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MUSLIMS NOW 70% OF FRENCH PRISON POPULATION

Muslims, who make up between 5-12% of the French population (estimates vary), now officially top the 70% mark in French prisons! And we thought that there was something wrong in English and Welsh prisons where MoJ statistics claim they make up 12% of the population (four times that of the general population compared to the 11% of prisoners that are black, 2.8 times the outside population).
[For more on this subject see this article on Racism in the Close Supervision Units.]
[24/11/11]

PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKE OFF BUT CONTINUES ELSEWHERE

On October 13, after nearly three weeks on hunger strike, Pelican Bay prisoners announced the suspension of their current protest following the publishing of a CDCR memo detailing a comprehensive review of every Security Housing Unit (SHU) prisoner in California whose SHU sentence is related to gang validation. The review will evaluate the prisoners’ gang validation under new criteria, "something the prisoners have been asking for and it is the first significant step we’ve seen from the CDCR to address the hunger strikers’ demands,” according to Carol Strickman, one of the hunger strike mediators.

Prisoners in other jails across California have decided to continue with their protests as they cover issues other than SHU-related gang affiliation, though prisoners in Calipatria State Prison have decided to temporarily end their hunger strike to regain strength and gain medical attention as the prison warden has been refusing hunger strikers any form of medical attention. All Californian prisoners and their supporters continue to ask the public to maintain the pressure on the CDCR to keep to current agreements and to negotiate in good faith, as well as halting any retaliation against protesting prisoners. [15/10/11]

PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKE II WEEK 3

The second round of the Californian Secure Housing Unit (SHU) hunger strike protests that resumed on September 26 is now well into its third week as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) continues to ratchet up its attempts to break the resolve of the participants. At end of 1st week, the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition claimed, based on information from the federal receiver’s office, that 12,000 prisoners had refused meals in 12 prisons across California, including Pelican Bay, Corcoran, Salinas Valley, Calipatria, San Quentin and Ironwood (CDCR has only admitted to a maximum of 4,250 prisoners participating at the start of the hunger strike, supposedly fewer than during the July leg of the protests). In addition, some 3,000 other Californian prisoners held in private prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma were also refusing food in solidarity with the core hunger strike group.

Many of the participants are on a "rolling hunger strike", taking turns in refusing meals in order to maintain their protest and support those on the core indefinite hunger strike protest. However, numbers appear to have dropped with the intensified CDCR retaliation against participants. Added to that is the confusion inherent in the way CDCR recognises hunger strike participation, only considering an inmate to be on hunger strike when he or she has missed nine consecutive meals, and is apparently deliberately underestimating participation (see below).

The Department's attitude has hardened towards the protests since its initial stages and is now treating the hunger strike as an organised "mass disturbance", refusing to participate in any negotiations and is disciplining those who participate and moving prisoners who support the hunger strike from the general population into isolation. As a consequence hunger strike representatives at Pelican Bay moved to Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg); participating prisoners are being denied family and legal visits until hunger strike ends and their mail is being censored and restricted; they are being punished with excessively harsh write-ups and guards are repeatedly raiding inmates' cells; CDCR is slowing the delivery or denying participants their medication, as a consequence an inmate suffered a heart attack and was hospitalised; even when medication is actually delivered, CDCR is falsifying hunger striker numbers by delivering it (along with the liquid needed to take it) on food trays and logging it as being a taken meal; they are being denied liquids and canteen items, including food, are being removed from prisoners' cells; and air conditioning in Ad-Seg cells on full in cold (10 ^oC) weather. CDCR has also expelled two attorneys chosen by the inmates to represent them on the mediation team, accusing them of trumped-up misconduct charges and breaches of security.

The Department is certainly turning up the heat on the protests but the prisoners remain solid and understand that CDCR is unlikely to give in to their demands in the short term. So, with a number of prisoners already refusing water as well as food, and with the health conditions of a number of core protesters deteriorating (many already with long-term medical problems), prisoners are calling on the media to make inquiries on prison protocol if and when they begin to die. [12/10/11]

A POINT OF VIEW: PRISONS DON'T WORK

An interesting 10 minute programme on Radio4 from Will Self on prisons and punishment. [Text] [iPlayer]
[10/10/11]

SHU HUNGER STRIKE RESUMPTION STATEMENT

Prisoners in the Pelican Bay Secure Housing Unit (SHU) have confirmed that they will resume their indefinite hunger strike on 26 September and have released a statement outlining the reasons for their actions here.
[20/09/11]

PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKE TO RECOMMENCE 26 SEPT.

