Vol. 77/No. 38 October 28, 2013
The hearing, organized by California Senate and Assembly Public Safety Committee chairpersons Loni Hancock and Tom Ammiano, was called in response to the hunger strike after the governor and prison authorities refused to negotiate with the prisoners.
At the hearing, representatives of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation denied that the thousands of inmates in the Security Housing Units, commonly referred to as the “SHU,” are held in conditions of solitary confinement.
“There is no ‘solitary confinement’ in California,” asserted a CDCR factsheet handed out to the more than 200 people attending the hearing, “and the SHU is not ‘solitary confinement.’” Prison Inspector General Robert Barton argued that SHU prisoners are allowed visitors, showers, TVs, access to a law library, exercise, medical visits, correspondence classes and can find ways to communicate with other prisoners.
Family members, ex-prisoners and others answered by describing the extreme isolation imposed in the SHU, where prisoners, often for years, see only the inside of a windowless 8 x 10 foot solitary cell and for very brief periods a slightly larger concrete solitary exercise pen. No phone calls. Visits are allowed through a glass barrier with no physical contact. After what is usually a long trip, it’s not uncommon for family members hoping to visit their loves ones to find the prison on lockdown and be turned away.
‘A torture chamber’
“The SHU is a torture chamber,” said former prisoner Steven Czifra, who was one of the panelists at the hearing. He said during the first of his 12 years in prison he was a “model prisoner,” but was put in the SHU after getting in a fistfight with another prisoner and then spitting on a guard who was taunting him, which was regarded as assault and battery against a guard. “They did everything to take my life, to break me and to annihilate my spirit,” he said.At the hearing Michael Stainer, CDCR director of Division of Adult Institutions, characterized the hunger strike as a “mass disturbance.” He admitted that hunger strikers were disciplined for their participation. The action involved some 30,000 prisoners when it began July 8 and some 100 determined inmates when prisoners’ leaders decided to suspend it Sept. 4.
Inspector General Barton testified that 984 prisoners have been in the SHU for more than five years, some for decades. He said about 60 percent are put there for an indeterminate period because they have been “validated” as gang members or members of a group prison authorities consider disruptive. Others are placed there for a specified period as punishment for an offense.
One of the prisoners’ demands is for an end to a practice called “debriefing” — a system that keeps inmates accused of gang affiliation in long-term isolation until they finger others.
Dolores Canales, whose son is in the Pelican Bay SHU, pointed out that thousands of prisoners continue to be in the SHU on the basis of another prisoner’s statement, or “evidence” such as artwork deemed gang-related.
Connie Pedroza, whose son has been in the Pelican Bay SHU for 15 years, said he was put there on the basis of exchanging a birthday card with his cousin, who was “validated.”
Panelist Margaret Winter, associate director of the National Prison Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that it’s estimated that on any given day there are 80,000 prisoners in the U.S. held in solitary confinement.
She described litigation by the ACLU in Mississippi that preceded a reduction in the numbers in solitary by 85 percent, with many of those released needing mental health treatment. In some states cutbacks in solitary confinement have been fueled in part by budget crises, she said, given the higher cost of keeping a person in solitary.
“Beyond the pale,” was how Assemblyman Ammiano, who chaired the hearing, characterized the policies related to long-term solitary confinement. He and Senator Hancock both said they hoped to develop legislation related to the issues raised by the prisoners. Hancock and other legislators are asking CDCR officials for more data on the effects of solitary confinement.
“I would suggest that we stop asking the California Department of Corrections to govern themselves,” said former prisoner Czifra in response to questioning from the legislators. “We don’t need to research anything. We already know without a doubt that long-term solitary confinement is torture.”
Before entering the hearing room, opponents of solitary confinement held a rally on the state Capitol steps.
“They made a milestone,” said Marie Levin, sister of a hunger striker, who chaired the rally. “They were able to unite and to win international support against the torture of solitary confinement.”
Related article:
‘Militant’ wins victory against prison censorship
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