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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://sfbayview.com/2020/02/the-four-california-prisoner-class-representatives-call-for-solidarity-and-change/">https://sfbayview.com/2020/02/the-four-california-prisoner-class-representatives-call-for-solidarity-and-change/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The four California prisoner class
representatives call for solidarity and change</h1>
<div class="meta-data">
<div class="reader-estimated-time">February 11, 2020<br>
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<figure><img
src="https://i0.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Four-main-reps-Todd-Ashker-Arturo-Castellanos-George-Franco-Sitawa-Nantambu-Jamaa.jpg?w=696&ssl=1"
alt="" width="640" height="177"><figcaption> These
men, known as the “four main reps,” Todd Ashker,
Arturo Castellanos, George Franco and Sitawa Nantambu
Jamaa, conceived, planned and led the historic
2011-2013 California mass hunger strikes that drew
30,000 participants at their peak, according to CDCr’s
own records. </figcaption></figure>
<p><strong><em>Introduction by Laura Magnani, American
Friends Service Committee</em></strong></p>
<p>What follows below is an update from the leadership of
the
2011 and 2013 California Prison Hunger Strikes against
indefinite solitary
confinement and other mistreatment across the California
Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCr), the world’s
largest prison system. These
“reps” had been in solitary for decades and sought to
draw attention to their
plight through a series of non-violent hunger strikes,
two in 2011, the first drawing
6,600 participants statewide, the second 12,000, and a
third in 2013 that drew
30,000 participants, the largest prison hunger strike in
history.</p>
<p>In 2012 the Center for Constitutional Rights, along
with
several other prominent California prison rights
attorneys and organizations,
formed a team, partnered with a representative group of
10 Pelican Bay SHU
prisoner plaintiffs and filed a lawsuit on May 31, 2012.
The lawsuit, Ashker v.
Brown, charged that California’s practice of
indefinitely isolating prisoners
in solitary confinement violated U.S. Constitution
protections against “cruel
and unusual punishment” and guaranteeing “due process.”
In the same year, the four
reps and several other SHU prisoner reps issued the
Agreement to End
Hostilities. </p>
<p>A third hunger strike began July 8, 2013, and ended 60
days
later making solitary confinement a major issue across
the United States. All
major U.S. newspapers’ editorial pages had at least one
condemnation of the
practice in the weeks that followed. The third strike
ended when the California
State Senate and State Assembly committees overseeing
prisons held
unprecedented joint hearings that outlined promises of
major change. </p>
<p>On Sept. 1, 2015, a landmark settlement was achieved in
Ashker v. Brown ending indeterminate solitary
confinement in California prisons
and allowing the legal team to monitor the California
prison system to ensure
compliance. This month, February 2020, the four reps
have issued this update on
their situation.</p>
<p><strong><em>by the ‘four main reps’: Todd Ashker,
Arturo Castellanos, George Franco
and Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (names listed in
alphabetical order)</em></strong></p>
<p>A shout out of solidarity and respect to all class
members
and prisoners across the state. As the four reps, we
felt a public report on
the current state of California prisons from prisoners
was overdue.</p>
<p>As leadership of
the 2011 and 2013 California Prison Hunger Strikes that
captured the attention
of the nation and the world on the role of solitary
confinement in United
States prison systems, particularly California, we four
prisoner reps became
recognized as speaking both for the Ashker class, former
Pelican Bay SHU
prisoners, but also more broadly in many respects for
the entire California prisoner
class. </p>
<p>California’s prison system, the largest in the world at
that
time, was the also the greatest abuser of long term
solitary confinement. We
were housed in the Short Corridor of the notorious
Pelican Bay Super Max SHU (Security
Housing Unit) and, as all Short Corridor prisoners
understood, the only way out
of that isolating tortuous hell was to “parole, snitch
or die.” </p>
<p>We decided standing up together, asserting our humanity
even
at the cost of our own lives, was better than rotting
and dying alone in our
concrete tombs. Nonviolent united action was the only
path that made sense; our
only avenue to act was a hunger strike. It took
widespread unity, preparation
and work among us prisoners, but also work on the
outside by our families,
friends and a growing list of supporters across the
state and the country.</p>
<p>Without prisoners speaking about our conditions of
confinement, the public narrative about imprisonment and
mass incarceration is
missing a critical voice – our voice, the incarcerated.
