5/12 Watch Court Hearing in Ashker v Gov! Stop Solitary Confinement

No more doublespeak by CDCr. We are in court to reject solitary by another name! #StopSolitary

PLEASE TUNE IN TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2020 @9AM PST AND LET CDCr KNOW WE ARE WATCHING!
Link to the livestream available here:
https://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/media/live_oral_arguments.php

Men in Solitary Confinement in CA Take Their Case Before 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. CDCR Continues to Violate Settlement Agreement: Men Held Alone in Cells 23 Hours a Day

**See more below about the livestream court arguments, the online after-discussion, and a social media toolkit! **

STOP SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: Tune in to watch oral arguments in Ashker v. Governor of California 

Join the Center for Constitutional Rights on Tuesday, May 12, 2020 as arguments are heard in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal on whether the state of California violated the settlement in our case, Ashker v. Governor, a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of prisoners held in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison who have spent a decade or more in solitary confinement.

Attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights will urge the court to uphold a ruling that California prisons have violated a landmark settlement agreement intended to end indefinite solitary confinement. The district court held that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) violated the 2015 settlement by maintaining prisoners in levels of isolation equal to or even more severe than the isolation they experienced in the Security Housing Units (SHU).

Tune in at 9:00am PST on May 12 to watch first hand and JOIN OUR TWEETSTORM, as we reject #solitarybyanothername.

Feel free to use visuals and sample messaging from our our social media toolkit,

Arguments will likely start between 9:00 and 9:30 am PST, depending on the length and order of arguments. You will find the link to the livestream on the court’s website.

STAY TUNED AFTER THE HEARING FOR A COMMUNITY-CENTERED ONLINE BRIEFING!

Following oral argument in Ashker, join us at 11:30am PST for a community-centered online briefing with attorneys Jules Lobel and Samuel Miller. The legal team will share their thoughts about how the hearing went, you will get the opportunity to ask questions, and we will highlight action items to move forward.

For more information and to receive the Zoom link and passwork, please RSVP on Eventbrite

For questions, contact Dolores Canales, CFASC: (714) 290-9077, dol1canales@gmail.com

Online briefing hosted by California Families Against Solitary Confinement (CFASC) and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).

Pages: 1 2

“Security/Welfare Checks” – UPDATES and CONTINUED CALL FOR LETTERS, Oct. 2016

STOP SLEEP DEPRIVATION in CA Solitary Units
End the “Security/Welfare Checks”

from the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS) Committee to End Sleep Deprivation

Please read the below update and write letters to Lindsay Hayes, the suicide expert who’s endorsed this harmful practice by CA Dept. of Corrections. Hayes can stop the “security/ welfare checks.” We want Hayes to hear the voices of the women and men affected by these torturous checks, and we ask you to be the messengers.

Use these templates and prisoner quotes, and send to the listed addresses:

• Short TEMPLATE LETTER to Hayes http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2IM

• Longer TEMPLATE LETTER to Hayes http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2Je

• QUOTES from people in ten CA prisons about checks
  http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2QN

Write to:
Lindsay M. Hayes
40 Lantern Lane
Mansfield, MA 02048

Copy to:
Matthew A. Lopes, Jr.
Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West LLC
317 Iron Horse Way, Suite 301
Providence, RI 02908

If possible, send us a copy of your letter, either by U.S. mail or email:
PHSS Committee to End Sleep Deprivation
P.O. Box 5692
Eureka, CA 95502
phssreachingout@gmail.com

“The negative health consequences of inadequate sleep ha[ve] been extensively documented and nowhere in the literature is there a report on as severe a disruption in sleep as is occurring in the Pelican Bay SHU.”
– Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, internationally recognized sleep expert, Oct. 2015

October 14, 2016 UPDATES and CONTINUED CALL FOR LETTERS
to people inside and out prison walls

Guards are jarringly waking prisoners in solitary confinement every 30 minutes in the name of “security/welfare checks” throughout all CA prisons’ isolation units. Loudly disturbing and waking people every 30 minutes is serious, ongoing sleep deprivation, a debilitating, internationally-condemned form of torture. These “security/welfare checks,” purported to be for ‘suicide prevention,’ are being used as a blanket practice, whether prisoners are suicidal or not, and despite the fact that denial of sleep is devastating for the human mind and body.