Prisoners in the Pelican Bay Secure Housing Unit are to resume their indefinite hunger strike on 26 September that they had suspended at the end of July in order to carry out negotiations with Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (CDCR) representatives.

Even before the temporary suspension was called CDCR disassembling had been a problem but the total lack of any genuine engagement with the protestors' 5 core demands has forced the prisoners' representatives to call for the recommencement of the hunger strike. Vaguely worded promises about “a step down program [that] will be operational by the end of this year or early next year” and the meagre concessions on prisoners privileges, together with the general deterioration in conditions (food, medication, harassment of prisoners, etc.) in the SHU have forced the prisoners into a corner.

Responses to the 5 core demands:
1. SHU still operating via indefinite deprivation of human rights;
2. CDCR has made clear that it plans to substantially expand on the use of “solitary confinement” via targeting all prisoners deemed “disruptive groups” (security threat groups) [defined as “two or more inmates who are collectively deemed to be a security threat” – e.g., all street gang affiliates, prisoners deemed political-revolutionary etc];
3. the medical care problems have not been resolved. SHU inmates suffering from chronic disease are denied adequate care due to deliberate indifference and efforts to coerce them to debrief;
4. food quality now worse than before strike;
5. limited concessions incl. sweat shirts impacts on ability of yearly allowances to buy 'canteen & package' items, decreasing the amount of food prisoners are able to buy to supplement the poor diets. [14/09/11]

THE HIGH COST OF PRISON VISITS

Arizona, the American state notorious for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's tent city and the proposal to use unpaid prison labour to build its own $50 million subscription-funded Mexican border fence, has introduced a $25 prison visitors fee. The one-off non-refundable levee is charged to adults wishing to visit prisoners in the state's 15 prisons and is ostensibly to cover background checks on the visitors. However money raised will also go towards the upkeep of the 10 state-run prisons (5 are privately-run) and opponents have filed a lawsuit seeking to have the fee declared an illegal tax.
[13/09/11]

PELICAN BAY SHU HUNGER STRIKE TO RESUME?

Following abortive discussions with CDCR officials which raised no substantive offers of changes to the SHU regimes, it now appears that Pelican Bay SHU prisoners will recommence their suspended indefinite hunger strike. In a letter to the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, Mutope Duguma outlined the prisoners' determination to continue their protest despite the fact that many of them suffer from debilitating and often life-threatening illnesses. The protestors feel that the prison authorities will not take them seriously and refuse to "remain under this tortuous treatment" and are willing to provide "the body count that they seek or a bunch of hospitals filled up throughout the state."
[03/09/11]

CAT O' NINETAILS WAGS THE DOG

The Coalition's stupid knee-jerk (verging on elbow-jerk) reactions to the recent 'civil' disturbances are threatening not only to transfer the street riots into the country's already overcrowded jails but are also doomed to hole below the waterline the projected 'savings' deemed to be gained via the 'Rehabilitation Revolution' and cutbacks in projected Ministry of Justice spending over the period of the current Parliament.

With prison places at a premium, and the few that are available in open prisons (supposedly available only to long-term Cat C prisoners nearing the end of their sentences), prison governors are threatening that they will have to cram prisoners in 3 to a cell. This has already led to lockdowns due to increased in-prison tensions and will inevitably result in a break out of violence somewhere (probably one of the London local prisons, HMP Manchester or HMP Birmingham).

One voice has been singularly lacking in recent weeks (except for the day of Cameron's statement to a recalled Commons) and that is Ken Clarke's. He must be silently pulling his hair out as everything he has argued for (an end to the use of short-term sentences, cutting the prison population, a more 'rational' sentencing policy, etc.) is slowly disappearing below the rising tide of traditional reactionary Tory real politic as Cameron seizes his opportunity to shaft his Justice Secretary and return the Coalition to more traditional hang 'em flog 'em policies. [18/08/11]

CAPTIVE CONSUMERS

According to Inside Time, a leaked confidential Ministry of Justice directive signed by the "Head of Prisoner Retail" from the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), an entitled 'Choosing items with higher margins', "Each establishment retains the profit margin made between the purchase price and the selling price of items as a contribution towards the service charge. The higher the sales margin, the more profit will be created. Products are rated on the Red/Amber/Green version of the NPL [National Product List]. Try and choose green lines to improve your margin, and avoid red ones where possible." So the truth is out and NOMS has confirmed what all prisoners already knew: the Booker/DHL canteen list is designed to screw as much out of prisoners as possible, an invisible tax on public sector* prisoners' wages, many of whom are employed for peanuts to pick and pack those same canteen goods. [12/08/11]

* Most privately run prison operators use Aramark, the company that previously ran the public sector canteen monopoly, to run their prison shops/canteens, and with more choice and at cheaper prices than in their public sector counterparts.

