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April
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April
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PRISON DOCTOR BLAMED FOR
EXCESSIVE STERILIZATIONS
Excessive sterilizations, unhealthy methods alleged
Dr. James Heinrich continued to work despite allegations.
Corey G. Johnson, Center for Investigative
Reporting, 2-15-2014
prison doctor investigated by the
California medical board after ordering tubal ligations without state
approval is responsible for hundreds of other sterilizations of female inmates, the Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
Dr. James Heinrich also has a history of
medical controversies and expensive malpractice settlements both inside and outside
prison walls. Female patients have accused
him of unsanitary habits, medical malpractice and trying to dictate their reproductive
decisions.
Despite that history, Heinrich was not
only hired by the prison system, but also
kept on once a federal judge appointed a
receiver to clean up the prison’s medical
system.

A

CONTENTS
Excessive Sterilizations ...........1
Anti-Deportation HS .................2
American Exceptionalism.........4
Inequality Gets Worse..............5
Quote Box ................................6
Letters ......................................7
Editorial Comments .................9
Misc. .......................................10

Heinrich, 69, retired from Valley State
Prison for Women in 2011 after working
for six years. Federal authorities rehired
Heinrich as a contract physician, and he
continued treating inmates at Valley State
though December 2012.
An earlier Center for Investigative Reporting story, published in July, found that
more than 100 tubal ligation surgeries took
place in the California prison system without the required state approval from 2006
to 2010. The women were signed up for the
surgery while pregnant at the two prisons
that housed pregnant inmates, the California Institution for Women in Corona (Riverside County) and Valley State Prison for
Women in Chowchilla (Madera County).
Newly obtained state prison data indicate that 74 of those surgery referrals were
made at Valley State. More than two-thirds
of
o those referrals came from Heinrich or a
nurse
on his staff, according to the prison’s
n
medical
service request records.
m
Saves
on welfare
S
Heinrich previously said the money
spent
sterilizing inmates was minimal
s
“compared
to what you save in welfare
“
paying
for these unwanted children, as they
p
procreated
more.”
p
In addition to tubal ligations, Heinrich
arranged
other types of sterilizations 378
a
times
from 2006 to 2012. These included
t
hysterectomies,
removal of ovaries and
h
a procedure called endometrial ablation,
which
w
destroys the uterus’ lining to stop
excessive
e
menstrual bleeding.

Although these sterilizations are not
banned in California prisons, the quantity
attributed to Heinrich ultimately caused
federal administrators to take note, said Dr.
Ricki Barnett of the federal receivership.
Dr. James Heinrich does a prenatal exam
on an inmate in footage for a documentary
at Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla (Madera County).
The state Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation hired Heinrich in December
2005 to head obstetrics and gynecology at
Valley State. A few months later, U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson appointed a
receiver to take over inmate health care, after ruling that the state’s medical treatment
of prisoners was so poor that it violated
the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual
punishment.
Overall, the number of sterilization surgeries sharply increased after Heinrich
joined the prison system and the federal
court began oversight.
From 2006 to 2008, Valley State averaged 150 sterilization surgeries of all types
annually - six times that of the Central
California Women’s Facility, the largest
women’s prison in the state.
Barred from prisons
Heinrich declined to be interviewed for
this story. His attorney, Ronald Bass of
Walnut Creek, said he couldn’t comment
on Heinrich’s role in the increased number
of sterilizations because he hadn’t seen the
data reviewed by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

But Bass insisted that Heinrich had followed proper medical procedures and
standards. He said the likely reason for the
spike in sterilizations was that Heinrich
“saw more patients in an effort by the state
to provide better care.”
After the center’s initial story was published in July, the federal receivership
barred Heinrich from future prison work,
according to spokeswoman Joyce Hayhoe.
Female patients have accused Dr. James
Heinrich, shown in 2007 at Valley State
Prison, not just of trying to dictate their reproductive decisions, but also of unsanitary
practices and botched surgeries that injured
them and their infants.
Patient’s regrets
Several former inmates said Heinrich
pushed hysterectomies and other sterilizing
surgeries during routine visits, often giving
misleading information about the medical
reasons.
Tamika Thomas, 36, of Stockton saw
Heinrich in 2006, during a stint at Valley
State for assault with a deadly weapon.
Thomas said she wanted birth control to
better regulate her menstrual cycle.
Heinrich instead recommended surgery
that would stop the bleeding by heating
the inside of her uterus. Thomas, paroled
in 2007, said Heinrich never told her the
surgery would sterilize her. Thomas agreed
to the procedure and regrets it, she said.
Bass dismissed Thomas’ contention, saying she would have learned about the sterilizing effects of the procedure from at least
one of the medical providers or from consent forms.
By late 2007, federal officials discovered
problems with Heinrich’s care.
A team of federal examiners visited Valley State to investigate the death of two
inmates’ babies during childbirth. They
found one newborn died, in part, because
Heinrich, staff and another prison doctor
each gave the mother the wrong prenatal
medicine.
The other death resulted from Heinrich
failing to perform a routine prenatal test for
bacteria, according to court documents.
Heinrich maintained in his written summary of the case and via his attorney that
the test was overlooked because the inmate
had numerous unscheduled medical visits
with emergencies that required immediate
attention.
Depositions of Heinrich and staff, taken
by lawyers for the child’s mother, established that the inmate wasn’t in critical
2

condition during every visit.
State settled
In 2010, the attorney general’s office and
the state prison system filed documents acknowledging that Heinrich had been negligent. The state paid the woman $150,000 to
settle her claims, documents show.
Prison officials also investigated Heinrich in 2008 after then-inmate Michelle
Diaz accused him of unprofessional and
unsanitary behavior during a Pap smear.
Diaz, 36, told Heinrich she had irritation
outside her vagina, but she said Heinrich
inserted his fingers inside her. Diaz noticed
Heinrich wasn’t wearing a glove and exploded in anger. Then without warning, she
said, Heinrich applied a burning chemical
to her vaginal area.
Diaz filed a complaint against Heinrich
on March 28, 2008. One of Heinrich’s
nurses confirmed that he hadn’t warned
Diaz before treating her, according to notes
of the interview that became public in a
federal lawsuit.
The nurse also said it was Heinrich’s
practice to use a glove on one hand but
not the other when doing Pap smears. Using one glove is not considered a standard
practice.
Prison officials concluded that Heinrich
violated policy and that he should have
warned Diaz about the chemical procedure,
a May 2008 memo filed in court shows.
Negligence cases
Other controversies dogged Heinrich in
the years before he joined the state prison.
From the mid-1990s to 2004, Heinrich
paid $342,000 in legal settlements related
to claims of negligence and incompetence
during surgeries and deliveries at NorthBay
Medical Center in Fairfield.