We are the first-hand
experts on the daily experience of being caged in prison
generally and the
trauma of extreme isolation. </p>
<p>All other experts collect data, do studies, view our
experience without living it. Many, not all, are our
oppressors. Their
expertise is not about what incarceration is like, but
why
we and so many millions of people in the U.S. should be
imprisoned. No voice
has more expertise about the experience and impact of
incarceration than the
voice of prisoners.</p>
<p> <strong><em>No voice has more expertise about the
experience and impact of incarceration than the
voice of prisoners. </em></strong></p>
<p>Here we make five points:</p>
<p><strong>First</strong>. Prison in
the United States is based on punishment, not
rehabilitation. The United States
has the largest prison population in the world and the
highest percentage of a
state’s population housed in cages. We are held in
punishing ways that cause
fear, emptiness, rage, depression and violence. Many of
us are more damaged
when we leave prison than when we entered. </p>
<p>According to the National Reentry Resource Center, a
high
percentage of state and federal prisoners will be
released back into society.
National statistics indicate that there is a high rate
of released prisoners
returning to prison. All of those who leave are older,
some smarter, but all of
us are less able to be productive in the society at
large or good for our
communities or our families. It is very hard for former
prisoners to get jobs.</p>
<p>Prison presents an opportunity for society to
rehabilitate
or help people. Many of us could use support services.
That opportunity is lost
and buried by a vindictive ideology of punishment. </p>
<p>Rather than us being hypervigilant, concentrating on
violence, dangers, our fears and rage, prison could be a
place to engage our
minds in useful jobs and job training, with classrooms
for general learning,
training in self-awareness and understanding,
anti-addiction approaches.
Instead, we are mostly just warehoused, sometimes in
dangerous yards with angry,
frightened, vicious guards. </p>
<p>California’s
Gov. Newsom has the opportunity to help institute a
massive prison reform
movement.</p>
<p><strong>Second</strong>.
California likes to think of itself as a progressive
national leader, yet in
sentencing California is among the harshest in the
nation. In California, a
life term is given for second degree murder. Second
degree murder is a
non-premeditated killing. Only 17 states are that
punishing. Two thirds of the
states and the U.S. federal system give a flat 15 years.
</p>
<p>The U.S. Supreme Court has said that evolving standards
of
society’s decency should create a national consensus on
sentencing standards. Our prison
journeys begin in those courts. We four reps of the
California prison class call
for reform in sentencing. Massive money could be spent
for education, training
and jobs here and in our communities rather than on
caging human beings to harm
rather than help us or society.</p>
<p><strong>Third</strong>. The trauma
we experience in these overcrowded institutions with a
culture of aggressive
oppression, as if we are violent animals, is harmful and
breeds violence. We
prisoners should not join in our own oppression. It is
not in the interest of
the prison class to buy into promised rewards for lying
on other prisoners. </p>
<p>The use of lying confidential informants is widespread
and
legendary in California prisons and jails. We see even
among ourselves, who
have great active lawyers ready to pay attention to our
situations, just how
regularly vicious retaliation, evil lying and disregard
of our medical needs occurs.