We know that the “checks” began in Central CA Women’s Facility (CCWF) Condemned Units on May 18, 2014 and in Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Units (PB SHU) on August 2, 2015, despite the fact that suicide rates are low in those units; none in over 20 years and one in 11 years, respectively. Considering the harm and agony of sleep deprivation, the effects of these checks run counter to their purported purpose. Sleep expert Zeitzer and psychiatrist Kupers concluded people suffering from them may be at a higher suicide risk than before these checks began.

Our Committee to End Sleep Deprivation has received a flood of letters from people enduring the checks in California’s SHU’s, Ad Seg, and Psychiatric Units, explaining their suffering and trauma. Letters have come from Calipatria State Prison, CCI Tehachapi, Central CA Women’s Facility, CA Institution for Men, CSP Corcoran, Deuel Vocational Institution, CSP Sacramento (“New Folsom”), High Desert State Prison, Pelican Bay State Prison, SATF Corcoran, and Salinas Valley State Prison.

LETTER WRITING LAUNCH to end harmful “security / welfare checks”

STOP SLEEP DEPRIVATION in CA Solitary Units in Pelican Bay SHU and Women’s Death Row

Please write letters to Lindsay Hayes, the suicide expert who’s endorsed this harmful practice by CA Dept. of Corrections.  Hayes can stop the “security/welfare checks.” We want Hayes to hear the voices of the women and men affected by these torturous checks, and we ask you to be the messengers.

Use these templates and prisoner quotes, and send to the listed addresses:

• Short TEMPLATE LETTER to Hayes http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2IM

• Longer TEMPLATE LETTER to Hayes http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2Je

• QUOTES from Pelican Bay SHU & Central CA Women’s Facility death row about checks http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2K5

 Write to:
Lindsay M. Hayes
40 Lantern Lane
Mansfield, MA 02048

Copy to:
Matthew A. Lopes, Jr.
Pannone Lopes Devereaux & West LLC
317 Iron Horse Way, Suite 301
Providence, RI 02908

If possible, send us a copy of your letter, either by U.S. mail or email:
PHSS Committee to End Sleep Deprivation
P.O. Box 5692
Eureka, CA 95502
phssreachingout@gmail.com

“The negative health consequences of inadequate sleep ha[ve] been extensively documented and nowhere in the literature is there a report on as severe a disruption in sleep as is occurring in the Pelican Bay SHU.”
– Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, internationally recognized sleep expert, Oct. 2015

Guards are jarring prisoners awake every 30 minutes, all day and night, in Central California Women’s Facility death row and in Pelican Bay SHU with noisy so-called  “security/ welfare checks,” causing severe sleep deprivation. These checks are purported to be ‘suicide prevention,’ yet are being used as a blanket practice, whether prisoners are suicidal or not, and despite the fact that denial of sleep is devastating for the human mind and body.

“This is torture. We are being emotionally, mentally and physically battered by the security checks throughout the nights.” – 20 death row prisoners in Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF)

People need sleep for survival, mental and physical health and well-being, and to organize for their human rights.

‘Stop the Torture’ – UN Official Receives Formal Complaint from Solitary Prisoners’ Family Members and Advocates

For Immediate Release – Thursday, March 31, 2016

Statewide groups are condemning sleep deprivation – widely recognized as a form of torture – of prisoners in Pelican Bay’s Solitary Confinement Units in a formal complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

Press Contact: Mohamed Shehk
408.910.2618, mohamed@criticalresistance.org
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition

 

CA – After months of public outcry, California Families Against Solitary Confinement (CFASC) and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition (PHSS) have submitted a formal complaint to Juan Mendez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment or Punishment condemning the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) jarringly noisy and disruptive “security/welfare checks” in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Units (PB-SHU). These checks, which started on August 2, 2015, have deprived the prisoners of sleep for eight months, amounting to what is widely recognized as a form of torture. The complaint was submitted last week, on Thursday, March 24.

