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Open Letter to Governor Jerry Brown about prisoners' hunger strike
Everyone
-- Please ask organizations you work with to sign on to this
organizational Open Letter to Gov. Brown to grant the demands of the
hungerstrikers. We hope to deliver it to Brown as soon as next Monday,
July 25. This national letter was written and is being circulated by a
number of our sister organizations. Dear Governor Brown: We, the undersigned civil rights, community, and human rights organizations, urge you to intervene with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to respond immediately to conditions that have lead to a statewide hunger strike in California prisons. As you know, the hunger strike was initiated by prisoners in the Secure Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison on July 1, 2011 to protest conditions that have been characterized by the United Nations as "inhumane and degrading." The hunger strike now has spread to a third of the state’s prisons and has involved at least 6,600 prisoners from all racial groups. The demands made by these prisoners are relatively modest and in keeping with human rights standards adopted by many other jurisdictions with regard to the treatment of prisoners housed in Secure Housing Units. As organizations from around the country that are committed to reducing the destructive impact of current criminal justice policies on the lives of individuals, families, and communities in the United States, we are concerned both about the immediate well-being of the hunger strikers and the long-term impact of appalling conditions inside prisons, particularly the use of long-term isolation and practices of racial profiling – under the guise of gang affiliation – that often are used to justify such abuses of human rights. We join with more than 7,500 individuals that have signed petitions in support of the hunger strikers and with community groups and family members of hunger strikers who have coordinated demonstrations in cities across the U.S. and abroad to voice their support. We join these courageous people inside and outside of prison in demanding that the CDCR fully implement the prisoners’ five core demands, which are: 1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse 2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria 3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement 4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food 5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates. Despite the fact that federal courts, mental health professionals, and international human rights monitors repeatedly have pointed out the devastating impact of isolation on human beings, the State of California continues to consign hundreds of prisoners, sometimes for decades, to torturous conditions that federal judge Thelton E. Henderson concluded “may well hover on the edge of what is humanly tolerable.” Tragically, because they feel their efforts to challenge these conditions through administrative and legal channels have failed, hundreds of prisoners have put their bodies and their lives on the line. Throughout your political career you have publicly supported progressive human rights issues. We know that you will share our desire to avoid the kind of outcome that resulted from the H Block Hunger Strike in Northern Ireland in 1981. We believe that you will be responsive to the efforts of these prisoners to seek more just and humane conditions of confinement, and we encourage you to treat these prisoners with the respect and consideration they deserve. We urge you in the strongest possible terms to intervene in this matter immediately and to find a just and honorable resolution. Thank you for your consideration. Signed by: A Better Way Foundation A New Way of Life Reentry Project, Los Angeles, CA All of Us or None Arkansas Voice for the Children Left Behind Breakout!, New Orleans, LA Cante Wanjila Native American Reentry and Support Project, South Dakota Critical Resistance Detention Watch Network Freedom Archives Justice for Families Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA Kemba Smith Foundation Labor/Community Strategy Center, Los Angeles, CA Law Office of Rebecca Young, East Boston, MA Milk Not Jails, New York National Policy Partnership for Children of the Incarcerated Resurrection After Exoneration, New Orleans, LA Safe Streets/Strong Communities, New Orleans, LA TalkBLACK, Atlanta, GA Texas Families of Incarcerated Youth Visions to Peace Project, Washington, D.C.
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