Working
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Working
ki to
t Extend
E t d Democracy
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t All 
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1, N
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b 9
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September
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S t b 2012
September
2012

TO ALL OUTSIDE SUPPORTERS
ON THE ABOLITION OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
From: Main Representatives, PBSP, SHU,
Short Corridor, July 8, 2012.
reetings to all of our supporters
who stand with us in solidarity for
our collective struggle to force an
end to CDCR’s indefinite Security Housing
Unit/Administrative Segregation (SHU/
Ad-Seg) policies and practices.
More than a year has passed since our
July 1, 2011, peaceful protest hunger strike
actions, calling for an end to decades of
SHU/Ad-Seg abusive confinement; and,
we’re still waiting for CDCR to meet our
five core demands, all of which CDCR’s
top administrators admitted were reasonable! Thus, at this stage of our struggle, we
believe your outside support efforts should
focus on pushing CDCR to grant one, or
two, of the most important main issues relevant to our core demands!
At this point, these are the non-negotia-

G

CONTENTS
Short Corridor Message ...........1
Message to AW ........................2
Quote Box ................................2
Tidbits ......................................3
Life After Solitary ......................4
Solitary “Ecology of Cruelty” ....5
Letters ......................................6
Living Death of Solitary ............8
Editorial ....................................9

ble demands that CDCR must grant, as follows:
1. CDCR MUST ABOLISH
“INTELLIGENCE” BASED
SHU/AD-SEG CONFINEMENT!
This is short, attention grabbing, and
goes to the heart of our first three core demands, because most of us are in SHU/AdSeg based on alleged gang-activity “intelligence”’ and, can be followed up with the
following explanatory summary.
For more than 25 years, CDCR’s policy
has been to place/retain thousands of prisoners classified as gang members/associates in SHU/Ad-Seg indefinitely, based on
so-called “intelligence” indicating alleged
gang-activity. Now it’s important to note
that CDCR’s definition of “intelligence,”
as applied to, and used for, “sanctionable
gang-activity” purposes by CDCR, is in
reference to innocent associational activity;
political type activity; and/or, unsubstantiated allegations of involvement in gang-activity, by confidential prisoner informants!
Most of these prisoners have never been
found guilty of committing a gang-related,
criminal act, while spending decades in
SHU/Ad-Seg, subject to the torturous conditions therein, with no end in sight!
Equally important to note is the fact that
CDCR’s NEW proposed gang management policy changes claim to be behavioral
based, i.e., sanctions will be imposed upon
those found guilty of “criminal gang behavior,” implying one has committed, been
charged for and found guilty of, a criminal
act!
However, the truth is that CDCR will
continue to rely on “intelligence” based

information to keep alleged “members”
in SHU/Ad-Seg indefinitely, without any
requirement for CDCR to formally charge
them with a rule violation! See, e.g., CDCR’s March 2012 Proposal at pages 7-8,
25, re “intelligence” references, and pages
19-24 re “intelligence” categories. This
equates to ZERO change from the present
“inactive gang status” policy that’s proven
to be a SHAM for 13 years!
Such a policy/practice regarding STATUS” gang-label and intelligence based indefinite SHU/Ad-Seg confinement for decades amounts to TORTURE, condemned
by the international community, and, WE
collectively condemn this practice in California!
We hereby demand an end to this illegal
practice immediately! SHU/Ad/Seg confinement should be reserved for prisoners
found guilty of committing a serious rule
violation that merits a SHU term--period!
2. A FOUR YEAR STEP DOWN
PROCESS IS TOO LONG!
Any Step Down Program should be no
longer than 18 months MAX; and, the incentives need to be meaningful, e.g. contact visits, etc., ASAP!
These are two solid points to focus on,
and leave CDCR with no wiggle room.
These are non-negotiable, mandatory reforms, while the rest of our core demands
(including our supplemental demands) are
open for negotiations after the above referenced two demands are met! ●
In Solidarity & With Respect
Todd Ashker, Arturo Castellanos,
Sitawa N. Jamaa, Antonio Guillen,
PBSP, SHU, Short Corridor, Main Reps.

MESSAGE TO ASSOCIATE WARDEN
To: SHU Assistant Warden P. T. Smith
From: Arturo Castellanos, C17275, SHU
Representative
Re-Opening D Facility SHU Visiting
Room:
Summary: D Facility SHU visiting
room needs to be re-opened so that prisoners in both C and D facilities can receive
their mandated 12 hours per week visits,
under CCR Title 15, Section 3172.2 (a),
which mandates that “each institution/facility shall provide visiting for no less than
12 hours per week …” which is a CDCR
state created right!!
PBSP-SHU Visiting History: In 198990, in order to intentionally cause mental
anguish to SHU prisoners, their families
and friends, which was meant to discourage visiting and to encourage prisoners to
debrief or go crazy, and under the guise of
giving us court mandated access to the law
library, IGI-CCI Briddle and IGI Lt. Devin
T. Hawkes (both now retired) came up with
the idea to convert D Facility SHU visiting room into the SHU Law Library, and
forced all C and D Facility SHU prisoners
and their families, etc., to visit in the C Facility visiting room -- All to reduce the time
and space available for visiting in order to
discourage families and friends from travelling long distances for less than 12 hours
per week of visits.
This arbitrary action cut our 12 hours
per week down by half, to 2 - 3 hour visits
(4 - 6 hours per week). And in 2005, when
the long and short corridors were created,
IGI-CCI Devin T. Hawkes and his IGI Lt.,
came up with the “additional” idea to further and arbitrarily reduce that 4 - 6 hours
of time and space available for visiting,
down into 3 time slots (i.e., 8:45 to 10:45
for D-5 through D-10; 10:45 to 12:45 for
D-1 through D-4; 12:45 through 2:45 for
C-1 through C-12). In addition, under the
false premise of “security,” IGI Hawkes
further required that the visiting room first
be emptied before bringing the next visiting time slot prisoners, so prisoners from
one time slot would not be able to talk to
prisoners on the other time slots. And to
date, we consider ourselves lucky to get 90
minute visits.
The Present: Now, keeping the above
in mind, and Mr. Kernan’s and this Administration’s statements, that SHU prisoners
will receive extended visits “if” there is
space and time available -- that is just not
2

