Hunger strike at Ohio State
Penitentiary
by
lucasville@toledoprisonawareness.org 30 March 2015
Ten
prisoners at OSP
[Ohio State
Penitentiary]
have been on hunger strike since Monday March 16th. Supporters
have been calling the prison and the legal services department
at ODRC [Ohio Dept of Rehabilitation and Correction] central
office with no discernable effect.
The
Warden and OSP staff refuse to take the hunger striking
prisoners seriously. Unit manager Charmaine Bracy and Major
Hurst have both said that range rec will not be returned at all
and that 5B prisoners will have access to religious programming
through their cell doors. See below for what that means and why
it is unacceptable.
Trevor Clark in legal services either ignores calls or
re-directs callers in meaningless circles. It seems there is no
one in legal services at the ODRC is taking responsiblity for
making sure OSP does not abuse its captives' basic
constitutional rights.
So, we're going to their boss, and then to his bosses.
Gary Mohr is the director of the ODRC. Please call him and tell
him that the Warden at OSP is refusing to take the ten hunger
strikers seriously. Demand that Mohr reverse this Warden's
illegal policy changes. Tell him that it is not okay for him to
turn a blind eye when his employees pursue collective punishment
by putting through illegal and unconstitutional policies because
of a few incidents with one or two prisoners.
Gary
Mohr 614-752-1150.
Write letters: Gary
Mohr, ODRC Director, 770 West Broad
Street, Columbus,
Ohio
43222
Email:
drc.publicinfo@odrc.state.oh.us
Gary Mohr is the top of the ODRC hierachy, but the ODRC is
supposed to be accountable to the people of
Ohio.
The mechanism for that accountability
is the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee (CIIC).
Please join other supporters in filing complaints on their
website
http://www.ciic.state.oh.us/complaint-form
You
can also contact these elected officials (especially if you live
in their district) and ask them to investigate the recent policy
failures at OSP.
Sandra Williams (D)
Senate District 21 (614) 466-4857
Cliff Hite, Vice Chair
(R) Senate District 1 (614) 466-8150
Edna Brown (D) Senate
District 11 (614) 466-5204
John Eklund (R) Senate
District 18 (614) 644-7718
Click the names to send emails.
Mailing address:
Senate
Building
1
Capitol Square,
2nd Floor
Columbus, Ohio43215
Paul Zeltwanger (R)
House District 54 (614) 644-6027
Nicholas J. Celebrezze
(D) House District 15 (614) 466-3485
Bob D. Hackett (R) House
District 74 (614) 466-1470
Michelle Lepore-Hagan
(D) House District 58 (614) 466-9435
Click the names to send emails.
Mailing Address:
Vern
Riffe
Center
77
South High Street
13th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215-6111
Religious programming through a cell door means that a clergy
person or spiritual leader will speak with the prisoner through
the closed cell door on the range for less than 5 minutes. The
doors at OSP are solid steel. They are thick, and the range is a
loud echoing concrete room with a dozen of these doors looking
out on it. Prisoners behind each door attempt to converse with
each other by shouting to be heard. It is a very loud place with
no privacy.
Imagine being a catholic giving confession at the top of your
lungs through a steel door while other prisoners carry on
shouted conversations around you. Imagine trying to receive any
kind of religious instruction in that environment. It is absurd
for OSP staff to pretend that is a suitable replacement for the
one hour long sessions in a seperate space that they are
depriving these prisoners of.
More
details on the issues:
Two
recent policy changes at OSP are the main issues, though
prisoners have many other specific grievances. The biggest
issue, effecting the most prisoners is the withdrawal of
congregate recreation. All but the cadre and long timer
prisoners at OSP are no longer allowed to go out on the range
together for their one hour a day recreation out of their cells.
This policy change reduces human contact between prisoners,
isolating and dehumanizing them further, and denying them
opportunities to demonstrate that they are not security threats,
a key component of the security step-down process they need to
go through to get out of solitary confinement. It also creates a
logistical problem, if only one prisoner at a time is allowed to
rec, there is not enough time in a week for each of the over 450
prisoners to get their legally required five hours of rec time
per week. This policy change violates court decisions that are
supposed to bind OSP to a minimum standard of humane treatment.
The
second change, OSP has decided to deny programming to prisoners
at level 5B. This directly effects a few dozen prisoners, who
are at the highest security level in the
Ohio
system. Depriving these prisoners of access to programming
demonstrates the ODRC's commitment to cruelty and punishment,
rather than rehabilitation and counseling for their captives.
Like the recreation restriction, it slows the process by which
5B prisoners can step down to lower security levels, acquiring
more privileges. It is also illegal. Some of the denied
programming includes religious programming. Any prisoner placed
on level 5B will be there for at least a year. It is a violation
of the first amendment right to freedom of religion to deny
anyone the ability to practice their religion for over a year,
and a violation of the fourteenth amendment equal protection
under the law to exclude these prisoners from opportunities
afforded to other prisoners without just cause.
There
are many other issues at OSP, everything from unsafe and
slippery conditions in the showers that have caused multiple
injuries, to restricted access to hardcover books in violation
of US Supreme Court decision Turner v Safely. The Warden
at OSP is not taking the prisoners' demands seriously and
appears to not have consulted ODRC legal services before
instituting these illegal and unconstitutional policy changes.
From:
lucasville@toledoprisonawareness.org
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