CDCr counterpunch: New rules designed to silence prison protest

SF BayView, June 13, 2014

by Mutope Duguma

To all officers and personnel within the CDCr* who have not fully grasped the state of our affairs as it relates to the events of the last three years, in particular “those damn hunger strikes,” if I could read your mind, this is what I think I’d hear you say:

We will not tolerate “our” prisoners getting out of line, no matter how bad we treat them, because we are the authority here, and this each and every one of you will come to know in time. We will pass policies that will restrict any prisoners from speaking out to the public. [Editor’s note: Under CDCr’s proposed new censorship regulations, publications like the Bay View that publish prisoners’ articles for the public to read could be permanently banned from all California prisons.]

We will consider any rhetoric that protests our torture of prisoners to be a threat to the safety and security of the CDCr, and that language will be banned from our institutions. So, any publications that reference such rhetoric will be rejected by our mail handlers.

We do not care about the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, because our authority is to protect the public by all means. And we cannot do this with a lot of red tape, nor can we do this without torturing prisoners by holding them indefinitely in solitary confinement. Therefore, solitary confinement is very necessary.

We further note that we may now be allowing prisoners to have electric typewriters, combo televisions, radios, excess canteen etc., but if they get two serious CDCr 115s (Rules Violation Reports) within a six month period, we will assert our authority under the new proposed regulation titled “program failure” and strip them to their bare necessities, meaning all of their appliances (radios, TVs and the like) and excess property will be sent home.

That means we didn’t really give them anything, because we can manufacture these serious 115s, citing confidential information by way of our many informants, 1030 disclosure forms, debriefings, staff information, talking on the yard or in the building, and take it all away. These are some of the many ways in which we can strip them of their property, based on these proposed new regulations.

So if we get this passed as policy [the comment period for the new regulations is open until Tuesday, June 17 at 5 p.m.], then it’s open season on these guys for real. We can trash their cells during searches and if they respond negatively, then write them up a serious CDCr 115 Rules Violation Report, an RVR. We can feed them slop however we see fit, and if they say something negative in response, write them up a serious RVR. 

We can write them up in the law library for many violations, play with their canteen and packages, yard; you name it, we can do it now, under these new proposed regulations.

We literally can hammer these guys now. We have put ourselves in a better position to screw these guys and many will not even see it coming. We do it all under the authority of CDCr policy.

Hell, we should be very excited about the position we are in, because we got the STG (Security Threat Group, the new term for “gang”) I and II and the SDP (Step-Down Program) on the books as policy and we didn’t even have it challenged. Now they are eating out of our hands to get to the DRB (Departmental Review Board, which is interviewing prisoners in solitary confinement to see whether they belong there). We basically just widened our field of play.

We can lock up anyone we desire to under the STG I and II and the SDP. Hell, this is 10 times better than indeterminate SHU, under prison gang validations. We get the whole enchilada now! And we got four years to hold each and every one of them.

We have a pool of 130,000 prisoners to choose from, and guess what? We can bring them back to solitary confinement any time we want to. We got nothing to worry about, because, hell, we locked some of these guys up for 30 to 40 years straight on BS and didn’t pay any of them one cent, nor were any of our officers prosecuted, and we know that a lot of these validations were in clear violation of the law, an injustice where we subjected these guys to all kinds of physical and psychological torture and got clean away with it. And we have a more elaborate system to continue business as usual.

We got each and every one of them right where we want them. When looking at them today, what has changed? And I say to all my officers, not a damn thing changed! We good, so continue to get your overtime and make your money and remember that working in solitary confinement pays extras. We good!

Oh, and support the legislators for a job well done in writing SB 892.

Retaliation by policy

Though we [Mutope is now speaking in his own voice] are in the 21st century, the CDCr is using its authority and power to retaliate against prisoners in order to break our will and spirit. Although the method has changed, the results remain the same.

The method can be openly brutal, as we see in the Southern states, where our New Afrikan brothers and sisters are beat down and murdered, while being treated like 1700s or 1800s slaves, working in chain gangs, while prison guards ride horses with shotguns, looking like something straight out of the movies.

But when you start analyzing exactly what’s going on inside California prisons, you will begin to see that we too are being beat down and murdered, as if we too were in the 1700s and 1800s. Actually, it’s been equally as devastating for us as it is for our brothers and sisters in the Southern states.

Prison policies have been constructed so that each and every prisoner has been subjected to pain and punishment over the past 25 years. The CDCr policy makers have used CCR (California Code of Regulations) Title 15 to attack prisoners in every aspect of our lives – medical, food, property, politics, privileges, custody, education, law library, yard, sanitation etc.

No matter the level of attacks, it’s always been done to establish and constantly remind us that we prisoners are under oppressive prison conditions. The policy changes are not something the CDCr even tries to hide. It seems as if their sole purpose for introducing policies is to subject the prisoners to inhumane treatment.

We have seen, since our first and second hunger strikes, that the policy governing hunger strikes (CDCr Chapter 22 and 23 and Operational Procedures (OP) 228), under the warden’s authority, was changed, simply because they could not subject prisoners to “physical harm.” So, after we came off our first hunger strike, the CDCr turned around and changed the hunger strike policy, the OP, to allow them to subject prisoners to some kind of pain and punishment, although they had arbitrarily carried out attacks against us even when the initial hunger strike policies were in effect.

The CDCr uses these prison policies in order to subject prisoners to physical and psychological harm. The reason CDCr went back and changed their proposed policies was so that they could retaliate against prisoners for their peaceful protests. Although they laid claim to false security threats to the institutions, they never proved anything. So, why would it be a threat to the safety and security of the institution now?

When prisoners write to publications in order to tell our stories to the outside world, why would that be a threat now to the penological interests of the CDCr when it never has been for over 40 years? Is it a threat when prisoners write on our philosophical views, our political and ideological beliefs, and sign off with our names? Why would prisoners telling the public about the torture we’ve been subjected to at the hands of the CDCr be a threat to the penological interests of the prison? In two words, “It’s not.”

The policy [new proposed censorship rules, officially called “Obscene Material” regulations] is in retaliation for prisoners telling our personal horror stories, while carrying out hunger strikes in protest of such cruel and unusual punishment inside solitary confinement.

The CDCr is neither ashamed nor remorseful for the pain and suffering they inflict on so many human beings. Instead, they are constantly trying to find ways to silence prisoners and further subject us to more pain and suffering. These retaliatory policies are designed to do just that. We have to challenge the CDCr’s blatant retaliation on prisoners.

One love, one struggle,

Mutope Duguma

Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, D2-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532.

*CDCr is the acronym for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; prisoners often write the last letter in lower case because rehabilitation is nearly nonexistent in California prisons.

Pelican Bay update: What change?

By Mutope Duguma

Published on: SF Bay View, May 1, 2014

Our Five Core Demands of the hunger strikes have not been met. And we see that reform always equals revisionism, which means it’s no change.