Lawsuits are common among ob-gyns
because of the sensitive nature of their
work, and Bass, Heinrich’s attorney, said
the settlements don’t represent the quality
of the doctor’s care.
Bass said Heinrich performed about
8,000 procedures over his career, “99.875
percent” of which didn’t lead to lawsuits.
State officials declined to comment on
whether they knew of Heinrich’s past medical settlements before he was hired, citing
personnel privacy laws. ●

WHAT’S BEHIND
THE HUNGER
STRIKE AT
NORTHWEST
DETENTION
CENTER
The hunger strike at
Northwest Detention Center
reveals a human-rights crisis
By Dan Berger and Angélica Cházaro,
Seattle Times
ore than 700 people detained at
the Northwest Detention Center
in Tacoma began a hunger strike
on March 7 in protest of their conditions.
Those still reported to be on hunger strike
are on medical watch and have been threatened with force-feeding if they continue to
refuse food. According to their attorneys,
participants have experienced other reprisals for the strike, including solitary confinement and threats to their asylum efforts.
In a public statement, the hunger strikers
demanded an end to deportations and the

M

Art by Robert Garcia

Rock!

separation of families. They also demanded better food, medical care and wages for
work inside the facility (they currently receive just $1 a day for their labor), and an
end to exorbitant commissary prices. Detainees pay $8.95 for a bottle of shampoo
and $1 for a single plastic plate.
These problems are not limited to federal
detention centers. Along with people being
held in local jails and state and federal prisons, the detainees have launched what may
be the most urgent human-rights movement
in our country today. Just this week, a New
York inmate died on Rikers Island when his
jail cell overheated.
The U.S. prison system is the largest in
the world. With 5 percent of the world’s
population, we have 25 percent of the
world’s prison population. Sentences are
longer and conditions harsher than at many
prisons throughout the world.
The use of long-term solitary confinement — where some 80,000 Americans
now spend 23 or 24 hours a day without
human contact and are often denied adequate nutrition, reading material or visits
with loved ones — has sparked a growing
series of lawsuits, legislative hearings and
demonstrations.
In California, prisoners have staged a
series of hunger strikes since 2011. At its
height in the summer of 2013, 30,000 people in prisons around the state refused food.
Similar to the Tacoma detainees’ demands, the California prisoners call for an
end to group punishment and for prison officials to follow United Nations protocols
on the use of solitary confinement as well
as adequate food. Similar smaller hunger
strikes have occurred in prisons in Ohio,
North Carolina, Illinois and Virginia since
2011.
Deportations have expanded dramatically in recent years. According to the Pew
Research Center, the number of deportations has increased from approximately
165,000 people a year in 2002 to almost
400,000 people annually for the last five
years.
Soon, the Obama administration will
have deported 2 million people, who are
processed through a network of detention
centers. By congressional order, these detention centers must hold 34,000 people
on any given day. Many of those facilities
are privately run. The Northwest Detention
Center, one of the biggest in the country,
is managed by The Geo Group, a company
that describes itself as the “world’s leading
provider” of private prisons and detention
Volume 3, Number 4

centers.
Such investment in detention and deportation has sparked a series of efforts among
undocumented workers and youth around
the country. The hunger strike in Tacoma
follows a two-week hunger strike that
activists, many of them undocumented,
staged outside a Phoenix detention center
starting Feb. 24. This week, citing Tacoma
as inspiration, migrants in the Conroe,
Texas, detention center launched a hunger
strike.
Nonviolent civil-disobedience actions
have prevented deportations in 16 cities
around the country, including at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma days before the hunger strike began.
Such activism has prompted a series of
legislative hearings, judicial rulings and
conversations about long-term isolation,
mass incarceration and the force-feeding of
detainees. Still, there is much work to be
done. While the United States may like to
be a world leader in human rights, its routine practices of confinement violate both
international standards and human decency.
We do not often look to prisons and detention centers to understand the social and
political needs of our generation. But we
should. Some of the most passionate advocates for fairness, justice and human rights
are incarcerated. ●
Dan Berger, a historian of activism,
teaches ethnic studies at the University of
Washington Bothell. Angélica Cházaro, an
immigrant-rights attorney, teaches at the
University of Washington School of Law.

AMERICAN
EXCEPTIONALISM
CRIME-ANDPUNISHMENT
EDITION
By Andrew Cohen
n February 23rd the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committeeheld its
second hearing in eight months
on the topic of solitary confinement. Two
simple facts about it tell you what you
need to know about how far the issue has
come in the past few years. First, the title
of the proceedings is “Reassessing Solitary
Confinement II: The Human Rights, Fiscal
and Public Safety Consequences.” Second,
public interest in the hearing was so great
that the venue for it had to be changed to a