possible with the three time slots, because
as demonstrated, there is absolutely no
space and time available. So, we suggest
that CDCR and this Administration now
abandon that statement that goes no-where.
The bottom line here, is that D Facility SHU visiting room was originally constructed to be solely used for D Facility
SHU prisoners to visit with their family,
friends and their attorneys. And it was never intended to be utilized as a law library.
Therefore, we would like our D Facility visiting room back so that both C and
D Facility SHU prisoners can have their
mandated 12 hours of visits per week (
i.e., Non-holidays: 6 hours Saturday and 6
hours Sunday. Holidays: 4 hours for each
of the 3 days, totaling 12 hours.)
Furthermore, under CCR Title 15, Section 3170, CDCR encourages “maintaining family and community connections.”
However, prior to the hunger strike, IGICCI Briddle, Hawkes and past administrations seemed to have been hell bent on
destroying all our outside relationships in
order to try to break us down to debrief
or go crazy!! Thus, we now hope and expect this Administration to act a lot more
responsibly and do the right thing and assist in maintaining family and community
connections, by doing everything within
its full authority to Re-open our D Facility
SHU visiting room ASAP.
Law Library, etc: Finally, as for a new
area for the Law Library, these are just several suggestions. Since there are 22 law
computers in the law library with disks with
up-to-date case law mandated by the court,
we suggest: (1) Convert the holding cells
across from the C and D Facility main control booths - where the originally intended
law library was - where SHU prisoners can
securely use the law computers; (2) Build
new cages outside (like those in Ad-Seg
and COR), where SHU prisoners can securely use the law computers; (3) Secure
one law computer in each of the 22 SHU
units dry-cells for law library use, where
unit floor and control officers can run the
unit law library. As for the legal forms, legal copy machine and recreational books,
they need to be moved to an empty room
somewhere else because, this administration needs to do whatever it takes to give
us back our visiting room time and space. ●
Thank you very much,
Arturo Castellanos, C17275
PBSP - SHU, D-1-121

Quote Box
“When the prison gates slam behind
an inmate, he does not lose his human
quality; his mind does not become
closed to ideas; his intellect does not
cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for selfrespect does not end; nor is his quest for
self-realization concluded. If anything,
the needs for identity and self-respect
are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment. Whether an O.
Henry writing his short stories in a jail
cell or a frightened young inmate writing his family, a prisoner needs a medium for self-expression. It is the role of
the First Amendment and this Court to
protect those precious personal rights by
which we satisfy such basic yearnings of
the human spirit.”
Thurgood Marshall, U.S. Supreme
Court Justice, Procunier v. Martinez,
416 US 396 - 1974
“We artists are indestructible; even
in a prison, or in a concentration camp,
I would be almighty in my own world
of art, even if I had to paint my pictures
with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of
my cell.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973),
Spanish artist
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.
Our problem is that numbers of people
all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government
and have gone to war, and millions have
been killed because of this obedience. . .
Our problem is that people are obedient
all over the world in the face of poverty
and starvation and stupidity, and war,
and cruelty. Our problem is that people
are obedient while the jails are full of
petty thieves, and all the while the grand
thieves are running the country. That’s
our problem.”
Howard Zinn,
”Failure to Quit”, p. 45
“Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails
the plunderer, and then itself marches
upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?”
Kahlil Gibran - 1883 - April 10, 1931

Rock

TIDBITS
Corcoran Prison On
Lockdown Following Riot
August 07, 2012
CORCORAN — Authorities are investigating an 80-inmate riot that broke out at
California State Prison Corcoran on Monday night.
The violence erupted at 8:21 p.m. on the
facility’s level one yard for minimum security inmates. Wielding manufactured weapons, the convicts assaulted each other until
staff members hit them with pepper spray
and blast grenades, officials said.
Five inmates were injured during the
melee, Public information officer Theresa
Cisneros said, and were taken to local hospitals for treatment. They have since been
returned to the facility.
No injuries were reported among the
staff.
Minimum security inmates have been
placed on a modified program, or lockdown, since the attack occurred. The prison’s Investigative Services Unit is still trying to determine the cause of the violence.
The last prison riot to hit Kings County
happened early January at Corcoran’s Substance Abuse Treatment Facility. Around
60 inmates were involved in that incident.
Both facilities have seen their fair share
of inmate-related violence this year. Four
inmates have been murdered at Corcoran
SATF in the last seven months and another
was killed at Corcoran State Prison in July.
Last week, another inmate at SATF made
headlines when he assaulted a nurse with
his handcuff chain and tried to strangle her
to death.
Monday’s riot remains under active investigation.
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com

Each One Teach One
A prisoner in Ad Seg because of his political education work with other prisoners writes: “I have two points towards my
validation, but I’m not worried about that.
If that’s some form of scare tactic, it’s not
going to work. I will continue to build
schools of liberation wherever I go, and
I’ve been here two weeks and already have
the whole tier reading the SF Bay View and
the PHSS and ROCK Newsletters. I also let
my neighbor read Professor Michelle Alexander’s book, and David Gilbert’s book to
another neighbor. The reality is very alive
that Each One needs to Teach One, in order
Volume 1, Number 9

for all oppressed to be free. This so far is
the best study cell I’ve created and everyone who comes to this building has wanted
to partake of the study sessions.”

New Orleans Stats
New Orleans, Louisiana ranks number
one in world prison rate. Louisiana imprisons more of its people, per head, than any
of the other 50 states. Louisiana rate is five
times higher than Iran, 13 times higher than
China and 20 times Germany. In Louisiana,
one in 86 adults is in prison. In New Orleans, one in 14 black men is behind bars.
In New Orleans, one of every seven black
men is in prison, on parole or on probation.
Source: Times-Picayune.
New Orleans ranks second in rate of
homelessness among US cities. Source:
2012 Report of National Alliance to End
Homelessness.
New Orleans ranks second in highest income inequality for cities of over 10,000
Source: Census

CDCR Will Not Meet Deadline
To Reduce Prison Population
SACRAMENTO, CA - Even after being
ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court to reduce its prison population, the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation admits it probably won’t be able to
meet the mandate of 137.5 percent of capacity by the June 2013 deadline.
There are roughly 6,000 to 8,000 more
inmates in the system that need to be
moved. Instead, the agency will ask to raise
the cap to 145 percent, defending the move
by saying it’s not the number that counts.
“We are making great progress towards
improving the quality of health care in the
prison system and that’s really what the
federal courts were interested in.” CDCR
spokesperson Jeffrey Callison said.

Widow Claims Intolerable
Working Conditions At California Department of Corrections Caused Husband’s
Suicide
“The widow of Scott Jones, who corroborated reports of illegal doings in the High
Desert State Prison, claims the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation subjected her husband to such intolerable working conditions that he killed himself, in Federal Court.”
Courthouse News, 8/22/12

BATTERY ON A
PEACE OFFICER
AT HIGH DESERT
STATE PRISON
DURING A RIOT

O

n August 21, 2012, at High Desert
State Prison (HDSP), Facility C
Yard #1, had 2 African American
inmates engage in a fist fight. The yard was
ordered down and all inmates complied,
including the 2 African American inmates
involved in the fight. Due to the location
of the fight the initial responders, approximately 12, ordered a number of inmates to
move out of the response path. Two of the
inmates being moved were Southern Hispanic inmates. They were slow to comply
with staff’s orders and move out of the way
so staff could safely advance to the incident. The 2 African American inmates involved in the fight were removed from the
yard without incident.
Prior to the yard resuming, 2 Officers
and a Sergeant went over to remove the
Southern Hispanic inmates from the yard.
One inmate was ordered to stand up to be
escorted off of the yard and he stood up
and faced one of the Officers. The Officer
ordered the Southern Hispanic inmate to
turn around and submit to a clothed body
search; the inmate refused. The inmate also
refused orders to submit to handcuffs. The
Officer then ordered the inmate to lie down
on the ground and the inmate struck the Officer in the face, with his fist. The other Officer utilized his physical strength to force
the inmate to the ground and injured his
shoulder taking the inmate down.
At the same time, 7 other Southern Hispanic inmates to the left of the officers,
jumped up and attacked staff. Then, a
group of Southern Hispanics on the right
and a group of Southern Hispanics from
behind jumped up and ran for the staff line
that had 5 staff members left. There were
42 Southern Hispanics on the yard and they
all charged the skirmish line, from 3 directions.
Due to the prior incident, secondary response was located just outside of the facility gate and they entered Facility C Yard
#1. The 8 staff members on the yard were
assaulted and utilized O.C. pepper spray,
batons, C.N. and physical force, as well as
a 40MM loaded with XM-1006 Direct ImBattery.................... Continued on page 10
3

NEW REPORT EXAMINES THE HARDSHIPS OF LIFE AFTER
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
August 10, 2012
By Jean Casella and James Ridgeway
n important new report, released
yesterday by the American Friends
Service Committee in Arizona,
is the first to focus on the effects solitary
confinement has on its survivors afterthey leave prison. Lifetime in Lockdown:
How Isolation Conditions Impact Prisoner Reentry, finds that spending time in
solitary leaves people “deeply traumatized
and essentially socially disabled.” These
“crippling symptoms” combine with “the
extensive legal and structural barriers to
successful reentry” to create “recipe for
failure.” It is hardly surprising, then, that
the report is able to “directly link conditions in Arizona’s supermax prisons with
the state’s high recidivism rate.”
Lifetimes in Lockdown raises issues that
have been largely absent from research and
discussions on prisoner reentry and recidivism. As the report points out:
Much of the discourse…has focused on
what are referred to as ‘collateral consequences’: the structural barriers erected by
institutions that bar people with criminal
convictions from voting, housing, employment, welfare assistance, and other factors
critical to ensuring success upon release.
Rarely is there discussion of the direct impact that prison conditions have on a person’s cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioral functioning and therefore, on that
person’s ability to function as a member of
society post-incarceration.
The most serious problems, of course, result from the ”deleterious mental health impacts of incarceration in super maximumsecurity—or “supermax”—environments,”
which remain with people long after they
leave solitary for the general population,
or leave prison for the free world. In addition, the report finds, “policies limiting
visitation and prohibiting maximum-security prisoners from participation in education, treatment, and employment have a
negative impact on these prisoners’ reentry
prospects.”
Yet the Arizona Department of Corrections, like most prison systems, does little
to “prepare prisoners who have been held
in supermax during their incarceration for
reentry to the community,” and on the outside, “social service agencies are largely
unaware of, and unprepared to address, the

A

4

special needs of this population.” Many
survivors of solitary “‘slip through the
cracks,’ while others self-isolate and deliberately avoid social service agencies.”
The report is based largely on research
done by Dr. Brackette F. Williams, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Arizona, under a Soros Justice Fellowship. Under the name “Project
Homecoming,” Brackette worked with the
AFSC in Arizona to study the impact of
solitary confinement on prisoner reentry.
As the report notes:
Psychologist Dr. Terry Kupers makes the
comparison between prisoners who have
just been released from solitary confinement in a supermax facility and persons
who were recently on suicide watch. The
most likely and dangerous time for violence, acting out, or another crisis to occur
is immediately after one is released. Dr.
Kupers says, “Whether a prisoner leaves
the isolation unit and gets into trouble on
the yard or ‘maxes out…’ and gets into
trouble in the community, we are seeing
a new population of prisoners who, on account of lengthy stints in isolation units,
are not well prepared to return to a social
milieu.” This is an institutional and systemic problem that is created by the conditions
of incarceration…
The participants reported that they would
often avoid the areas where the few available social service agencies, transitional
homes, and homeless shelters are located,
because these are areas where they made
poor choices previously. Likewise, available shelters offer very little in the way of
privacy, are always crowded, and difficult
to get into. For prisoners who have spent
years in isolation, such an environment
would be the last place they would want to
turn. While deciding to avoid problem locations would usually be considered wise,
the reality is complex–in these cases, it renders the individuals even more isolated and
lacking any support networks or services.
Here, the self-inflicted social isolation that
was created by the extreme isolation in
prison is most noticeably debilitating.
In describing his life on the outside, one
participant who avoided old neighborhoods
and contacts said that “life is way harder
out here for me than it is in there.” He is
not alone in this nostalgia for prison life
and for the isolation of the supermax cell.

