California prison hunger strike

California prisoners in over a dozen prisons are entering their third week on hunger strike, which began on July 8th with 30,000 prisoners across the state participating. This is the third hunger strike since June 2011 that California prisoners in the Security Housing Units (SHU) have participated in, demanding the same five core demands, with an emphasis on ending California’s practice of long-term segregation of inmates suspected of prison gang affiliation. As of Sunday, July 21, 1081 individuals were still on hunger strike.
One hunger striker, J., 36, has been incarcerated since he was 16, and has spent the last seven years in the SHU at California State Prison, Corcoran. J. wrote in a letter to his mother on the 7th day of the hunger strike, that he was “feeling a lot better than I expected so I think I’ll be able to last quite a while longer.” He reports that the prison administration is “just waiting us out. They’re not running yard at all and they finally ran showers for the first time last night. The only medical attention they’re giving us is if you go man down or put in a slip, other than that a nurse is walking the tier every 3 days and simply looking in all the cells but not asking any questions at all. Literally if you blink you’ll miss the nurse walk by they’re going that fast.”

J. also states that prison officials “gave everyone who’s participating a 128 A memo as a warning that if we continue we’ll be getting 115’s [disciplinary write ups] next. It’s crazy cause they’re trying to say us protesting is gang activity, but every race is participating so how is that possible? Then when we eventually all get 115’s for it they’re gonna use it to continue to keep us in the SHU. That’s why they’re writing it up like that, it’s pretty much a form of retaliation on their part.”

“I don’t know if all this is gonna do us any good in the end, but this fight is worth the effort for sure,” J. writes, “If we don’t stand up for ourselves who will?”

The hunger strikers, led by prisoners at the Pelican Bay State Prison SHU, have faced retaliation. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has seized prison canteen items from participants’ cells, including items such as Kool-Aid packets and coffee. Those identified as leaders of the strike at Pelican Bay and Corcoran have reportedly been transported to different segregation units.

Michael Zaharibu Dorrough, incarcerated in the SHU since 1988 following validation as an affiliate of the Black Guerilla Family, recently wrote a letter to a friend dated July 14th, in which he describes being identified as a leader of the hunger strike at Corcoran. Dorrough and his cellmate, J. Heshima Denham, with whom he has shared a cell designed for one in recent years, were identified as leaders of the hunger strike at the prison, along with two Northern Hispanics, two Southern Hispanics, and one white individual. They were transferred from their SHU cells to the section of Corcoran where gang dropouts and informants are housed. “It’s an Absolute Madhouse,” Dorrough writes.

“A day after we were moved here, mattresses were placed in front of our cell. This was designed to re-enforce, psychologically, the feeling of being isolated. And, I guess, to prevent us from receiving food or beverages from anyone. It’s so silly that it borders on being offensive. We have absolutely nothing at all in common with any of the people housed in the building. There is no reason at all to communicate with or accept anything from them. As is said, it’s a building full of stool pigeons. This is the CDCR’s version of sending us to a black site.”

The blocking of cell doors with objects has also been reported by a hunger striker at California Correctional Institution, Tehachapi, where sandbags have been placed at the cell doors of hunger strike participants to prevent the passing of objects or messages. The Public Information Officer at Corcoran confirmed to Solitary Watch on Monday that a “sand bag type of hose has been placed at the bottom of cell doors to effectively monitor and manage hunger strikers and their nutritional intake,” and that some hunger strikers have had visitation privileges curtailed for reasons that cannot be stated “due to safety and security.”

Dorrough and Denham had participated in the hunger strikes of 2011. Both reportedly lost at least 10 percent of their body weights, with Denham passing out during the first hunger strike in 2011, which lasted for three weeks. Recent events and retaliatory actions during this round of hunger strikes strongly mirrors the actions CDCR took against hunger strikers during their September October 2011 hunger strike.

Denham wrote the following in October 2011:

On or about Oct. 3, they raided 4B1L-C Section and removed all food and drink items – even coffee and salt packs – from the cells of hunger strikers. A short time later the warden and her entourage arrived in our section laughing and joking like it was a day at the fair and ordered sandbags placed in front of each of our cell doors to prevent any fishing so as to ensure non-hunger strikers are not fishing coffee and kool-aid to those on hunger strike.

Human rights attorneys have been banned and we have been denied access to yard and law library. The warden has directed IGI to open and/or confiscate all legal mail for hunger strikers in 4B1L-C Section. RNs have been dismissive and outright verbally disrespectful to some hunger strikers in a blatant attempt to provoke us.”

It was recently reported that attorney Marilyn Mc-Mahon of California Prison Focus, who represents many of the leaders of the hunger strike, has been banned from visiting clients in the SHU. She and fellow attorney Carol Strickman had been banned from visiting clients during the September-October hunger strikes for reasons never fully explained to them.