Press Release: Folsom Prison Hunger Strike Enters 9th Day – Families, Advocates to Rally in Folsom and L.A. to Support Prisoners’ Demands

For Immediate Release – Friday, June 2, 2017

WHAT:  Rally & Press Conference to Support Folsom Prison Hunger Strike

WHEN:  Sunday, June 4th from 12:00pm-2:00pm | Press Conference @ 1:00pm

WHERE:
Folsom: Folsom State Prison | E Natomas & Folsom Prison Road  (Folsom, CA 95630)

Los Angeles: Twin Towers Jail | 450 Bauchet St  (Los Angeles, CA 90012)

PRESS CONTACTS:

Courtney Hanson
photos.courtneyjade@gmail.com | (916) 316-0625

 Raquel Estrada
rpartida831@gmail.com | (831) 227-7679

Folsom—On Sunday, June 4th, 2017, human rights advocates will hold a rally outside of Folsom State Prison (FSP) to amplify the voices of people incarcerated in the Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU) at FSP, who have been on hunger strike since May 25th. Prisoners in Building 4 of ASU are striking because they are forced in live in conditions that are inhumane and constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution. Despite the fact that FSP is aware of the dangerous consequences of prolonged social isolation, they continue to deprive prisoners of basic human needs, including normal human contact, environmental and sensory stimulation, mental and physical health, physical exercise, sleep, access to courts, and meaningful activity.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is aware (Madrid-Ashker-Coleman) that the conditions of extreme isolation will likely inflict some degree of psychological trauma, including but not limited to: chronic insomnia, severe concentration and memory problems, anxiety and other ailments. The CDCR and the general public have a heightened awareness about this issue because of the prisoner hunger strikes that swept California in 2011 and 2013 and involved more than 30,000 prisoners. Those strikes led to Ashker v. Brown, a federal class action lawsuit asserting that prolonged solitary violates the 8th Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment) and putting someone in solitary based on gang association violates the 14th Amendment (no due process). The case reached settlement in September 2015, ending indeterminate solitary confinement terms in Security Housing Units (SHUs), but did not prevent prisoners from being kept in prolonged solitary confinement in Administrative Segregation.

FSP continues to claim that lack of money prevents them from abiding by CDCR’s stated goals, and are content to not only ignore the suffering of men in its care, but to retaliate against them for their peaceful protest.

“On the afternoon of May 27th, someone called on my husband’s behalf relaying his message that Warden Ron Rackley and Ombudsman Sara Smith had a meeting with him where they communicated that they were upset with the hunger strike and threatened to take away his visits, move him to another prison, give him a 115 and revalidate him as a Security Threat Group (STG) gang leader for his role in organizing the hunger strike. On May 28th, I arrived to visit and the Sergeant informed me that my husband is no longer at FSP and was moved to DVI Tracy.” —Raquel Estrada

Folsom prison hunger strikers have the following demands, which are published in greater detail here.

1. PROVIDE ADEQUATE ACCESS TO COURTS AND LEGAL ASSISTANCE

2. PROVIDE MEANINGFUL EDUCATION, SELF-HELP COURSES AND REHABILITATIVE PROGRAMS

3. ALLOW POSSESSION OF TELEVISIONS

4. PROVIDE EXERCISE EQUIPMENT, INCLUDING PULL-UP BARS, FOR MEANINGFUL EXERCISE IN YARD

5. END CRUELTY, NOISE AND SLEEP DEPRIVATION OF WELFARE CHECKS

6. KEEP ORIGINAL PROPER PACKAGING FOR COMMISSARY AND CANTEEN

7. GIVE NON-DISCIPLINARY STATUS TO QUALIFYING PRISONERS

8. PROVIDE ADEQUATE AND APPROPRIATE CLOTHING AND SHOES

9. PROVIDE FOOD BOWL AND CUP

###

Endorsed by Sacramento Solidarity Network, California Families Against Solitary Confinement, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community, All of Us or None, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, Democratic Socialists of America Sacramento, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Showing Up for Racial Justice Sacramento, Freedom Outreach, Underground Scholars

Serious Sleep Deprivation of CA prisoners in solitary continues- Please speak out!

