A Psychologist’s Deceptions about Prison Abuse in California

“Brutal killers should not be glorified. This hunger strike is dangerous, disruptive and needs to end.”

That’s how Jeffrey Beard, head of California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), concluded his disturbingly deceptive August 6th op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. He was condemning a hunger strike that had begun a month earlier, when 30,000 inmates refused meals in solidarity with striking prisoners subjected to long-term and indefinite solitary confinement at Pelican Bay and the state’s three other “supermax” prisons. Now nearly two months in, over 100 inmates reportedly still remain on strike. But rather than negotiating with these prisoners, Secretary Beard’s office has instead sought and obtained a court order authorizing medically unethical force-feeding.

What is it that the striking prisoners want? They have five core demands: (1) compliance with recommendations from the 2006 report of the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, including an end to long-term solitary confinement; (2) modification of the criteria used to determine gang status (which include tattoos and certain artwork or literature) and abolishment of the “debriefing” policy whereby release from isolation often requires informing on other prisoners; (3) an end to group punishment and administrative abuse; (4) the provision of adequate and nutritious food; and (5) the expansion of constructive programming and privileges (such as a weekly phone call and a yearly photo) for inmates held indefinitely in “Security Housing Units” (SHUs). Currently over 10,000 prisoners are held in isolation in California SHUs, with more than 500 of them having been in solitary confinement for over a decade.

When Secretary Beard was appointed to lead the CDCR last December, this could have been viewed as an encouraging sign. As Gov. Jerry Brown said then, “Jeff Beard has arrived at the right time to take the next steps in returning California’s parole and correctional institutions to their former luster.” Previously, he had also received high praise from the governor of Pennsylvania when he held a similar position in that state: “Jeffrey Beard is setting a positive example not just in Pennsylvania, but nationally. …His exemplary leadership has ensured the improved management of Pennsylvania's state prison system, and a safe place for inmates to rehabilitate.”

Even more, there was seemingly reason for optimism in the fact that Secretary Beard is a psychologist, having received his doctoral degree in counseling psychology over thirty years ago. That training should matter because among the core principles of psychologists’ professional code of ethics are all of the following: “respect the dignity and worth of all people,” “strive to benefit those with whom they work,” “take care to do no harm,” “safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact professionally and other affected persons,” and “guard against personal, financial, social, organizational or political factors that might lead to misuse of their influence.”

But eight months later, Dr. Beard’s background as a psychologist only adds to the outrageousness of his recent op-ed in which he repeatedly misrepresented the seriousness and legitimacy of the striking prisoners’ concerns, including here: 

Some prisoners claim this strike is about living conditions in the Security Housing Units, commonly called SHUs, which house some of the most dangerous inmates in California. Don't be fooled. Many of those participating in the hunger strike are under extreme pressure to do so from violent prison gangs, which called the strike in an attempt to restore their ability to terrorize fellow prisoners, prison staff and communities throughout California.

Dr. Beard’s office has offered neither evidence nor access for independent verification of these claims, and its misguided public relations campaign runs counter to compelling evidence of widespread abuse in the prison system. Last year Amnesty International issued a scathing report – titled “USA: The Edge of Endurance” – about California’s SHUs, based on a visit to Pelican Bay and other prisons in the state. The report concluded that conditions there “breach international standards on humane treatment” and amount to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” In describing prisoners who are confined to their cells for at least 22 and a half hours a day and have no access to work, group activities, or programs focused on rehabilitation, the report stated: 

Most prisoners are confined alone in cells which have no windows to the outside or direct access to natural light. SHU prisoners are isolated both within prison and from meaningful contact with the outside world: contact with correctional staff is kept to a minimum, and consultations with medical, mental health and other staff routinely take place behind barriers; all visits, including family and legal visits, are also non-contact, with prisoners separated from their visitors behind a glass screen.

In addition to the critical assessments from human rights organizations and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Dr. Beard is certainly familiar with the research of fellow psychologists and psychiatrists documenting the extreme adverse effects of extended involuntary solitary confinement (sometimes referred to as the “SHU syndrome”), which can persist long after isolation has ended. Among the negative psychological effects identified by California psychologist Craig Haney, psychiatrist Terry Kupers, and other scholars in comprehensive reviews are lethargy, depression, hopelessness, and suicidal thoughts and behavior; anxiety, panic, and insomnia; irritability, hypersensitivity, aggression, and rage; and cognitive dysfunction,paranoia, and hallucinations. Haney has also noted that ten days in solitary confinement is enough to produce harmful health outcomes. Many of the prisoners at Pelican Bay have been held in isolation for years.