HMP BIRMINGHAM ON LOCKDOWN

According to the Birmingham Mail, HMP Birmingham is on lockdown due to increased tensions on the wings paralleling those on the streets outside in Winson Green together with the expected influx of new prisoners who have been involved in the civil disturbances. According to an inside source (read: screw, who no doubt received a nice backhander for the information or who is on the paper's unofficial pay role), “All wings have been on lockdown. We are on the highest level of risk.” [11/08/11]

CALIFORNIAN PRISONS HUNGER STRIKE UPDATE

The Californian prison hunger strikes may be over for the time being but the pressure is still on the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to 'come up with the goods' and produce substantive concessions. In recent days Pelican Bay hunger strikers have been in contact with the support network that has built up outside the prison walls, one that is part of a growing campaign against the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, outlining their decision to end the hunger strike section of their ongoing protests against the Special Housing Units.

What the hunger strikers have done is to give the CDCR a temporary respite, a grace period of 2-3 weeks from July 20th, to give the CDCR's top administrators the opportunity to come up with some substantive changes in response to their five core demands. If they don't follow through they plan to go back on hunger strike. "It's very important that our supporters know where we stand, and that CDCR knows that we're not going to go for any B.S. We remain as serious about our stand now as we were at the start, and meant what we said re indefinite hunger strike peaceful protest until our demands are met. I repeat - we're simply giving CDCR a brief grace period in response to their request for the opportunity to get [it] right in a timely fashion! We'll see where things stand soon enough!!" [02/08/11]

PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKE ENDS - CONTINUES ELSEWHERE

It appears that the first stage of the Pelican Bay hunger strike is now over following the acceptance by the hunger strikers of a number of immediate concessions and the promise of longer-term negotiations about the Secure Housing Unit regime based on the document first distributed on the 15th July. Therefore, as a goodwill gesture, the hunger strike has been suspended and the Pelican bay prisoners are eating again. An estimated 500 inmates in Tehachapi, Corcoran and Calipatria state prisons however still remain on hunger strike.

The first skirmishes may have proved a qualified success, but the battle to end the cruel and inhumane treatment amounting to torture that is the regime that operates within the SHU is definitely not over and the hunger strikers, whilst thanking their outside supporters for their solidarity, and without whom they admit they would not have made it so far, ask them to remain vigilant and to keep the pressure on the CDCR to their promises. (See the cynical CDCR statement announcing the strike end with its continuing use of the line that the hunger strike is gang-ordered.) [23/07/11]

PELICAN BAY UPDATE

Despite what appears to be a concerted disinformation campaign by the Californian prison authorities to try and paint the hunger strike as marginal and having little effect, the conditions of the prisoners inside the Pelican Bay SHU is becoming increasing alarming according to the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition. Supporters of the hunger strike who are in contact with the participating prisoners state that the “medical conditions for at least 200 prisoners are getting worse and worse.” Many of these inmates have existing medical conditions that are being severely exacerbated by the prisoners' refusal of food and water, with the later meaning that many prisoners are also unable to take their prescribed medication.

Yet despite this the prison authorities remain intransigent, constantly putting out briefings claiming that the hunger strike is largely gang influenced; that deliberately underestimate the numbers participating, claiming that less than 400 prisoners still declining food as of Friday; that many of those supposedly participating are eating other sources of food; that "no inmates who are refusing liquids and we have no report of inmates who are refusing medication" and that that there's is no medical crisis [Nancy Kincaid - court-appointed federal receiver in charge of prison health care].

