There is no doubt that we are indisputably under siege and definitely in a major state of emergency. Fortunately we still have a contingency of prison community, civil and human rights organizations and activists working in our behalf to abolish this racist and oppressive 3-strike law that is targeting the poor; people of color in general; and Black males in particular.
However, we must bear in mind that these outside groups, activists and organizational heads are not our inside leaders, but are only representatives of our collective plight, struggle and body, and can only be as effective as the body of which it represents. Therefore, if we are inactive and/or ineffective in our inside demonstrations and struggle for justice and liberation, they in turn will be ineffective representatives of our plight and struggle.
Therefore, we cannot afford this luxury of just sitting around doing nothing and hoping for everything. Political change does not happen like that. There is serious work to be done on all levels and our outside representatives cannot do the job alone, nor should they have to. We must organize and formulate effective inside demonstrations that will not undermine our overall objective or jeopardize our outside representatives!
Therefore the National Plantation Psychosis Awareness Committee and Associates has initiated a class action group appeal /832.5 citizens complaint against CDC alleging the following:
CDC has implemented a general policy and practice of double celling. This practice is imposed upon inmates whether they are willing or unwilling to comply. Consequently the unwilling inmate is either coerced, threatened or persuaded by disciplinary actions to accept this aforementioned double celling and therefore often creates a volatile, hostile and all too often lethal living environment for the inmates and has consequently and dangerously placed all single cells throughout CDC at over 198% capacity.
In most instances, to cover up these departmental threats and coercions of forced double celling, inmates are made to sign get along chronos which serve to relieve CDC of any liability should the inmates injure one another as a result of being forced into cohabitating these one man designed cells, thus lethal overcrowding conditions.
Petitioners agree with the supreme court ruling that in itself "inmates contentions that the close confinement of double celling-housing, two inmates in a single cell – for long periods creates a dangerous potential for frustration, tension and violence, does not lead to the conclusion that double celling… is a cruel and unusual conditioning of confinement in violation of the eight amendment." Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 u.s. 337 at 70.
However, CDC's practice of "forcing" double celling with threats and coercions after the opposition of sharing a single cell quarter has been explicitly expressed by either inmate creates a volatile and gladiator type environment for both inmates and thus triggers an eighth amendment violation of deliberate indifference to a substantiated risk of serious harm, in that "the federal constitution's eighth amendment does not require a prisoner seeking a remedy for unsafe conditions to await a tragic event, such as an actual assault before seeking relief." Farmer v. Brennan, 128 Led 2d 811, 815.
The aforementioned practice of "forced double celling" not only negligently and barbarically creates a penological interest of safety and security rather than serves one, but further serves to: 1. Arbitrarily make the 3-strike law physically possible; 2. Arbitrarily facilitate our own incarceration; and 3. Camouflage the true magnitude of the 3-strike law from the public.
Petitioners request that CDCs arbitrary policy and practice of forcing and coercing the double celling of unwilling inmates with threats of disciplinary actions be rescinded immediately.
The notification of this class action group appeal/832.5 citizens complaint against CDC is a preamble for the proceeding February 26, 2003 call to all 3-strikers, old lifers (7-ups), supporters and sympathizers to mobilize themselves throughout the state for a legal, nonviolent mass demonstration of resisting the policy and practice of forced double celling under the auspice of the above appeal/complaint.
We must utilize the time between now and February 26, 2003 to educate and prepare our collective body for the inevitable threats, force of violence and other strategic maneuvers the department of correction is going to launch against us in an attempt to extinguish this mass demonstration of peaceful and legal resistance and to neutralize our inside organizers and outside contacts.
Therefore we must stress the need to remain focused, united, disciplined and committed to the objective of our liberation and not be distracted nor discouraged by the hardships and strategic compromises that are surely to come. This is a 3-strike backlash demonstration with no side issues other than the demand to provide the 7-lifers a release date.
Common sense, simple economics and ramification of safety and security issues and codes dictates that the politicians and public at large will be much more receptive to our representatives demand to abolish this racist and oppressive 3-strike law and provide dates for the old 7-lifers, when CDC wakes up one morning to discover its prison yards, dayrooms, classrooms, workplaces, etc, bursting at its seems with tents, sleeping bags, cots and an immediate need of 50,000+ unavailable beds as a direct result of us simply resisting CDCs arbitrary practice of forced double celling.
This massive 3-strike backlash demonstration across the state of California's department of corrections will set in motion the needed, real and substantial political background that will give our outside representatives and pursuing legal defense teams the needed fuel and momentum to break the states back and liberate us from this race/poverty based oppression that affects us all. Black, white, Mexican and others.
We have the needed numbers, power and outside support. Therefore, the ultimate power is in our hands. So now we must mobilize and collectively make this 3-strike back lash a permanent reality for CDC, the governor and public.
Ignoring this appeal to mobilize and act will in all likelihood cost us all the rest of our natural lives and continue to drain our communities of its most precious and valuable resource, which is our youth.
Be involved! Make it happen! 3-strike backlash. Starting February 26, 2003. Dare to struggle, dare to win.
--founding president/minister of defense of the National Plantation Psychosis Awareness Committee (NPPAC), September 2002
MIM responds: We unite with this prisoners call for protest against the 3-strike law in California. This law has resulted in ridiculous sentences for minor crimes and even greater skyrocketing imprisonment rates in California. On the CDC web site visitors can browse the population of the prisons side-by-side with information about the supposed capacity of the prisons. Supporting this prisoner's argument about double celling, virtually all of the institutions are housing far more prisoners than they had capacity for by original design. Laws such as the 3-strikes law directly impact the rate of imprisonment but have no effect on the crime rate. The skyrocketing numbers of people in prison in the U.$. as a whole over the past 20 years have shown no relationship with the crime rate. Locking more people up, in increasingly dangerous and repressive conditions, is only serving the ends of social control and repression of the oppressed nations.
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