Exactly why Dr. Beard has decided to ignore, discount, or distort these unconscionable realities is ultimately beside the point. But the public should not be confused by his misleading rhetoric. The key demands of the hunger strikers are little different from prison reforms that have been strongly recommended by mental health experts and human rights advocates alike. 

In an essay published shortly after the CDCR Secretary’s op-ed appeared, Berkeley law professor Jonathan Simon argued that Dr. Beard’s public dishonesty and demonization of the hunger strikers demonstrate that he is the wrong leader to bring urgent reform to the “grotesque structure of inhumanity” that defines California’s prison system today. Simon called for “a protest movement and direct action campaign to force real change starting with Secretary Beard’s resignation.” Given their ethical commitment to the promotion of human welfare, psychologists should be among those at the forefront of these efforts.

Note: This essay first appeared on Counterpunch. The "Solitary Confinement" drawing is by Stan Moody.

L.A. Now Live: Latest on California prison hunger strike

Convicted killer Todd Ashker and three other inmates — representing the Mexican Mafia, Nuestra Familia and the Black Guerrilla Family — called for a mass hunger strike July 8, largely to protest indefinite incarceration in solitary confinement.

More than 30,000 prisoners answered.

Join us at 9 a.m. when we talk with Times reporter Paige St. John about the strike.

Though segregated from others, the leaders, who dub themselves the Short Corridor Collective, have kept the protest going, with more than 600 inmates still refusing food.

In the 1980s, the Department of Corrections started building high-security prisons with isolation blocks called "security housing units" — known by inmates as the SHU, pronounced "shoe.'' California now has four SHU prisons, holding more than 4,500 men whom the state calls "the worst of the worst."

The toughest facility was built at Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border.

The Pelican Bay SHU is divided into pods of eight cells stacked four-wide and two-high, facing a blank wall. There are no bars. Each steel door is perforated to let in air and light.
Once a day, that door slides open. The prisoner can enter an empty concrete "dog run" for 90 minutes to exercise.

Kept indoors for years, men in the SHU take on a ghostly pallor, as if dusted with flour. They get less canteen food than do other inmates, less clothing, and are allowed limited belongings, fewer visits and no phone calls. Every privilege, from mail to medical care, is rationed.

For those accused of gang involvement, the SHU is an indefinite sentence. More than 400 have been inside Pelican Bay's SHU for more than a decade; 78 have been held there for more than two decades.

They have common complaints of anger, anxiety, depression, insomnia, inability to concentrate and loss of a sense of time, according to report by a psychiatrist retained by civil rights lawyers challenging the use of long-term solitary confinement.

The top prison gang leaders of California are held together in one wing of Pelican Bay, called the Short Corridor, on the theory that it is easier to control them in one place, corrections officials said.

As a result, the leaders of the strike have shared adjacent cells.

When Prisoners Protest

THERE aren't many protests in prison. In a world where authorities exercise absolute power and demand abject obedience, prisoners are almost always going to be on the losing side, and they know it.

The typical inmate doesn't want trouble. He has little to gain and too much to lose: his job, his visits, his recreation time, his phone privileges, his right to buy tuna, ramen and stale bread at inflated prices in the commissary. The ways even a bystander to the most peaceful protest can be punished are limited only by the imagination of the authorities. Besides, logistics are difficult: men from cell block X can’t just stroll down to see the inmates in cell block Y. Strategizing must be done furtively, usually through intermediaries, any one of whom might snitch.

And yet, sometimes things get so bad that prisoners feel compelled to protest, with work stoppages, riots or hunger strikes. On July 8, some 30,000 inmates in the custody of the California Department of Corrections went on a hunger strike to demand improvements in prison conditions. Their biggest complaint was the runaway use of solitary confinement, the fact that thousands of prisoners are consigned to this cruelty indefinitely, some for decades.

I know something about solitary confinement, because I’ve been there. I spent a total of 12 years in various solitary confinement cells. And I can tell you that isolating a human being for years in a barren cell the size of a small bathroom is the cruelest thing you can do to a person.

Deprived of all human contact, you lose your feeling of connectedness to the world. You lose your ability to make small talk, even with the guard who shoves your meal through the slot in the door. You live entirely in your head, for there is nothing else. You talk to yourself, answer yourself. You become paranoid, depressed, sleepless. To ward off madness, you must give your mind something to do. In 1970, I counted the 358 rivets that held my steel cell together, over and over. Every time the walls seemed to be closing in on me, I counted them again, to give my mind something to fasten on to.