On Friday the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation distributed a vaguely worded document to prisoners that some assumed was a settlement document and stopped the strike, prompting reports that the authorities were negotiating. This appears not to be the case according to those mediating between the prisoners on hunger strike and the CDCR, who continue to maintain that there are "[more] appropriate ways of registering your concerns." [Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for CDCR] Now there are calls by supporters for non-participating prisoners to begin a state-wide prison work strike in support of the hunger strikers. [17/07/11]

DEAD MEN WALKING

Human Rights Watch have released a 70-page report on the use by the Myanmar army of prisoners as forced labour. Not only were prisoners used as porters carrying food and weapons, but they also served as human shield and were forced to trip land mines. Anyone refusing to carry out orders or trying to escape was similarly executed. Download the report here: Dead Men Walking.
[14/07/11]

CLOSING DOWN SALE

The cat it appears is finally out of the bag and what many of us have long suspected about the real role of the 'Rehabilitation Revolution' has finally been revealed: the continuation and expansion of the programme of progressive privatisation of the prison system that New Labour toe-dipped and tested the water for with the HMP Birmingham 'marketisation' project. So, having already been forced to abandon* the Tories' bizarre plans to sell off 15 Victorian inner city prisons in order to finance a scheme to out-build New Labour and thereby regain the mantle of the true party of Law & Order, [see:' The Emperor's Old Clothes'] whilst needless to say pushing a massive amount of business the way of its friends in the building and security outsourcing industries, the new government finds that the country is broke (or as the Coalition rather ludicrously prefer to put 'its credit card is maxed out').

Panicked, the government announces a massive cuts package, which in the Ministry of Justice's case means 25% 'savings' have to be found. one major victim being the prisons building and maintenance budget. Not good news for those friends in the building and security outsourcing industries, but never mind there is a silver lining: more privatisation. And to top it all, the POA meekly accepted the Winson Green fait accompli with ne'er a strike or work-to-rule in sight. Hence the new round of 'marketisations' and closures.**

One thing that initially stands out about the choices of these prisons is the predominance Category C training prisons amongst them: HMPs Acklington, Coldingley, Lindholme and Moorland. This has to be significant given Ken Clarke's plans to introduce 40-hour working week and one assumes the fact that the first purpose built industrial prison, HMP Coldingley, is amongst them means that these will be amongst the first to pilot 'real work'. Surely the plan is to get one section of the private sector (security outsourcing) to pay for workshop upgrades to supply the venue for other private sector firms to bring their businesses into prison. The big question is where is the work currently done for the Prison Service going to go and, if it stays, can the Prison Service afford the increase in prices for the shirts, sheets, towels (Acklington and Lindholme), steel shelving, security products (Coldingley) and the injection moulded food and sanitary products (Moorland) provided for the internal prison market?

Other than that, one can assume that the plan is for The Wolds to continue being run by G4S, that both sides of Lindholme, the prison and the IRC, will be privatised as a job lot (though no mention of the HMPS-run immigration section was made in the MoJ press release) and that HMP Lindholme and HMP/YOI Moorland/Hatfield will also go as a job lot due to their proximity. Finally, it will be interesting to see if any private companies taking on HMPs Acklington and Coldingley (because it is a dead cert that any public sector bids will fail given past history) will solve their longstanding and persistently unresolvable night sanitation problems. [13/07/11]

*Abandoned because those that had drawn up the plans hadn't twigged that Listed Victorian buildings like these are subject to stricture governing the nature of any potential redevelopments and hence slash millions of pounds off the profits of the proposed governmental fire sale.
** HMP Brockhill, the Category C Houseblock 7 of the HMP Hewell cluster, is apparently considered to be in a dilapidated state (though the last HMIP inspection didn't flag this up, claiming that "the physical environment of the wings was adequate") and unsuitable i.e. too expensive for renovation. Brockhill also has a longstanding and unresolvable night sanitation problem.

PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKERS' HEALTH DETERIORATES

Reports coming out of Pelican Bay supermax prison in California suggest that the health of the Security Housing unit prisoners currently on indefinite hunger strike in support of demands for some of the most basic of their human rights to be granted them by the prison system is severely threatened. One anonymous source in the prison's medical department contacted the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition received yesterday to say that: “The prisoners are progressing rapidly to the organ damaging consequences of dehydration. They are not drinking water and have decompensated rapidly. A few have tried to sip water but are so sick that they are vomiting it back up. Some are in renal failure and have been unable to make urine for 3 days. Some are having measured blood sugars in the 30 range, which can be fatal if not treated.“

Further details can be found at the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition blog.

