Vol. 79/No. 27      August 3, 2015

Levin is the sister of Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, one of the leaders of the prisoners’ hunger strike in California in 2013 that grew to include more than 30,000 inmates and put a spotlight on the brutal conditions faced by thousands of prisoners held in solitary confinement in the state. The call for monthly actions originated with leaders of the hunger strike at the Pelican Bay State Prison.

Since March, pickets, rallies, tabling and other activities have taken place on the 23rd of each month across the state, organized by a broad coalition of groups including the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, California Families Against Solitary Confinement and California Prison Focus.

“My brother has spent 34 years in jail, 31 in solitary, for a crime he didn’t commit,” Levin said. “California has more prisoners in solitary than any other state. While other states have reduced the numbers in solitary, here they are maneuvering to continue the torture.”

Following the hunger strike, Levin’s brother and several other strike leaders were transferred to Tehachapi State Prison, where they found conditions even worse than in Pelican Bay. Jamaa was put into the Step Down Program, touted by prison authorities as a way for prisoners to work their way out of solitary by attending group meetings, keeping a journal the authorities monitor and not breaking prison rules.

Prison authorities initiated the program after the hunger strike. In a February 2014 statement hunger strike leaders denounced it as a “sham” that did not end the arbitrary placement and maintenance of thousands in solitary at the discretion of prison authorities.

In the July 2015 San Francisco Bay View newspaper, Jamaa reports that 40 prisoners are withdrawing from the Step Down Program.

Ten prisoners with a decade or more in solitary at Pelican Bay are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights charging that the isolation violates their Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.

On June 2, 2014, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken gave the suit class action status, meaning it now covers hundreds of prisoners in Pelican Bay who have been in solitary 10 or more years. The trial will be in December.

“The hunger strikes were a significant part of an ongoing national sea change regarding the use of solitary,” Marie Levin wrote in the December 2014 Bay View.

This change was registered in a recent tentative settlement, in which Contra Costa County agreed to stop holding juveniles in solitary. A suit filed in 2013 in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco alleged that youths with psychiatric and development disabilities have been routinely locked in narrow cells for up to 23 hours a day.

For information on how to join actions against solitary confinement, visit the California Prison Hunger Strike Coalition website at http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com.  
 
 
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