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Budget Cuts and the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike
Prisoners in California’s Pelican Bay State Prison’s Secure Housing Unit (SHU) began an indefinite hunger strike two weeks ago, and the reports coming in are harrowing.
The Prison Reform Movement posted a testimonial earlier in the week from a SHU nurse, who stated the prisoners have not been drinking water and there have been “rapid and severe” consequences, adding that nurses are crying, and some of the prisoners have been unable to make urine for three days.
The prisoners began the strike “in order to draw attention to, and to peacefully protest, twenty-five years of torture via [California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation]'s arbitrary, illegal, and progressively more punitive policies and practices,” according to their official statement, dated July 1, 2011.
Those torturous conditions (years of confinement in steel, windowless cages for more than twenty-two hours a day, no real access to natural light or human contact) are likely to only get worse during these times of economic austerity.
Much attention was paid to Gov. Jerry Brown’s plans to “realign” the prison system in order to reduce overcrowding and save the state money, but these orders followed months of harsh cuts that left prisons unable to adequately care for and supervise the hundreds of thousands of prisoners left in California’s incarceration system.
In May, Brown eliminated more than 400 positions at CDCR, in addition to 5,550 positions statewide. The move terminated 33 executive-level jobs at Corrections, and more than 100 management and supervisory positions.
Many rightly criticized the whopping annual state prison payroll of $2 billion. However, California’s huge prison budget doesn’t stem from prisoners dining on caviar and lobster. The budget exploded because of “three strike” laws that rapidly expanded the jailed population.
But even without such unfair laws, California’s prison system would still be in trouble, according to the LA Times. Growing numbers of inmates arrive with communicable diseases (nearly a fourth of them have the tuberculosis virus), one in five has mental problems or brain damage, staffing numbers are already among the lowest in the country, and although a third of its employees are women, the department has a history of sexual discrimination. Furthermore, the department has an especially difficult time locating new employees to fill open positions in desolated locales where new prisons are opening.
While some of the Pelican Bay prisoners’ demands don’t hinge on their prison being sufficiently funded (things like eliminating collective punishment, for example, can be done for free,) other items such as providing better, more nutritious food and expanding constructive programs will cost the state money, and during a time of budget cuts, the governor isn’t likely to lend a sympathetic ear to society’s pariahs.
Brown will likely be able to neglect the prison system without a majority of his constituents retaliating against him in the voting booths. Unlike when he slashed school spending by $1 billion, Brown is this time neglecting a population that many people feel deserve whatever comes to them, even though, let’s remember, prisons are supposed to rehabilitate individuals, and are not simply caves into which we throw and abandon human beings, leaving them to die.
Additionally, movements like the Innocence Project have proven that innocent men and women are incarcerated all the time, and this should always be remembered when political leaders adopt cavalier “to hell with ‘em all” attitudes.
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9 Comments so far
Show AllThere has always been a debate about Punishment vs Rehabilitation. Obviously providing programs for Rehabilitation is more expensive than just Punishment. Some states, Georgia leaps to mind, employed chain gangs to work on projects such as roads. Rehabilitation keeps recidivism down.
States are turning to Privatize prisons to keep expenses down. Unfortunately the amount of food for meals has been cut in half in Indiana. A majority of the milk that is served is spoiled and the food is also out of code. Staffing is low so over sight of Prisoners is kept to a minimum, cutting into prisoner exercise time.
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the World. Indiana has one of the highest incarceration rates in the US. Indiana is now examining it's laws concerning marijuana, to see about lowering it's prisoner population. I don't expect the legislature to do anything though.
there are so many pathetic aspects to life in amerika that one hardly knows where to begin or how to proceed into tomorrow without a sense of foreboding that is suffocating
that is what the nwo have set up for us and there is more to come - they aint half done
soon we will all be in the prison camp called amerika - russell means says it has already happened
http://www.russellmeans.com/
we got poison in the food, poison in the vaccines, chemtrails spraying us like cockroaches, corrupt politicians, corporate media, etc and so on
its the full monty that has been brought to bear against us and its being shoved up our asses and down our throats at the same time
ouch
but we have played a part in all of this - the part of the victim - we have sat back and allowed this takeover to proceed
we have turned our backs on each other
we have become professionals at looking the other way
i see the nwo molesting children and old folks - well everyone i guess - at the airports and we say nothing - do nothing
we are cast in the role of the jews in germany circa 1934
the prisons have become a latrine for whole sections of society - not least the black boys who are 20 somethings looking at 80 or more years in prison - the mentally ill, the drug addicted and many other who need care not incarceration
when prisoners would rather die than stay in these hellholes that says something
i am not soft on crime but i am not a nazi
this situation is yet another measure of our complete dissolution as human beings
another sad bench mark
It is a crime what is happening in our prison system. All sentences should be cut in half yesterday. They are too harsh.
I would also advise people up on most any charges to go to trial. It is my opinion and experience that juries will give less time.