Support the Pelican Bay prisoners by signing the on-line petition at change.org and complaining directly to the politicians and prison officials who can accede to the prisoners' demands. [13/07/11]

NEWS OF THE SCREWS

Whilst the IPCC is busy investigating payments by newspapers to police officers in order to gain confidential information for the writing of news stories, who is going to be investigating payments to prison officers in order to gain confidential information about prisoners to get information for the writing of news stories?
[07/07/11]

PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKE BEGINS TOMORROW

Prisoners at the notorious Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California will begin an indefinite hunger strike tomorrow to protest conditions in the prison's Security Housing Unit (SHU). SHUs operate under some the most restrictive of regimes in US prisons. They are designed to force suspected gang members to inform on others but most SHU prisoners are not gang affiliated and any ‘extracted’ information inevitably feeds an endless cycle of the brutalisation of other non-gang affiliated prisoners.

These protests are part of a growing campaign in the States against the widespread use of solitary confinement and SHUs have been singled out as one of the most cruel, inhumane and torturous forms of this abuse, where prisoners are SHU prisoners are kept in windowless, 6 by 10 foot cells, 23½ hours a day, for years at a time. Recent hunger strike in Georgia and Ohio prisons have been successful in winning concessions and have found widespread public support, despite almost total media blackouts around them. This time a Bay Area-based Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition has been formed since the hunger strike was first announced last month and prisoners another Californian super-max, Corcoran State Prison, have stated that they too will begin their own hunger strike in solidarity with the Pelican bay prisoners.

The hunger strikers' five core demands are: Eliminate group punishments; Abolish the debriefing policy and change the gang status criteria; Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) and end long-term solitary confinement; Provide adequate food; Provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates. [See the letter of formal complaint.]

An on-line petition can be signed at change.org. [30/06/11]

UPDATE: Corcoran SHU prisoners' solidarity statement published. [01/07/11]

REHABILITATION REVOLUTION: HOLED BELOW THE WATERLINE

It didn't take long for the constant stream of condemnatory headlines and editorials of the tabloids, dovetailing neatly with the spectre of his party being outflanked on the Right by an unashamedly populist and hypocritically tub-thumping Labour party in search of some new revivalist rhetoric (having abandoned it's own "Ken is right on prisons" position and now criticising them for the very about-turn that they urged), to fatally undermine Ken Clarke's 'Rehabilitation Revolution' and his aim of cutting the prison population whilst saving the odd hundred million quid and to force Cameron to dust off the 'Party of Law 'n' Order' mantle and shaft Ken royally, whatever collective spin they ended up putting on this latest coalition handbrake turn. The outcome is, as the Guardian neatly put it, 'Criminal justice: The revolution that never was' and, according to the FT's headline, 'UK opts to keep its prison full'.

It was obvious from the start that Clarke's 50% discount (buy 2 get one free?) idea was a non-starter but did nay one realise what a hostage to fortune that it has ultimately turned out to be? It certainly gave the Mail a stick big enough to beat Cameron into submission and to return he Tories (sorry, Coalition) to the true blue faith of 'bang 'em up' and 'bang 'em up for even longer' with the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Six-month mandatory sentences for threatening somebody with a knife, more mandatory life sentences, forcing "serious sexual and violent offenders" to serve two-thirds of their sentences instead of half (plus they should have to take part in compulsory offender behaviour programmes, which of course they already do - shows how in touch these politicians really are) - dangerous criminals will be locked up "for a very long time" so that families can "feel safe in their homes" (and the Mail will leave us alone).

Bang goes any idea of reducing (or 'stabilising' it as Clarke once described it) the prison population and won't all this have an impact on Cameron's much lauded support for judicial discretion? Wither the 'Rehabilitation Revolution' now?

As a footnote, Cameron is constantly banging on about his love for the National Health Service and all it stands for i.e. free and universal access to health care, well it is interesting to note that the post-war legislation that brought in that provision was mirrored by that for free education for all and for universal access to the Law via the provision of Legal Aid. Now we all know his and his party's views on the former but it now appears that the right to access the Law and to adequately defend oneself is to become sole the privilege of the Rich. Way you go Cammers! [22/06/11]

UNKINDEST CUT

As we all knew would eventually happen, the Coalition, or more succinctly David Cameron, has dropped Ken Clarke's 50% sentence discount proposal. This means not just that the Ministry of Justice will somehow have to find a further £100m in cuts from the budget that this measure was meant to secure but that only half the proposed cut of 3,000 in the prison population by the next general election can now be achieved. Expect more hurried 'innovations' in the coming days.
[21/06/11]