There are men like Thomas Silverstein, in the federal prison system, who has been in solitary 30 years, and Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who have been in Louisiana cells for some 40 years each. These men become examples of abuse of power and sometimes a rallying point for their fellow prisoners, who know they could one day face the same fate.

The prison protests in California are on an unprecedented scale; amazingly, they involved, at their peak, about two-thirds of the state’s penal facilities. At the beginning of this week, more than 2,500 inmates were still refusing food.

If prison authorities do not understand why thousands of inmates not directly affected by solitary confinement would join the protests, at great risk to themselves, they have only themselves to blame. They are victims of their own censorship.

If they were to listen to the inmates, they would understand that protests are almost always the product of what prisoners perceive to be officials’ abuse of arbitrary power. They are generally done by men made desperate by the lack of options to address their grievances. At the heart of the problem is a lack of open communications and freedom of expression.

As a practical matter this is easy to resolve: institute mechanisms for authorities to meet regularly with inmates to discuss their problems without fear of reprisal. But this goes against entrenched attitudes, and too many officials see it as a surrender of their authority.

Too bad, because making responsible inmates partners in managing prison problems has worked extremely well in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where the warden and sub-wardens have, for decades, regularly met with inmate leaders to discuss problems. It has gone from being one of the bloodiest to one of the safest maximum security prisons in America.

And if prison officials actually listened to inmates, they would find that their demands are often reasonable. It goes without saying that some inmates must be isolated for security reasons. And the California protesters acknowledge as much. They don’t demand a total end to the use of solitary confinement, but only reasonable limits to who is locked up and for how long, as well as some simple improvements like more educational and rehabilitative programming for those in solitary.

Why should you be concerned about the inhumane conditions of prolonged solitary confinement, with all the social, emotional and mental deterioration that it entails? Well, every year men from California’s Pelican Bay and other supermax prisons around the nation are released directly from the vacuum of their cells into free society, to live and work among you and your loved ones. As a matter of self-preservation, maybe we should all join the prisoners’ request for rehabilitative opportunities that will improve the mental health of those in solitary.

Wilbert Rideau, who served nearly 44 years for manslaughter, mostly at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, is a journalist and the author of the memoir “In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance.”

via New York Times

Hunger Strike by California Inmates, Already Large, Is Expected to Be Long

LOS ANGELES — Nearly 29,000 inmates in California state prisons refused meals for the third day Wednesday during a protest of prison conditions and rules. 

The protest extended to two-thirds of the 33 prisons across the state and all 4 private out-of-state facilities where California sends inmates, corrections officials said.

Thousands of prisoners also refused to attend their work assignments for a third day, and state officials were bracing for a long-term strike. 

Once the state tallies the official number of participants, the hunger strike could become the largest in state history. A similar hunger strike over several weeks in 2011 had about 6,000 participants at its official peak, corrections officials said, and a strike that fall had about 4,200. 

The protest is centered on the state’s aggressive solitary confinement practices, but it appeared to have attracted support from many prisoners with their own demands for changes in prison conditions. 

Jules Lobel, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and the lead lawyer in a federal lawsuit over solitary confinement, said he expected the strike to go on for much longer than previous ones because inmates would refuse to accept anything less than a legally binding agreement for immediate changes. 

“Last time, they took promises of reforms, but they are not going to do that again, because two years later the reforms have not materialized in any real way,” Mr. Lobel said. 

“This could become a very serious situation over time, because it seems we have a substantial group of people who are prepared to see it to the end if they don’t get real change,” he said. 

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation does not officially recognize a strike until inmates have refused nine consecutive meals; officials said the number of prisoners who had gone that far would not be tallied until Thursday. 

California is facing the threat of being charged with contempt of court after a Supreme Court order in May 2011 to reduce its prison population by 10,000 inmates this year. The court said crowding and terrible conditions inside the prison system constituted inhumane treatment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. On Wednesday, the state filed for a stay of the court’s order to release prisoners. 

Gov. Jerry Brown has repeatedly said that the state has gone as far as it can to release low-level offenders and reduce crowding at the prisons, and that it is providing adequate medical care for inmates. But last month, a federal judge criticized the system for allowing potentially lethal valley fever to spread through two jails in Central Valley and ordered the state to move 2,600 inmates at risk of catching the disease. 

A small group of inmates in solitary confinement at the maximum-security Pelican Bay State Prison, in a remote area near the Oregon border, called for the protest months ago. They have complained that inmates are being held in isolation indefinitely for having ties to prison gangs. Some have been held for decades without phone calls, access to rehabilitation programs or time outdoors. 