Reform is a word that provides one, or a people, temporary fixes. It does not change their circumstances, but instead gives an impression that they have achieved change. Reformism is an age old practice that has been used on oppressed people throughout the world for centuries. As our oppressor, CDCr is employing the very same tactics now because they have not been able to bring about the change they have promised.

The food has literally gotten worse, although for a month they attempted to adequately feed us. The medical care continues to be inadequate. The educational programs and privileges are not afforded, and prisoners are still made to suffer in these inhumane conditions, now familiar to us for years on end. The Departmental Review Board (DRB) under no circumstances can meet the demands to remove all those prisoners who they illegally placed in solitary within a respectable amount of time.

Neither the CDCr secretary nor the undersecretary can credit themselves with making changes, just because one man who was held in solitary for 40-plus years was recently released from the Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (PBSP SHU). They are trying to act as if they are moving in the right direction, while there are countless others suffering in the same reality, solitary confinement.

This in itself is an insidious and malicious criminal act, which each and every prison official who had a hand in this or allowed these crimes against humanity to occur for so long, should be held accountable for to the highest degree of the law.

It is disheartening to hear or read politicians reference that prisoners be subjected to three years in solitary for a mere validation alone, criminalizing a status based on gang title. It is this tolerance that sanctions CDCr’s torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners and condones solitary confinement in all its capacity. Would you want to be placed in solitary based on a gang validation, which you have no control over, even though you deny the gang accusations?

The lawmakers have to be brave and set the tone for how the law is to be interpreted and applied by all means. Paraphrasing what Undersecretary Hoshino said: The regulatory process is subordinate to the legislative process.

So, if Sen. Loni Hancock is serious and committed to changing the inhumane treatment and deliberate torture that subjects record numbers of prisoners to solitary confinement indefinitely, then she has to reject the STG (Security Threat Group) I and II, along with the Pilot SDP, step down program, because it further sanctions each and every prisoner being held in solitary to more and more years in isolation.

When she introduced her bill to the Senate, termed “Major Reform of Solitary Confinement in California Prisons,” she said the legislation is designed to achieve four goals:

No. 1. Increase insight and accountability: Reading this, we feel that we have done a very poor job of educating her and the legislative body as to our pain and suffering, because under no circumstances can the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) or the Office of Internal Affairs (OIA) be established as the independent oversight entity because that has been their job since their inception, and they have failed to adequately provide proper oversight. The result has been prisoners being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for well over 40 years.

To regard the OIG and the OIA as being in a position to do an objective and sufficient job in overseeing the CDCr, is like having the lion watch over the lamb! We need real change when it comes to an independent oversight that has no ties to CDCr.

No. 2. Integrity and fair treatment in detention decisions: We see this as something that will always be subjective, because we see individuals go before the Departmental Review Board with the exact same infractions and time spent in solitary confinement, yet one gets put up for Step 1 and the other gets put up at Step 5. This is a subjective judgment because both had political literature; both had 30-plus years in solitary, no disciplinary problems and definitely no gang activity. Yet the DRB assessed both men differently in their case by case review. Why?

The fact that the DRB feels they corrected an unjust, inhumane act in which a man suffered immeasurably for 43 years is unacceptable. The only just action is to release this man back to his community.

No. 3. Humane conditions in the SHU (Security Housing Units or solitary confinement): I cannot see how the legislators can make solitary confinement humane! It is an impossible task and apparently Loni Hancock did not get what the families were saying, because if she rightfully heard the public, the families’ cries and prisoners horror stories, in her sense of humanity and empathizing with family members, under no circumstances would she be talking about making this inhumane environment more humane. It’s ludicrous and impossible.

No. 4. Positive incentives for inmates to change their lives: What about the countless positive prisoners, like myself, whose life was changed way before we were placed in solitary confinement? I am all for change, but yard is required by law; phone calls, visits and photographs should never be classified as “privileges” because these are all family oriented activities.

I see positive incentives for prisoners by way of adequate educational programs that allow prisoners to be reconnected to 21st century Amerika, college degrees, trades and vocational skills etc., where we learn a profession, making sure each prisoner can efficiently read and write and understand the political and economic landscape of this country. Programming prisoners should live in healthy social conditions that are beneficial to them, instead of conditions that foster the socially dysfunctional behavior cultivated through social engineering toward our demise.

The Five Core Demands will allow these incentives to be met. I would add that I commend Loni Hancock for being brave enough to openly say what we have been suffering for all these years by being subjected to inhumane conditions.

Our Five Core Demands of the hunger strikes have not been met. And we see that reform always equals revisionism, which means it’s no change.

But we see no change, and I realize that this bill was only submitted in mid-March and has a long way to go, through a long, drawn out process, while prisoners continue to suffer now. There isn’t the sense of urgency that was present at the Feb. 11, 2014, Public Safety Committee hearing. CDCr Undersecretary Hoshino reiterated several times in his testimony that they “need time.” This means that they have no intention of changing these conditions for the long haul.

The state of California, the governor and legislators need to find another economic incentive for CDCr and the CCPOA prison guards union, because this is where the problem lies. Under no circumstances can they end these solitary confinement torture chambers as long as CDCr and the CCPOA are able to make millions of dollars off of placing prisoners into solitary confinement.

Undersecretary Hoshino refers to 97 percent of the prisoners who have gone before the DRB being released or on their way to being released – and that’s out of 700 people reviewed thus far. But what he failed to mention is that for every prisoner released, two more are put in their place, thus creating a revolving door simply on the basis of a gang validation, NOT on BEHAVIOR.

Again, 80 percent of the prison population are validated as gang members or associates, whether they are or not. This is a fact. The real problem is that the state has found a way of giving millions of taxpayer dollars to CDCr officials without requiring bad behavior by us prisoners as a pretext to do it, yet we are made to suffer under torturous conditions.

The state of California, the governor and legislators need to find another economic incentive for CDCr and the CCPOA prison guards union, because this is where the problem lies. Under no circumstances can they end these solitary confinement torture chambers as long as CDCr and the CCPOA are able to make millions of dollars off of placing prisoners into solitary confinement.

The only way to end long term solitary confinement is to stop paying for it. This dirty little secret is far too lucrative for CDCr and the CCPOA to let go of it. My value back here in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor, as an individual, is $70,000 annually. Multiply that by 14,000 California prisoners in solitary, including Ad Seg; the total is nearly $1 billion! For profit we suffer! End long term solitary NOW!

One love, one struggle!

Mutope Duguma

Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma (James Crawford), D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532. This letter was written in April 2014.

We are the world

March 29, 2014

by Mutope Duguma

Published at SF Bay View

We human beings are a political, social, cultural and economic force trapped within the colonial powers of our oppressors’ system, in and out of prison. Our struggle is for absolute self-determination and liberation on a national and international level, by way of changing from scientific capitalism into a scientific socialist system, which is crucial for changing and ending human suffering.

