BREAKING NEWS: Inmates End Hunger Strike

The hunger strike in protest of long-term solitary confinement has ended. KTVU reports:

The strike ended after two Democratic state legislators promised to hold hearings this fall on inmates' complaints that gang leaders are often held for decades in isolation units.

A federal judge also recently gave authorities permission to force-feed inmates if necessary to save their lives. However, even the hard-core strikers had been accepting vitamins and electrolyte drinks during their fast.

"We are pleased this dangerous strike has been called off before any inmates became seriously ill," Beard said in a statement. He said the department will continue to carry out changes in its policies over sending inmates to Security Housing Units that were started two years ago.

The changes include more limits on which inmates are sent to the housing units at Pelican Bay, where the strike began, and at other prisons. The policies also make it easier for inmates also can work their way out of the isolation units.

It's been a very, very difficult two months for inmates and their supporters. In the course of the last two months we've seen some successes, one death, accusations that the strike was a "gang power play" and their rebuttal, an order to force-feed that implied that some inmates were coerced into striking, and finally, a promise to hold hearings on long-term confinement.

What will stay with me is the sense that I know what's right, and as I see it, I also see shades of gray. I have no doubt--in fact, I know--that hunger strike leaders were gang members. That CDCR Secretary Beard thought that telling us about the gang affiliations will convince us that the strike is illegitimate and that these folks deserve their conditions is an insult to my morality and my intelligence, and perhaps to yours, as well. Of course these are folks who committed serious crimes and joined gangs. That's why they're serving long prison sentences. But does confinement also imply all these other indignities and aggressions? Decades of isolation under abysmal conditions, and an "out" path that is marred with lies and misinformation?

Where I see more shades of gray is with regard to the coercion/pressure concern, which I'm sure Judge Henderson had in mind when giving the force-feeding order (so as to give pressured inmates a dignified exit from the strike). But social movements seldom boast members who all share a 100% conviction in their path, and why should this one be different? The decision to risk one's life, and to fight back with the only thing one has left--one's body--is a very drastic one to make. Not everyone will share that level of conviction, and that's okay. The extent to which pressure is put on people to comply is where the shades of gray come into the picture. My thoughts about this stem from the fact that I know Judge Henderson, through his decisions and public speaking, to be an upstanding, moral judge, who has been a friend and supporter to inmates for decades of his career. I want to believe that he would not have authorized such cruelty had he not known something about the internal dynamics of the strike that I wasn't privy to. And yet, I am troubled. Medical professionals must have been frustrated and upset at the prospect of being asked to solve what is, essentially, a social and political problem via medical means. What a miserable situation.

And so, I am left frustrated and confused, and living in a state where a nonviolent struggle to achieve a fairly modest goal--making sure that segregation for 23 hours a day lasts "only" ten years--has ended with little to show for it, amidst misleading publicity and some serious doubts about some of the events and the internal dynamics. But there is one thing I know is true. Holding a human being, no matter his or her gang affiliation or former crime, alone, for decades, in a small cell, with no window of hope and change and no human contact, and providing him or her with abysmal health care under conditions that would render anyone insane, is wrong. It is wrong no matter what we are being told. The strike has ended, but the struggle must continue.

BREAKING NEWS: Bill Allowing Charging Simple Possession as Misdemeanor Clears Assembly Floor

SB 649 (Leno) will allow prosecuting simple possession of certain controlled substances, including, among others, opiates, opium, opium derivatives, mescaline, peyote, tetrahydrocannabinols (marijuana), and cocaine base, as "wobblers", that is, either as felonies or as misdemeanors. SB 649 has just cleared the assembly floor, 41-30, and it's on the way to Gov. Brown via a Senate approval of the amendments.

This is very good news to those who would like to see the end of the war on drugs, and who think that nonviolent drug offenders are being punished too harshly.

UPDATE (Sep. 10, 2013): The bill has now passed the Senate floor as amended and is on its way to the Governor for signatures.

Same Sex Marriage and CA Prisons

The big news in the correctional world is that the CA assembly has approved Gov. Brown's recent proposal to use $315 million of my money and yours to build private prisons. This is not the end of the story, however, because--

[a]pproval by the full Assembly would set the stage for a showdown in the Senate, where Democrats oppose the measure. They want more money spent on rehabilitation services and drug and mental health treatment so offenders do not end up back in prison after their release.

Meanwhile, Day 58 of the hunger strike brought a statement of frustration from the mediation team, who was encouraged to hear about the potential public hearings, but concerned for the strikers' deteriorating health.

And, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has submitted a query to CDCR regarding same-sex marriage for inmates. Here is the CDCR memo, verbatim, from scribd:

CDCR memo regarding same sex marriage between inmates by MelodyGutierrez

In other words, inmates are now allowed to wed non-inmates in CDCR institutions. There are two notable things about this: First, that inmates who are both currently incarcerated cannot get married. This is, presumably, a continuation of the previous policy, but since prisons are segregated by gender it becomes much more meaningful now that folks of the same sex can get married. And second, that chaplains may refuse to perform the ceremony on conscience grounds, but in that case CDCR will substitute the refusing chaplain with another officiant.

The no-marrying-already-incarcerated-inmates rules, which is presumably in line with previous policy, raises some interesting questions. What happens if two women, who are already married, both get prison sentences (say, for unrelated felonies)? Does CDCR have policies about whether they should be kept in the same facility or in different facilities? And, while inmates can't marry each other, surely they can have relationships with each other, and so, why the prohibition?