O

bigger room.
The hearing in Washington comes one
week after New York state agreed under
pressure from civil rights litigators to revamp policies and practices employing
solitary confinement against juveniles. It
comes one week after The New York Times
published a remarkable op-ed piece from
one of Tuesday’s witnesses, Colorado Department of Corrections chief Rick Raemisch, who spent 20 hours in solitary in
late January to try to better understand its
terrible toll upon the inmates under his control.
Durbin and company (the Bureau of
Prisons will be represented by its director,
Charles Samuels, whose federal prisons are
among the cruelest) will gather one week
after the Smithsonian Magazine published
a piece titled “The Science of Solitary Confinement.” It is indisputable, the scientists
now say, that putting people into prolonged
isolation jeopardizes their ability to ever
assimilate back into society once they are
released.” We also learn from this piece,
sadly, that “no U.S. prison is willing to allow its otherwise isolated prisoners to take
part in research.”
And the Senate will consider solitary
confinement one month after the largest
prison guard union in Texas called for the
curtailment of the use of solitary on the
state’s death row. Let me say that again:
Prison guards in Texas, the world’s nation’s
epicenter of capital punishment, have come
to believe that isolating prisoners in this
fashion is self-defeating. As the title of the
Congressional hearing suggests, there is today, indeed, a great deal of “reassessment”
of solitary confinement not just in moral
terms but in practical, political, economic
and legal ones as well.
Something clearly is happening here and
it’s not just based upon some slight uptick
in public acknowledgment of the immorality of confining fellow human beings to such
cruelty no matter what their crimes. There
is movement here because there is growing
evidence that the inhumane treatment of
prisoners is neither safe nor efficient. There
is movement here because there is now a
strong economic case for prison reform.
There is movement, in other words, even
though there still is an overwhelming lack
of empathy toward the punished.
But to understand precisely what is happening, and where this new reformist sentiment might lead, it’s important to understand how deep is the American penchant
for punishment—and especially for cruel
3

punishment. It is important to appreciate
how conservative an industry the corrections industry is, how much institutional
and emotional inertia exists blocking reform to it, and how much lobbying power
and money exists to keep people in prison.
And it is important to know how stacked
the law is against the inmates themselves.
Although you likely won’t hear much
about it Tuesday at the Senate hearing, the
truth is that the abuse of solitary confinement is only one of many intractable problems that exist within our prisons. Lucky
for us, at this potential hinge of history,
with hearts and minds seemingly open for
the first time in a generation to new ideas
about crime and punishment, comes a book
that offers crucial context and perspective
about the history and meaning of punishment in America. It is the right book at the
right time.
Inferno, An Anatomy of American Punishment by Robert A. Ferguson, a professor
law and letters at Columbia University, will
be published next week by Harvard University Press, and if I had won the $400 million Powerball lottery last week I swear I
would have ordered a copy for every member of Congress, every judge in America,
every prosecutor, and every state prison official and lawmaker who controls the life
of even one of the millions of inmates who
exist today, many in inhumane and deplorable conditions, in our nation’s prisons.
The book is potentially transformative
not just because it offers policy makers
some solutions to the litany of problems
they face as they seek ways to reform our
broken penal systems. It is transcendent because it posits that America needs a fundamentally revised understanding of the concept of punishment itself if it is to save its
soul in these prisons. Why, Ferguson asks
earnestly, “does the average American citizen show little concern about prison systems that are harsher in practice than those
in any but totalitarian countries?” Why,
indeed?
This book forces prison officials and
lawmakers to look inward and see within
themselves the dark, unremitting reasons
why things have gotten as bad as they have
inside our prisons and jails. It says squarely
to these political and legal and community
leaders (and by extension to their constituents): in seeking to bring retributive justice
to bear, in seeking to diminish the prisoner,
you have also diminished yourself in ways
you are unable or unwilling to admit. Even
today, with the whiff of reform in the air,
4

this is a brave and honest message.
So is this one: “Prisoners in this country have been put away, silenced, beaten,
sadistically tormented, and most of all forgotten--frequently enough for their entire
lives. They have been relegated to conditions and circumstances and physical degradation that shame us as well as them and
that no one wants to recognize even though
the failure in recognition defines a part of
us. No human being deserves that much
punishment.” This is all true, Ferguson
writes, of self-defeating prisons that “now
create more criminals than they reform.”
Here then is Ferguson, early in the book,
addressing the idea of the “slippery slope
of retributive thinking” with a passage that
ought to be chilling (and familiar) to anyone who follows criminal justice. America
doesn’t just punish its criminals. It demonizes them. It turns them from men into
monsters so that it then may feel justified in
treating them so. We see it on our airwaves.
We read it online. We hear it from elected
officials, and from the police, and it’s all
sanctified by our courts of law. This passage struck me square:
The transitions from “because your
act and your mental state at the time
were blameworthy, you deserve punishment” to “you have a vicious character” to “you have a hardened, abandoned and malignant heart” to “you
are evil and rotten to the core” to “you
are scum” to “you deserve whatever
cruel indignity I choose to inflict on
you” is, of course, not a logical transition. No single step logically follows
from its predecessor. I fear, however,
that the transition is psychologically
a rather common and in some ways
compelling one, one that ultimately
may tempt us to endorse cruelty and
inhumanity” (emphasis in original).
As a matter of law and politics, Ferguson
asserts, the concept of retribution clearly
has won in America. But what a terrible
price to pay for such victory. With a few
notable recent exceptions-- including New
York’s brave new foray into education as a
defense against recidivism-- we are a nation that seeks to punish, not rehabilitate,
our prisoners. In this respect we have gone
back in time, back to a dark age in our penological past, back to where in the 21st
Century we justify locking away a mentally
ill teenager in solitary for 17 years.
So where do we go from here?
Professor Ferguson isn’t just a law professor but a literary scholar and his use of

