IF YOU ARE A HELPING PROFESSIONAL (MD, DO, NP, PA, PHD PsyD, LCSW, MSW, MFT) PLEASE CONSIDER SIGNING THIS

END PROLONGED SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
https://www.change.org/p/helping-professional-organizations-end-prolonged-solitary-confinement

The following is from Mariposa McCall, MD Psychiatrist:

Dear Colleagues,

On February 8, 2018, I along with three other presenters (Dr Everett Allen, an internist who worked for several years at California Pelican Bay State Prison’s solitary confinement, a UCSF Public Health and Criminal Justice researcher Cyrus Ahalt, and Steven Czifra who was confined in solitary confinement for 8 years and is now is a U.C. Berkeley MSW intern) presented on the relevance of solitary confinement to community psychiatry to my colleagues at the California Contra Costa County Psychiatry and Psychology monthly meeting.  Solitary confinement is being held in a small cell for 22 to 24 hours a day with minimal property and minimal meaningful human contact. We reviewed the overwhelming evidence of the physical and psychological harms of solitary confinement. In addition, we discussed the ethical dilemmas for providers as they participate in this practice.

Another psychiatrist present suggested I write a petition…..
https://www.change.org/p/american-medical-association-end-prolonged-solitary-confinement

Canada declared solitary confinement unconstitutional in Jan 2018. A few months later India too acknowledged this preventable harm. When will this nation reach this decision? On any given day in USA, 100,000 are held in these extreme conditions, some unconscionably for years and decades.  50% of suicides occur in these restrictive segregation, and self injurious behaviors are rampant.  This is preventable.  We as providers will see these individuals as patients when released,  95% will be released.  As community members, we will walk, shop, eat, live with them. Do we want traumatized human beings or rehabilitated individuals? As providers, is it ethical to declare someone fit for this high risk containment? This is what is happening…we are witnesses and participants.

Some of you may feel this issue does not pertain to your field. Ethical guidelines of “first do no harm” and human rights concern us all.

I am hoping you will join me in signing this petition I wrote to end prolonged solitary confinement (greater than 15 days) in U.S.  jails, prisons, and detention centers.

If you are a medical provider of any specialty, a psychologist, a SW, a NP or a PA please consider signing and forwarding to other of our colleagues.

Sincerely,
Mariposa McCall, MD
Psychiatrist

The petition is directed to the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychology Association, American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, American Association of Nurse Practitioners, American Association of Physician Assistants, and National Association of Social Workers. Here is an excerpt:

…. Lastly, we pledge that solitary confinement is in direct violation of our code of ethics as healers, knowing the risks of such placement. Rule 43 of the Mandela Rules of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners prohibits both indefinite solitary confinement and prolonged solitary confinement (defined as lasting more than 15 days).

Important Alert: Fight the return of the new prison censorship rules

We called for your help in June,  and we’re calling for it again.  Last month, California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitations (CDCR) issued revisions to its proposed “obscene materials,” i.e. censorship regulations published earlier this year.This was in response to hundreds of public comments submitted to CDCR by CURB members and members of the public. CDCR promised to go back to the drawing board, saying the public had misunderstood its intent.This shows our collective people power! Yet, the revisions recently made by the Department are superficial and fail to address the serious concerns so many of us raised in our public comments. If the proposed regulations are approved, CDCR will be able to permanently ban any publications it considers contraband, including political publications and correspondence that should be protected by First Amendment constitutional rights.

The proposed regulations are designed to:

1. Censor writings that educate the public about what is actually occurring inside the prisons,
2. Stifle the intellectual, personal and political education and development of those incarcerated,
3. Stifle efforts by prisoners to nonviolently organize, and
4. Expand the CDCR’s ability to arbitrarily cut off its wards from direly needed contact and support coming from outside, thus further isolating them.

Please weigh in and speak out against these regulations. The public comment period is open until 5pm on November 10. Resources to help craft a letter are provided at the action page.

Spread the word on Facebook and ask your friends, family, neighbors, pastor, school class, place of worship, and organizations to write also. Then take action on Monday by joining fellow CURB organizations Flying Over Walls and The Transgender, Gender Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP) and PHSS make mass phone calls to CDC voicing our criticisms!

Thank you for everything you do and for your initial round of public comments in June.

Fact Sheet – CDCR Censorship Regulations – Nov 2014 PDF

Excellent Article: CDCr’s Attempt to Silence Prisoners, Ban Critical “Oppositional” Publications

Censored and ‘Obscene’ in Solitary

by Sarah Shourd
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/21/censored-and-obscene-in-solitary.html

After a huge hunger strike to protest the state prison system’s inhuman conditions, California is threatening to ban any written material deemed “oppositional to authority and society.”