This Is the Way to Go: Senate Dems Propose Expenditures on Health, Rehab

As a response to Governor Brown's idiotic $315 mil privatization plan from yesterday, Senate president Steinberg and 16 other Democrat senators "proposed a plan that would spend $200 million more for each of the first two years on rehab and mental health programs to reduce the prison population by the 9,600 inmates ordered by federal judges."

The L.A. Times reports:

“The governor’s proposal is a plan with no promise and no hope,” Steinberg said. “As the population of California grows, it's only a short matter of time until new prison cells overflow and the court demands mass releases again. For every 10 prisoners finishing their sentences, nearly seven of them will commit another crime after release and end up back behind bars.”

Steinberg has support among Senate Democrats for a broader approach. Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) said that the plan put forward by the governor is inadequate and that he will not support it. It requires $315 million this year and $400 million in future years, said Leno, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

“That is a huge sum of money to be spent on a nonsolution,” Leno said. “I could not support a solution to the court mandate that is based only on greater capacity. And that’s all I see in this proposal, greater capacity.”

Leno said any plan should include greater effort to reduce the recidivism rate, including a revision of the sentencing structure. “If we have learned anything over the past 30 years of criminal justice policy leading to this crisis, it’s that we cannot incarcerate our way out of it,” Leno said. “It doesn’t appear that the proposal deals with the core problems that we have, which are clearly in our sentencing structure and our lack of investment in preventing recidivism.”

A huge sum of money spent on a nonsolution, indeed. I gave an interview to the Daily Journal today (link tomorrow), in which I was asked whether this new proposal from senators is a game changer. I replied there was nothing new here; all criminal justice experts who cared to offer an opinion have repeatedly been saying that building more cells and privatizing more does nothing to ameliorate the prison crisis, and in fact guarantees that we'll have a more serious crisis for years to come. All Steinberg proposal does is suggest spending the money where it matters - in helping people not come back to prison.

Jerry, What on Earth Are You Thinking?

Photo courtesy Rich Pedroncelli for
the San Francisco Chronicle.

The new gubernatorial plan to solve the prison crisis Jerry Brown says we don't have has just been announced: Spending $315 million on private prisons.

No, I am not making this up. The Chron reports:

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday responded to a federal court order to significantly reduce California's prison population by proposing a $315 million plan to send thousands of inmates to private prisons and vacant county jail cells, hoping to avoid what he said would be a mass release of dangerous felons.

The cost could reach $700 million over two years, with much of the money likely to come from a $1.1 billion reserve fund in the state budget.

During a news conference at the Capitol, Brown bristled at the court's suggestion that the state could continue its early release of certain inmates to meet the federal judges' population cap. He noted that California has already reduced the prison population by some 46,000 inmates to comply with the court's orders and said only the most dangerous convicts remain in state prison.

The judges have ordered the state to release an additional 9,600 inmates by the end of the year.

Brown, however, said sending them to available cells in privately run prisons within California and in other states, as well as to empty jail cells, is the best way to meet the court's mandate without endangering public safety.

"Public safety is the priority, and we'll take care of it," the governor said. "The money is there."

Governor Brown, what on Earth were you thinking when you concocted this wasteful, ridiculous, idiotic plan? What do you mean, "the money is there"? California is in a state of fiscal disaster, and suddenly we have $315 million to invest in private prisons? And where was all this mysterious money when federal courts asked you why we pack people up like sardines and let them languish in their own feces without appropriate health care? Moreover, how will this lucrative investment manifest itself? Will Correctional Corporation of America and Geo build prisons on Californian soil? Or will we send more inmates than the 9,000 we currently have out of state to Arizona and Tennessee? How are you squaring this off with your traditional allies at the CCPOA? Are you going to put state guards in private prisons to make sure their interests are served, as well? After all the effort we put into realignment--and after countless experts have made reasonable suggestions to keep jail population law by not locking up people who should not be locked up in the first place--this is what it's coming to? After expert witnesses agreed that decrowding prisons is not a danger to public safety, where does your information to the contrary come from? Can you find a decent, respectable criminal justice scholar in the entire state of California that thinks this is necessary? Are you trying to divert our attention from the fact that this is Day 51 of a hunger strike against the horrific conditions under which you hold inmates in solitary confinement? What the hell is going on?

Day 43: Strike in Calipatria Ends; Conditions Improve

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Inmate advocates said Calipatria Warden Frank Chavez met with protest leaders within that prison on Thursday and, while talking with state corrections officials in Sacramento by phone, agreed to most of their more minor demands. They include adding six channels, including ESPN and PBS, to the television lineup available in segregation units, as well as increasing the variety and amounts of foods available for purchase in the prison canteen.

The warden also agreed within two months to allow inmates in segregation to make a monthly phone call, said Kendra Castaneda, an inmate supporter.

Castaneda said Calipatria officials refused to negotiate on the core issues of the hunger strike -- the state's indefinite use of isolation units and informants to control prison gangs.

Corrections officials said the strike ended Thursday when 22 inmates resumed eating.

Force-Feeding Order text

For those interested, here is the full text of yesterday's Order Granting Joint Request Authorizing Refeeding, courtesy of darwinbondgraham.

Floor is open for comments.

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Props to Caitlin Kelly Henry for the link.