A BREAKDOWN OF THE HUNGER STRIKE AND ISOLATION BY A MAN WHO HAS ENDURED IT
After the 2011 prisoner hunger strike, the CDCR appeased the inmates with policy changes that were supposed to gradually reduce the number of inmates locked up in Security Housing Units (SHUs). Why, then, has the number of inmates in solitary confinement jumped 15% in the last year?
Shane Bauer is an investigative journalist who was arrested while he was hiking along the Iraq-Iran border and imprisoned in Iran for twenty-six months, four of which he spent in solitary confinement.
In an op-ed for the LA Times, Shane takes an in-depth look at some of the policy issues that have incited the current hunger strike. Here are some clips:
About a year after the 2011 hunger strike, the corrections department began instituting reforms. The most noticeable change was that the minimum amount of time an inmate had to serve in the SHU was reduced from six years to four. They also began reviewing the cases of inmates currently in the SHU. More than 200 of the nearly 400 inmates whose cases were reviewed were approved for transfer to the general population.
[SNIP]The reviews are an important step. But there is more to the story. When department officials cite the numbers of people being approved for release, they neglect to mention an important fact: SHU confinement has actually risen since the reforms were enacted.
According to official numbers I obtained from the corrections department, the population of the state’s SHUs has risen 15% over the last year, to a current total of 4,527 across the state.
It’s difficult to know the reason for the increase — the corrections department has not yet provided me with numbers that would answer that question. But one possibility might be that the new policy contains wording that vastly expands the number of people who can qualify for indefinite SHU terms.
A year ago, only seven gangs made the list of groups whose members and associates qualified for indefinite SHU terms. Now, some 1,500 gangs are on that list, although affiliation with one of the original seven listed is more likely to land an inmate in indefinite SHU detention than affiliation with a gang considered less dangerous.
Bauer also points out that while the CDCR has adopted “behavior-based” grounds for solitary confinement, they’ve created a work-around by greatly widening the scope of actions that are considered “serious” rule violations and a ticket to the SHU.
Prison officials say that, since the last hunger strike, they have moved toward a “behavior-based” approach to SHU incarceration. While previously association with a gang was enough to earn an indefinite SHU term, now an associate must commit one or two (depending on the ranking of the gang) serious rule violations to land there.
But a close look at the new policy reveals that the department has changed the definition of “serious” rule violations. In the past, these violations would have been the kinds of things you’d expect: selling drugs, attacking another inmate, attempting to escape. Under the new policy, a serious rule violation can be the possession of self-made drawings, the wrong books or anything that “depicts affiliation” with a security threat group — in other words, the kind of stuff that has always been used to lock people in the SHU.
Shane wrote an exceptional story on solitary confinement at Pelican Bay that was published in the November/December 2012 issue of Mother Jones. (Go read it, if you haven’t. It’s lengthy, but incredibly well-researched and relates directly to the reasons the inmates are striking.)
LA Times’ Paige St. John has weekend updates on the striker numbers here.
STATE JUVENILE JUSTICE PROGRAMS IN DANGER OF LOSING EVEN MORE MONEY
State juvenile justice programs that have already suffered big blows in recent years are facing further funding cuts—$266 million down to $196 million—from the House appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding the DOJ. The fear is that, if the budget cuts make it through the legislative process, states will stop complying with federal rules regarding juvenile justice.
The Crime Report’s Ted Gest has the story. Here’s a clip:
The subcommittee wants to zero out a major crime prevention funding program, as well as one called the Juvenile Accountability Block Grants, which support state efforts to establish “graduated sanctions” for juvenile delinquents.
Those grants were advocated by congressional Republicans in the 1990s. The spending committee is currently headed by a Republican, Frank Wolf of Virginia.
As recently as fiscal year 2010, the same juvenile justice programs that could dip below $200 million got a total of almost $425 million from Congress.
To receive aid from Washington, states must adhere to federal guidelines under the historic 1974 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The law includes several “core protections.” These include rules that there must be “sight and sound” separation of accused juvenile and adult offenders in jail, that states address the over-representation of minority youths in the juvenile justice system, and that youths not be jailed for “status offenses”–violations that wouldn’t be crimes if they were adults, like truancy or curfew infractions.
The danger is that states may decide that the dwindling amount of federal aid doesn’t justify their complying with federal rules any more.
“If these cuts survive, I’d be surprised if multiple states don’t drop out of the federal juvenile justice formula grant program, ” said Laurie Robinson, former Assistant Attorney General for Justice Programs, the agency which oversees juvenile justice funding.
BECOMING AN ADULT AMID CRUSHING ADVERSITY
In a heartrending piece published by the Good Men Project, eighteen-year-old Angel Patino expresses the all-too-common fears and often impossible choices faced by kids coming of age in the families of LA’s working poor. Here’s how it opens:
This turning point of my life happened last night when I realized that my mother doesn’t have enough money and she’s stressing out and I really don’t know how to help. I wish I could. I wish she didn’t have to struggle anymore. It hurts to see her cry and I feel like a coward because I can’t help.
I’m 18 and what the fuck am I supposed to do? I already give my mother my phone bill money and some rent money, but that’s still not enough. The car is breaking down and we might get kicked out of our apartment. I’m trying to look for another job (I already work 30 hours a week flipping burgers) so that money can go to her. But two jobs and I’m not sure if I might graduate with my class puts me in a deeper hole.
Angel is one of Dennis Danziger’s former students at Venice High School. An LAUSD English teacher, Danziger is also the author of the novel A Short History of a Tall Jew, and is an occasional contributor for WitnessLA. (His wife, writer Amy Friedman, has a story that will be running with us next week, and is the author of Desperado’s Wife, A Memoir.)