Prisoner Human Rights Movement BLUE PRINT

(FULL BLUE PRINT pdf- all docs-284pgs)

Overview
Table of Contents
Blue Print core document
Appendix

BLUE PRINT

The declaration on protection of all persons from being subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 3452 (XXX) of December 9, 1975. The Declaration contains 12 Articles, the first of which defines the term “torture” as:

“Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining his or a third person’s information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons.”

FREEDOM OUTREACH PRODUCTION
December 1, 2015

 

PRISONER HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT
#1 Blue Print Overview

California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (“CDCr”) has systemic and dysfunctional problems that run rampant state-wide (within both Cal.’s Women and Men prisons), which demand this California government to take immediate action and institute measures to effect genuine tangible changes throughout CDCr on all levels.

The entire state government was notified and made aware of this “Dysfunctional” CDCr prison system in 2004 when its own governmental CIRP blue ribbon commission (authorized by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) reported this finding and fact. (See http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/CAGOV_US/C040600D.pdf; also see Prison Legal News article, “CA Corrections System Officially Declared Dysfuntional.”)

However, this CDCr state of “dysfunction” was not new to the massive number of women, men and youth being kept warehoused in CDCr, because they face it daily. (See Cal. Prison Focus News, 1990s-Present, Prisoner Reports/Investigation and Findings; San Francisco Bay View News Articles; ROCK & PHSS Newsletters, etc.)

During the historic California Prisoners’ Hunger Strikes (2011-2013), tens of thousands of men and women prisoners in CDCr’s solitary confinement torture prisons, as well as a third of the general population prisoners, united in solidarity in a peaceful protest to expose this dysfunctional system officially reported in 2004 by the CIRP.

The Prisoner Human Right’s Movement (PHRM) Blue Print is essentially designed to deal with identifying and resolving primary contradictions by focusing on the various problems of CDCr’s dysfunction, including (but not limited to) the following areas… [read full OVERVIEW Here]

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS for Blue Print

• OVERVIEW by Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa

• Prisoner Human Rights Movement BLUE PRINT

Prisoner Human Rights Movement (“PHRM”)

PHRM Principle Negotiators, Reps, Plaintiffs, Local Councils

I. Monitoring Reports on 33 State Prisons

II. Monitoring Implementation of the Ashker v. Brown Settlement Agreement

III. Instituting the Agreement to End Hostilities

IV. Legal PHRM Political Education

V. Freedom Outreach

Conclusion

• APPENDIX

All Appendices can be found at www.prisonerhumanrightsmovement.org

#1 – (A) Five Core Demands; &
(B) Agreement to End Hostilities

#2 – Second Amended Complaint, Ashker v. Brown

#3 – Supplemental Complaint, Ashker v. Brown

#4 – Settlement Agreement, Ashker v. Brown

#5 – PHRM’s Principle Negotiators’ Statements on 2nd Anniversary of the Agreement to End Hostilities

#6 – (A) Example Monitoring Report w/ Exhibit; &
(B) Example Monitoring Record

#7 – (A) CA Assembly Public Safety Committee Legislative Hearing on CDCr SHU policy, 8/23/2011
(B) CA Joint Legislative Hearing on CA Solitary Confinement, 10/9/2013

#8 – Mediation team publications

(A) Mediation Team Memorandum on Meetings with CDCr Officials, (3/26/12)
(B) Mediation Team Memorandum on Meetings with CDCr Officials, (3/15/13)
(C) Mediation Team Memorandum on meetings with CDCr Officials, (2/20/15)

#9 – PHRM LEGAL PRISON ACTIVISM EDUCATION Packets*:

(A) LEARN TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS
(B) MEMORANDUM ON UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF CDCR’s STG/SDP (Feb. 2015)

* To receive Educational Materials (Appendix #9), please write and send, for the cost of the mailing, either eleven dollars and fifty cents ($11.50) or the equivalent in postage stamps to:

Freedom Outreach/PHRM
Fruitvale Station
PO Box 7359
Oakland, CA 94601-3023

 

PRISONER HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT

We are beacons of collective building, while clearly understanding that We, the beacons, must take a protracted internal and external retrospective analysis of our present-day prisons’ concrete conditions to forge our Prisoner Human Rights Movement (PHRM) onward into the next stage of development, thereby exposing California Department of Corruption and Repression (CDCr)/United States Prison System of Cultural Discrimination against our Prisoner Class. This is why our lives must be embedded in our determined human rights laws, based on our constructive development of the continuous liberation struggle via our scientific methods and laws. Therefore, through our Prisoner Class, the concrete conditions in each prison/U.S. prisons shall be constructed through our Prisoner Human Rights Movement.

Summary of Settlement Terms in Ashker v. Brown (Governor of California)

from Center for Constitutional Rights, outlined summary is below background info

When Ashker v. Brown (Governor of California) was filed as a class action in 2012, California held thousands of prisoners in solitary confinement, in Security Housing Units (SHU).  Hundreds of these prisoners had been isolated for decades.  They spent nearly 24-hours-per-day in cramped cells, often without windows, and were denied phone calls, all physical contact with visitors, and recreational, educational, and vocational programming.  Additionally, many of the prisoners languishing in SHUs were there not due to any rule infraction, but because of their alleged affiliation with a gang, often based on the evidence as innocuous as having supposedly gang-related artwork or tattoos.