It’s human beings who are the practitioners of progressive theories, which we utilize as a guide for action in our progressive struggle, from the founding of our humanist ideology. We have always presented ourselves as educators committed to the liberation of all oppressed people of the world.

We realize that our oppressors, the exploiters of the people of the world, will never end their aggression and exploitation where there exists no progressive society to challenge such aggression.

Even behind the walls of the prison industrial slave complex, PISC, a system of human degradation will continue to exist, wherever there exist no progressives. We hold the responsibility to fight against the capitalist exploiters of the world. We welcome the ability to serve the interests of humanity.

We are comprised of seasoned educators who are committed to the growth and development of education of all human beings and are rooted in the truths that afford all human beings to exercise the fullness of their potential, bringing into existence a society that represents a true civilization under justice, freedom and equality for all.

This civilization will allow most, if not all, to be educated. This civilization will allow most, if not all, to be educated around politics and economics with the intent to serve the interests of all humanity instead of the small few, as we see today.

We realize none of this can be achieved without the coalescing of the people’s power – a power that has to be precise and decisive in how it goes about bringing into existence the political and economic system of scientific socialist principles. Our responsibilities are totally to the oppressed people of the world, and it will be incumbent upon us to give the oppressed masses moral and physical support, express genuine love toward the people and learn all we can from them so that initiatives in our struggle can be carried out, to resist our oppressors.

We realize that our oppressors, the exploiters of the people of the world, will never end their aggression and exploitation where there exists no progressive society to challenge such aggression.

It is here that we as a lower class people will begin to formulate more ideas around our protracted struggle. The oppressed masses are truly linked to struggle and will have a significant role as we liberate ourselves from our oppressor’s grip in all sectors of society.

If we are to be true servants of the people, we have to be rooted in the practice of selflessness. This is the only way we can begin to champion the people’s causes progressively. All activities we participate in as progressives concerning growth and development should be of benefit to the people. We always have to be mindful in the quest for the people’s liberation that our struggle includes resisting selfishness and materialistic values that encourage the “me” society.

The growth and development of the people is our task in our struggle to be free, but in order to achieve such a task, we have to be equipped with the knowhow to bring about political and ideological development through our progressive organizing around our scientific socialist principles toward meeting the peoples’ needs.

We can very well achieve this task through our philosophy of “each one teach one.” This responsibility can only be efficiently embraced by our masses by bringing about a new breed of human being: women, men and children who adhere to the concepts of love and respect for all progressives and fellow human beings.

The women, men and children who embark on this progressive journey by challenging the inhumanity, injustices and rampant poverty that have subjugated the oppressed to a state of constant conflict and oppression in which millions are dying daily and living half butchered lives – they will be the leaders of the 21st century.

We can very well achieve this task through our philosophy of “each one teach one.” This responsibility can only be efficiently embraced by our masses by bringing about a new breed of human being: women, men and children who adhere to the concepts of love and respect for all progressives and fellow human beings.

We can seriously study and see where the errors of our ways have set us on a course that has stagnated our growth and development by not understanding the true methods to employ so as to achieve our objectives as an oppressed lower class of people.

We see people struggling in all areas of oppressed societies, no matter where we are in the world, as Alina of France, Annabelle of The Netherlands and Penny Love of San Francisco can testify so eloquently. They all clearly understand how the oppressed people of the world continue to be exploited by the very small group of rich human beings.

As long as we can agree on how to achieve our objectives for the greater good of all human beings, then we should never fall out with each other just because we believe in different methods, strategies and tactics to reach a common objective. It is essential that we all keep foremost in our minds at all times that the objectives take precedent over the individuals. And that the struggle is about bringing principles into practice for the greater good of humanity.

In solidarity always, one love, one struggle,

Mutope

Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107U, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532.

How torture is inflicted on prisoners in solitary confinement

February 24, 2014
Published in: SF Bay View

by Mutope Duguma and Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa

This is a glimpse into torture by prison staff, using any means available, of which solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Prison in California is only a reflection of the inhumane treatment and clear U.S. constitutional violations of our First, Fifth, Eighth and 14th Amendment rights that prisoners in solitary everywhere are subjected to.

Torture by deprivation

The objective of the deprivation method is not complicated. It is to attack the sensory organs and perception with methods to impair them. The weapon of deprivation cannot be effective without having in place a conditioning process to produce degeneration over a long period of time. The psychological, social and cultural trauma is observable in such a sterile and punitive environment.

Deprivation is cannibalistic for the spirit that is willing to stay the course. The flesh becomes weakened as men feed on themselves and others, eating away at human excellence. The feasting of deprivation will become more than flesh, blood or nature can endure. Indeterminate SHU confinement has left individuals with having to choose between discontinuity and becoming inflicted with a cannibalistic nature.

There are two aspects of deprivation, the psychological and the physical, where the mind acts upon the body. This two-edged torture can be effective either way. But in order for deprivation to eat away at the targeted prisoner’s consciousness, a conversion reaction must occur that breaks down the psychological defense mechanism.

Declaration on Protection from Torture

The “Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as Resolution 3452 (XXX) on Dec. 9, 1975. The declaration contains 12 articles, the first of which defines the term “torture” as

“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons.”

Types of torture

Medical: Honorable Judge Thelton Henderson ordered a receivership to oversee CDCr’s PBSP SHU due to intentional medical neglect which led to prisoners dying, as frequently as one a week, in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation system. Many of these deaths were, and continue to be, in solitary confinement. This is torture.

Solitary confinement: Prisoners are held in isolation for 10 to 40 years despite having only non-disciplinary infractions during that time. This is torture.

Mail: Prisoner mail is being used to create physical and psychological torment. Mail can be arbitrarily withheld for weeks on a regular basis, and has been known to be withheld for years, even when there are court orders to release the mail to a prisoner being unjustly deprived. This is torture.

Food: Food is intentionally prepared poorly, contaminated and disproportionate. Nutritional food is deliberately denied. This is torture.

No human contact: Prisoners have no real, meaningful social interaction with other human beings, especially family and close friends. Our five senses – touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste – become dulled from deprivation. This is torture.

Visiting: Constantly, under the CDCr gestapo style agency of correctional safety, the Investigative Service Unit (ISU) and Institutional Gang Investigators (IGI) and other such units deliberately intimidate visitors and prisoners. This is torture.

Cell searches: These are used to intimidate, harass and trash prisoners’ cells, leaving them in disarray while taking political writings, pictures, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, magazines etc., causing psychological torment. This is torture.

No sanitation: Prisoners are deliberately kept in unsanitary units. For example, showers are allowed four times a week, but the showers are cleaned only twice a week. There is an abundance of mold, mice, bugs, gnats, fungus etc. This is torture.

Climate: Prisoners are kept in freezing cold or burning hot cells, depending on the time of year, a complaint that has been made for over 21 years. This is torture.

