Punishment at PBSP for prisoners refusing to double cell

To most progressively conscious people it is no secret that Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) is the source of many oppressive issues, and many struggles are being waged on multiple fronts by multiple collectives to address and redress those issues in accordance with the specific ideology of the particular group. This is a table of just one more such issue and one more such struggle.

Officials at PBSP have implemented an "underground" policy and practice whereby prisoners who refuse to double-cell are arbitrarily and capriously removed from their housing units (cages) in the general population (GP) and locked up in the state of "limbo" in the ad seg/overflow/orientation/contagious disease unit for an indeterminate period of time without being afforded due process and the procedural safeguards required by CCR Title 15 (the Rules and Regulations of the Director of Corrections).

These prisoners (including myself) are not being charged with a rules violation, and therefore are not issued a write-up (CDC-115) nor a lock up order (CDC-114-D). As a result, technically we are not removed from GP and placed in ad.seg. as a threat to persons and/or to the security of the institution, and that allows prison officials to circumvent the due process and procedural safeguards that are required whenever a prisoner is placed in administrative segregation.

Similarly, we are not new arrivals to the institution, and therefore do not fit into the category of being in orientation, while at the same time we are being held in a section that has been partly designated an orientation unit. That is significant because orientation prisoners are not allowed any property or privileges of any kind until they have appeared before the classification committee for screening and been cleared for release to the GP that is a process that normally takes between 10-14 days. Since no personal property is allowed in the orientation unit (including legal materials), all of our personal property is confiscated when we are moved from GP and confined to this hybrid, makeshift unit. Likewise, all of our privileges are terminated (no yard time, no outdoor exercise, no canteen, no packages, no special purchases, no phone use, no library access, no TVs – just lock-down 22 hours and 45 minutes a day). Normally, for one's privileges to be restricted, he would have to appear before a classification committee who must then act to reduce our privilege group to group "c". But even privilege group "c" doesn't lose everything. For instance, privilege group "c" retains their personal property and are allowed canteen access. However, by locking up GP prisoners in this hybrid unit, prison officials again circumvent the due process and procedural safeguards we're entitled to and deprive us of all privileges on the grounds that we're in an orientation unit.

What is more, there are no time constraints for how long we can be held under these punitive conditions of confinement which are, in fact, more harsh than even ad seg and SHU, because as bad as it is for them, those prisoners at least get outdoor exercise, personal property, packages, special purchases, canteen and library access.

Again, orientation prisoners can anticipate being released from these conditions in 10-14 days. There is no time limit for mainline prisoners locked up under these conditions, thereby making it an indeterminant period of confinement for all intents and purposes.

Additionally, we are not in this unit for reasons of quarantine, as are some of the prisoners. They have been diagnosed as being infected with Staph disease and isolated in this unit from GP prisoners until the infection is cured. They are then returned to the mainline. In the interim, healthy prisoners locked up in this unit for refusing to double-cell, as well as new arrivals to the prison, are exposed to catching this contagious disease by virtue of being confined with infected prisoners with whom we share the same showers and have other contact with (trade books, food, and get placed in a cage that a recently infected prisoner was just released from).

There are a number of reasons that more and more prisoners are refusing to double-cell, one of which is that there is a large number of prisoners who have become victims of the state's propensity to sentence us to ridiculously long prison terms, and have succumbed to mental and emotional psychosis, and the use of psychotropic drugs which makes them unpredictable in close living quarters.

Another is the understanding that taxpayers pay $30,000 per year for every prisoner confined to a state prison. That means that every prison cage that confines two prisoners is worth $60,000 to that institution. By refusing to double cell, these prisoners see themselves as depriving the prison of that extra $30,000 for that cage. Perhaps they (PBSP) are feeling the financial pinch, and that, in part, accounts for their implementation of the above described "underground" policy.

In any event, we recognize the tactics of the oppressors, and we want the readers of MIM Notes to know, that we have engaged the struggle on this front, and support the struggle on all other fronts.

- a California prisoner, August 2005

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