A female participant, also homeless and
barely getting by at the time of the interview, said almost ashamedly, “The worst
thing that I can honestly say about trying
to get back into society is I miss my cage
more and more everyday. I just can’t function out here.” When asked, “Do you want
to the small cage back or the big cage?” she
replied, “The smaller the better. I can control everything in it.” They make repeated
efforts to avoid people, for example moving to the edge of the city or living alone
in a tunnel. It is strikingly reminiscent of
the social withdrawal that Craig Haney describes as endemic to persons held in isolation for long periods, except now they are
outside the supermax cell, in the great wide
open of supposed freedom, which terrifies
them.
Thoughts of suicide permeated many
of the participants’ interviews, especially
when the conversation turned toward plans
for the future. At least 10 of the male participants (50 percent) from Pima County had
considered suicide between their release
from prison and their first interview. Each
participant who reported suicidal thoughts
mentioned them in more than one of their
interviews. Strikingly, some of these men
had been out of prison less than one week
when the first interview took place. They
reported the inability to see a viable way
to remain out of prison, yet at the same
time could not imagine doing more prison
time. By their final interview, three of these
men stated that they considered suicide on
a daily basis, but had yet to act on these
considerations. A few also considered committing some crime that would land them
back in prison and allow for more time to
devise a better strategy for handling life on
the outside.
Anyone leaving prison is faced with an
unwelcoming social landscape. The simultaneous necessity and absence of housing
and work are experienced immediately.
The freedom of release is truncated by limited housing options, partially as a result of
neighborhood bans on people with felony
convictions, and a job market that has very
little inclination or incentive to hire former
prisoners. Add to this reality significantly
higher rates of mental illness; tendencies
toward social withdrawal; lack of support
networks or family to rely on due to the
added social distance of a supermax prisRock

on; and no transition services after spending years in the most extreme isolation, and
the experience of a former supermax prisoner begins to take shape. More notably
it begins to demonstrate the compounded
effects of supermax confinement and the
additional limitations once released. In the
same way, one prisoner’s perceived ease of
life in prison compared to his experiences
of life on the outside, as well as another’s
longing for a space she can control even
if it is a cage, demonstrates precisely the
extra layer of difficulties created by prolonged isolation.
A press release from AFSC calls the
report’s findings ”a wake-up call to corrections officials, state leaders, and social
service agencies, who are often completely
unaware of the prison experiences of their
clients or how to assist them in this transition. AFSC hopes that this research will
add to the growing body of evidence that
the practice of long-term solitary confinement in supermax units creates more
problems than it is purported to solve and
should be abolished.”
AFSC also notes that “the release of this
report coincides with the launch of Arizona
is Maxed Out, a joint campaign with the
ACLU of Arizona against the planned expansion of maximum-security prisons in
Arizona. The latest state budget allocated
$50 million to build 500 more maximumsecurity beds in the next two years.” ●
http://solitarywatch.com/2012/08/10/
new-report-examines-the-hardships-oflife-after-solitary-confinement

SOLITARY
CONFINEMENT:
AN “ECOLOGY OF
CRUELTY”
For the first time, on June 19, 2012, a
U.S. Senate subcommittee held a hearing
on the use of solitary confinement in prisons and the question of human rights. A
replica of a solitary cell—just 7 feet by 10
feet and bare except for a cot and a toilet—
was placed at the front of the hearing room
during the proceedings as a stark reminder
of the prison conditions that face inmates
in prolonged isolation. This is an issue of
great concern for many people and 80 people were seated in the room and another
180 people filled an overflow room. Only
three senators participated in the hearing.
These hearings came shortly before the
Volume 1, Number 9

first year anniversary of the heroic hunger
strike of the prisoners in California who
put their lives on the line to tell the world
about the inhumane torture of solitary confinement. And the horrific nature of solitary
confinement—in which prisoners are being brutalized, deprived of human contact,
and literally driven crazy—underscores
how mass incarceration in this country has
nothing to do with rehabilitation or justice,
but is about locking up a whole section of
society—especially poor Black and Latino
men—to whom this system offers no future. Prisons in the U.S. are aimed at punishment: degrading, dehumanizing, and
breaking people.
The following excerpts from one of the
testimonies at the hearing were submitted
by a volunteer in the mass incarceration
project of Revolution newspaper.
Testimony of Professor Craig Haney,
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the
Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human
Rights Hearing on Solitary Confinement,
June 19, 2012.
Craig Haney has been studying the psychological effects of solitary confinement
for well over 30 years. He was a researcher
in the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment
where, as Haney explained, “My colleagues
and I placed a carefully screened group of
psychologically healthy college students in
a prison-like environment, randomly assigning half to be guards, half prisoners.
We observed with increasing concern and
dismay as the behavior of the otherwise
psychologically healthy volunteers in our
simulated prison rapidly deteriorated into
mistreatment and emotional breakdowns.”
Haney said, “I have conducted systematic psychological assessments of approximately 1,000 isolated prisoners, most of
whom have been confined in solitary confinement units for periods of years, and
even decades, during which time they have
been kept separate from other prisoners,
and denied the opportunity to have any normal human social contact or to engage in
any meaningful social interaction.”
On what solitary confinement is, he said:
“The units all have in common the fact
that the prisoners who are housed inside
them are confined on average 23 hours
a day in typically windowless or nearly
windowless cells that commonly range in
dimension from 60 to 80 square feet. The
ones on the smaller side of this range are
roughly the size of a king-sized bed, one
that contains a bunk, a toilet and sink,
and all of the prisoner’s worldly posses-

sions. Thus, prisoners in solitary confinement sleep, eat, and defecate in their cells,
in spaces that are no more than a few feet
apart from one another.”
“Virtually all of the solitary confinement
units with which I am familiar prohibit contact visits of any kind, even legal visits. This
means that prisoners go for years—in some
cases, for decades—never touching another human being with affection. Indeed, the
only regular ‘interactions’ that prisoners
housed in these units routinely have occur
when correctional officers push food trays
through the slots on their doors two or three
times a day in order to feed them. The only
form of actual physical ‘touching’ they experience takes place when they are being
placed in mechanical restraints—leg irons,
belly chains, and the like—in a procedure
that begins even before their cell doors are
opened, and which is done every time they
are taken out of their cells by correctional
staff, on the relatively infrequent occasions
when this occurs.”
“...There are two very problematic but little publicized facts about the group of prisoners who are housed inside our nation’s
solitary confinement units. The first is that
a shockingly high percentage of them are
mentally ill.... The other very troublesome
but rarely acknowledged fact about solitary
confinement is that in many jurisdictions it
appears to be reserved disproportionately
for prisoners of color.”
“...We know that prisoners in solitary
confinement suffer from a number of psychological and psychiatric maladies, including: significantly increased negative
attitudes and affect, irritability, anger, aggression and even rage; many experience
chronic insomnia, free floating anxiety,
fear of impending emotional breakdowns,
a loss of control, and panic attacks...”
“...What might be termed an ‘ecology
of cruelty’ is created in many such places
where, at almost every turn, guards are implicitly encouraged to respond and react to
prisoners in essentially negative ways—
through punishment, opposition, force, and
repression.”
“There is some recent, systematic evidence that time spent in solitary confinement contributes to elevated rates of recidivism.”
“Solitary confinement continues to be
used on a widespread basis in the United
States despite empirical evidence suggesting that its existence has done little or nothing to reduce system-wide prison disorder
or disciplinary infractions.” ●
5

[Note: Names of letter writers will be
withheld unless the author of the letter explicitly approves printing of their name.]
Muzzling The Struggle
Thank you for the August 2012 issue of
the Rock. I was glad to hear about the positive response on the financial support—the
spirit’s alive!
Just so you know, this past June, a newsletter was stopped from coming in (Under
Lock & Key by MIM distributors), because
it printed writings of prisoners in different
prisons. On appeal it was said “it contains
writings and information gathered by on
person, who types up the newsletter and
distributes it to persons who subscribe to
it. This is considered third-party mail.”
So according to them any publication can
be third-party mail. They were specifically tripping on an article by a prisoner in
Corcoran that spoke of the retaliation for
the hunger strike and new protest ideas that
scared them—must have been pretty good.
I think the best part of our strategy in the
protest was taking it to the public, making
them aware of what’s going on over here,
and doing it in a non-violent way. When I
write I’m writing to the public, I’m trying
to explain to them what’s going on in here.
Sure others are going to read it also, but
that’s beside the point and makes no difference.
CDCR wouldn’t have to worry about
new protest ideas if they would have dealt
with the last protest in an adequate manner. Instead they shut us out completely
on developing the step down program, and
treated us as though it were beneath them
the deal with us. Now they have ended up
with a program they know is inadequate
and they’re fearful of a renewed protest.
So now they are going to violate our First
Amendment rights by trying to muffle our
outrage.
Name Withheld
Housed with Debriefers
We’ve read several of your articles, each
one more inspiring then the other… and
even though our struggle is far from over,
we remain 100%! And grateful for the support of our friends, families and loved ones
such as yourself.
It’s an understatement to describe how
6

Senat Bill X3-18 Challenged
I’m writing to answer a question in your
Rock newsletter. The question from an inmate at Pelican Bay SHU. He wanted to
know if anyone is and /or was challenging the effects of the recently passed state
legislation on the duration of sentence,
on October 26, 2009. Then Governor A.
Schwarzenegger signed into law legislation
(Senate Bill X3-18) amending Penal Code
Section 2933, and creating new section
2933.05. This new law directly affects an
inmate’s credit earning and eligibility status, mostly for SHU and Ad-Seg inmates.
Among other things, this legislation
eliminates the Bridging Education Program
(BEP). Basically, prisoners who are denied
the opportunity to earn credits due to housing SHU/Ad-Seg are awarded no credit reduction. I am and have been appealing this
senate bill since 2010. My appeal has traveled throughout the state courts of appeal.

The case number C-12-02045EJD (PR), is now in the U.S.
District Court, Northern District
of California at San Jose. It is
in this court we will have that
strongest case as the law being
challenge (SB X3-18) violates
our very constitutional rights.
1. The claims are that revoking our good time credits violates the ex post facto clause.
2. That the revocation violates
our right to due process.
[Case law citations omitted.]
So to answer that person’s question, yes.
The law is being challenged.
Michael D. Russell
[Ed’s Note: The art in the lower right of
the next page was drawn by Mr. Russell.]

LETTERS

LETTERS

sacrificing our meals was hard in both hunger strikes last year. Though this validation
policy affects us in the SHU/ASUs. It was
great seeing how many mainlines also stood
up in solidarity, recognizing the harsh dubious and arbitrary CDC policy that has and
will affect them in a matter of time. So it
leaves one to ask… why not deny the state
annual TB testing? Since CDC has already
demonstrated not caring for our mental
health (health care in its entirety) and wellbeing. CDC cherry-picks which policies
they will enforce and which inmates will
be allowed work, school and other trades of
productivity. So what happens if everyone
refuses to program/work?
Next issue is bed space. For example,
here in the SHU/ASU. IGI has been purposely housing debriefers in the same vicinity as validated inmates, in attempt for
those debriefers to gather info. However,
since these attempts are far from effective.
Instead, these debriefers “make up” info
(exaggerate) which enables IGI to keep us
in the SHU indefinitely. And causes others to be placed on single cell status (for
what IGI calls ‘safety concerns’). Thus,
CDC time and again harps how bed space
is needed. Solely to sponge more money
from tax payers. [So what next?] ... Whatever is agreed upon, we stand in solidarity
with respect!
Andy Rodriguez, CDC# D-89239,
Corcoran State Prison SHU
Postmarked July 27 2012 and transcribed by Kendra Castaneda

Guard Green and Maggot Blue?
I’m writing to share a few issues with
you:
1. There an article that appeared in the
June 2012 issue #45, Volume 8, number 3,
of the California Lifer’s Newsletter called
“The Two Faces of CCPOA” that states in
part:
“How we feel about Blacks or Mexicans on the street is how we feel about
them, but when we step through that
gate there are only two colors, guard
green and maggot blue.” (Page 50)
Name Withheld
[Ed’s Note: I was not able to find a copy
of the California Lifer’s Newsletter online
in order to verify the above information. I
trust the letter writer so am publishing this.
I’ll print a retraction in a subsequent issue
in the remote event this is wrong.]
Spread The Unity
I share your desire for a boost in circulation in the GP and with friends and family.
I will do what I can on my end to contribute to making that happen. You’re doing a
great job.
As always, I find something moving
and that gets my hopes up when I read the
Rock. The pictures of the activists using a
replica of a SHU cell to raise public awareness or the compassion that comes through
in Jessica Escobar’s distressing story as she
tells us of her friend on the inside recently
getting validated. These things let us know
that there are people out there who care.
Though our struggle is part of a larger
class struggle that takes place both inside
and outside these walls, it is mainly in here,
Rock

inside the prisons, where our battle must be
fought. So I am especially enthused when
I read prisoner articles that recognize the
need for us to change ourselves and come
together across racial and regional lines.
Our battle is in here and we can’t depend
on no one out there to fight them for us.
Our struggle, as the prisoner who wrote
“Time For Change” says, is going to take
a brave sacrifice from and for all (my emphasis). We want to close down the SHUs,
we want to put a stop to all of CDCR’s
arbitrary policies and we can accomplish
these thing. We must keep ramming that
wall until there’s enough of us to knock it
down. When we get knocked back down
on our asses we must not only look for
new ways, strategies, methods to unite all
those who must be united, we must also
recognize encumbrances and discard all
the baggage that’s weighing us down. If an
idea, custom, or norm is preventing greater
unity, then that idea is outmoded and works
to reinforce that very wall we’re trying to
knock down. Lines must be drawn sharper
than ever before between us and CDCR. So
long as it’s prisoners against prisoners and
also CDCR then we will share a great deal
of the blame for the conditions we find ourselves in.
If prisoners are really committed to this
struggle, and are determined to keep pushing forward until we’ve done away with
the outrages that have compelled us to act,
then the need to rupture with racism and all
the forms of factionalism that exist among
the prisoners population will continue to
present itself at every step of the way. The
racism and rivalries that permeate prison
politics do not, and cannot, conform to any
long-term prisoners’ struggle that has any
chance of success. On the contrary, racism
and rivalries among prisoners better correspond with and serve the interest of those
who want to keep the SHUs open.
It is very encouraging to see prisoners of
all races come together in the SHU to kick
off this struggle. This kind of unity needs to
spread out to the mainline yards.
Name Withheld
A Hostage Rumbles
Those who do not understand the SHU,
meaning those who don’t know or don’t
care, would most likely believe the CDCR’s contention that it’s about gang, race,
and crime. In fact, it is an experiment! All
human beings locked up and locked away
from everything that sustains life deal as
one against an unseen antagonist. A nefariVolume 1, Number 9

ous clandestine group of social engineers
whose job (experiment) is to keep us all
inextricably woven into a mentally intensive repressive draconian rule created to
dismantle equanimity. They get away with
it because we are out of sight, therefore out
of mind.
Charles Dickens wrote of solitary: “I
find this slow and daily tampering with the
brain to be immeasurably worse than any
torture to the body.”
As I sit here in my windowless incubation of indignation. As these plumes of pain
steer through my veins. As I daily confront
this long, arduous battle of attrition. As I
wait for this concrete to soak up my soul, I
wonder when will the people of the greatest
nation on earth realize we have the most insidious, feckless, vacuous, and destructive
prison system on the planet.
Signed: Pelican Bay SHU Hostage
Thank You Jessica Escobar
I read the article “America’s Disgrace,
The Use of Solitary Confinement Against
American Prisoners” by Jessica Escobar
[Rock, Vol. 1, No. 8, pg. 1]. I merely wanted to say that it was a well written article. I
was surprised that in the span of two years
she managed to become so knowledgeable
about this prison and the way it operates.
But then again, when one has a vested interest (a loved one or friend at PBSP) they
unfortunately inherit some of the same hard
[the PBSP SHU rubber stamp obscures this
word] the prisoners does.
A lot of us who opened PBSP-SHU back
in 1989 have seen those same issues she
wrote about repeat themselves over and
over again. The only thing that changes
are the names and faces. So I hope people
don’t forget that the types of things written
about have been going on for years. They
are not merely some recent phenomenon.
And neither is this struggle to change the
draconian policies of the CDCR regarding
SHU placement and the treatment of prisoners. The CDCR put in too much work
over the years through their propaganda
to dehumanize SHU prisoners in order to
justify their application and use of solitary
confinement, to give up so easily, this fight
is long from over and really has no end. Because the day we stop fighting to keep any
positive gains made, the CDCR will try to
take it all back.
To date the CDCR has not given us one
thing that SHU prisoners did not have at
some point of time before. The things we
prisoners have gotten (watch caps, sweat

pants, etc.) were all items we used to be allowed in the SHU years ago. We used to
be allowed many more items in our annual
packages, and we used to have much better
canteen purchase items, we used to be able
to take pictures on the SHU yards and used
to have exercise equipment on SHU yards.
All of that was pre-Corcoran SHU and prePelican Bay SHU. So all of these items are
merely the [PBSP SHU rubber stamp obscures this word, I’ll use the word “crap”]
we are getting back.
I’m not saying we prisoners should not
appreciate these items we are getting once
again. I’m just pointing out that prisoners
should not become complacent and think
that the struggle is anywhere near over. Being comfortable while in SHU is nice, but
you’re still in SHU. And even making it to
the mainline, if the CDCR manages to pass
its STG I and II scheme that it proposed a
few months back, it won’t be a possibility
that most prisoners will be placed in SHU
again—it will be a certainty that most prisoners will end up back in the SHU. SHUs
are the bread and butter of the CDCR. Any
time they (custody staff) can get paid more
for just keeping a guy in a box, they are
going to do it.
And the courts are not going to show any
sympathy to prisoners. Cases are getting
harder to litigate. As soon as the courts lifted their orders regarding law library (Gilmore v. California) and the Madrid v. Gomez
order, PBSP has gone back to some of its
same old tricks. They know the courts are
more reluctant to intervene unless people
(prisoners) are actually dying in droves because of CDCR’s treatment of its prisoners.
Letters ..................... Continued on page 9

7

THE LIVING DEATH OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
By Lisa Guenther, August 26, 2012
NY Times
here are many ways to destroy a
person, but the simplest and most
devastating might be solitary confinement. Deprived of meaningful human
contact, otherwise healthy prisoners often
come unhinged. They experience intense
anxiety, paranoia, depression, memory
loss, hallucinations and other perceptual
distortions. Psychiatrists call this cluster of
symptoms SHU syndrome, named after the
Security Housing Units of many supermax
prisons. Prisoners have more direct ways of
naming their experience. They call it “living death,” the “gray box,” or “living in a
black hole.”
In June the Judiciary Subcommittee on
the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, headed by Senator Richard J.
Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, held the first
Congressional hearing on solitary confinement. Advocates and experts in the field
were invited to submit testimony on the
psychological, ethical, social and economic
issues raised by punitive isolation. Among
the many contributors was Anthony
Graves, who spent over 18 years on death
row in Texas, most of them in solitary confinement, for a crime he did not commit.
Graves describes his isolation as a form of
“emotional torture.” Two years after his exoneration and release, he still feels trapped
in isolation: “I am living amongst millions
of people in the world today, but most of
the time I feel alone. I cry at night because
of this feeling. I just want to stop feeling
this way, but I haven’t been able to.”
We tend to assume that solitary confinement is reserved for “the worst of the
worst”: violent inmates who have proved
themselves unwilling or unable to live in
the general population. But the truth is that
an inmate can be sent to the hole for failing to return a meal tray, or for possession
of contraband (which can include anything
from weapons to spicy tortilla chips). According to the Bureau of Justice, there were
81,622 prisoners in some form of “restricted housing” (code for solitary confinement) in 2005. If anything, these numbers
have increased as isolation units continue
to be built in prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers across the country. Given
that 95 percent of all inmates are eventually
released into the public, and that many of
these will be released without any form of
transition or therapy, solitary confinement

T

8

is a problem that potentially affects every
one of us.
In my own statement for the Senate subcommittee, I made a philosophical argument against solitary confinement, drawing
on my research in phenomenology. Phenomenology is a philosophical method for
uncovering the structure of lived experience
by describing what it is like from a first person perspective. Rather than attempting to
prove a set of objective facts, phenomenology tracks the way that a meaningful experience of the world emerges for someone
in the total situation of their Being-in-theworld. It’s not that facts are unimportant,
but rather that they are not meaningful in
themselves; they become meaningful when
they are experienced by someone in relation to a wider context or horizon. What
happens when that horizon shrinks to the
space of a 6-by-9 cell?
Consider the following testimony from
prisoners interviewed by the psychiatrist
Stuart Grassian in Block 10 of Walpole
Penitentiary in 1982:
“I went to a standstill psychologically once - lapse of memory. I didn’t talk
for 15 days. I couldn’t hear clearly.
You can’t see—you’re blind —block
everything out—disoriented, awareness is very bad. Did someone say
he’s coming out of it? I think what I’m
saying is true—not sure. I think I was
drooling—a complete standstill.
“I seem to see movements - real fast
motions in front of me. Then seems
like they’re doing things behind your
back - can’t quite see them. Did someone just hit me? I dwell on it for hours.
“Melting, everything in the cell
starts moving; everything gets darker,
you feel you are losing your vision.
“I can’t concentrate, can’t read...
Your mind’s narcotized ... sometimes
can’t grasp words in my mind that I
know. Get stuck, have to think of another word. Memory is going. You feel
you are losing something you might
not get back.”
Deprived of everyday encounters with
other people, and cut off from an openended experience of the world as a place of
difference and change, many inmates lose
touch with reality. What is the prisoner in
solitary confinement at risk of losing, to the
point of not getting it back?
The prisoner in a control unit may have
adequate food and drink, and the condi-

tions of his confinement may meet or exceed court-tested thresholds for humane
treatment. But there is something about the
exclusion of other living beings from the
space that they inhabit, and the absence of
even the possibility of touching or being
touched by another, that threatens to undermine the identity of the subject. The problem with solitary confinement is not just
that it deprives the inmate of her freedom.
This harm is already inflicted by our prison
system, and depending on how you feel
about justice and punishment, depriving
people of freedom may be justifiable. But
prolonged isolation inflicts another kind of
harm, one that can never be justified. This
harm is ontological; it violates the very
structure of our relational being.
Think about it: Every time I hear a sound
and see another person look toward the
origin of that sound, I receive an implicit
confirmation that what I heard was something real, that it was not just my imagination playing tricks on me. Every time
someone walks around the table rather than
through it, I receive an unspoken, usually
unremarkable, confirmation that the table
exists, and that my own way of relating
to tables is shared by others. When I don’t
receive these implicit confirmations, I can
usually ask someone - but for the most
part, we don’t need to ask because our
experience is already interwoven with the
experience of many other living, thinking,
perceiving beings who relate to the same
world from their own unique perspective.
This multiplicity of perspectives is like an
invisible net that supports the coherence of
my own experience, even (or especially)
when others challenge my interpretation of
“the facts.” These facts are up for discussion in the first place because we inhabit a
shared world with others who agree, at the
very least, that there is something to disagree about.
When we isolate a prisoner in solitary
confinement, we deprive them of both the
support of others, which is crucial for a
coherent experience of the world, and also
the critical challenge that others pose to our
own interpretation of the world. Both of
these are essential for a meaningful experience of things, but they are especially important for those who have broken the law,
and so violated the trust of others in the
community. If we truly want our prisons to
rehabilitate and transform criminal offenders, then we must put them in a situation
Rock

where they have a chance and an obligation to explain themselves to others, to repair damaged networks of mutual support,
and to lend their own unique perspective to
creating meaning in the world.
We ask too little of prisoners when we
isolate them in units where they are neither
allowed nor obliged to create and sustain
meaningful, supportive relations with others. For the sake of justice, not only for
them but for ourselves, we must put an end
to the over-use of solitary confinement in
this country, and we must begin the difficult but mutually rewarding work of bringing the tens of thousands of currently isolated prisoners back into the world. ●
Lisa Guenther is an associate professor
of philosophy at Vanderbilt University and
the author of the forthcoming book “Social
Death and Its Afterlives: A Critical Phenomenology of Solitary Confinement.”

