California prisoners continue to expose Control Unit brutality

Join MIM in protest of the torturous SHU units. Hundreds of thousands of prisoner are being held in conditions of Sensory Deprivation. If you don't know what that is then imagine being in a concrete/steel cell and being denied all five basic human senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste) for years. Being denied any social contact. If you can imagine this then you get an idea of what MIM is trying to bring to the attention of the masses.

Sensory Deprivation is a form of physical, social and psychological torture, and it pushes many self respecting people to acts of desperation and to the most extreme points of paranoia. What also magnifies this is the fact that you can be double celled/housed. On an average morning there are loud noises emanating from the ventilation system, the tray slots/ports in which your food is served are used routinely by guards to irritate everyone there because they slam them very hard and the sound echoes. This is every morning at 6am. Sound is a well known tactic in both psychological warfare and torture, from the sound of dripping water to the sound of blasting music. The Waco massacre is a perfect example. The U..S. used sound warfare against David an his followers. This tactic is being used against us here in the SHU. This leads to sleep deprivation which germinates to psychological disorders.

This is not humane treatment. This torture takes the forms of physical pain, migraines, stress related illness, suicide, etc. It is the intention of the CDC to undermine endeavors to rehabilitate it's captives it seeks only to economically exploit the New African/Latino/Mexican communities via poverty and crime. The evolution of civilization cannot be discussed without discussing the evolution of human morality. How could any society justify the existence of such a brutal and inhumane practice? How can the Department of Corrections and society have the audacity to expect that prisoner remain passive and docile when to do so is against the very nature of a human being. The anger one feels/experiences is akin to slavery. It sets off emotions that few will every know, short of being in a hostage situation or in an american prison.

Let me revisit the word deprivation with a more insightful perspective. Deprivation means to deprive someone of something, to take away. In relation to the senses, that have just been set forth, to deprive would mean: Creating the structural setting in which the senses are cut off from contact with the natural elements of creation. To prevent the senses from having contact with the natural elements would result in depriving the senses of the necessary stimulant for healthy growth an development as a human being. The public/you are being given the impression that prisons are full of rapists, child molesters, serial murderers, drug kingpins, etc. However, if you just take a good look you'll see that the prisons are full of grown kids (mentally frozen minds). Who is to say that these minds are not worth salvaging through progressive programs? As for the rapists and child molesters, they have a hard time in prison; they are beaten and stabbed, slashed throughout their entire stay, and they are not the majority.

I urge you to join MIM's campaign to abolish these torture SHU units. Think about how you'll be heading off further oppression of millions of defenseless men, who are serving their sentences and being socially, mentally, and physically tormented in the process.

This article has been written and produced by a California prisoner who has no motivation to lie about a well kept secret, at least up until now about the misuse of the space designated for prisoners to serve out their sentences, some for the rest of their natural lives.

--a California prisoner (Corcoran), October 2003