On July 1st, 2011, prisoners in the Secure Housing Unit in Pelican Bay State Prison, Crescent City, CA went on indefinite hunger strike to protest conditions that have been characterized by the United Nations as "inhumane and degrading". Throughout the week they have been joined by thousands of prisoners in at least a third of the state's prisons. The actions of these California prisoners are part of a long international history of resistance to the use of prisons as a solution to social problems, most recently the prison strikes in both Georgia and Youngstown, OH.
What are the prisoner demands?
1. An End to Group Punishment and Administrative Abuse
2. Abolish the Debriefing* Policy,
and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria
3. Comply with Commission on Safety and Abuse
in America's Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding
an
End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement
4. Provide Adequate Food
5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming
and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.
From the call by prisoners in Pelican Bay
for a hunger strike:
“The purpose of the Hunger Strike is to combat both the Ad-Seg/SHU psychological and physical torture, as well
as the justifications used of support treatment of the type that lends to prisoners being subjected to a civil death.
Those subjected to indeterminate SHU programs are neglected and deprived of the basic human necessities
while withering away in a very isolated and hostile environment.” - Mutope Duguma
What is the Security Housing Unit (SHU)?
The Security Housing Unit (SHU) is a prison-within-a-prison. SHU prisoners are kept in windowless, 6 by 10 foot
cells, 231⁄2 hours a day, for years at a time and conditions in American SHUs are routinely the target of
international human rights campaigns. The California Department of Corrections operates four Security Housing
Units in its system. Pelican Bay, Corcoran, California Correctional Institution, and Valley State Prison for
Women .
Who is Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity?
When the prisoners at Pelican Bay decided to go on hunger strike, they built into their organizing a call for the
creation of a committee outside the prison walls with specific asks around messaging, actions and other kinds of
support.
[snip]
demands and conditions inside the SHU as well as notices about upcoming events and action items.
* The practice of “debriefing,” or offering up information about fellow prisoners particularly in regard to gang status, is often
demanded in return for better food or even release from the SHU. Debriefing puts the safety of prisoners and their families
at risk, because they are then viewed as “snitches.”