literary references in Inferno, reminiscent
of The Atlantic’s own Garrett Epps in his
work, is profoundly helpful. The arc of the
moral universe may be long, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, and it may bend toward
justice, but many great works of Western
literature have focused instead upon the
most heartbreaking components of crime
and punishment. These works also help us
understand how America came to be where
it is today in the treatment of its prisoners.
Aristotle, Bentham, Calvin, Foucault,
Hobbes, Kant, Locke, Mill, Nietzsche, and
Rawls all make cameo appearances in Inferno and Ferguson’s use of them reminds
us of how old these problems are and for
how many centuries so many brilliant men
and women have argued over them. But in
the end all of the high literature, and all of
the new-found insight about the scope of
the problem, still leaves us all wanting to
know how we can begin to fix it. Ferguson
nudges us in a direction even as he suggests
a stiff wind in our faces as we set off.
The essence of Ferguson’s proposal,
what he wants to see done differently, is
that “the life of the recipient of punishment
must continue to be worth living.” Here is
what that means to him: “It stipulates the
avoidance of unnecessary pain and degradation in the name of human understanding. It tells everyone that what is held in
prison is a person ... The addition asks for
a more basic level of recognition: that of
a human bond between the inherently destructive and hostile one-sided vigilance of
guards guarding the guarded.”
And here is what Ferguson believes such
a concept would mean for inmates. First,
he writes, it would represent “the need to
retain some idea of self, and from it some
small but defined area of self-control; second, the desire for productivity in some
form; and third, the prospect of continuing
growth. The most abominable phrase in the
popular language of punishment,” Ferguson writes, “is ‘Let ‘em rot!’... The idea behind the phrase takes away the very nature
of existence as intelligence has allowed
anyone to define it and want it.”
So there “must be an incentive system
with rewards that encourage productive
behavior” in prisons, Ferguson proposes,
there must be reforms to the parole process,
and there must be a deal more education
and training for correctional officers. And
of course there must be a shift away from
retributive justice toward rehabilitation and
restoration. Each of these suggestions is
perfectly reasonable. Each would be a step
Rock!

toward redeeming America’s prisons. And
were each made even five years ago the response in Washington would be the sound
of crickets.
But that was then and this is now. At
Tuesday’s hearing don’t just listen to the
words the witnesses speak from their prepared remarks. Don’t just listen to the
speeches the Democrats make. Listen to
what the Republican senators-- those that
attend the hearing, anyway-- ask of the witnesses. Listen to what the GOP otherwise
says about the need to reform solitary confinement. Sentencing reform today has bipartisan support. But such support has not
yet materialized when it comes to prison
reforms that cut to the core of the problem.
Postscript
Over the weekend, I asked Professor Ferguson to help me understand, again, what
accounts for the degree of passion so many
Americans express when they justify or
defend policies like solitary confinement
or the abuse of mentally ill prisoners—and
also why there is so much official denial
about the nature and scope of the problem
today. “We do not believe that the current
carceral system is broken,” he wrote in his
book, “because we do not want to think
about much it violates the basic principles
that supposedly define us as a culture.”
On Saturday, via email, Ferguson was
just as direct:
Cruelty is an instinctual part of us,
and we have to learn not to inflict it.
Otherwise we will. Any crowded playground will demonstrate the truth of
this proposition. In a corollary, punishment is pleasure or at least a satisfaction in a punisher. It follows that
all punishment regimes tend toward
greater severity unless there are very
strong institutional safeguards against
it.
I have covered these “institutional safeguards”—our nation’s courts—for the past
17 years and it is manifestly true that our
judges have consistently failed to stop even
the worst excesses of punishment in our
prisons. The worst aspect of this failure
isn’t just that it is happening—that officials
who abuse and neglect inmates aren’t immediately stopped or punished. But rather
that it is happening because judges hide
like cowards behind procedural, technical
barriers to justice. As a matter of law, of
law handed down by judges and legislators,
it is virtually impossible to get a prisoners’
rights case before a jury.
This cynical approach to a rule of law is
Volume 3, Number 4

nothing Senator Durbin can remedy with
a hearing. Restoring spine to America’s
“institutional safeguards” ultimately has
to come from the United States Supreme
Court, from the justices themselves, who
have for the past generation countenanced
one Eighth Amendment violation after another against prisoners in the name of federalism or some other hoary measure of
respect for legislative fiat. With one decision, the Supreme Court can send a ripple
of hope to abused and neglected inmates.
Don’t hold your breath.
Don’t hold your breath on fundamental
reform also in part because of the racial
implications of the problem. “Penal theory
and empirical evidence also demonstrate
that it is easier to relegate someone to such
a secular hell when that person appears to
be different from you,” Ferguson writes in
his book. This sad fact doesn’t just help account for racial disparities in sentencing or
in drug arrests but also in the lack of political empathy for inmates once they arrive
in jail. Anyone else remember Karla Faye
Tucker?
Ferguson also over the weekend offered
this additional perspective on the news of
the day as it relates to his book. The hearings and smart new reform laws now wending their way through Congress treat the
symptom but not the underlying disease, he
wants you to know. “Current reform efforts
to restrict solitary confinement and to reduce drug law penalties are laudable initiatives,” he told me, “but they are not going
to solve the larger problem:
In the scale of things and in the
structure of our current punishment
regimes they are drops in a very large
bucket and the bucket has a hole in the
bottom of it. That hole is the overly retributive context of legal punishment
in America.
This mirrors the pessimism in Ferguson’s book. Is there a constituency more
forlorn in America than convicted criminals? No. Is that going to change anytime
soon? Don’t bet on it. “Most of the [prison]
problems that the United States faces today are solvable,” he writes, “but they are
not solved because its citizens do not care
enough about the collectivity to act, and the
greatest negative symbol of that indifference is the forgotten inmate who is treated
worse than anyone else and certainly worse
than anyone should tolerate.”
So it is encouraging to see this indifference transformed, even for just a few
hours, on Capitol Hill. It is encouraging to

see lawmakers seeking to lead here instead
of waiting for some measure of public support that never is going to come. But these
hearings will have to transform themselves
into laws, and those laws will have to transform themselves into meaningful remedies
for inmates, for the change to come. The inferno is here. It exists everywhere. It burns
all of us. And if we are to extinguish it we
first have to admit that we caused it. ●

INEQUALITY GETS
WORSE
The richest 1% gain over $6.1
trillion in the past five years.
By Paul Buchheit
nyone reviewing the data is likely to conclude that there must be
some mistake. It doesn’t seem possible that one out of twenty American families could each have made a million dollars since Obama became President, while
millions American families’ net worth has
barely recovered. But the evidence comes
from numerous reputable sources.
Some conservatives continue to claim
that President Obama is unfriendly to business, but the facts show that the richest
Americans and the biggest businesses have
been the biggest beneficiaries of the massive wealth gain over the past five years.
From the end of 2008 to the middle of
2013 total U.S. wealth increased from $47
trillion to $72 trillion. About $16 trillion of
that is financial gain (stocks and other financial instruments).
The richest 1% own about 38 percent of
stocks, and half of non-stock financial assets. So they’ve gained at least $6.1 trillion
(38 percent of $16 trillion). That’s over $5
million for each of 1.2 million households.
The next richest 4%, based on similar
calculations, gained about $5.1 trillion.
That’s over a million dollars for each of
their 4.8 million households.
The least wealthy 90% in our country
own only 11 percent of all stocks excluding pensions (which are fast disappearing).
The frantic recent surge in the stock market
has largely bypassed these families.