Published in Prison Focus Issue 51

Sleep Deprivation Update
By The Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS) Committee to End Sleep Deprivation

Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, PhD, recognized worldwide as an expert in sleep and circadian rhythms, concluded in his 10/25/2015 report: “The current practice of 30 minute wellness [sic] checks of inmates housed in the SHU is likely a cause of severe sleep disruption. This type of sleep disruption is likely worse than anything that has been provocatively studied in a laboratory. The known consequences of chronic sleep loss, including disruptions to metabolism, memory, mood, and health, are likely even more severe in these individuals.

“The mandated purpose of these wellness checks (i.e., suicide prevention) is, in fact, likely to have the opposite effect and inadvertently increase suicidality in these individuals. …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 be considered highly unethical in a research environment.”

‘Security/welfare checks’ persist in SHU’s, Ad-seg’s, Psychiatric, and Condemned Units throughout CA prisons, waking people locked in solitary confinement every 30 minutes, night and day. The PHSS Committee To End Sleep Deprivation works to end these checks.

In May 2016, we published a survey to elicit information from prisoners about the checks. Soon we’ll have a more detailed survey for you to answer about the harmful effects. We want to document the effects in detail to get the checks stopped. [HERE’s the new survey]

Systematic abuse and neglect caused and/or contributed to six recent deaths at California Institution for Women (CIW). A campaign by surviving family members and CA Coalition for Women Prisoners demanding investigation into those deaths has led to the current Joint Legislative Audit of CIW and all CDCr suicide prevention policies & practices. We have sent materials and communicated with both the Audit Committee and the CA State Auditor, the body conducting the audit for the legislature, urging they recommend a STOP to the “security/welfare checks.”

Suicide expert and Special Master in Coleman v. Brown, Lindsay Hayes and Matthew Lopes, still claim the “security/welfare checks” are suicide prevention despite the sleep deprivation and excruciating mental and physical health problems they cause. Write to Hayes and Lopes (and send us a copy) about how the checks affect(ed) you and what you think true mental health and suicide prevention require, or send one letter to the PHSS Committee, and we will forward it to Hayes and Lopes.

We also ask people not in prison to write Hayes and Lopes and urge them to stop this harmful practice. Share any personal or professional understandings of the need for sleep and the effects of sleep disruption/deprivation.

Mr. Lindsay M. Hayes,
40 Lantern Lane, Mansfield, MA 02048

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

PHSS Committee to End Sleep Deprivation, P.O. Box 5692, Eureka, CA 95502

Thank You.

Additional Notes on 4-12-17: There are at least 2 current federal lawsuits against the “security/welfare checks” due to the sleep deprivation and other harms they cause.  Also, we have been in contact with legislators about this torture and plan to revive a campaign to get the legislators to help stop the so-called “checks.” 

If you are in contact with your legislators and want to address the sleep deprivation, we invite you to contact our Committee so we can provide you with materials and accurate information. PHSS Committee to End Sleep Deprivation, P.O. Box 5692, Eureka, CA 95502; phssreachingout@gmail.com 510.426.5322

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.

Take Action to Demand a STOP to the Sleep Deprivation

California prisoners in solitary confinement continue to be sleep-deprived due to jarringly noisy “security/welfare checks” 40-48 times a day.

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 cramped, concrete architecture also amplifies the noise. 

Demand a STOP to Sleep Deprivation Torture
in CA Solitary Units

Please make calls (#’s below) and click here to send emails opposing the “security/welfare checks” that are causing sleep deprivation in Pelican Bay SHU and CA Women’s death row. Sleep Deprivation is Torture. Stand with prisoners and their families to demand an end to this torture. We ask that you distribute this flier at your actions. We want to have a big call-in and email day on Monday, April 25th!

Email:  Click here http://tinyurl.com/ztjcos3 to tell state officials to STOP the “security/welfare checks!”

Make Calls:

• 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 Safety Committee Chair: 916-319-2059
• Governor Jerry Brown: 916-445-2841

Suggested script for calls: Your name, city, 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.”

Organizations: SEND A STATEMENT to phssreachingout@gmail.com, condemning the sleep deprivation torture. PHSS will forward to state officials. Sample statement here http://wp.me/P1BB1k-2r9

“… 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

“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

40-48 times a day, these ‘checks’ are subjecting people in small solitary cells to:

‘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).

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: