than two-thirds of California\u2019s 33 prisons\u2014\u2014in addition to the four out-of-state for-profit facilities utilized by the state\u2014\u2014began refusing meals to protest inhumane prison conditions and the use of indefinite solitary confinement practices. The hunger strike, now entering its ninth day, is the largest in state history.<\/p>\n

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), as of July 15, \u201c2,572 inmates in 17 state prisons\u201d were participating in the statewide hunger strike, with \u201c258 inmates [refusing] to participate in their work assignments or attend educational classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CDCR only considers an inmate on hunger strike if they have refused nine consecutive meals. As a result, the official tally of inmates participating tends to conceal the actual size of the statewide action. On July 11, after inmates had refused their ninth meal, the CDCR for the first time acknowledged the strike.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Times<\/em> cited Elaine Gurule, the mother of two men participating in the strike. \u201cThey are getting sick,\u201d she said. According to the Times<\/em>, \u201cGurule said her sons, participating in the hunger strike that began July 8, were weak and dizzy. She expressed surprise that prison officials had not weighed the inmates, but instead handed them \u2018do not resuscitate\u2019 forms to fill out in case they collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re trying to make it hard on them,\u201d Gurule added.<\/p>\n

Despite a 2011 Supreme Court ruling against the state of California\u2014\u2014which called for a reduction in the state\u2019s prison population, and characterized prison conditions as violating an inmates\u2019s Eighth Amendment constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment\u2014\u2014the CDCR continues to operate the state prison system far above the court-mandated level.<\/p>\n

An investigative report, published in the November\/December 2012 issue of Mother Jones<\/em> magazine, found that at least 11,730 inmates\u2014\u2014nearly nine percent of the almost 133,000 individuals imprisoned by the state of California\u2014\u2014are held in some form of solitary confinement. In 2011 the UN\u2019s Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. M\u00c3\u00a9ndez, called for the \u201cabsolute prohibition\u201d of solitary confinement beyond 15 days, which the UN recognizes as a form of torture.<\/p>\n

There is no international legal consensus on what solitary confinement precisely consists of. However, Solitary Watch, an online media and advocacy project aimed at raising public awareness on the widespread use of solitary confinement in the United States, clarifies what at times can be a purposefully ambiguous term.<\/p>\n

\u201cSolitary confinement,\u201d they write, \u201cis the practice of isolating inmates in closed cells for 22-24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades. Few prison systems use the term \u2018solitary confinement,\u2019 instead referring to prison \u201csegregation\u2019 [e.g. administrative or disciplinary segregation]. In California, long-term solitary confinement units are referred to as Security Housing Units (SHUs); in New York, the same acronym stands for Special Housing Units. In Oregon, the long-term isolation units are called Intensive Management Units (IMUs), while in Pennsylvania they are called Restricted Housing Units (RHUs). In the federal system, one type of extreme solitary confinement takes place in Communication Management Units (CMUs). Despite the variety of names, the general practice of incarceration in these units and facilities is solitary confinement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ongoing mass hunger strike, which raises as one of its demands the end to indefinite solitary confinement practices, was organized and called for by the Short Corridor Collective (SCC), a group of inmates held in Security Housing Units (SHUs) at Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP). The SCC was also behind the initial hunger strikes of 2011, where inmates across California first backed the five \u201ccore demands\u201d being raised.<\/p>\n

In addition to calling for an end to \u201clong-term solitary confinement,\u201d inmates are also demanding an end to \u201cgroup punishment and administrative abuse;\u201d elimination of the \u201cdebriefing policy,\u201d which grants privileges to inmates who provide information on others, as well as the modification of \u201cgang status criteria;\u201d access to \u201cadequate and nutritious food;\u201d and, the expansion and provision of \u201cconstructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are at least 4,527 inmates currently serving indefinite SHU terms in California, with 1,180 of them held at PBSP alone. These inmates are forced to live in cells that measure just over 11 by 7 feet, deprived of human interaction, the majority of whom are only given one hour of solitary exercise a day. Inmates have described solitary confinement practices as a form of state-sanctioned torture.<\/p>\n

The author also recommends<\/em>:<\/p>\n

California prison conditions behind largest hunger strike in state history
<\/a>[13 July 2013]<\/p>\n


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Republished with permission from: World Socialist Web Site<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 By Richard Vargas 17 July 2013 On Monday, July 8, approximately 30,000 inmates across more than two-thirds of California\u2019s 33 prisons\u2014\u2014in addition to the four out-of-state for-profit facilities utilized by the state\u2014\u2014began refusing meals to protest inhumane prison conditions and the use of indefinite solitary confinement practices. The hunger strike, now entering its ninth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-50910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}