A

Evidence of Our Growing Wealth
Inequality
This first fact is nearly ungraspable: In
2009 the average wealth for almost half of
American families was ZERO (their debt
exceeded their assets).
5

In 1983 the families in America’s poorer
half owned an average of about $15,000.
But from 1983 to 1989 median wealth fell
from over $70,000 to about $60,000. From
1998 to 2009, fully 80% of American families LOST wealth. They had to borrow to
stay afloat.
It seems the disparity couldn’t get much
worse, but after the recession it did. According to a Pew Research Center study,
in the first two years of recovery the mean
net worth of households in the upper 7%
of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of
households in the lower 93% dropped by
4%. And then, from 2011 to 2013, the stock
market grew by almost 50 percent, with
again the great majority of that gain going
to the richest 5%.
Today our wealth gap is worse than that
of the third world. Out of all developed
and undeveloped countries with at least a
quarter-million adults, the U.S. has the 4thhighest degree of wealth inequality in the
world, trailing only Russia, Ukraine, and
Lebanon.
Congress’ Solution: Take from the
Poor
Congress has responded by cutting unemployment benefits and food stamps,
along with other ‘sequester’ targets like
Meals on Wheels for seniors and Head
Start for preschoolers. The more the superrich make, the more they seem to believe in
the cruel fantasy that the poor are to blame
for their own struggles.
President Obama recently proclaimed
that inequality “drives everything I do in
this office.” Indeed it may, but in the wrong
direction. ●

ADX ON HUNGER
STRIKE, CONS
BEING FORCEFED
By James Ridgeway
ccording to reports this morning
from inside the U.S. Penitentiary,
Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence, CO, eight to nine
people held in the super-secret H-Unit are
on hunger strike and are being force-fed.
While run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons
(BOP), the unit has strong FBI involvement in its management.

A
6

Mahmud Abouhalima, convicted of taking part in the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing, was sentenced to 240 years in
prison. After serving some time in general
population prisons within the federal system, he landed in H-Unit at ADX, the federal government’s only supermax prison.
In November of last year, Solitary Watch
published a court document it obtained containing a statement compiled for Ayyad v.
Holder by Abouhalima. In it, Abouhalima
challenges his confinement, asserting that it
violates his constitutional right to due process. He also claims the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) is heavily involved in
managing H-Unit, with its authority overriding that of BOP administrative staff. By
law, the FBI is not authorized to run prisons
in the U.S.
The BOP’s internal audit of its own solitary operations — now under way — specifically exempts H-Unit from firsthand
visits by its investigative team.

I have lived in a prison
cell for the last ten years
that is the size of a closet. I am fed like a zoo animal through a slot in the
door....
Below are excerpts from Mahmid Abouhalima’s court declaration:
Since September 11, 2001, through today, I have been in administrative detention and faced brutal and systematic mental, spiritual, and psychological cruelty. I
never believed that such an unusual punishment would be extended up until today,
where I have lived in a prison cell for the
last ten years that is the size of a closet. I
am fed like a zoo animal through a slot in
the door, and manacled and chained at the
hands, waist, and legs when I leave the cell.
A black box with heavy lock is placed on
top of my wrist chains in addition to this
when I am escorted out of the unit, like to
the hospital or to a visit…
Sitting in a small box in a walking distance of eight feet, this little hole becomes
my world, my dining room, reading and
writing area, sleeping, walking, urinating,
and defecating. I am virtually living in a
bathroom, and this concept has never left
my mind in ten years. The toilet only works
if you flush it once every five minutes, so if
I press the flush button twice by mistake,
I have to wait for up to an hour, with the
smell of urine and defecation still there, everywhere I go, sit, stand, or sleep.’ ●

Quote Box
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the
vain search for absolute security."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Think for yourselves and let others
enjoy the privilege to do so, too"
Voltaire
"The eye sees only what the mind is
prepared to comprehend."
Henri Bergson, French Philosopher
"Just look at us. Everything is backwards. Everything is upside down. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy
justice, universities destroy knowledge,
governments destroy freedom, the major
media destroy information, and religion
destroys spirituality."
Michael Ellner
"It is no measure of health to be well
adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
Jiddu Krishnamurti
"The liberties of a people never were,
nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed
from them."
Patrick Henry
"In America, the government belongs
to the people. Inherent in our system
of self-government is the idea that the
People have the right to know what our
government and government officials
are doing and to hold them accountable
for their actions"
Citizen Access Project
"Nothing so diminishes democracy as
secrecy."
Ramsey Clark
"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and
which we trust will end in establishing
the fact, that man may be governed by
reason and truth. Our first object should
therefore be, to leave open to him all
the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the
press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by
those who fear the investigation of their
actions."
Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler

Rock!