In 2012, CCR joined the lawsuit originally filed by prisoners in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison to challenge this practice.  In September 2015, the case was settled, and far-reaching reforms were ordered.  These reforms are expected to dramatically reduce the number of prisoners currently detained in the SHU and limit the way SHU confinement is used going forward.

Ultimately, these reforms are the result not merely of litigation, but of a widespread community effort led by prisoners and their families.

 

1. The settlement transforms California’s use of solitary confinement from a status-based system to a behavior-based system.

Under California’s old regime, prisoners identified as gang affiliates were sent to SHU for an indefinite term based merely on their gang affiliation, regardless of whether they had ever violated a prison rule. The settlement transforms California’s use of solitary confinement from a status-based system to a behavior-based system: from now on, California will only send gang-validated prisoners to SHU if they are found guilty, at a hearing, of a serious “SHU-eligible” rule violation.

Treatise on Solitary Confinement Torture and Call To Action, Todd Ashker, March 30, 2015

Brilliant treatise on solitary confinement- compelling legal, moral, ethical and political arguments.

Treatise on Solitary Confinement Torture and Call To Action, 3/30/15 by Todd Ashker, CA hunger strike rep, lead plaintiff in Ashker v Brown, human rights activist, imprisoned in Pelican Bay SHU for over two decades  (Excerpts of Treatise below)

“Moving Forward:  With Our Fight To End Solitary Confinement [SHU/Ad.-Seg.]

….  I personally believe the prisoncrats’ efforts to turn the global support we have gained for our cause, against us, will fail.  An example is, CDCr Secretary Beards’s reliance on 20-40 year old prison history, much of it taken out of context, and/or, telling only one [biased] side of the story, which was transparently weak— for the purpose of dehumanizing the prisoner class- in response to our global exposure of CDCr’s decades long state-sanctioned “policy” of torturing thousands of prisoners in SHU/Ad.-Seg. cells ….

California prisoncrats’ have little-to-no credibility regarding most of their policies and practices, in what is a failed, multi-billion dollar- fraudulent system. ….

The imperialistic, fascist police state elitists abusive exploitation of the working class poor is out of control, and the only way for people to bring about meaningful change is to come together collectively!  This includes the prisoner class, which is a microcosm of the working class poor; with most prisoners being casualties of the class war. ….

…[I]ntentionality of CDCr prisoncrats continual dehumanization of the prisoner-class is supported by more than 100 years of scientific study and experimentation …  From Stanford Professor Philip Zimbardo’s book, “The Lucifer Effect- Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.” … Dehumanization occurs whenever some human beings consider other human beings to be excluded from the moral order of being a human person….  By identifying certain individuals or groups as being outside the sphere of humanity, dehumanizing agents suspend the morality that might typically govern reasoned actions toward their fellows. …Under such conditions, it becomes possible for moral, morally upright and even idealistic people to perform acts of destructive cruelty. ….

In response to those who pose the question: “Why should we care about what’s going on in prisons?” …  We, as a people, do not condone the torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of our fellow human beings—under any circumstances!  Such practices are not in keeping with our nation’s international-public stance of being a protector of human rights; nor is it in keeping with our society’s “evolving standards of decency.”  “

Read ENTIRE TREATISE  HERE

In CA Prisons, Hundreds Have Been Removed from Solitary Confinement——and Thousands Remain

January 27, 2015 by Sal Rodriguez

It has been over three years since the first statewide hunger strike in protest of the California prison systems’ use of solitary confinement. The hunger strike, the first of many to follow, was launched by individuals housed in the state’s Security Housing Units (SHUs). The hunger strikes prompted state Legislative hearings, international scrutiny, and some reforms.

The SHU, first established in 1989 at Pelican Bay State Prison, was designed to house the “worst-of-the-worst” in close, secure, isolated confinement. Keeping individuals in small, windowless cells for 22 1/2 to 24 hours a day eventually proved to be a convenient solution to deal with individuals exhibiting behavioral or mental health problems and real or suspected gang affiliation as well.

The SHU, once limited to Pelican Bay, has been expanded to a total of four male facilities and one female facility. Despite this expansion, California doesn’t have enough room in the SHUs for all the individuals prison officials would like to place in them, necessitating their placement in Administrative Segregation Units (ASUs), which are dispersed throughout each prison.

By 2011, there were thousands of individuals in the SHU, including over 1,100 in the Pelican Bay SHU alone. Of them, approximately half had been in the SHU for over a decade and 78 had been in the SHU for at least 20 years.

In June 2011, individuals in the Pelican Bay SHU coordinated a hunger strike in protest of long-term isolation. The hunger strike lasted three weeks, notably bringing together people of all racial groups. There would be an additional hunger strike that year, followed by a third, 60-day-long hunger strike in July 2013.

