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Hundreds of California prisoners and their supporters have petitioned the United Nations to investigate the effects of solitary confinement in the “secure housing units” of state prisons, saying the practice classifies as “torture.” Currently about 4000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement. Their plight was highlighted last summer when many prisoners undertook a hunger strike to protest their conditions. A 27 year old inmate, Christian Alexander Gomez, died in late February while participating in a more recent hunger strike.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Sheriff Lee Baca is considering a proposal to shut down part of the notorious Men’s Central Jail which suffers from overcrowding, and has been the focus of widely investigated and corroborated allegations of abuse and torture. Some inmates at the Jail may be sent to another facility in Lynwood.

Critics contend that the United States is addicted to imprisonment, locking up 743 people out of every 100,000 – the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. More than 2 million people are imprisoned nationwide, with African Americans targeted at the highest rate of any racial group. In general, people of color are significantly overrepresented in prisons compared to whites. A significant portion – nearly a quarter – of those imprisoned are charged with drug-related crimes.

Now, a new documentary called Visions of Abolition, by UCR Professor Setsu Shigematsu explores the racist aspect of the prison system and the alternatives that could be imagined to our current system of retributive justice. Visions of Abolition features Angela Davis, Ruthie Gilmore, Dylan Rodriguez, Susan Burton, and many others involved in an organization called Critical Resistance, and the growing prison abolition movement.

GUEST: Setsu Shigematsu, Director, Writer, and Producer of Visions of Abolition and a professor in the Media and Cultural Studies Department at the University of California, Riverside, Susan Burton, Executive Director of A New Way of Life

Visit www.visionsofabolition.org for more information and to order DVD copies.

Susan Burton will be speaking on Saturday March 24th at an event at the Southern California Library, from 10:30 am to 4 pm.