Stamp in support of the expansion
of participatory democracy
Enclosed please find a total of two hundred and fifty-five first class stamps. The
stamps are a collective effort by all of us
here in “A” facility who support the California Prisoners’ Human Rights Movement. Were we aiming at the Shout Out
Box? Perhaps the quantum of the contribution gives away our intent. Either way,
we express our full solidarity the struggle
to bring a measure of humanity, fairness,
and reasonableness to the conditions in
which the prisoner class of this state and
nation are held in. That our struggle has so
far taken us through brambles and over jagged stone littered ground does not escape
us—but, neither does this reality that we’ve
managed to carve out some very notable inroads. Those of us that can imagine a better
existence take heart in that small but undisputable success. We remain forward looking and focused.
Take strong care. Pleasant days, health,
and expansion to the spirit to the heavens
and earth—forever revolution.
Name Withheld
Conditions at Corcoran
The physical conditions here at Corcoran
ASU/SHU have improved to a very small
degree. To have a TV in one’s cell is worth
many other discomforts. That is the only
change of major worth.
I’ve been in prison 43 years and the
physical cell conditions are basically the
same. Filthy! Here at Corcoran it’s about
20 degrees in the cells, no heat. And no hot
water! By the time a person can exhaust appeal remedies it will be summer. It’s freezing now!
For the last two months we haven’t had
any laundry exchange except old t-shirts.
Sanitary conditions are terrible. Literally,
caked dirt on the ventilation ducts, bats
and bat guano in the loft. We can’t see out
the “sky-light” tiny windows because of
the thick dirt. And we’re breathing all this
stuff!
Corcoran though is the second worst hole
I’ve ever been in. Vacaville, a so-called
medical facility is the worst. The cells are
inhuman. Take three steps, that’s the extent of the cell. Dogs have more space in
the pound. Cells are encased in Plexiglas
Volume 3, Number 4

More on the PAC
I wanted to write more on the proposal
on the “PAC” or Political Action Committee that came out in the Rock newsletter
and other publications. I spoke on this before but I wanted to be certain I was clear
so that hopefully I can add something to
this conversation. My opinion is just another voice with ideas but without hearing
different ideas we wouldn’t see things from
different points of view. Nobody knows it
all so it’s important we hear from different
voices that allow us to entertain different
possibilities.

First I want to highlight the difference
in approach to our situation. There are two
paths to our predicament. In order to combat torture we can struggle within the system or by unconventional means. In U.S.
prisoners we can use the appeal system,
lawsuits or the bourgeois political system
to help resolve our torture. This may help
in some ways to get some reforms—or it
may not. And then we can take matters into
our own hands as we did with the previous hunger strikes and collaborating with
outside activists which moved mountains
compared to a 602 or pleading with the
governor to help us. These are two different paths and one is revolutionary and the
other is bourgeois.
If we look to history no oppressed people
have ever fully liberated themselves via the
ballot box. If we were in a Third World
country we would have a better chance at

success but even then not totally.
We live in the super-parasite and
we should not fool ourselves to
believe bourgeois politics will alleviate our oppression because as
heartfelt as a bourgeois politician
is, he or she is still working for
the system. We cannot assume
that our hunger strike wasn’t
heard all the way to Washington D.C.—but they don’t care.
What’s more, the state actually
needs the oppressed nations to be locked
in these dungeons because we threaten the
state apparatus because as lumpen proletariat we are some of those who are not tethered to the state and thus exist as a potential
revolutionary population.
That said, there may be some positive aspects to a prisoners PAC forming and for
this I would support a PAC at this stage.
By me supporting a PAC does not mean I
believe it will solve our problem in itself
because we face a class struggle. As Mao
put it, U.S. imperialism will not “step
down from the stage of history of their own
accord.”1
I don’t pretend to know all there is about
a PAC, but what I do agree with is in building on our momentum rather than just sitting here until the next hunger strike arrives. I also think the possibility of having a
PAC fund to donate money to our publications like Prison Focus and other such pubs
is great because these are publications that
support us with their own time and money
and we should find ways to support them
as well.
It should not be forgotten that reliance on
the kourts for lawsuits like the Madrid or
Castillo cases took years and yet our conditions didn’t really change. With the legislature the governor can veto anything that
does come about.
We know the Republicans could care
less if we are tortured, but most would be
surprised to learn that Democrats may not
be that prisoner friendly either. Our present
governor is a Democrat and het he sat back
while prisoners starved (and died) and said
nothing to change his ‘tough on crime’ approach. We have a “Democratic” president
and yet more folks have been departed under his watch than any other Republican.
Both of these parties are a part of the U.S.
bourgeois politics which we will never

LETTERS

LETTERS

which is claustrophobic. There are no outtake vents for air circulation.
Take it from me. The only difference
in the hole today and the hole in the ‘70s
is they look prettier! Freezing cold is still
used as a punishment. Reading is still discouraged by a two book limit. That’s when
there is any book program exchange at all?
TV is the only plus that helps keep a person
sane. Whatever idiot designed these cells
should spend several days inside them.
Name Withheld

1. Mao Zedong “Carry the Revolution
Through to the End”, Selected Works, Vol.
IV, pg 301.

7

change via the ballot box.
Our power to transform our conditions
will come from our own efforts at the grass
roots level. We need to not just nurture our
pubs like Prison Focus but go further and
create independent institutions that work in
our interests. A PAC is good for now, but
we also need Barrio Action Committees
and Hood Action Committees, not to fund
bourgeois politicians but to fund our independent institutions that operate outside
of bourgeois politics. The BAC and HAC
should work to mobilize our communities
where we come from. Our independent institutions should be things like newsletters,
papers, websites, community schools that
have workshops and events that educate
our communities on mass criminalization
and the national oppression that we face.
A prisoners PAC is a start but the real
fruits in a PAC will not be in what kind of
legislation we can put on the ballot, but in
building on our momentum and providing
another mode of cooperation in the concentration kamps. We just can’t see a PAC
as the way forward, rather is should take a
back seat to people’s power—which is our
ability to exercise our own means of making change. The BACs and HACs should
be the real vanguard in our efforts, and a
prisoners’ PAC should be seen as a supplement to our other work and efforts.
If a prisoners’ PAC is created, the fund
should be managed by those who have been
there for us since the beginning, our most
fervent supporters “The Prisoners Hunger
Strike Solidarity coalition.” There is also
the Bruce Seidel Memorial Fund, which
helps political prisoners and who would allow us to temporarily use their account for
our PAC fund. Ed Mead and Mark Cook
are the founders of this memorial fund that
has given thousands of dollars to long-term
political prisoners being released to the
streets. Bruce Seidel was killed by police in
a shootout with police during a GJB bank
expropriation, which seems all the more fitting for our war chest. SHU prisoners are
political prisoners because we are held in
this concentration kamp not for nothing
other than “thought crimes.”
These are just my thoughts that I would
like to share to be kicked around and hopefully they add to our path forward.
Jose H. Villarreal #H-84098
Feedback on Cynicism
Throughout Ed’s hard work, time, and
dedication to printing out these issues
of Rock there always seems to be simple
8

