I appreciate your understanding that ad-seg units are no different than Security Housing Unit (SHU) programs. Inmates who are housed in these facilities are subject to the same inhumane treatment. We are forced to suffer through having our constitutional rights violated and are covered by the use of the institution saying it is because it threatens the safety and security of the institution. This carries a lot of weight and is CDC's way of trying to justify the conditions of ASU and SHU.
Being forced to use the ASU rec yard in t-shirt and boxers and socks while it is raining is cruel and unusual punishment. Issuing adequate clothing does not threaten the safety and security of the institution at all which leaves the fact that it is structured to oppress and depress inmates, which in turn creates hostility within inmates.
CDC has now created a new method of punishing inmates with indeterminate SHU programs by saying if you have been in the SHU three times it's off to the SHU for indeterminate term. If you've been in a riot twice it's an indeterminate SHU. This is just another way to keep beds in the California SHUs filled. My cellmate has been given an indeterminate SHU because a confidential witness alleged he was attempting to bring explosives into the institution. Yet the facts of proof were never discovered to show that the allegations were true, nor did he receive disciplinary action to support his being placed in a SHU indeterminately.
CDC is making no apologies in their act against inmates in ASUs or SHUs, they are just warehousing inmates and saying "appeal it" if you don't like it! These lockdown units serve no purpose only that they lock inmates away for long lengthy periods in ASU awaiting a transfer and have been in ASU non- disciplinary, non-adverse for five months since 6-11-03. Yet there has been no effort to transfer me. I am aware of the wrongs and would love to see them righted, but it will take those who are willing to see the end to these control units, and in order to make changes one has to stand up strong within the struggle to make it happen, and I am willing to do all I can in my reach of doing.
- a ca prisoner, November 2003