History can teach us plenty because there was a crime wave in the 20-30's and prison filled. Roosevelt and the New Deal Democrats changed the system and parole was easier and sentences became less harsh because many jurors had family that had been bit by the harshness of the system. Those changes brought about rehabilitation and our society became more peaceful.
The prisoners of today WILL get out and the less grudges brought with them because of mercy shown the better it is for all of us.
Gulag Amerika. Freaking Sick.
OBTW, you do realize that the term "soft on crime" is a talking point and IMO should be dropped as should any use of the word HOPE as in audacity of hope or man from hope.
Have you had a family member murdered in their own home, minding their own business? No, I didn't think so. Prisons do need reform. Laws and sentencing need reform. Start with re-legalizing marijuana. POOF, US prison overcrowding disappears over night. Then felons especially violent ones should serve exactly the sentence they are sentenced to serve. And no, certainly do not halve life sentences. We are sentenced to life without our loved one who was slumbering in his bed. It is the jailing of non-violent offenders that has made the system completely unworkable at this point. Of course if it is proven someone is innocent, they should be released with restitution and a review of what went wrong in their conviction. Jailing the innocent serves nobody but the PIC. I think only governments should run prisons so there is accountability for violations of prisoners rights and better workplace conditions for guards and other prison personnel. I certainly don't want to see anyone gain from another's misery, which for-profit prison operations do.
I am OK with the three felony strikes law, again, not including the drug possessions that would be vacated with re-legalization. It isn't just murder that does irrevocable harm to victims. I suppose there are some people that could be rehabilitated but if you sit in on enough cases, you will be made ill by the self-centered disregard for any and all other persons that repeat criminals exhibit during sentencing proceedings. What's really sad is to see how many times their families are their primary victims. I also think that Empire deliberately fosters a divide and conquer by providing for the Constitutional rights of prisoners for healthcare when it hasn't made sure to do the same for every law abiding citizen that wants it. And the standard of care should be raised for everyone.
I think your point about grudges illustrates my point about the narcissism that hardened criminals exhibit. They are focused on what happened to them instead of what happened to their victim.
"Those torturous conditions (years of confinement in steel, windowless cages for more than twenty-two hours a day, no real access to natural light or human contact) are likely to only get worse during these times of economic austerity."
This paragraph is completely misleading. The confinement conditions are true, and one can certainly argue whether they should exist, but Pelican Bay is a California Supermax Prison which is designed for solitary confinement. So these conditions have nothing to do with budget cuts whatsoever. The prison's designed this way.
I agree that we have too many people in prison, but most of California's prison population is there for violent crime (58%). Drug offenses are now down to around 15% of the prison population. And virtually none of these are simple possession.
"let’s remember, prisons are supposed to rehabilitate individuals,..."
Both agree and disagree. Some prisoners are simply not worth rehabilitating and quite frankly are beyond rehabilitation. For them prison really is a lock em up and throw away the key for the protection of society. Serial killers are an easy one but so is the person in the next paragraph who is currently serving time at the Soledad prison. He raped 13 separate women and stabbed to death one of the womens husband in the couples own bed prior to raping her at knife point.
Alfonza Calhoun, now 49, is serving 45 years to life in state prison on one charge of first-degree murder and 13 charges of rape. He won't be eligible for parole again for seven years, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
We can, and should do better than lock people up to the extent we do. But to really address the explosion in prison population we're talking funding healthy communities. Everything from schools to mental health. Affordable housing and living wage jobs. Youth intervention programs and non overburdened social welfare workers. All of which costs money. Money that states don't have because we refuse to adequately tax ourselves at levels to sustain a healthy society.
Thank you for an intelligent, reasoned comment. It is disappointing that after 24 hours there are only 7, now 8 comments in the thread.
Full employment, raising the minimum wage to $20 n hour and developing a decent social safety net would practically eliminate the need for prisons in America. Of course none of this will happen if we keep electing Republicans and Democrats to office.
Indeed. Mandatory minimum sentencing and ever-expanding lists of charges(Three strikes you're out) are becoming the norm everywhere in the broken US prison-industrial-military-entertainment system, where even a traffic accident, no drugs or alcohol involved, can land your ass in prison if you are unfortunate enough to end up with a cruel DA. Thanks, Ms. Kilkenny, for exposing the conditions in one of the most brutal prisons on earth. And please enhance your credibility by changing that sentence about tuberculosis being caused by a virus. TB is a bacterial disease.
Not surprised that I have not heard anything about this in main stream news. Just like the unemployed, working poor and mentally ill, out of sight, out of mind. This is the American Nightmare brought to you by propaganda of Fox, ALEC, the US Chamber of Commerce, IMF and the Republican party.
People need to start engaging friends, family and neighbors in political conversations. Politics didn't become and impolite conversation by accident. This is an accepted norm in our society that it is not polite to talk politics to people who are not interested. That needs to stop Politics and religion are life they influence everything we do as a people. It's given many an excuse to do nothing.
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Martin Luther King, Jr.