minded, nearsighted, and selfish opinions
which are either stated with delusional
grandeur, mind frames, or are simply attempting to plant seeds of dissent.
Take the last issue of Rock. Someone
stated they “disagree when the publisher
states that the movement is strong and
doing well.” Do you have internet? Attend rallies? Receive newspapers near and
abroad? Unless you do, you cannot form a
well-informed opinion as to whether or not
the movement is strong. So for those who
assume such, or those who maybe considering such cynical statements as true,
here’s some facts that show the movement
is strong and well.
First is the fact that you are reading
this issue of Rock. The movement is what
sparked Ed to put on his beret and put money, time, and effort into spreading the gospel. You have prisoners’ mothers, wives,
sisters, brothers, children, and cousins taking time out of their lives and money out of
their pockets to keep the movement strong.
We’ve got lawyers and activists across the
world, not just the state, but the world. We
have food and condiments to bring some
measure of taste to our food. We have legislators putting bills to cap SHU to three
years and give those of us with release
dates (such as I) our credits back. So hell
yeah the movement is doing well!
So my suggestion to those who take up
space in the Rock with cynical put downs
and selfish thoughts is that unless you have
productive opinions, strategy, or ideas to
contribute, put a sock in it.
On to the PAC. Mr. Perez’s PAC suggestions is perfect, and something I’m going to
be setting up in Colton, California upon my
2017-18 release, along with non-profit and
for profit websites. Once a PAC is setup in
accordance with federal law, long pockets
will come, once they see hoe effective and
trustworthy our PAC is, they will contribute.2
Let’s take Del Norte County for example.
Judge Follett is scared of CDCR because
he know they can vote him off the bench.
He’s also friends with them. So we’d find

a local lawyer like George Mavris. We’d
get our PAC money to hire an investigator to find any and everything on Follett.
It will be used to purchase fliers, posters,
and commercials to vote for Mavris. We’d
have families and friends flood Crescent
City with protests against Follett, and help
pass out fliers, leaflets, posters, and such to
vote for Mavris.
So we’d knock Follett off the bench.
Other ju8dges across the state will hear
about this. They will know we are a force
to truly recon with. Then we will do the
same in Lassen, Kings, Kern, and any other
county where the same judge always hears
the writs we write and always denies them.
This will serve three purposes. One is to remove corrupt judges from the bench. Two
is to send a message to other judges that
we can and will vote them off the bench.
Finally, it will pave the path for real Due
Process instead of Screw Process. The PAC
is one of the many political tools present
and necessary to carry our struggle for humanity forward.
On another note, I filed a lawsuit on the
hunger strike in the Northern District. The
judge denied Lewis and Kernan’s motion
to dismiss, and found we have a right to
hunger strike. See Treglia v. Nenan (Aug
15, 2013, ND Cal. 2013) U.S. Dist. Lexis
115842.
Finally, I want to give a big gracias/thank
you to all of the families, friends, and supporters here and abroad for keeping our
struggle for humanity alive, long, and well.
Daniel “Loonie The Lawyer” Treglia
Rule Changes?
I’m sure by now folks have read the rules
changes in regards to STG/SDP policy and
know that we didn’t get anything we asked
for. If anything, we are all getting screwed
worse than we were before. And yet people
are tripping over each other to get to it! Are
we done?! Are we just going to accept this
latest fucking for a few extra items sold
By R. G. Hall

2. Ed’s Note: A primary rule for prisoner
activists is that of self-reliance in all things.
“Deep pockets” may or may not come
along, and either way that’s okay because
it is prisoners and their families and friends
who would fund any such PAC. When you
rely on anyone outside the prison community you become dependent on them. That’s
what happened to the prisoners’ union
in the 1970s. They got grant money, paid
themselves, got a fancy office, etc. When
the grant money was gone, so where they.

Rock!

on canteen and no real progress towards
getting us all out of the SHU?!
The way their policy reads, those that
they want in the SHU will always be there
for “gang-related”, gambling, or some
other bullshit charge. This is a joke and we
should not stand for it! Maybe someone
else has already expressed a similar
thought and that’s why I haven’t gotten a
recent newsletter. Who knows? Enclosed
are a few more stamps. Hopefully it helps.
Name Withheld
On AB 1652, Plus Two Good Gang
Validation Rulings
I would like to get the word out there
about assembly bill No. 1652 that was introduced by assembly member Tom Ammiano on February 11, 2014. People can write
to the Legislative Bill Room, State Capitol
Room B-22, Sacramento, CA 95814 or go
to www.leginfo.com to bet a copy of said
bill. This bill, if passed and implemented,
would limit the time an inmate would spend
in the SHU for validation to a determinate
term of not more than 36 months, as well as
to restore a validated inmate’s right to earn
good time credits. We must all help to get
the word out to our families and friends on
the outside in an effort to have them to push
to get this bill passed into law. We cannot
rely on the next man to put forth the effort,
otherwise we will let this bill fail because
we hoped the next guy would do the work
for us. We many never get a chance like this
again. Also, last year two favorable validation cases were published that many do not
know about. In re Cabrera, 216 Cal. App.
4th 1522 (Cal. App. 5th Dist. 2013); In re
Fernandez, 212 Cal. App. 4th 1199 (2013).
Also enclosed are eleven stamps. I usually
don’t have many stamps to spare, but I saw
that stamp donations are way down and it
would be a tragedy to have the Rock discontinued since it has so much good information. Everyone can spare a little.
Name Withheld
Gang Label and STG
Regarding the experimental policy Security Threat Group (STG), gang identification policy is not what CDC is making it
out to be. It’s a sugar coated from of racial discrimination/racial profiling to cover
their ass in torturing human beings in California’s isolation units. We will not fall into
despair until long-term solitary confinement is abolished and those that are still
suffering are free from SHU and the torture
has ended. At that point the thousands of
victims of this inhuman practice can beVolume 3, Number 4

