Oct. 2, 2013 –
This is a short update from the four principle SHU reps here at Pelican
Bay State Prison to inform you that Mr. Michael Stainer [director of the
Division of Adult Institutions], kept his word and arrived here on Sept.
25 and 26 with Mr. Ralph Diaz [warden at the California Substance Abuse
Treatment Facility and State Prison (SATF) at Corcoran] and Mr. George
Giurbino [retired director of the Division of Adult Institutions]. We
went through all 40 supplemental demands as well as some aspects of the
step-down program, where we also gave them written suggestions on
loading up each step with real meaningful incentives.
Although
they were adamant on not rescinding or reducing any RVRs [Rules
Violation Reports] for participating in the hunger strikes, they were
forthcoming in other areas. For example, there will be additional
allowed personal property items in SHU. The memos on those and other
supplemental demands will be out soon and placed in the new CDCR DOM
[Department Operations Manual] Article 43 as soon as possible.
Those memos should be
more specific so prison staff and prisoners will know what kind and size
of the items is or is not allowed so the same problems from the June 5
memos won’t re-occur. On other issues, it will take time for them to
investigate and confirm or not on what we argued regarding those, and on
still others, like not rescinding the RVRs, they clearly stated “no,”
which we prefer to a vague answer that only will string us along. But
over all, the meetings were positive and productive.
With all the above
and the promises of future meetings in person or by phone conference
with Mr. Stainer or his staff regarding any updates on the above and
step-down program and the first Senate-Assembly hearings this month in
Los Angeles, as we explained to Mr. Stainer, as long as we continue to
see forward progress, we do not foresee that the other 16 reps and
prisons will want to resume the hunger strike anytime in the near
future.
They also granted and
reinstated our monthly meetings with this administration and the new
warden, Mr. Ron Barnes, to deal with any new or pending issues at the
institutional level. These meetings are vital to deal with any new
issues and prevent future problems or having to file a lot of
unnecessary 602 appeals. We are not MAC [Men’s Advisory Council]
members, and if the same has not been put in place in your SHU prison –
including women – then you need to sweat your warden about it asap.
They also granted and reinstated our
monthly meetings with this administration and the new warden, Mr. Ron
Barnes, to deal with any new or pending issues at the institutional
level. These meetings are vital.
Finally, if any of
you on PBSP GP [General Population] or any prison have gone through the
potty watch be sure you contact the Prison Law Office but address your
letters Attn: Sara Norman [Prison Law Office, 1917 Fifth St., Berkeley
CA 94710]. She’s an attorney there. She came up asking for names and
information on this but we only see some of you laying on cold concrete
as we walk by those nasty-ass holding cells. So it’s very important that
you get at her asap to stop this torture.
We stopped them from
using the tubes. Now we need to stop the further torture of having
nowhere to sit or lay down other than cold nasty concrete and taking
craps out there in the open. This is wrong! And it needs to be stopped
now!
Prison Law Office is asking for
names and information on potty watch, but we only see some of you laying
on cold concrete as we walk by those nasty-ass holding cells. So it’s
very important that you get at them with your information on actually
going through it so they can stop this torture.
On this issue, Mr. Stainer explained that
x-rays are no longer an option and potty watch is not supposed to be
torture. We explained that even those who are not found to be carrying
anything and are innocent, because x-rays are no longer an option, are
forced to go through this humiliating and torturous experience for two
to three days or longer, until after they have three bowel movements.
Before, they could just prove they’re innocent by an x-ray.
They have agreed to
investigate our allegations, but your information on actually going
through it is more important, so Ms. Norman and her office can actually
file something on it to stop it!
That’s it for now.
Expect more future updates from me and the other reps as time goes by.
Always in solidarity.
D Facility Visiting
Room
Oct. 16, 2013 –
This is to notify Warden Barnes and the budget associate warden for SHU
of another issue that will be brought up and discussed at the next
monthly meeting between the SHU reps and PBSP administration.
CDCR Sacramento
officials provided the funds to reopen D Facility SHU visiting room to
provide “extended visits” (see Supplemental Demand No. 4). However, PBSP
officials just opened half and are only using that half for “overflow
visiting” and the other half continues to be used for law library access
during weekdays. This is not acceptable.
That visiting room
half has to be used for extended visits and overflow, and the only way –
as we reps have repeatedly advised this administration and Sacramento –
that our family members will all receive extended visits is if this
administration changes the schedule from three time slots to two time
slots, with D Facility in the first slot and C Facility in the second
slot, where all visits are a solid three hours long during the weekends
and holidays. This could even work using C Facility and just half of D
Facility visiting rooms.
The second option is
that all of D Facility visiting room be opened, not just half, where all
C Facility prisoners go to the C Facility visiting room and all D
Facility prisoners go to the D Facility visiting room – i.e., the short
corridor during the first slot and the long corridor during the second
slot – thus giving everyone a solid three hour long visit and providing
plenty of room for any overflow problems.
Exaggerated
administration responses
First and more
importantly, the D Facility visiting room was built to solely be used
for D Facility visiting – regular and legal visiting – not to be
converted into a law library or recreational book library. Now, so far,
this administration has reopened just one half of our D Facility
visiting room.
But in doing so, they
also punished us by claiming they had to remove all the recreational
reading books and take them to the B Facility general population
library. So now we have NO recreational library at this time where SHU
prisoners can order reading books (see also our Supplemental Demand No.
8).
When the administration reopened
half of our D Facility visiting room, they also punished us by claiming
they had to remove all the recreational reading books.
Second, the
administration has not put any effort into resolving this, other than
give excuses why they don’t wish to change anything – like, if they
reopen all of D Facility visiting room they won’t have anywhere to put
the law library. These excuses are old ones. In fact, in the past, we
gave the administration a suggestion to solve this problem:
Since the law library
mainly consists of multiple computers containing all the legal books on
discs, they have enough computers to place one in each of the 22 SHU
units’ dry cells in front of each unit control officer and run law
library all day in each unit using just that unit’s officers to escort
prisoners to and from those dry cells and back to their unit section.
A new suggestion,
since the administration has not responded to the suggestion above, is
that there is plenty of room in the SHU to move both the law library and
the recreational library. For example, both C and D Facilities presently
have a lot of space available between the back of each main corridor
control booth and the visiting rooms. Right now it’s even being used as
a partial storage area.
There is plenty of room in the SHU
to move both the law library and the recreational library out of the D
Facility visiting room, which was built to solely be used for D Facility
visiting.
These available
spaces can easily be utilized as both law library and recreational
library where six-10 modified cages with the computers can be
constructed and installed in those spaces to be used for law library
access. Shelves can also be constructed or moved from the present
library and placed in those spaces for law books, legal forms, copy
machines and even for recreational books.
In fact, these spaces
are so big that even with all those mentioned cages, shelves etc., there
will still be plenty of room for staff desks and a walkway in between to
provide access to the visiting area from SHU. So all the present excuses
for not re-opening all of D Facility visiting rooms are unfounded and it
appears that on this issue, the old CDCR game of delay and excuse is
being played here.
In closing, the above
problem of our family members barely receiving a 90-minute visit, if
they’re lucky, has greatly affected those relations over the two decades
plus since this prison was opened, especially those who must travel very
great distances.
The problem of our family members
barely receiving a 90-minute visit, if they’re lucky, has greatly
affected family relations over the two decades plus since this prison
was opened, especially those who must travel very great distances.
So, our advice to
this administration is to find somewhere to permanently move the law
library and recreational library and re-open all of D Facility visiting
room and change the present three visiting slots to two visiting slots
as soon as possible, because on this issue, there is no in-between and
we as SHU reps promise you that this will continue to be one of our main
issues until it’s permanently fixed.
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* Arturo Castellanos is
one of the four main SHU reps writing on behalf of all 20 reps and all
SHU prisoners and their family members.
Send our brother
some love and light: Arturo Castellanos, C-12275, PBSP SHU D1-121,
Crescent City, CA 95532.
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