Contraband watch, or potty watch: It is humiliating, dehumanizing and outright cruel and unusual punishment when prisoners are held in shackles and placed in the middle of a hall while being placed on a portable “potty,” while cops (female too) and prisoners with escorts are walking by. There are reports of prisoners being placed in cages, without a toilet or running water. Men are placed in a diaper with a prison jumpsuit over it, while the victim’s hands are bound into a fist-wrap. PVC pipe forced onto arms and black boxes over the hands have also been used. The prisoner is required to defecate three separate times during a three-day period. The torment and suffering are truly visible on the prisoner’s face. This is done to cause severe humiliation, along with mental, physical and psychological torment. This is torture.

Family: Each validated prisoner’s family is deliberately harassed, intimidated and intentionally hoaxed into false prosecution for a thoughtless crime by gestapo-type units (OCS, ISU, SSU and IGI) with the intent of discouraging any support or communication with the prisoner. This is torture.

Grievances: The 602 appeal process, at each of its three levels is deliberately set up to not afford a prisoner relief, regardless of whether prison officials are dead wrong in their accusations. This clearly establishes that there is no accountability for what officials do to prisoners. This is torture.

In addition, the structural features of the various solitary confinement units throughout the U.S. prison industrial complex (PIC) make it possible to target specific prisoners by utilizing sensory deprivation to undermine the social, cultural and ethical values that the targeted prisoners hold. Prisoners are rare who can escape the ravages of the torture that results from long term isolation and the negative assaults by guards in any of California’s supermax control units and similar units all over the U.S.

This is torture.

The science behind the use of deprivations has been perfected by the handlers to operate with devastating force. We know there is no separation between physical torture and mental torture. Torture is a double-edged sword that can slice effectively either way to exact punishment or revenge. It has the purpose of taking away a targeted prisoner’s human dimension and essence.

This is torture.

CDCr calls hunger strike supplemental demands reasonable, then reneges; prisoners respond

December 1, 2013

In: SF Bay View  

by Mutope Duguma

In all policies, the truth is in the details of their implementation. On the surface, a policy can appear reasonable, but once you get into the actual working out of the details, you can see that it’s not what it seems like. For example, the war on crime, the war on gangs, the war on drugs and the California three strikes law are policies which we have come to learn in practice were nothing but phrases – and very costly phrases. 

The cost of those policies must be measured in the billions, because the actual carrying out of these policies ends up indicting and outright assaulting the poorest communities in Amerika, the same communities that populate the prison industrial slave complex today. So in responding to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitaion’sresponse to our 40 supplemental demands , I would like to get into the actual details of what the CDCr is and is not saying in response to prisoners.

There have not been any policy changes by CDCr or by Pelican Bay State Prison that verify the statement in the third introductory paragraph: “Despite policy changes that had already addressed the concerns raised during the two previous hunger strikes, gang leaders initiated a third strike and made 40 additional demands.” The term “gang leader” is offensive and baseless. It also has nothing to do with anything but character assassination to criminalize, devalue, degrade and dehumanize all prisoners who are demanding to be treated humanely.

No policy was addressed before the July 1, 2011, hunger strike. The program changes thus far have been based on operational procedural (OP) changes, which any warden can take or give anytime they desire to. The 40 supplemental demands are crucial for anyone who has to spend one day in these modern day torture chambers, where we exist in physical and psychological bondage.

Solitary confinement units are graveyards. You’re buried alive in a tombstone, confined to your own personal cube. Each cell is a concrete slab box to which you are restricted for the rest of your life. Then you’re tormented by your keepers to see how much you can take before you break. This is the format for all solitary confinement units throughout the United States, and almost 80 percent of the people who enter these tombstones are broken.

A friend of mine, Vikki Law of Truthout, once asked me, “Mutope, what about those who say, why would you want to make solitary confinement comfortable?” I told her it’s humanly impossible to make solitary confinement comfortable. What you attempt to do is keep people connected to their humanity; that’s it. Mere placement in solitary confinement is torture; looking in or out, it’s torture.

Supplemental demands 1-40

The Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement wrote 40 supplemental demands to detail what prisoners are entitled to and need to have re-instated.

Supplemental Demand No. 1 calls on CDCr to rescind all Form 115 RVRs (Rules Violation Reports) issued to hunger strikers during the peaceful protest. The CDCr has refused so far. Following is the prisoner representatives’ response:

CDCr’s own policy says that we have a right to go on a hunger strike without suffering any reprisal from the state. What CDCr officials in Sacramento did was retaliatory because they didn’t like the fact that there were a mass of prisoners on hunger strike protesting the inhumane conditions of solitary confinement, so they penalized all hunger strikers by saying it was a mass disturbance and that hunger strikers were manipulating the words from the CCR Title 15 to justify it.

The four representatives and I had read everything to make sure anything we did wasn’t against state rules or policies, and going on a hunger strike was not. So when we went on the July 1, 2011, hunger strike, the undersecretary of the CDC at the time, Scott Kernan, had the PBSP warden give us all CDC 128B chronos [informative documentation placed in a prisoner’s file] saying if we were to do the hunger strike again, we would face serious disciplinary action. This threat was arbitrary and an abuse of his administrative authority.

So when the second hunger strike came, Scott Kernan had Lt. Barneburg of IGI (Institutional Gang Investigations) at the time give each and every one of us a CDC Rule Violation Report (RVR) 115 for inciting a riot or mass disturbance. We couldn’t believe it, but it was true. They had misused the specific act in order to embellish an RVR from nothing to a real serious RVR offense.

Lt. Barneburg is now a captain of ISU (Investigations Services Unit). I can only suspect his promotion was for the many evil deeds he has carried out against prisoners throughout his stay as a so-called gang officer, where they manipulate confidential information, along with documenting words, all toward persecuting prisoners. This is why the CDCr RVR 115s should be dismissed, because they were illegal.

The RVRs we received for this July 8, 2013, hunger strike caused us a loss of credit for time served of 90 days for participating in the hunger strike. This time they left out “inciting a riot.”

Supplemental Demand No. 2 asks that no RVR be issued during July 8, 2013, hunger strike. CDCr refused to observe this request. The regulations do not apply here in relation to the hunger strike because refusing to eat does not equate to a disturbance and anything can be considered a disruption of orderly operations in the institution. But a hunger strike is definitely not an interruption. CDCr’s arbitrarily issuing RVR 115s was illegal, an outright abuse of their authority.

Supplemental Demand No. 3 asks that no retaliation happen when the July 8, 2013, hunger strike occurs. CDCr ignored this request. Notice that CDCr said policies and operational procedures are again a process in which the warden institutes the OP (operating procedure) concerning the safety and security of the institution. This OP does not supercede CDCr’s standing policies, state penal codes, or constitutional law.

These, again, are arbitrary attacks on all hunger strike participants by the warden at PBSP. Although the hunger strike OP 228 stipulates that all men who are identified as hunger strike representatives will be removed from the rest of the hunger strikers and placed in Ad Seg, CDCr and PBSP deviated from this practice and placed every last one of us on hunger strike in Ad Seg.

