New SHU cells in California prisons

We, the inmates, have been moved to this "new ad-seg" which is designed like the SHU, except we get no type of appliances, radios, TVs, etc. Our cells are 7 feet in width and 8 1/2 feet in length and the yard is small cages just like Corcoran SHU and supposedly Corcoran has one of these new ad-segs.

They are equipped and built like a SHU unit with the hole in the wall for electrical appliances, but we are denied such due to technically it is not called a SHU. Our only natural light comes through a sky light and then through a 3 1/2 foot long 4 inch wide glass window. This is inhumane. These cells were built for single cell living with an added bunk and they put two people in it. We cannot properly shave because we are not allowed shaving razors, only hair clippers which can only be utilized in the shower, and they don't properly disinfect the clippers.

We are fighting these injustices but the injustice system is steady trying to push rules on us that aren't even in a rules and regulations book (title 15) nor are any of these bogus rules operational procedure. We are told both cellies have to go to the shower together, we have to exit our cells. We are told that if you are in a cell by yourself you have to cell up with another inmate or you will be cell extracted. These few things are examples (true ones) of some of the oppression in these new ad-segs. We can't even get a scrub pad to clean our toilet bowl with nor finger/toe nail clippers. Maybe MIM can exploit these things and these "new ad-segs" CDC is building within prisons to make bed space since the state won't build new prisons. Plus it's just another way to punish us over and over for one crime.

I have been confined in ad-seg for 10 months now awaiting a transfer that hasn't even been endorsed yet. All because some other inmate put a confidential information on me saying that a certain group will have problems with me being there. These are false accusations and in the meantime I am being deprived of credit earning contact visits, and other mainline incentives and privileges. This happens to a lot of us in this imperialist system.

-- a CA prisoner at Soledad, June 2003