Broadly among the California prisoner class, there is
mistreatment, horrid
isolation, medical disregard, terrible food, cells that
are too cold, too hot
or too damp.</p>
<p>The history of positive social change demonstrates that
when those who are oppressed
stand together – as a group, a class – against that
oppression, change can
happen. Our own experience with eliminating endless
solitary confinement in
California proves that.</p>
<p>We need to stand with each other, behaving
respectfully,
demanding respect and not turning on our fellow
prisoners for promises of
crumbs. We four reps stand for major prison reform that
helps us, not harms us,
that betters society, not makes it worse.</p>
<p><strong><em>California’s Gov. Newsom has the
opportunity to help institute a massive prison
reform movement.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong>Fourth</strong>. We four
reps are for the principles we outlined in the Agreement
to End Hostilities,
the cessation of all hostilities between groups. We
called on prisoners
throughout the state to set aside their differences and
use diplomatic means to
settle their disputes. </p>
<p>If personal issues arise between individuals, people
need to
do all they can to exhaust all diplomatic means to
settle such disputes; do not
allow personal, individual issues to escalate into
racial group issues. We
encourage all prisoners to study the Agreement to End
Hostilities and to try to
live by those principles to seek your support to strive
together for a safer
prison environment.</p>
<p>We are not there yet. Dangerous cross-group hostility
remains. What we experience in California prisons is not
just developed in
prison but is also widespread and supported in free
society. Racial
antagonisms, ghettoized housing, separation,
institutionalized racism and promotion of beliefs of
each
other as less than human, as stupid, as criminal
barbarians can cause us to
fear and hate each other. </p>
<p>It does not serve us or society well. There are no easy
ways
to challenge these deep American divisions; forcing us
together in joint yards,
visiting rooms or classrooms will lead to violence and
deepen the danger.</p>
<p>We four reps especially call out and stand against
50/50
yards. We oppose forced mixing of hostile groups where
mortal enemies are
forced together; 50/50 yards are dangerous and will make
things much worse by
causing fresh horrific encounters. No matter the
policy’s intention, the state
is responsible for our safety and wellbeing while we’re
living under its
jurisdiction. </p>
<p>We are entitled to respect and safety. We seek what we
are
entitled to. The 50/50 yards as a CDCr policy provokes
violence. At this time,
we endorse separate yards, separate programming and
separate visiting.</p>
<p>We also call on
California leadership, Gov. Newsom and the State
Assembly and Senate to
implement policies that encourage and grow support for
the Agreement to End
Hostilities that do not include 50/50 yards or forced
interaction, but rather
engage our minds and energy with productive jobs,
education, training – major
prison reform to a genuine rehabilitative system.</p>
<p><strong>Fifth</strong>. The guard
culture, especially in the yards, is vicious and
provocative. Here where we
live, the guards do not care about our safety. The
guards get extra pay when
there is violence; it is in their financial interest to
promote it. Not
surprisingly, guards regularly provoke disputes. Many
enjoy the resulting
violence.</p>
<p>California Correctional Peace Officers Association
(CCPOA),
the powerful guards’ union, is led by men who for the
most part consider
prisoners less than human. The CCPOA by their network
and behavior supports the
use of set ups, targeting, lying and isolation for
random punishment. This
intentionally causes widespread fear. </p>
<p> <strong><em>California Correctional Peace Officers
Association (CCPOA), the powerful guards’ union, is
led by men who for the most part consider prisoners
less than human. </em></strong></p>
<p>The CCPOA as one of the most politically influential
organizations in California and holds many righteous
political leaders hostage.
The CCPOA members benefit with large overtime pay
bonuses from violence and
lockdowns. </p>
<p>Only if prison reform becomes a widespread demand of
California voters can the influence of CCPOA be
challenged. We need our
families, friends and communities to build and extend
our allies and develop
strong support to vote for politicians who recognize our
worth and are for
widespread serious prison reform and an end to brutal
warehousing that
endangers society every day. </p>
<p>CDCR and California itself are legally responsible and
accountable for prison conditions. Neglect does not free
them of state
institution responsibility for those in their “care.”