 

One prisoner recently stated that being in PB-SHU with these checks “is like a construction site all night. It is horrible. It really is torture.”  Another wrote, “For decades, military and police forces have used extreme isolation, sleep deprivation, and constant banging/noise to cause mental/physical torment and try to break a person’s mind or human will to resist questioning. These are so-called clean torture methods.”

 

The complaint to Mendez includes reports from interviews with PB-SHU prisoners conducted over a six-month period by Carol Strickman, Staff Attorney at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.  Additionally, Mendez was provided with statements by sleep experts Dr. Thomas Roth and Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, by psychiatrist Dr. Terry Kupers, and by the American Public Health Association’s Jail and Prison Health Committee about the impact of sleep deprivation on mental health – all who have condemned the “security/welfare checks.”  Internationally recognized sleep expert Dr. Zeitzer explains in his October 2015 report, “The negative health consequences of inadequate sleep have been extensively documented and nowhere in the literature is there a report on as severe a disruption in sleep as is occurring in the Pelican Bay SHU.”

 

“My son doesn’t have the energy to exercise, write, or draw nearly as much since the checks started. He used to write me letters 2-3 times a week; now maybe once a week, and only a few lines,” says Grace A., a member of CFASC and whose son is in PB-SHU. “He has hardly been able to sleep since early August, but is fighting to stay strong. I tell him ‘You are not alone.’”

THURSDAY, MARCH 24 Call-In Action to End Sleep Deprivation

THURSDAY, MARCH 24

Call-In Action to End Sleep Deprivation Torture of Prisoners in CA Solitary Units

CA prison guards are still doing malicious, jarringly noisy so-called “security/welfare checks” in solitary confinement units, causing ongoing sleep deprivation.

Please take urgent action on March 24th (and ongoing) until the painful and potentially lethal sleep deprivation torture of California prisoners in solitary confinement has ended. FLIERS HERE

The ‘checks’ are particularly loud and distressing for people in Central CA Women’s Facility (CCWF) Administrative Segregation death row, due to guard aggressiveness, and in Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (PB SHU) where the cramped, concrete architecture also amplifies the noise.

CALL to demand a STOP to the
sleep deprivation in CA solitary cells

• CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Secretary
  Scott Kernan: 916-323-6001
• CDCR Director of Adult Divisions: 916-445-7688
• Senator Loni Hancock, Senate Public Safety Committee Chair:
  916-651-4009
• Assembly Member Reginald Jones-Sawyer, Assembly Public SafetyCommittee Chair: 916-319-2059
• Governor Jerry Brown: 916-445-2841
• Coleman Special Master Matthew Lopes: 866-353-3310 (Toll Free)

Suggested script for calls:
Your name, city, and state. “Please stop the so-called ‘security/welfare checks’ in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison and in women’s death row. The ‘checks’ are causing sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is torture.”

Other ways to help:

• EMAIL: Click this link to tell state officials to STOP the “security/welfare checks!” http://tinyurl.com/ztjcos3
• SEND A STATEMENT (as an individual or from your organization) for PHSS to forward to state officials, condemning the sleep deprivation torture. Sample statement, more info here: http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2r9

Please stand with the prisoners & their families
to demand the sleep deprivation end immediately!

“… they’re killing us with these Guard One/Welfare Checks. … I don’t know what to do? We really are suffering right now and I can assure you that this is worse than the hunger strikes.” – PB SHU prisoner Oct 2015

40-48 times a day, these “checks” are subjecting people in small solitary cells to the reverberating “boom” of steel unit doors opening and slamming shut, and guards stomping through pods, up and downstairs, rattling keys and chains, beeping and banging Guard One metal pipes on metal buttons and cells, and shining flashlights into people’s eyes.

“The negative health consequences of inadequate sleep ha[ve] been extensively documented and nowhere in the literature is there a report on as severe a disruption in sleep as is occurring in the Pelican Bay SHU.”

– Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, internationally recognized sleep expert, 10/25/15

Sleep-deprived, the prisoners are suffering severe stress and irritation, depression, weight loss, dizziness, nausea, headaches, migraines, eye problems, intestinal problems, faintness, high blood pressure, accelerated heart rates, blacking out, stomach acidity and pain, and vomiting. They cannot concentrate, exercise, read, write, or do legal work- the things that help them survive.