We found out that this OP was revised by gang officers at PBSP to retaliate against all hunger strikers in September 2012. It’s a clear case of abuse of authority by prison officials who use their power to punish prisoners.

There was never any policy before the July 1, 2011, hunger strike that punished prisoners for going on a hunger strike. Undersecretary Kernan arbitrarily drafted up a memorandum to this effect and the PBSP warden inserted that memorandum into the OP with the gang officers’ twist to punish prisoners.

Supplemental Demand No. 4 concerns the re-opening of a visiting room in Facility D, which PBSP is slowly working on. They have reopened Facility D, which should have never been closed in the first place, but the mismanagement of the prisoners’ program and the deliberate attack on solitary confinement prisoners and our families were part of that suppression of all relationships with our families. This was done by way of arbitrary order from the warden at PBSP. No policy or OP, just outright wickedness.

Supplemental Demand No. 5 calls for weekly phone calls to families and friends for all prisoners in SHU. CDCr is actually drilling holes in concrete walls for wires now. What about prisoners who will be literally waiting months, if not years, to get into a step?

This is where people in the public and prisoners have to be very cautious and conscious of the continual games by CDCr, because there are prisoners who have not talked to a family member in countless years. It’s been so long for some, it’ll be like calling strangers.

Again, it’s a policy and actual procedure that has been extremely wicked in its application and suppression of family and prisoner relationships. Phone calls should be instituted instantly, because families, friends and prisoners have already suffered enough.

Supplemental Demand No. 6 concerns access to hobby and art supplies and one photo per year, no matter what the prisoner’s record is. Well, there is a problem with putting photos down as a privilege, because photos are connected to the rehabilitation of the prisoners, like phone calls, visits etc., which build on family ties and friendship ties. People become re-humanized by being able to communicate who and what they are to the outside world through photos. To allow arbitrary, overzealous, racist, prejudiced and biased prison officials use an RVR 115 to deprive a prisoner of such important social, cultural and family-oriented treasures like photographs is in itself cruel.

Supplemental Demand No. 7 calls for prisoners to be allowed to sell or give away art work, no matter what their record is. Now here’s where safety and security are an excuse used to suppress people’s natural talents and creativity. The very system that claims to be about “free enterprise” is now using fascist-like suppression tactics to deny prisoners the human right to express themselves based on their God given talents.

This is criminal. There is no security concern here. This is where “group punishment” is applied, a policy where every prisoner is punished based on the act of one individual. We all are made to suffer for an individual’s action.

Every man and woman should be paid for his and her labor. Here there should be no exception. Any violation of a program should be punished to the fullest extent of the restrictions assigned to that violation, but to arbitrarily take away that program from everyone is exactly why our Core Demand No. 1 is so important. Nothing is non-negotiable where it suppresses the talent of a prisoner’s creativity. This goes to the heart of their rehabilitation.

Supplemental Demand No. 8 is to allow the Inmate Welfare Fund to be used to re-stock books for prisoners in the prison library. CDCr gave an excuse for not doing it. If this is true, why haven’t we seen one “new” book issued to prisoners? Yet, when we order a book from the library, it’s missing pages and is old. The CDCr’s state prison budget covers these expenses with taxpayer money. CDCr has to be honest about their responses. We have been held in these solitary confinement units, and we know the real truths. Independent investigation would prove these monies are being re-routed elsewhere.

Supplemental Demand No. 9 regards CDCr allowing funds for education programming. Compliance is yet to be seen. Plus, I would like to add that we are living in the 21st century and prisoners’ educations are like relics when it comes to the education of the average Amerikan. We are so far behind that we will know nothing when we parole.

The prisons have to move toward technological education systems. This is real rehabilitation for prisoners. For society to not move prisoners in this direction, to keep up with overall society, is a disservice to them and the communities they are returning to. I can only hope that CDCr is sincere about the educational programs, because if you truly want to civilize prisoners, then education is the key. And no prisoner should wait to be educated by CDCr, especially since they have a track record of over 40 years of not educating their prison population.

Supplemental Demand No. 10 concerns legal books not being counted in the 10 book allowance for each prisoner; inmate-owned legal materials need to be in separate category. The June 5, 2013, memorandum does not go far enough, and clarity is crucial in respect to how staff are directed to deal with legal mail when they have possession of the prisoner’s mail.

Supplemental Demand No. 11 is about allowing prisoners to donate old appliances to other prisoners. Again, here’s where safety and security is again abused by the CDCr. The real reason CDCr has applied their safety and security concerns to this supplement demand is because it is an underground profit incentive for CDCr. Where is the safety and security concern? The process is real simple. Make sure the TV is functional – no parts missing etc. Then sign it over to the next prisoner who is without an appliance or one who needs one due to their TV going out. When prisoners have to “donate” their TVs to staff, it becomes a lucrative business for the prison staffers.

Supplemental Demand No. 12 increases money allowed for canteen because of higher prices in canteen. Price gouging is the problem here in PBSP canteen, because prices fluxuate through a manipulation of product changes. For example, in the CSP-SAC canteen list there is a 1 pound bag of hot cocoa for $3.85. In PBSP the exact same bag costs $4.85, a dollar difference. PBSP canteen managers have been scheming on money from prisoners for years. So, it should be granted that all prisoners be able to spend $65 per month, regardless of whether they are in a step-down program or not.

Supplemental Demand No. 13 regards prisoners being able to donate to outside charities. Now this exposes the true wicked intentions of CDCr’s claim that they rehabilitate prisoners, when they bar us from supporting community projects like charities. We know that no matter where people are at or what color they are, if they are poor, they are struggling. Prisoners have good in them and should be able to benefit the communities. Allowing us this project is the least CDCR can do. Times are bad. Allow food drives to occur as much as possible in order to serve the community around us.

Supplemental Demand No. 14 regards typewriters being allowed. CDCr in Sacramento approved that prisoners in solitary can have a typewriter, but now some overzealous property officers at PBSP have interfered with the process, repeating their famous line that it affects the safety and security of the prison.

Supplemental Demand No. 15 allows prisoners to have multiple appliances. CDCr has approved the purchase of radios through their designated vendor, so allow us to have them. The games continue.

Supplemental Demand No. 16 calls for electrical outlets in cells and fire sprinklers in cells. CDCr mandated through a 602 appeal process that was granted that all Ad Segs can have electrical outlets, and yet PBSP is being disingenuous when they deny us the right to have them.

Supplemental Demand No. 17 reinstates family visits for General Population lifers. The CDCr campaigned against allowing conjugal family visits for prisoners, saying it was not economically feasible for them. But this puts them in contradiction with their own rehabilitation policy that family visits are the most beneficial to families and prisoners, as well as an incentive for controlling prison violence, hopelessness, depression etc. because prisoners value the union with their families and so do the families. It was a wicked attack against the family program.