The guards’ union should
not be permitted to purchase power for abuse. </p>
<p>California
citizens need to vote for prison rehabilitation as a
priority: money for
teachers, instructors, prisoner jobs instead of lockdown
overtime and more
guards. </p>
<p>Finally, we close with an update on our legal
challenge. Our
class action constitutional challenge to long-term
solitary confinement was
filed in May of 2012. We won a landmark settlement on
Sept. 1, 2015, that
resulted in thousands of people being released from SHUs
across the state. </p>
<p>The settlement also gave us and our legal team the
right and
responsibility to monitor whether CDCr is following the
requirements of the
settlement for two years. That monitoring period was set
to end in 2017, but in
January 2019, U.S. Magistrate Judge Illman granted our
motion to extend
monitoring of the settlement agreement based on ongoing
systemic constitutional
violations in CDCR’s use of confidential information and
in its reliance on
past gang validations to deny parole. </p>
<p>Magistrate Judge Illman’s order extended our monitoring
for
12 months. CDCr appealed and asked the court to suspend
monitoring pending the
appeal outcome. U.S. District Court Judge Wilken
intervened and allowed us to
continue monitoring pending any appeal outcomes.</p>
<p><strong><em>When those who are oppressed stand together
– as a group, a class – against that oppression,
change can happen. Our own experience with
eliminating endless solitary confinement in
California proves that. </em></strong></p>
<p>Our legal team has two pending appeals that CDCr has
filed
seeking to overturn the lower court orders in our favor.
One appeal covers the
extension of the monitoring as discussed above; the
other covers enforcement of
the settlement agreement regarding conditions of
confinement in Level IV
prisons and the RCGP (Restricted Custody General
Population) unit.</p>
<p>As our legal team
continues to monitor implementation of our settlement
agreement, they are
looking closely at how CDCR uses confidential
information to place and keep
validated and nonvalidated prisoners in Ad Seg
(Administrative Segregation) and
RCGP for long periods of time and sentence people to SHU
for bogus RVRs (Rules
Violation Reports). They are also trying to keep track
of how validations
continue to impact us, especially when we go before the
parole board.</p>
<p>If you have any information about any of these issues,
although they cannot respond to every letter, please
write our team at: Anne
Cappella, Attorney at Law, Weil, Gotshal & Manges,
201 Redwood Shores Pkwy,
Fourth Floor, Redwood City, CA 94065.</p>
<p>In closing, we remind all of us prisoners and
supporters
that we are human beings who have a difficult shared
experience. We have a right to our dignity,
even inside these punishing walls. We present an
opportunity to make society better rather
than meaner. </p>
<p>We ask all prisoners to stand together, read and act
within
the principles of the Agreement to End Hostilities,
whether you are in Ad Seg or
RCGP or General Population, see yourselves as part of an
international Prisoner
Human Rights Movement.</p>
<p>We four prisoner reps send regards and recognition to
each
of you as fellow human beings who are entitled to
fairness, dignity and
respect. We send our respect to all our brothers and
sisters incarcerated
anywhere with hopes for genuine rehabilitative
programming, jobs, education and
training in this coming year. </p>
<p>We send our greetings to all the friends, family and
communities from which we come, to all our allies in the
general society, and we
send our hopes for an understanding of the opportunity
California has to again
be a leader in reform to make the world a better place
with so many of us who
need help gathered together in state institutions.</p>
<p>We send extra love, support and attention to our
Brother
Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, who is experiencing challenging
health issues. Our
Brother Sitawa sends his extra love to all those
prisoners, prisoners’ families
and general supporters of the International Prisoner
Human Rights Movement.</p>
<p><em>The authors requested
the Agreement to End Hostilities be appended to their
statement.</em></p>
<figure><img
src="https://i0.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/California-hunger-strike-logo-art-by-Rashid-2011.jpg?fit=696%2C649&ssl=1"
alt=""><figcaption> This logo, created by the premiere
prison artist, known as Rashid, was eagerly adopted by
the California hunger strikers as the symbol of their
sacrifice and strength in solidarity. <a>– Art: Kevin
“Rashid” Johnson,</a> 264847, Pendleton Correctional
Facility, G-20-2C, 4490 W. Reformatory Road,
Pendleton, IN 46064 </figcaption></figure>
<h2><strong>Agreement to End
Hostilities</strong></h2>
<p>Dated Aug. 12, 2012</p>
