PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Hunger Strike Protest to End Torture and Improve Conditions

Attention – beginning July 1^st, 2011, several inmates housed indefinitely in PBSP-SHU, short corridor isolation will begin an indefinite hunger strike in order to draw attention to, and to peacefully protest 25 years of torture via CDCR’s arbitrary, illegal, progressively more punitive policies and practices, as summarized in the accompanying “Formal Complaint.”

PBSP-SHU, short corridor inmates hunger strike protest is to continue indefinitely until the below changes are made.

1. End group punishment (individual accountability)
2. Re: active/inactive gang status
   1. End the use of innocuous association to deny inactive status
   2. End the use of informant/debriefer allegations of involvement in illegal gang activity to deny inactive status – unless such allegations are supported by other corroborating evidence, in which case CDCR will follow their regulations by issuing a rule violation report and affording the due process required.
   3. End the illegal-debriefing policy
   4. Re: Indefinite SHU program and privileges
      1. Made similar to Federal-Florence Colorado/Ohio supermax systems
      2. End abusive use of “safety and security” to restrict/deny programs and privilege.
      3. Allow the following: Expanded visits (amount of time, and added day)/one photo per year/a weekly phone call/install pullup and dip bar on years/two packages a year (30lb packages based on item weight – not packaging and box weight)/expanded canteen (and pkg) items (and cost of cosmetics, stationary, envelopes – not count towards max. draw amount)/more T.V. channels/T.V. and radio combo (or T.V. and small battery operated radio)/art paper and colored pens (or small pieces of colored pencils, water colors, chalk)/ sweat, watch caps/wall calendars. And, be allowed to take correspondence courses, that require proctored exams.

We need all the support we can get

In solidarity, from the bowels of California’s gulag

March 2011

____________

Download the handwritten letter and formal complaint here