Last Wednesday, students from the Human Rights of the Incarcerated Coalition and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition community organization erected a mock-up of a solitary confinement cell — referred to as a SHU — on the steps outside Sproul Hall. Though the image it cast was effective — one of isolation and insignificance in the shadow of an imposing administration building behind it — this was in no way the entire picture.
The demonstration was not an attempt to place a utopian model on a complex societal dilemma, as some online comments have suggested. Utopia might suggest an absence of the state, and the SHU was meant to suggest that the state adhere to the Bill of Rights — specifically, the Eighth Amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment.
What was not originally reported in the Daily Cal was that our action was designed to coincide with protests that were happening within correctional facilities statewide. Across administratively constructed and institutionally imposed geographic and racial lines, prisoners used the one resource they had, their bodies, to ensure that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation accepted the demands of the inmates — similar to demands the CDCR agreed to in 2011 but had failed to implement.
There were, and continue to be, five core demands:
1) End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse
2) Abolish the Debriefing Policy and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria
3) Comply with the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons’ 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement
4) Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food
5) Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates
We encourage the reader to investigate the details involved with these demands that space prohibits including now. The hunger strike has since ended, but the discussion regarding the epidemic of mass incarceration cannot. We erected that tiny structure to highlight one key issue: long-term solitary confinement is torture. Torture is illegal.
However, it is important for the reader to understand what the gang status criteria are and what ‘debriefing’ means. Prisoners have reported that to be validated as a prison gang member, and sentenced to time in the SHU, the guards need only identify three pieces of evidence against an inmate to prove affiliation. This could be a drawing in your cell, a copy of Sun Tzu, or even an unqualified assessment of written communications with a family member. ‘Debriefing’ is the process by which inmates are interviewed regarding suspected gang affiliation, to determine whether or not their validation remains accurate by CDCR standards. However, it is widely understood that part of the procedure involves becoming an informant on others suspected of gang affiliation, in order to be released from the SHU. This process can be torturous itself and most assuredly will put the inmate’s life in danger, which contradicts the logic of the gang validation procedure in the first place — to ensure safety within the prison population. If the inmate was wrongly validated to begin with, he has no information to offer — so he can’t be released. Is this really expected to rehabilitate people?
When reached for comment regarding our demonstration, Terry Thornton, deputy press secretary for CDCR, had made statements that we would like to address. According to the Daily Cal, Thornton remarked that some prisoners have access to items like radios, televisions, libraries and educational programs. In the case of radios and televisions, this is indeed true. In fact, part of the demands of the prisoners is for an expansion of these privileges. But is she somehow suggesting that television is a substitute for human contact or direct sunlight? Let me ask you this: If you were locked in your bathroom for 10 years — scratch that — for one year with your television, would you emerge from that situation sane?
Regarding their access to libraries, this is also true — to a certain extent. They have access to a legal library that is guaranteed for any prisoner. As far as other literature, it is unclear what they could obtain or whether this material could be used to further implicate them in gang activity. We do know that prisoners claim they are denied access to self-help programs like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, which raises questions as to how effective their present constructive programming may actually be.
We, the students of the Human Rights of the Incarcerated Coalition, are not alone in our sympathy with the demands of prisoners in long-term solitary confinement. The Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition agrees, and so do the ACLU and Amnesty International.
One of Amnesty International’s first T-shirt slogans read:
“Torture is a Curable Disease.”
If you agree or would like more information, please join HRI at our upcoming meeting on Oct. 25 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. in 206 Wheeler Hall or at our speaker event on Oct. 29 from 7 to 9 p.m., in the Genetics and Plant Biology building.
Jason Webber is a UC Berkeley junior and a member of the campus student organization Human Rights of the Incarcerated Coalition.
Contact the opinion desk at [email protected]
Comment Policy
Comments should remain on topic, concerning the article or blog post to which they are connected. Brevity is encouraged. Posting under a pseudonym is discouraged, but permitted. The Daily Cal encourages readers to voice their opinions respectfully in regard to the readers, writers and contributors of The Daily Californian. Comments are not pre-moderated, but may be removed if deemed to be in violation of this policy. Click here to read the full comment policy.
As students are paying for higher tuition, just remember that the state already pays more for prisoners than they pay for college education. Jason would ask you to have the legislature spend even more money on prisoners who are being punished for horrible crimes, instead of funding Cal. Pot smokers are not in solitary confinement. Violent offenders are in solitary.
Solitary confinement is not cheap! It’s been linked to developmental disorders and increased dementia, which affects prisoners when they re-enter society. You may not be aware of the fact that solitary confinement is not only used (frequently) on prisoners that are mentally ill, but regularly used on thousands of children in juvenile detention centers in this country every single year. It literally stunts their mental and psychosocial development, making them less able to adjust to society when they are released. Is it any wonder recidivism rates are so high?
If you’re truly concerned about where the state is putting its money, you should worry about programs that increase recidivism, causing the state to pour more money into prisons when it could be going to schools. Solitary confinement is one of these problems.
This is one area we will disagree. I understand that there are various reasons for high recidivism rates, however, I don’t believe prison is really the place to deal with all of these. Prison is a punishment and not a recreational camp/trade school. It is a place that prisoners should forever want to avoid, and that will help reduce recidivism. Once a prisoner has served their punishment, then they can be provided with help to reenter society. I would have no problem with making sure that solitary and other forms of punishment are enough to punish but not enough to seriously harm or torture.
The real reason for high recidivism is that we ignore too many people until it is too late. The money is not to be spent on prisons and prisoners. The money should be going to K-12 education and other social programs for children to keep them from turning to crime.