gin the healing process. CDC’s long term
solitary confinement experiment has failed,
and in the process has caused major suffering and a waste of tax payer dollars. We
cannot sit back and allow the same thing
to happen again under the phony guise of
STG.
A total of three times I’ve had 1030s filed
on me. Meaning confidential informants
have alleged that I’ve been involved in
gang activity. I’m labeled with the “gang”
tag for no reason other than the word of
this so-called confidential informant. No
due process whatsoever in challenging this
label through the 602 or appeal process.
Some guy chooses to say this or that just to
be removed from a yard or housing facility and IGI automatically assumes it’s true.
The result is we are wrongly being labeled.
He’s Mexican, he’s a gang member. Oh,
he’s popular amongst his peers, he’s a gang
member. He shaves his head bald, he’s a
gang member. No matter what you say to
defend yourself, you are guilty in the eyes
of CDC.
Since arriving here at Calipatria State
Prison about six months ago I’ve experienced two lockdowns. One on December
7, 2013 and resumed normal program on
February 8, 2014. The second is now February 27, 2014 and is still going. My point
is STG regulation. If anyone labeled or
identified as STG I or STG II regardless if
involved or not in the individually isolated
incident, you will be placed on lockdown
until the institution hierarchy feels you are
not a threat. It seems that this institution is
having a vendetta day of retaliation and animosity towards any and all of us of Mexicans decent. This experimental STG regulation is a free-for-all for CDC. We cannot
sit back and allow this to go on; we should
stand up for reform. When I look ahead at
how I want to be treated in years to come,
I don’t see how it can be accommodated
with STG still in place.
As a class we will continue to value the
End of Hostilities Agreement. We are with
you all in this struggle for the long haul. ●
Johnny Aguilar

SHOUT OUT BOX

The men of PBSP's "A"
Facility have kicked down a
whopping 255 stamps. See
their comments in the letters
section.

Rock on!

ED'S COMMENTS

T

he Rock newsletter is receiving
more and more letters from SHU
prisoners seeking a free subscription. As you know, there is no such thing
as a “free lunch” as someone does pay. The
Prison Focus newspaper goes in to SHU
prisoners for "free." In that case the volunteers and contributors of California Prison
Focus pay.
Rock is a little different. It is aimed at
prisoner activists or those with enough on
the ball to hustle up a few stamps. Some
prisoner who don’t have stamps collect
them from others in the pod to make a
group donation. Those in GP can sell subsctiptions to other prisoners.
For a long time I’ve given a “free” subscription to anyone who asked. Those days
are now over.
It costs about a buck to send each of
the 600 copies of Rock out to readers. I
had to personally pay $200 for the printing and $150 in stamps to publish and mail
the March issue. The February newsletter
reached you because co-editor Mark Cook
paid hundreds of dollars to get it out. Our
only source of income is Social Security.
In the March issue I made a plea for
stamps. As of this writing we’ve received
about 350 stamps and two $15 subscriptions ($30). With these donations we will
still have to buy another 250 stamps (about
$125) and pay $195 for printing. This is not
as bad as the previous two issues, but still
not good.
Next issue (May) we will cut from the
mailing list all of those who have received
the newsletter for over two years yet have
never contributed so much as a single
stamp. Consider this is your final notification of this change. If at that point the
situation does not improve, in the following issue (June) we will chop those who’ve
received the newsletter for over two years
but have contributed five stamps or less.
For two full years, up until the start of
this 2014, California prisoners (and a couple of outside contributors) have completely paid for the cost of the newsletter. Mark
and I merely contributed the labor. That
level of commitment needs to continue or
Rock will not.
We now have about 25 Texas readers, 50
in Oregon, and close to a hundred in Washington (with a few more scattered in other
states and the federal system). It is time for
these other states and systems to also start
pulling their fair share of the load. ●
9

Prisoner
Artists!
Prison
ArtArt
is ais
nonprofit
Prison
a nonwebsite.
It chargesthat
a 10
profit website
percent
feeaiften
yourperart
charges
or
craftservice
sells. Send
SASE
cent
fee
if
for a free brochure. No
your art or craft
SASE, no brochure. This
sells.
Send
a SASE
offer
void
where
profor free
hibited
bybrochure.
prison rules.

Sell Your Art
On the Web
Sell prisonercreated art or
crafts (except
writings). Send
only copies, no
originals!
Prison Art Project
P.O. Box 47439
Seattle, WA 98146
www.prisonart.org
sales@prisonart.org
206-271-5003

“…jailhouse lawyers often unwittingly serve the interests of the state
by propagating the illusion of ‘justice’
and ‘equity’ in a system devoted to
neither.” They create “illusions of legal options as pathways to both individual and collective liberation.”
Mumia Abu-Jamal,
JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: Prisoners
Defending Prisoners v. The U.S.A.

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 Rock as it
only delays receiving them and adds
to the workload of those asked to do
the forwarding.
Letters sent to Rock (located in
Seattle) in care of Prison Focus (located in Oakland) can take over a
month to reach us. Send mail to this
newsletter's return address.

Free Electronic Copy
Outside folks can also have a
free electronic copy of the newsletter sent to them each month by way
of e-mail. Have them send requests
for a digital copy of the newsletter to
ed@rocknewsletter.com.
Back issues can be read once the
Prison Art website is up and running
again.

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

FIRST CLASS MAIL