“This is torture. We are being emotionally, mentally and physically battered by the security checks throughout the nights.” – 20 death row prisoners in Central CA Women’s Facility

CDCR claims these ‘checks’ will prevent suicides. Instead,
they are causing serious psychological and physical harm.
These “checks” serve no welfare or security purpose. They only harm the prisoners, mentally and physically.

The CA prisoners’ 2012 Agreement to End Hostilities between
ethnic groups made possible the CA Prisoner Hunger Strike
of 2013 by over 30,000 CA prisoners and 100’s more
nationwide. Prisoners’ human rights organizing has built an
amazing movement and led to the historic 2015 settlement ending indefinite solitary confinement in CA. It appears CDCR is attempting to prevent future effective human rights work by prisoners in solitary by instituting a debilitating and internationally-condemned torture technique: sleep deprivation.

More info: phssreachingout@gmail.com    510.426.5322
Facebook Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity

• Go to “Sleep Deprivation” at prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com (Sleep Expert Reports, Media Articles, Videos, Personal Testimonies, Attorney Reports,  Scientific Articles, Letters in Opposition).

Sleep Expert Reports about 30 minute “welfare checks”

• Dr. Jamie Zeitzer’s report
  •  Zeitzer report in doc format for easy copy/paste

• Dr. Thomas Roth’s report
  • Roth report in doc format for easy copy/paste

• Dr. Terry Kuper’s report
  • Kuper report in doc format for easy copy/paste

 

excerpted from Dr. Jamie Zeitzer’s Oct 2015 Report:
” …While this was instituted as a safety measure, including the prevention of suicides, it has created an even more disrupted sleep environment, one that will actually lead to an increase in suicidal ideation…

An extensive literature that covers the gamut from animal studies to highly controlled studies in humans to epidemiologic studies of many different populations from around the world all come to the same conclusion – there are serious ramifications of sleep loss on both physical and mental health. … A recent series of studies in Veterans has further pointed to the strong connection between suicidality and sleep, so much so that treatment of sleep problems in Veterans is considered part of the first line of treatment in reducing the risk of suicides. The negative health consequences of inadequate sleep has been extensively documented and nowhere in the literature is there a report on as severe a disruption in sleep as is occurring in the Pelican Bay SHU. …

There have been no direct studies of intentionally waking an individual every thirty minutes every night for days, weeks, or months, as doing so would he considered highly unethical in a research environment. …”

Feb 1st: RALLY Against the Torture of Prisoners

Rally Against the Torture of Prisoners Feb 1, 2016

As of February 1st, it will be 181 days that the men in Pelican Bay SHU have been tortured by sleep deprivation. For six months the men have been awakened every 30 minutes, 48 times per day, due to so-called “security/welfare checks” by guards.

“…they’re killing us with these Guard One/Welfare Checks…I don’t know what to do? We really are suffering right now and I can assure you that this is worse than the hunger strikes.” PB SHU prisoner Oct. 2015

Join us in Sacramento on February 1st, 2016 at 1:00 pm to rally against the torture of prisoners!

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) claims these ‘checks’ will prevent suicide. Instead, these checks are causing serious psychological and physical harm. John R. Martinez, in solitary for 15 years, stated that the checks “are counter-productive to their so called intended purpose (mental health care) and serve zero legitimate penological purpose other than to harass and mentally torment us prisoners.”

Come and stand with us to put an end to torturous ‘welfare checks’ in the SHU.

RIDESHARES will be leaving from Southern California, Santa Cruz, the SF Bay Area, the North Coast, and locations in between. PHSS will help with travel expenses.  Please contact phssreachingout@gmail.com, 510-426-5322 if you need or can provide a ride. You can also message Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity on Facebook.

We need to make the Senate and Assembly Public Safety Committees and Governor Brown stop this now!

We must keep the pressure on!

Media Advisory HERE.