Family visits were initially banned for sex offenders, yet when it was all said and done, CDCR ended up banning conjugal visits for all prisoners. Hell, all non-sex offender prisoners hate child molesters, rapists and domestic abusers. Any abuses against women or children are seriously looked down upon by a high percentage of prisoners.

So when CDCr proposed the order to the Legislature and got it through, they did it by attaching the sex molester stigma to it. The Legislature will now have to change it back in order to allow family conjugal visits again for non-molesters. But let’s be clear: The CDCr is the one that destroyed this important family-based program, which was effective and a more humane deterrent for prisoner misbehavior than some savage debriefing program. Reinstate the Bill of Rights for Prisoners, and a lot of these issues will be resolved.

Supplemental Demand No. 18 calls for Prison Industries of America, California, to supply standard quality products and food. PIA is fleecing taxpayers all across Amerika. Monopolies shut out citizens and small businesses from getting contracts with the state, by demanding that all prisons purchase only their items, and then they can produce low quality products, from food to mattresses. Their lumpy mattresses are like sleeping on a bunch of softballs, causing one’s blood circulation to be cut off if sleeping on one’s side and also causing crooks in the neck and hip pain. PIA’s poor quality food is infamous.

Supplemental Demand No. 19 regards PIA producing substandard clothing. Again, PIA is incompetent in manufacturing its products.

Supplemental Demand No. 20 concerns the contents allowed in annual and semi-annual packages for prisoners. On June 5, 2013, CDCr officials granted T-shirts, along with sweats, thermals, etc. Now it should be obvious that all these non-food items can and should be able to be purchased once a year. We shouldn’t have to compromise one of the two annual food packages that prisoners are allowed to have, by including clothing as part of one of the two food packages.

The supplemental demand requests one non-food package per year, solely for clothing, which can be heavy when a pair of shoes is enclosed. Here the supplemental demand is requesting a non-food package in order to get these items. CDCr’s answer was deliberately evading the question. Plus, special purchases can easily be implemented through the warden’s OP procedures, which is allowed once a month already. So CDCr’s designation of the contents in the boxes, i.e., clothing, ribbons, cups, bowls, headphones, paper, colored pencils, etc. is reasonable. Making it necessary for us to include clothing in one of our food packages is outright unreasonable.

Supplemental Demand No. 21 regards the list of items allowed to be purchased. Well, I’m glad CDCr said “partially,” because there’s no food or spices that we should be denied. But having it written on the matrix specifically shows the psychological torment – power play – that we are subjected to by prison property officers who get a sadistic kick out of confiscating food items, which are our property, on only a technicality.

Supplemental Demand No. 22 calls for getting rid of PIA as a food supplier. CDC did not respond to the request from prisoners to “refrain from utilizing CAL-PIA for food products due to poor quality,” and we are left with food not worth taxpayer dollars for the poor quality provided. This monopoly is double taxing taxpayers, because the poor quality food does not provide nutritional value, and that leads to medical problems, creating another expensive contradiction where taxpayers foot the bill.

The only way to demonstrate the truth about the food is to allow an independent dietician to investigate the actual food being served to prisoners. Currently, the prison dieticians can call the food we get a “heart healthy diet,” because the CDCr dieticians never examine the food, just the menu. The prison food managers are the real conspirators (criminals) when it comes to the feeding practices, because they do not provide, nor prepare, adequate nutritional calories in food items. Using terms like “one each,” they serve you a muffin for breakfast the size of a biscuit and tell you it’s adequate because the menu says “one each.” These are price shaving tactics and schemes most prison food managers use at the expense of prisoners’ health.

Supplemental Demand No. 23 concerns portions of food now served to SHU prisoners. I know for a fact that PBSP does not provide an adequate amount of nutrition and calories, and SHU prisoners do not receive the same amount of food as do GP prisoners. Whoever in Sacramento responded to this question is lying outright. I have studied extensively the food at PBSP and the deliberate games employed to inadequately feed prisoners in order to profit. Plus, I have the evidence to prove it, if CDCr’s Michael Stainer and Kelly Harrington are interested in the truth. Oh, there is no need to tear my cell up; it’s in the hands of the lawyers.

Supplemental Demand No. 24 regards the severely limited movies available to prisoners. Again, the CDCr has implemented policy around discrimination by cutting out R-rated movies and programming documentaries, plays, etc. CDCr has been able to take away 85 percent of the New Afrikan and Latino-Mexican movies and programs, because most of our programming is R-rated. This is the situation now with the implementation of this race-based policy.

Furthermore, the state has abused the obscenity penal code policy by deliberately misinterpreting its purpose and meaning as defined by the court in the Martinez case. The PBSP warden has been censoring PG-13, PG and G movies by cutting away whatever some officer feels is too offensive or too suggestive for the viewer, and his personal standard is cutting 40 percent of the movies.

But what’s really disturbing about PBSP practice is that they are paying $100 per video, which some if not all the time they edit to only an hour and 10 minutes per movie. OIG (Office of the Inspector General) Renee Hanson told me she was reviewing the expenditures of the IWF, Inmate Welfare Fund, and I informed her that PBSP officials have been embezzling, stealing as well as misappropriating IWF monies, when they claim to be paying $100 per video, which adds up to $2,400 to $2,600 per month. I find this to be outright criminal. I have the evidence to back up these facts, if Undersecretaries M. Stainer and Kelly Harrington wish to look into these allegations.

No need to search my property; the lawyers already have these facts in their possession. CDCr has to, in the interest of fairness, remove this silly state regulation that is designed to racially discriminate against prisoners.

Supplemental Demand No. 25 concerns the limited number of TV channels provided. CDCr claims PBSP prisoners have access to 23 channels. Now this is a lie that has already been proven to be a lie. Under no circumstances does PBSP provide 23 cable channels. I am shocked that they even claim it in the public media. The public should demand the name of all 23 channels they say they provide.

This is what I mean by the arrogance and abuse of power. The CDCr and PBSP officials feel they can lie, steal and cheat the people and then just provide some lame nonsense of a story and that justifies it. There needs to be an open, independent investigation of these outright lies, because this is why we went on two hunger strikes and are again on a peaceful protest hunger strike, due to lies.

Scott Kernan, former undersecretary of CDCr, admitted he was duped on the 23 channels. Now I see Michael Stainer of the Inspector General’s Office and his cronies are using this same lie as a means to deny a reasonable supplemental demand.

These actions speak to the wickedness of CDCr to deny adequate, meaningful programming for prisoners held in solitary. They are bent on punishment and this has been their core drive – punishing prisoners until they break us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are taking taxpayers’ money out of the state budget for those 23 channels. PBSP only provides one cable channel. There should be an independent investigation of these allegations, enough so there is public outcry.

