Prison Hunger Strikers’ Health Deteriorating Rapidly

California’s second prisoner hunger strike this year is now in its third week. The health of many prisoners is deteriorating rapidly, with some exhibiting serious symptoms. Men are fainting in their cells. One striker at Pelican Bay prison was hospitalized after suffering a heart attack, according to the OB Rag. Family members are accusing guards of not responding to calls for medical help.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has transferred some prisoners at Pelican Bay from the Security Housing Unit (SHU) to Administrative Segregation, where they have been accused by the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition of attempting to freeze out strikers with air conditioning.

The strike began on September 26. The CDCR is treating the strike as a mass disturbance and is refusing to negotiate with prisoners. However, prisoners say they will continue striking until they die. According to the OB Rag, prisoners at Corcoran state prison have stopped drinking water completely, which should result in deaths within a few days.

Prisoners and their advocates are upset about medical treatment at Corcoran, Calipatria, Pelican Bay and Salinas Valley prisons, each of which is participating in the strike. Prisoners are routinely denied prompt and adequate care for chronic and acute medical conditions. Numerous prisoners have died unnecessarily because of delayed or inadequate healthcare. The conditions are so bad that the state prison system is in federal receivership in part because of the substandard medical care.

Californian Prisoner Hunger Strike Resumes

Solidarity Demonstration in Support of the July Hunger Strikers (from World Can't Wait)

California prisoners resumed their hunger strike on Monday at the Pelican Bay and Calipatria prisons (from Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity) to halt the torturous conditions in the Security Housing Units (SHUs).

Prisoners went on hunger strikes in July for almost four weeks, until the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (CDCR) agreed to some of the prisoners’ five core demands. It was one of the largest prison strikes in California history, affecting at least 13 State prisons and over 6,600 prisoners.

Since then, the CDCR’s has done nothing to meet the strikers’ demands and has continued to condemn prisoners to SHU torture. The purpose of the SHUs is to isolate anyone accused of gang associations (including many who are not gang members) or of being a political revolutionary, and break them physically and emotionally and encourage them to inform on other prisoners and gang members, placing their lives and the lives of their friends and family members in peril.

While in the SHU, prisoners are denied physical human contact with family members and are often locked down in their cells for nearly 24 hours per day or in solitary confinement, sometimes for years at a time. Many prisoners are being denied adequate and prompt health care or any health care at all. Prisoners are also complaining of being served watered down food on filthy trays and plates and not being provided sufficient nutrients or calories.

Many are saying that the conditions in the prisons and the retaliatory treatment by guards have been worsening. According to lawyers for the prisoners, inmates have been retaliated against for participating in July’s strike, receiving serious disciplinary write-ups for minor infractions like talking in the library or not walking fast enough. Such write-ups can result in parole being denied, loss of prison jobs, and other consequences. Prisoners have also been subjected to violent cell searches at 4:00 am, blocked mail and false assault charges.

In the July strike, prisoners of all ethnicities and gang affiliations came together in solidarity to resist their brutal conditions, one of the only times this has occurred since the Black Panthers started organizing prisoners in the late 1960s. The significance of this solidarity was not lost on the CDCR, which has indicated that it will deal with another strike in a much more aggressive manner. However, lawyers for the prisoners believe the solidarity will be just as strong, and that prisoners will continue even through forced feedings and even until death if necessary (see Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity blog).

Does America Torture Americans? Yes, Especially Native Americans.

65 year-old Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison for more than 35 years on trumped charges of killing two FBI agents in 1975, has been placed in solitary confinement for two minor infractions, according to Democracy Now. Peltier has long maintained his innocence and is a political prisoner, being punished for his support and activism within the American Indian Movement (see here for more).

Meanwhile, prisoners in California have entered the third week of a hunger strike against deplorable living conditions. The strike began at Pelican Bay, where many of the state’s most violent prisoners live in SHUs (Security Housing Units) often confined for 23 or more hours a day, in isolation. Prisoners in the SHU are placed in 6-by-10 foot isolation cells. The strikers are calling for an end to the isolation units and the “debriefings” in which prisoners are subjected to lengthy interrogations to determine if they are in gangs. Several of the strikers’ health has deteriorated to critical levels, the San Francisco Chronicle reported today.