Ten inmates at High Desert State Prison in Northern California began their own hunger strike last week and were being monitored by medical staff for signs of distress, officials said. Their demands, made in a letter, include cleaner prison facilities, better food and more access to the prison library. Prisoners at several other facilities also issued demand letters, which were displayed on a Web site supporting the strikers. 

The organizers timed the protest to coincide with the start of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, which began this week; state officials said that would make it more complicated to determine how many prisoners were fasting out of religious obligation rather than in protest. 

Prison officials said the protests had not caused any major disruptions. 

“These actions have been talked about for months,” said Jeffrey Callison, a spokesman for the corrections department. “We have been preparing to make sure that the rules are enforced consistently.” 

After the protests two years ago, corrections officials promised to use new criteria in placing inmates in solitary confinement and to create a process by which inmates could get out of isolation. Corrections officials say that of 382 inmates who have been screened, roughly half have qualified to return to the general population. But about 10,000 inmates remain in solitary confinement units. 

Carol Strickman, a lawyer with Legal Services for Prisoners With Children who negotiated on behalf of inmates during the last hunger strike, said allies of the inmates had no way of verifying how many were taking part this time. During the last strike, officials prohibited participants from communicating with family and friends. 

“Officials have this bunker mentality, but now it’s like a house of cards is falling down,” Ms. Strickman said. “There have been so many problems for decades, and now they are being forced to deal with them all at once.” 

via NYTIMES.com

Hunger strikes give inmates huge platform for protests

SACRAMENTO -- For inmates in solitary confinement in California prisons, there are very few ways to send a message to the outside world. Phone calls are not allowed, and letters are read by prison officials before they’re dropped in the mail. Internet access is banned.

So inmate leaders say they're launching a new hunger strike to protest conditions at lockups around the state.

The last time they organized such an effort was two years ago. The hunger strike eventually spread to thousands of inmates at one-third of the state’s prisons.

A core group of 400 prisoners continued the protest for about three weeks, some losing about 30 pounds.

The hunger strike led to some small changes, like allowing inmates to buy wall calendars and sweat pants. Prison officials also agreed to change their policies on solitary confinement, such as requiring proof of gang-related behavior rather than mere association with prison gang members.

However, indefinite confinement remains a possibility, and only 400 currently isolated inmates have had their cases reviewed under the new criteria.

The security housing units at Pelican Bay and three other prisons isolate about 4,500 inmates who officials say have gang ties, or committed further crimes within prison.

The latest statewide protest, which began Monday, could dwarf the 2011 protest. So far 30,000 inmates at two-thirds of the state’s prisons and four out-of-state facilities have begun refusing meals. Prison officials say they do not officially recognize the hunger strike until inmates have missed nine consecutive meals.

In addition to the core demands for an end to indefinite solitary confinement, some inmates are seeking warmer clothes and better cleaning supplies for their cells. Others have broader goals, including changes to sentencing laws to end mandatory minimums and indefinite solitary confinement.

By Chris Megerian

July 9, 2013, 12:36 p.m.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-hunger-strikes-give-inmates-huge-platform-for-protests-20130709,0,4234243.story

Support the Strike!

Unless the Governor and the Department of Corrections take decisive action, prisoners throughout California will resume a hunger strike and work stoppage ONE WEEK FROM TODAY to protest the torturous conditions in solitary confinement--and other parts of the prison system.  

Stand in Solidarity with the Hunger Strike and other Job Actions Being Called for July 8th!

Communities across the state, country, and world plan on taking action to help the strikers win their demands.

Sign up for updates at prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com.

Wherever you are, please take some form of action on July 8th.  Big or small, every voice counts!

Click here for more: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/take-action-2/add-your-event/

And, please support the statewide mobilization to Corcoran State Prison on July, 13!  Details below.

Mobilization to Support the Prisoner Hunger Strikes

Corcoran State Prison

Saturday July 13, 2013

Rides available by bus and carpool. Contact rachel-at-criticalresistance.org or 510-444-0484

Caravans will leave from MacArthur BART in Oakland at 9:00 AM and Chuco’s Justice Center in Inglewood at 9:00AM. We will gather at Cesar Chavez Park in Corcoran (1500 Oregon) at 2PM and then march to Corcoran State Prison  where our demands will be heard!