Supplemental Demand No. 26 regards access to cable channels for prisoners. Well, taxpayers already cover these fees and the PBSP officials are able to reroute these fees by writing down that they have purchased educational programs, when in all actuality they have paid for nothing. And when we do get to see education programs, they are repeats of the same programming we’ve been seeing for over 20 years, which allows them to pocket the funds that were meant for new programs.

This is where the real crime is committed. Ask what they spend for the 23 channels, and it’s probably a ridiculously low price. But again, we get nothing for it. It’s the same as with the $100 they say they spend for each video. There needs to be an independent investigation as to these allegations.

Supplemental Demand No. 27 calls on CDCr to purchase dip and pull-up bars with IWF funds. Some people stay in ASU (Administrative Segregation Unit) for months and years, and these isolation units can be worse than the SHU in most cases, with no personal property and nothing to do on these so-called ASU recreation yards. The excuse being made is weak and disingenuous because CDCr knows they should not hold people in ASU for years. So be truthful, CDCr.

Supplemental Demand No. 28 asks for weight-lifting equipment on yards. Again, CDCr has gone on a smear campaign about how letting prisoners lift weights is a threat to citizens. They put a bunch of money behind the bill and into politicians’ campaigns, urging that we have to get rid of these weights because prisoners are getting out stronger and can then victimize Amerikans. This is how our privileges for weights were lost.

The California Legislature needs to immediately reverse this bill, because all it did was create a medical crisis, where there were many prisoners whose health deteriorated due to lack of exercise. Taxing who, again? Yes, taxpayers.

The CDCr claims its policies are about the safety and security of the public and the prisons. You can easily see the truth when you look at the details. For instance, the weights that we used to have access to on the yards kept the prisoners occupied, exercised and tired after weightlifting.

This was one of those situations where CDCr took away the weights out of pure spite, nothing else. It’s kind of a sad state how prisoners are being caged on prison yards, locked in concrete slabs with nothing to do, sectioned off by race, just looking at each other all day, as if they are in Roman caged gladiator fights. And here we are in the 21st century.

Supplemental Demand No. 29 calls for a stop to “contraband (potty) watch” practices immediately. Let’s call it what it is, “potty watch,” for the sole purpose of humiliating the prisoner. It is a savage practice where you are taken to some cage and held in “slave shackles” until you defecate. This is a reflection of the nature of the beast that we are dealing with: CDCr uses the procedure to entrap the bowel movement in your jumpsuit.

These savages tape the jumpsuit to your ankles. They make you defecate three times before they relieve you of this torture. There is no real reason for a high percentage of these potty watches. It’s speculative for the most part and, as requested, they need to be banned immediately. The whole procedure is nothing but a trauma, and points to the military personnel working inside the prison. It’s a brutal practice; some prisoners have been known to spend three nights and days on potty watch.

Supplemental Demand No. 30 calls for Medical Doctor Sayre to be fired and never hold a position of authority over prisoners again. CDCr stands behind their crooked Dr. Sayre, who is head of medical care at PBSP. They don’t seem to be able to get rid of Dr. Sayre. He has done too much and he knows too much. He can destroy the whole system’s secrecy, which is why he will never be fired.

The mere fact that he attacked one of his own co-workers over a parking space that he claimed was his speaks to the instability of Dr. Sayre. He has been demoted, but the irony is that he still runs everything. They simply put his girlfriend in his spot, so he still runs medical at PBSP.

Just so you can see his arrogance, he took away many men’s medications before the hunger strike and during this hunger strike. This guy is a threat and a danger to all Pelican Bay prisoners. When who ask to see outside doctors for serious health issues, no matter how sincere the request nor how well it is documented, he denies it.

This is why CDCr keeps him, because he saves CDCr money in medications and treatments. Dr. Sayre, in my opinion, is a heartless murderer by proxy. Many PBSP prisoners have suffered under him and continue to suffer. This is no doctor.

Supplemental Demand No. 31 regards maintenance of cells, painting them. We have been locked down for cell painting each week lately, so it shouldn’t be a problem to meet this request.

Supplemental Demand No. 32 concerns maintenance of the ventilation system. Now the problem here is that Pelican Bay is breaking down and they are trying to do maintenance when the buildings are structurally incapable of functioning for another 20 years. The whole system is collapsing from the inside out, and the bandaid fixes will only be temporary fixes.

The ventilation is extremely poor, and we prisoners are made to suffer due to this poor structure. We might as well be outside when we’re inside a building as far as temperatures are concerned, because there is no insulation anywhere in the prison. So if it’s freezing cold outside, we are freezing cold in the building. If it’s burning up outside, we’re burning up inside. The PBSP plant operation cannot protect us from this reality, because the problem is in the structure. Independent investigation will bring out these facts.

Supplemental Demand No. 33 regards Lexan plastic plates on cells. CDCr is still using them, making excuses that are disingenuous, because there are many avenues to gas or attack an officer, if that’s the prisoner’s objective. To have Lexan or Plexiglas on cells is a health hazard.

What does the Occupational Safety and Health Board say about the plastic being a health hazard to prisoners due to collecting bacteria in the cells? They didn’t put me behind them because I made them spray the door regularly in order to get at that bacteria. Plus people with real bad asthma and allergies are at risk.

There’s hardly any violence in PBSP solitary units despite all the hype by CDCr about how dangerous we are. If you cut away the plastic at the bottom of the cell walls, there’s no real threat to staff, no matter who is in the cage.

Supplemental Demand No. 34 regards the percentage CDCr can take for restitution. Now here is a policy that is exploitative in all its practices. Here is the state abusing its authority by taking 55 percent of each dollar that a prisoner who owes restitution gets from his friends or family. And to say it is benefitting “crime victims,” well, the statistics say that most convicted felons commit offenses against their own race – New Afrikan on New Afrikan, Mexican on Mexican, or white on white. One thing we do know, poor lower class on poor lower class applies.

None of these victims are receiving any of this restitution money. So where is the money going and where is it at? If the dollars were going to them, the state would have never raised it to 55 percent, because they don’t want them to have it either. The injustice is that there is a conspiracy where the judicial proceedings tack on all these outrageous restitution fees and the CDCr then collects them for the court, and then CDCr charges the prisoners a 5 percent fee for removing them off your books (trust account).

This is criminal and the real victims never see a penny of this money. The 33 percent is a reasonable request, but I would go further and say that it should not be taken from anyone who owes restitution unless it’s going to the victim of the crime they committed or any prisoner who does not have a pay number.

The money that family and friends send in from the streets should not be touched at all. The prisoners should have access to a pay number to pay off their restitution. Independent investigation is needed to locate where this money is going!

Supplemental Demand No. 35 allows mail to be delivered and legal and family visits to be normal again. The SSU (Special Services Unit), IGI, ISU and OCS (Office of Correctional Safety) are the biggest SHAM I’ve ever been able to witness and the public should be outraged at all the time consuming hours and taxpayers’ dollars wasted into this sham of a system. Although there is a lot of hype on gangs, these guys have not even been able to manufacture any criminal gang behavior convictions.