 

For RIDESHARE info and MEETING WITH LEGISLATORS before the Rally,

EMERGENCY ACTION ALERT: over 5 months of sleep deprivation in Pelican Bay SHU

Please make calls (and keep calling!) to demand a STOP to the 30 minute “checks” in Pelican Bay SHU:

• CA Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Secretary’s Office: 916-323-6001
• Kelly Harrington, CDCR Director of Adult Divisions: 916-445-7688
• Senator Loni Hancock, Senate Public Safety Comm. Chair: 916-651-4009
• Assembly Member Bill Quirk, Assembly Public Safety Comm. Chair: 916-319-2020
• CA Governor Jerry Brown: 916.445.2841

Suggested script for calls:
Begin with your name and the city and state where you live. Tell them all: “Stop the so-called ‘welfare’ checks in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison. Sleep deprivation is torture.”

 

Send emails to CA elected officials:
Click this link from Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) to email the message to STOP the ‘checks’!  http://tinyurl.com/ztjcos3

 

Join the fight against the checks!:
Find out how here! http://wp.me/P1BB1k-28B

 

Share this YouTube Video far and wide!
“Sleep Deprivation” from Liberated Lens Collective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjWF3OtGSkQ

Background info:

VIDEO from “Sleep Deprivation” Emergency Protest

Please watch and share this amazing video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjWF3OtGSkQ

Liberated Lens was with us in Sacramento on, Nov 30th, the 119th day of sleep deprivation in Pelican Bay SHU.

The torture, waking people up every 30 minutes- 48 times a day- is still going on.  It is now 132 days and nights.  It must stop.  We need to amp up our opposition. 

Make calls to demand a STOP to the 30 minute “checks” in Pelican Bay SHU:

• Governor Brown – 916-445-6001
• CDCR Secretary Jeffrey Beard – 916-323-6001
• Pelican Bay State Prison – 707-465-1000

From Solitary Confinement at Pelican Bay, Jesse Perez Sues Guards for Retaliation, Wins $25,000

On Nov. 25, 2015, a federal jury awarded $25,000 in damages to Jesse Perez, who had sued guards for trashing his cell in retaliation for his lawsuit against the prison and for his stand against solitary confinement.

By filing the lawsuit, Perez wrote that he sought the “opportunity to shine a public light at trial and rein in what prisoner activists often endure in exercising their constitutional rights: the retaliatory abuse of the department’s disciplinary process by prison guards.”

Jesse Perez, 35, is from Colton in San Bernardino County and has been imprisoned since age 15. He was sent to the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay in December 2003 and was held there for 10 years. He took part in all three hunger strikes in 2011 and 2013, protesting prolonged isolation.

Perez’s lawyer, Randall Lee, said the verdict sends “a resounding message that the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment are sacrosanct for all of us — even a prisoner in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay.”

Jesse Perez, 2nd from the left, with his legal team in his successful civil rights case about guards’ retaliation – Randall Lee, lead attorney, Jesse, Katie Moran, Matthew Benedetto

The case is based on Jesse Perez challenging the legitimacy of a CDCr gang validation pro se in 2005. He was assigned counsel after a state dismissal motion was defeated. After his attorneys’ filed a Reply Brief, the CDCr reached out to him to settle the case, which he ultimately did in 2013. Perez received a monetary award as well as the right to have his gang affiliation reevaluated.

This is similar to the CDCr settling the Ashker case as the state of CA wants to avoid having to be held publicly accountable and to be subjected to scrutiny and interrogation in court.

In the current civil suit, his attorneys argued that guards retaliated against Perez for exercising his right to file a lawsuit and in response to successfully litigating human rights challenges – in this case the gang validation.

Perez argued that guards retaliated against him for exercising his right to file a lawsuit and in response to his successful litigating for his human rights and to overturn
his baseless gang validation.

During settlement negotiations in his initial lawsuit, which CDCr could anticipate would be successful for Perez and require a re-review of his ‘gang validation’, four officers forced Perez to strip, removed all of his legal paperwork, and trashed his cell.  In the process, one officer stated, “you might have been able to win some money from us, but we will make sure that you stay [in solitary] where you belong.” Perez did not get all of his property back.  He was later charged with a serious rules violation for “willfully obstructing the officers” during that search, for which he was ultimately found Not Guilty.

Jesse Perez states “As prisoner activists seeking to make positive contributions to the interest and human dignity of prisoners, we understand that the trappings of power enjoyed by guards represent the biggest obstacle to significant and lasting progress.”