EDITORIAL NOTES

P

risoners have asked me to make this
newsletter available to outside people using the Web and/or e-mail. That
is now done. There are a couple of ways to
share the Rock newsletter with family and
friends on the streets: First, by directing
them to www.prisonart.org, where they can
click on the “Rock Newsletter” link. From
there they can read, download or print current and past issues for free. Secondly, they
can send an e-mail to rock@prisonart.org
and ask to be put on the newsletter’s electronic mailing list. They will then receive a
free copy of each issue by way of e-mail,
which will be sent to them a day or two before the printed versions get mailed out to
prisoners and “free world” (read minimum
custody) subscribers. Lastly, outside folks
can actually subscribe to the hardcopy version by sending a small donation (to cover
my costs) to Ed Mead, P.O. Box 4743, Seattle, WA 98146-7439.
Now for a few house cleaning items:
Please do not write to me with stories of
how you were wrongly validated. These
kinds of stories are very important but
should go to other publications and to reporters on the outside. The public needs to
have access to this information. Readers
of Rock, however, already know full well
how tainted and unfair the validation process is. We do not want to waste too much
newsletter space talking about the obvious,
about what everyone already knows. Next,
when I was doing time I liked to get mail.
Volume 1, Number 9

I’d get free subscriptions to all sorts of publications, not only to get mail but also because I was interested. Now the shoe is on
the other foot, I’m the one sending in the
subscriptions. If someone in your area is
already getting Rock and you can all share
it, please do so. Don’t be like I was and get
your own subscription just so you can get
some mail. Let’s try and keep costs down.
And speaking of costs, I still don’t need
any more stamps or money thanks to the
generous donations of readers. I’ll let you
know when that changes.
I’ve tried to keep Rock as apolitical as
possible so as to focus only on aspects of
the struggle against the SHU and the draconian policies that put people in there.
Hence you may have noticed the absence
of my usual commie rhetoric or my failure to print potentially divisive material
on subjects such as Black August. This is
not Prison Focus. But I do get letters from
prisoners asking me to comment “on what
is going on in current events as far as Syria,
the really dumb elections, and so forth….”
These are things I want to talk about, too.
But for the immediate future Rock will only
be about the SHU and related issues. Later, if enough prisoners want me babbling
about radical politics, I’ll do so. Of course
I’ll always be reporting from a class conscious perspective. I know of no other way.
Okay, until next month, take care in there
and continue to stay strong. Keep those letters, articles, and artwork coming. ●

Letters (Continue from page 7)
[Ed’s Note: When the U.S. district court
made a finding of fact that one California prisoner was dying every week due to
medical neglect, largely caused by malpractice and overcrowding, a finding that
was accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court
more than ten years later, and yet the high
court gave the state two years do address
the problem, with an open option for unlimited extensions of time—a time in which
hundreds of prisoners could die.]
So there is no one front that assures
achievement of the reform we have been
requesting. This is my person opinion. It
takes everything. Whether it’s litigation,
strikes, or whatever, when the time and opportunity calls for presents itself prisoners
do need to take that step. Community support is vital also. But if prisoners don’t care
what happens to themselves, the community will care less.

This gets me back to the article. In two
years Miss Escobar has learned and experienced personally much of the plight we
indeterminate SHU prisoners have suffered. And she is placing effort to attempt
to change what she feels are unjust practices of the CDCR. And that is why I have
to admire her dedication to help correct the
wrong that has been done to individuals she
corresponds with. She did not allow herself
to become intimidated by prison officials.
Instead, she did what we prisoners should
all do, that first step of educating ourselves.
Knowing the history of an issue helps to
understand it. How many people are even
aware that there were hunger strikes here
at PBSP-SHU ten years ago for issues regarding the validation process? Prisoners
should know what the five core demands
entail, so they can understand what they are
fighting for. Also, too many times we prisoners discover the pitfalls of the validation
process only after we have been validated.
Knowing what to avoid makes it more difficult to get caught up in the traps of the
CDCR. But at Miss Escobar’s story shows,
even knowing what to expect my not be
enough to stop prison officials from doing
what they want.
We too often forget about the family
members and friends of prisoners, and the
injustices and intimidation they suffer. That
is one more reason to appreciate Miss Escobar’s article. The prisoner perspective is
one thing, but the non-prisoner perspective adds validity to those complaints we
repeatedly lodge. It goes to show not only
are we not embellishing our truths, but also
show first-hand the emotional stress friends
and family actually suffer. So I end this by
saying, thank you Miss Escobar for that article you wrote.
Name Withheld

9

Battery.................. Continued from page 3
pact Sponge rounds. The Officer with the
40MM fired 16, XM-1006 rounds into the
advancing Southern Hispanic inmates. Responding staff forced the Southern Hispanics back an additional 2 times. In all, the
Southern Hispanics charged the staff line
3 times.
Due to the magnitude of the incident
and the reasonable belief that the incident
would result in great bodily injury or death,
the C-2 Control Booth Officer fired 2 warning shots from his state-issued Mini-14
rifle into the C Facility Gym wall. In addition to the Mini-14, there were multiple
less lethal force options used by multiple
staff members.
All injured staff and inmates were taken to the Correctional Treatment Center
(CTC) and 7 staff members and 1 inmate
were transported to Banner Lassen Medical Center where they were treated and released for minor injuries.
The case is under investigation by the
Lassen County District Attorney’s Office and the Investigative Services Unit at
HDSP. The Office of the Inspector General’s Bureau of Independent review was
notified.

High Desert State Prison, located in Lassen County, opened in 1995 and houses
3,696 minimum-, medium-, and maximum-custody inmates. The institution
provides academic classes and vocational
instruction and employs more than 1,275
people. ●
Source: http://cdcrtoday.blogspot.
com/2012/08/battery-on-peace-officer-athigh-desert.html

Notice
Articles and letters sent to the
Rock newsletter for publication are
currently being delivered and received in a timely manner. Please
do not send such materials to third
parties to be forwarded to me as it
only delays receiving them and adds
to the workload of those asked to do
the forwarding.

Ed Mead, Publisher
Rock Newsletter
P.O. Box 47439
Seattle, WA 98146

FIRST CLASS MAIL