The extent of their service is gang validations, which they have given 80 percent of the prison population. They have a track record for terrorizing poor, weak citizens of this nation, they sweat everything too frivolous to mention, and they do nothing but harass prisoners and their families and communities. They have been sued countless times and their arrogance allows them to commit the same constitutional violations of a prisoner’s rights, over and over again.

But this is because they do not foot the bill; therefore, they have no discipline in their actions. They have not made communities safer, nor prisons. So what is it all for? There has to be a benefit from such an expensive gang investigative unit, but in 30 years the CDCr gang investigators have only allowed gangs to expand – in and out of prisons. So where is the safety and security? Independent investigation is necessary here.

Supplemental Demand No. 36 concerns timely hearings when RVRs are issued, or dismiss them. Well, CDCr is the one that changed the state law and it should be changed back, because it goes against the fairness of our procedural due process, in which we are punished for time constraints violations. Yet staff violates time constraints all the time; it is considered harmless and they are still able to impose on us the worst punishment by violating prisoners’ time constraints. But if we dare to violate the time constraints, we have our complaint dismissed. Unfair practice!

Supplemental Demand No. 37 calls for timely hearings for serious RVRs. The answer to this response from CDCr is above, in No. 36.

Supplemental Demand No. 38 asks for an independent audit of IWF. CDCr did not comply. The key word here is “independent,” because it will show the misappropriation of the IWF monies. OIG’s Renee Hanson is doing a review of IWF and we want those findings released to the public. Independent investigation is key here.

Supplemental Demand No. 39 would reinstate the monthly meetings between the associate warden and prisoners to address problems. If this ever becomes fact again, few if any of our complaints would be necessary. The [now former] warden at PBSP, G.D. Lewis, was as incompetent as they come. He did not have the backbone to put an end to the gang officers basically terrorizing other staff and then dictating to every functionary in the solitary confinement units, so that they now feel free to attack prisoners in those areas through mail restrictions, bad food, property abuses, corrupt canteen practices, poor movies, and lack of medical care, education, supplies, law library access etc.

They make it a living hell for prisoners and not one supervisor or manager has ever made rounds to talk to prisoners, even after receiving complaints, and nothing has changed at all. So supervisors and managers have not been doing their jobs in over 23½ years at PBSP; I’ve never seen them walk in my 15 years here.

I have been here, and the avoiding by the guards of answering our questions is deliberate. The question asked was that the associate warden ensure that prison issues will be resolved and we prisoners should not have to wait until we can’t take the suffering any more and act on our own. When prison officials get paid good money – some better than college or university graduates – to maintain prisoners’ lives along with the safety and security of all prisoners, then we expect that to happen.

Supplemental Demand No. 40 asks for hunger strike and work stoppage negotiations to be conducted with the prisoners’ mediation team and the press in attendance. CDCr has never been supportive or about transparency. They know they are not going to be trusted in a closed room with our representatives, without witnesses or third parties, but they continue with the lies they have told about our reps.

Hell, Michael Stainer told our mediation team that he sees all of the 40 supplemental demands as being reasonable and that it is just a matter of working out the details. Then he two-faced everyone, so no way can we now trust what comes out of CDCr’s mouth.

Plus, the governor vetoed the Media Access Bill, because CDCr is not about transparency. And the question was clear during hunger strike negotiations, and no one said anything about any of the points made in any of the hearings on these matters! CDCr is evading the real issues again.

These counter-responses were written by Mutope Duguma toward the end of the 60-day hunger strike and work stoppage in 2013 – i.e., when he had eaten nothing for nearly two months. Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107 up, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532. In the past, statements like this have come from a collective, and the Bay View has published the names of all those involved. Now, however, Mutope Duguma must be shown as sole author to avoid an accusation by officials that multiple authorship is evidence of gang activity. 

  

Herman Wallace, who gave his life to end solitary confinement, got no mercy

November 26, 2013

In: SF Bay View

by Mutope Duguma

The system, whether it is in the state of California or Louisiana, has demonstrated that those of us held in solitary confinement will receive no mercy. The recent actions surrounding our dear New Afrikan Brother Herman Wallace is a sharp reminder on how each and every one of us will be treated.

Here you have a New Afrikan man who gave up his life in order to challenge the systemic attacks by the powers that be that deliberately target the poor and oppressed people of this nation. For taking this position, Herman Wallace would find himself trapped inside the belly of the beast, Angola Prison slave complex, where he would continue to challenge the system from within, where the treatment of prisoners is blatantly horrendous.

Herman Wallace was no criminal. He was a just and righteous human being, one who hated injustice so much that he sacrificed himself in order to bring about change for the lot of us. Many need to realize that the commitments and the suffering for such commitments are very serious and selfless acts on the part of many like Herman Wallace, when they challenge the injustices against our very humanity, even at the cost of their/our very own lives.

The system has no mercy for no one. It’s totally committed to annihilating any and all resistance, whether violent or non-violent. Solitary confinement is but one of the many tools used to carry out that very annihilation of anyone who attempts to challenge its power, and the system uses all means that they deem necessary.

For 41 years, Herman Wallace was shown no mercy by a system that has never shown any mercy to anyone it considers its historical or present enemy. Herman Wallace was made to suffer at the hands of local, state and federal governments. No matter how bad his situation got, there was not one human being within this system, or government, who sought to provide Herman Wallace any mercy.

He would be made to suffer in isolation, solitary confinement. Today’s solitary confinement uses a more diabolical approach, yet this does not under any circumstances negate the isolation, sensory deprivation and physical and psychological torture of being placed in such an environment for an inhumanely long period of time, during which the torture is magnified.

Forty-one years is a crime against humanity, and since Herman Wallace was a prisoner of war and political prisoner (POW PP), this treatment of him was a war crime, because the system sought to torture Herman Wallace and all similarly situated prisoners throughout this nation toward their and our extermination.

To use the most powerful state and federal governments in the world to kill and neutralize prisoners of war and political prisoners is a direct violation of national and international laws. Herman Wallace would be murdered by way of a civil death by the United States government, yet not one of those laws would be adhered to in respect to Herman Wallace, nor to countless POWs and PPs throughout Amerika.

Why? Was not his life and the lives of similarly situated prisoners of any value to the state and federal governments, who have a responsibility to all their citizens of judging who falls within the human race? If prisoners are human, why not show mercy for all fellow human beings?

To have a man or woman linger inside solitary confinement for 41 years and no local, state or federal government official – politician – had the human capacity to show this human being any mercy: That is a government that is a threat to all mankind.

Our fight to end long term solitary confinement is one of major urgency, because allowing human beings to continue to exist under such a merciless system with such brutality is a direct reflection of the very nature of our humanity! The very practice of solitary confinement is barbaric.

Bless the revolutionary spirit of our New Afrikan Brother Herman Wallace to whom no mercy was shown.