19 May, 2005 -- EXTRA, EXTRA! Read all about it: Prison torture scandal smolders inside u.$. borders! The United Front to Abolish the SHU needs your help to expose and stop ongoing crimes against humynity in Kalifornia and u.$. prisons, and to build for its Unlock the Box Conference coming up fast in October, 2005 in San Francisco.

So far, MIM and RAIL have collected 3,477 signatures on the United Front's petition, the Barrio Defense Committee has gathered 440, and other member organizations and individuals have brought in more. In April, as on the first Saturday of every month, United Front protesters were out in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. At Union del Barrio's invitation, United Front members attended and found an eager reception at Chicano Park Day in San Diego. And a MIM activist found several hundred people ready to sign the petition at "From Attica to Abu Ghraib," a prison conference at UC Berkeley.

We do this work because this country is not content to be the most imprisoning state in the world (yes, that's in number of prisoners per capita, go u$a number one!). The united snakes flouts international humyn rights conventions by pursuing a policy of solitary sensory-deprivation confinement known as control unit housing, recognized in most of the world as torture. The United Front includes a variety of political lines, but is unified by the belief that these torture chambers cannot be meaningfully reformed -- by their very nature they are unfit to house humyn beings and must be abolished.

In MIM Notes 319, a Georgia prisoner described h experience in that state's so-called "Special Management Unit" this way: "to participate in one-hour outside recreation, shower, or go to sick-call we have to strip completely naked and are required to open our mouths, hold hands above our heads, lift testicles, turn around and lift left and right feet to expose soles, and bend over at waist, take both hands and pull buttocks apart to expose anus ... all intended to degrade prisoners."

Control units may have many features, but they are generally characterized by: permanently-designated prisons or cells with solitary or small-group confinement for at least 22 hours/day. All activities are solitary or small-group -- eating, exercising and showering. And control units have virtually no programs for prisoners. Activists and governments internationally recognize these conditions as torture, and studies and testimony have shown that the sensory and social deprivation create severe psychological and physical problems for prisoners.

Also in MIM Notes 319, a California SHU prisoner described the mental torture: "people in here with mental problems sometimes flip out and kick on their doors. ... These pigs spray them down with O.C. pepper spray, then strip out their cell. Shit, I've come to the point after all I've seen and been through, that I'm starting to get paranoid! I'll think that there's a microphone or a little video camera inside of my cell somewhere. Then I get a grip on my thinking. The SHU comrades are on a lockdown program."

At the April protest in Oakland, activists talked with an ex-prisoner who had been in the SHU and a young womyn who told us about similar conditions in Rita. Two prisons mental health workers agreed that the SHU is torture and reported on guard harassment. In May, we hit a Berkeley flea market and found a largely-Black crowd that is all too familiar with the prisons system and was quite friendly to our cause.

Prisoners are usually placed in control units for extended periods and as an administrative measure, so there are neither clear rules nor due process governing confinement or release. Prisons target internal semi-colonials and politically and legally active prisoners for control unit (known in Kalifornia as Security Housing Unit -- SHU, or "shoe") housing. This means that the people already suffering the national oppression of imprisonment (e.g., a 25-29 year old Black man is 8.5 times more likely to be in prison than his white counterpart) are also being expressly targeted for life-long health problems by their captors.

The United Front and the Abolish the SHU! petition represent years of organizing by many member organizations against the criminal injustice system in general and the control units in particular. Our goal with all public efforts is to collect petition signatures and support for prisoners, and to inform Amerikans and the rest of the world about torture in the Kalifornia prisons.

The Unlock the Box Conference should increase communication among anti-prisons groups over a wider geographic area. We hope to advance our shared goals through complementary work, with the overall goal of strengthening our cause with mass participation. The conference will combine presenters with vast experience in this struggle with working groups that form plans for future action. There will be cultural performances and food in between the sessions. Anyone who agrees with the basic goals of the United Front is welcome to join. Those who don't fully agree but want to support the petition in some way, or just learn more about prisons in this country, should check out the conference website and attend.

For additional information including a list of United Front to Abolish the SHU member organizations, Unlock the Box conference materials, a copy of the petition with supporting materials, and more background information on control units in general, click here.