<p>To whom it may concern and all California Prisoners:</p>
<p>Greetings from the entire PBSP-SHU Short Corridor
Hunger
Strike Representatives. We are hereby presenting this
mutual agreement on
behalf of all racial groups here in the PBSP-SHU
Corridor. Wherein, we have
arrived at a mutual agreement concerning the following
points:</p>
<p>1. If we really want to bring about substantive
meaningful
changes to the CDCR system in a manner beneficial to all
solid individuals who
have never been broken by CDCR’s torture tactics
intended to coerce one to
become a state informant via debriefing, that now is the
time for us to
collectively seize this moment in time and put an end to
more than 20-30 years
of hostilities between our racial groups.</p>
<p>2. Therefore, beginning on Oct. 10, 2012, all
hostilities
between our racial groups in SHU, ad-seg, general
population and county jails
will officially cease. This means that from this date
on, all racial group
hostilities need to be at an end. And if personal issues
arise between
individuals, people need to do all they can to exhaust
all diplomatic means to
settle such disputes; do not allow personal, individual
issues to escalate into
racial group issues!</p>
<p>3. We also want to warn those in the general population
that
IGI [Institutional Gang Investigators] will continue to
plant undercover
Sensitive Needs Yard (SNY) debriefer “inmates” amongst
the solid GP prisoners
with orders from IGI to be informers, snitches, rats and
obstructionists, in
order to attempt to disrupt and undermine our collective
groups’ mutual
understanding on issues intended for our mutual causes
(i.e., forcing CDCR to
open up all GP main lines and return to a
rehabilitative-type system of
meaningful programs and privileges, including lifer
conjugal visits etc. via
peaceful protest activity and noncooperation, e.g.,
hunger strike, no labor
etc.). People need to be aware and vigilant to such
tactics and refuse to allow
such IGI inmate snitches to create chaos and reignite
hostilities amongst our
racial groups. We can no longer play into IGI, ISU
(Investigative Service
Unit), OCS (Office of Correctional Safety) and SSU’s
(Service Security Unit’s)
old manipulative divide and conquer tactics!</p>
<p>In conclusion, we must all hold strong to our mutual
agreement from this point on and focus our time,
attention and energy on mutual
causes beneficial to all of us [i.e., prisoners] and our
best interests. We can
no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for
their benefit!</p>
<p><strong><em> We can no longer allow CDCR to use us
against each other for their benefit!</em></strong>
</p>
<p>Because the reality is that, collectively, we are an
empowered, mighty force that can positively change this
entire corrupt system into a system that actually
benefits prisoners and thereby the public as a whole,
and we simply cannot allow CDCR and CCPOA, the prison
guards’ union, IGI, ISU, OCS and SSU to continue to get
away with their constant form of progressive oppression
and warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners,
including the 14,000-plus prisoners held in solitary
confinement torture chambers – SHU and ad-seg units –
for decades!</p>
<p>We send our love and respect to all those of like mind
and
heart. Onward in struggle and solidarity!</p>
<p><em>Send our brothers some
love and light:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><em>Todd Ashker, C58191, KVSP, P.O. Box 5101, Delano
CA 93216</em></li>
<li><em>Arturo Castellanos, C17275, PBSP, P.O. Box 7500,
Crescent City CA 95532</em></li>
<li><em>George Franco, D46556. DVO. 2300, 2300 Kasson
Rd, Tracy CA 95304</em></li>
<li><em>Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Ronnie Dewberry), Freedom
Outreach, c/o Marie Levin for Sitawa, Fruitvale
Station, P.O. Box 7359, Oakland CA 94601 (Use this
address until Sitawa fully recovers)</em></li>
</ul>
<p><em>Laura Magnani, assistant
regional director for the American Friends Service
Committee’s West Region, has
been working on criminal justice issues since the
1970s and with AFSC since
1989. Laura is author of “America’s First
Penitentiary: A Two Hundred Year Old
Failure” (1990) and co-author, along with Harmon Ray,
of “Beyond Prisons: A New
Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System”
(2006). She also authored the
2008 report. “<a
href="http://www.afsc.org/document/buried-alive-long-term-isolation-california-youth-and-adult-prisons"
target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Buried
Alive: Long-term Isolation in California’s Youth and
Adult Prisons</a>.” She can be reached at <a
href="mailto:LMagnani@afsc.org" target="_blank"
rel="noreferrer noopener">LMagnani@afsc.org</a>. Bay
View staff contributed to the introduction.</em></p>
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