Partly in response to the hunger strikes, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) proposed and implemented an array of reforms purportedly aimed at tightening the standards for SHU placement and potentially reducing the number of individuals held in highly restrictive custody.

Beginning in October 2012, the CDCR has changed the criteria used to place individuals in the SHU, created a “Step Down Program” for individuals to transition out of the SHU, and began a process of case-by-case reviews of all individuals held in the SHU and ASU to determined the appropriateness of their placement.

The reviews are ongoing, but the data collected so far is quite revealing.

According to data obtained from CDCR, 725 SHU case reviews have been conducted, with about 69%  those cases leading to release to the final step in the Step Down Program and/or a General Population setting. A further 63% of ASU case reviews have led to a return to the general population.

In other words, in most cases, it appears that under slightly stricter standards, CDCR could not justify keeping individuals in highly restrictive, isolating conditions.

With these reviews being conducted for over two years now, and the overall decline of the prison population, one would expect that the number of people in restrictive housing would be on the decline.

Officially, CDCR does not believe it holds individuals in solitary confinement. Thus, a true count of the total number of individuals in such conditions is difficult to determine. The purpose of this research is to use CDCR data to provide a means of determining how many individuals might be in solitary confinement.

The CDCR releases pertinent data through COMPSTAT (COMPuter STATistics or COMParative STATistics). CDCR  keeps track of the following data: the number of individuals in single-celled housing, the number of individuals in the SHU and ASU, and the number of individuals in the SHU and ASU in single-celled housing. This data is the closest one can get to determining the number of individuals in solitary confinement.

http://solitarywatch.com/2015/01/27/in-california-hundreds-have-been-removed-from-solitary-confinement-and-thousands-remain/

Hunger Strike Rep. Todd Ashker to CDCr Administration, 9/1/14

Todd Ashker writes from Pelican Bay SHU Short Corridor:

“….I am requesting your attention and responsive dialogue-addressing these issues during the meeting with our outside mediation team- and with Arturo Castellanos, George Franco, James Williamson, and myself in the near future…
The following is from me.

We are presently at the one year point- post “suspension,” of our third peaceful protest hunger strike action against longterm-indefinite-solitary confinement [i.e. SHU/Ad-Seg confinement]… and related conditions therein and damage therefrom- to prisoners, our outside loved ones, and society in general….

.…The bottom line is, longterm-indefinite-SHU is not effective and harms all concerned. It’s ending nationwide and this will be the case in Calif. too- better to be sooner than later….”

PDF of transcribed Memo HERE.  Handwritten letter HERE

***

Memorandum

Sept. 1, 2014

To: CDCR-Administration
Secretary Beard, UnderSec. Hoshino
Director Stainer, Assoc. Dir. Diaz,
PBSP Warden Ducart

From: Todd Ashker, C58191-
One of four PBSP-SHU Prisoner Reps
(via outside mediation team)

Subject: Five Core Demands, 40 Supplemental Demands,
and CDCR’s STG-SDP

This memorandum is directed to the above CDCR Administrators for the express purpose of respectfully reminding you about unresolved, and/or continued problematic, issues relevant to our 2011-2014 Five Core and 40 Supplemental demands… and CDCR’s Security Threat Group-Step Down Program [STG-SDP]…

Submit Comments About STG/SDP Regulations by April 3, 2014

Dear Human Rights Activists,

We need your help. Can you write a quick email or fax a note? The California prison system’s Security Threat Group/Step Down Program (STG/SDP) is getting close to being implemented. These regulations govern placement into and release from the SHU (Secure Housing Units), California’s long-term solitary confinement cells. The STG/SDP policies will perpetuate California’s over use of torturous isolation.

We are soliciting your help to weigh in and speak out against these regulations. Please submit a comment and ask your friends, family, neighbors, pastor, school class, place of worship, and organizations to write also.

For a comment to have impact it must address some aspect of the proposed regulations. To help, we’ve made a FACT SHEET and LIST OF PROBLEMS with the STG/SDP regulations. (The footnote below gives a link and a partial index to the officially proposed regulations we’re commenting on 1) Take an issue or two -or more- and express your feelings, it doesn’t have to be long or fancy, but it does have to talk about the STG/SDP regulations.

 

Anyone may submit public comments (mail, fax, or email) regarding the proposed regulations. Submit comments to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation by mail at: CDCR, Regulation and Policy Management Branch, P.O. Box 942883, Sacramento, CA 94283-0001; or by fax at (916) 324-6075; or by email at m_STGRegulation@cdcr.ca.gov
If you send an email please cc: PeoplesARC@gmail.com.

The public comment period is open now; it closes April 3, 2014 at 5 PM.

In many respects the STG/SDP is worse than the current practice. The STG/ SDP program is based on the U.S. Bureau of Prisons model, subject of great criticism in 2012 by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary,  Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights & Human Rights. California uses solitary confinement far and away more than any other government entity on the planet – the most absolute numbers and the highest percentage of prisoners in solitary. On any given day California, conservatively, has 11,000 adult prisoners in some form of isolation. 2

Thank you for everything you do.

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition

footnotes below: