Jul 06 2011
Pelican Bay Prisoners On Hunger Stike To Protest Shocking, Inhumane Conditions
Prisoners of the Secure Housing Unit – called SHUs at California’s Pelican Bay Supermax Prison are on a hunger strike to protest their living conditions. Over a dozen prisoners are participating in the action, planned since April when a group of inmates in isolation issued a set of changes they wanted implemented. The 5 demands include an end to indefinite detention in “shoes”, changes to the criteria used to send and release prisoners from isolation, adequate food, and one phone call a week. Inmates can spend years and sometimes decades in solitary confinement, granted only 90 minutes a day outside of their cell, alone. The Prison Law Office has come out in support of the hunger striker’s demands. The California nonprofit public interest law firm calls the conditions at Pelican Bay “inhumane, deplorable, and intolerable” and is currently suing to end race-based group punishment, which prisoners say is used to prolong detention in the secure housing unit. The hunger strike has drawn attention for being organized across racial lines, and it comes amid national scrutiny of the California Prison system. In May the Supreme Court ordered California to take immediate measures to end prison overcrowding, ruling present conditions constitute cruel and unusual punishment. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Pelican Bay was designed to hold 2,280 adults. It currently houses 3,461 inmates, has a staff of 1,627, and an operating budget exceeding $180 million.
Yesterday, a coalition of human rights advocates and community members gathered at the Regan Building in Downtown LA for a speak-out in support of the hunger strikers at Pelican Bay. Martina Steiner filed a special report for Uprising.
One Response to “Pelican Bay Prisoners On Hunger Stike To Protest Shocking, Inhumane Conditions”
THE ANSWER:
CALIFORNIA CLEMENCY BOARDS
1. Repeal the authority of the governor’s power to grant clemency in the State of California.
2. Create a new clemency law that supersedes all known and unknown laws in the State of California dealing with clemency. Under this new clemency law a new clemency board shall be created to handle all requests for clemency in California. At least one mini clemency board shall be established in every county in the State of California to handle considerations for clemency do to possible injustice on the part of the State, including prison overcrowding. Five citizens who reside in the county where the inmate was convicted will judge cases only from that same county. If these citizens agree to sit on a clemency board for up to one week (or longer if agreed) they will be paid for their services the sum of $100.00 a day. By random selection using current voter rolls in their county board members will be pre screened before sitting on any panel. The board members will review inmate request for clemency. While in session, they may review many request for that week’s session. Private Citizens, prisoner rights groups and professionals in the field may also petition the board on behalf of an inmate. The citizens of the California Clemency Board will have the power to release any qualified prisoner (once every seven years per individual) reduce his or her sentence or do nothing when the board rules that the prisoner was not unjustly treated by the prison system or judicial process. The California Clemency Board will also have the power to grant clemency for humanitarian reasons and release nonviolent prisoners under established guidelines when prison overcrowding is at unsafe levels. Any county who receives a clemency release shall also receive from the prison budget the sum of $8,000.00 or 1/6 the current California prison incarceration rate per release for rehabilitation services. The county must have State approved rehabilitation services in place to receive these prison budget funds. And the released must register with the county rehab within 30 days of release.
3. Create a State elected administrator to handle the financial responsibilities of the board, ensure that prisoner request are delivered to the county level in a timely manner and make rulings on fairness or fraud in the clemency board. THE CITIZENS OF THE CALIFORNIA CLEMENCY BOARD AND NOT THE ELECTED OFFICIAL WILL HAVE THE FINAL SAY ON CLEMENCY.
Special note:
California Clemency Boards is not a get out of jail free card for those bent on committing crime and has many safe guards to prevent abuse of this new clemency process.