In 2011, over 12,000 California state prisoners engaged in a hunger strike to end long term solitary confinement and to demand changes to the way that prisoners are assigned to torturous cells, known as the SHU (security housing units). Although the Department of Corrections acknowledged that their demands were reasonable and would be addressed - very little has changed for California prisoners since 2011. California is still spending millions of dollars a year to keep people in solitary confinement for decades!

Statewide Hunger Strikes Resume

On July 8, 2013 California Prisoners will begin an indefinite hunger strike and work strike until meaningful changes are made within the Department of Corrections.

On July 13, 2013 we will rally at Corcoran State Prison to show our support for the prisoners and pressure Jerry Brown to meet their demands! Like Pelican Bay, Corcoran isolates nearly 2,000 people in solitary confinement.

________________________________________

How You Can Support

We need your support now more than ever! Please consider making a donation to our coalition so that we can continue to fight for the human rights of people in extreme isolation in California prisons.  Funds collected will be used for the July 13th mobilization in addition to other coalition expenses such as monthly mailings to prisoners, legal visits to Pelican Bay and Corcoran and other printing expenses.

Donations can be made online at www.prisons.org; be sure to click the “Special Instructions” link and write “PHSS” to direct your donation to us.  Or you can write a check to California Prison Focus/PHSS and mail it to PHSS 1904 Franklin Street #507, Oakland, CA 94612.  We could also use donations of such as food and water for the July 13 mobilization, as well as vans or buses for the caravan to Corcoran.  Please contact Rachel Herzing, rachel-at-criticalresistance.org or call 510-444-0484 if you would like to offer assistance in these areas.

Sleep deprivation intensifies torture conditions for prisoners in advance of hunger strikes and work actions

by Isaac Ontiveros, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity

Oakland— Less than a month before statewide hunger strikes are set to resume, the California Department of Corrections has instituted a new policy at Pelican Bay State Prison which has resulted in chronic sleep deprivation for prisoners in solitary confinement.

Both guards and prisoners complained to lawyers conducting legal visits last week about a new policy requiring prison guards to conduct “welfare checks” every 30 minutes on prisoners isolated in the prison’s Security Housing Units (SHU). Normally, prisoners in the SHU are counted every three to four hours by guards who patrol each unit, ensuring prisoners are in their cells. Each prisoner must be observed physically moving or showing skin. The frequency and method of these counts have already been challenged in a federal lawsuit, Ashker v. Brown. Experts claim the sleep deprivation caused by the counts violates prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights.
“Sleep deprivation has many significant psychological consequences, including irritability and impairment of the ability to make rational decisions,” says Dr. Terry Kupers, a clinical psychiatrist and an expert on forensic mental health. “Because of the harm it causes, sleep deprivation has been described as torture by organizations such as Amnesty International.”

The new policy has been ordered by Jeffrey Beard, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) newly appointed secretary whose Senate confirmation hearing is scheduled for June 19, 2013. The directive applies to over 1,100 prisoners who are in solitary confinement in Pelican Bay.

“Tensions were very high at Pelican Bay last week,” says Anne Weills, an attorney who is representing SHU prisoners at Pelican Bay. “The guards are on edge and upset about this new policy. Obviously the prisoners are on edge and suffering because of the sleep deprivation. But they remain resilient and deeply committed to peaceful actions to make necessary changes.”

In January, prisoners at Pelican Bay announced in an open letter to Gov. Brown that they would resume hunger strikes and include work actions to protest the conditions of their confinement. In 2011 over 12,000 prisoners in over a third of California’s 33 prisons participated in two waves of hunger strikes. The 2011 strike was called off when the CDCR promised new policies and other improvements that addressed five demands outlined by prisoners. Almost two years later, prisoners and advocates claim the CDCR’s promises have been empty, and prison conditions have worsened.

Less than a month before statewide hunger strikes are set to resume, the California Department of Corrections has instituted a new policy at Pelican Bay State Prison which has resulted in chronic sleep deprivation for prisoners in solitary confinement.

“This is torture,” says Azadeh Zohrabi of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition. “This intensified sleep deprivation adds to the long list of human rights violations endured by thousands of prisoners held in solitary for prolonged and indefinite terms, some for decades.”

Lawyers and advocates have also received demands from prisoners who plan to go on strike in San Quentin, High Desert and Corcoran State Prisons. Prisoners have been clear that the strike could be called off if Gov. Brown engaged in good faith negotiations. Brown’s office has not responded to their request.

Isaac Ontiveros of Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization working to abolish the prison industrial complex, is a spokesperson for the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition. He can be reached at (510) 444-0484 or isaac@criticalresistance.org.

via SFBayview.com