Conditions in California SHU

I am in CCI, Tehachapi Security Housing Unit (SHU). I've read what other comrades have said about where they're at in the SHU and about mental problems. Well, from how we are given the cold shoulder and treated around here, it would break a person's mind down real fast. The first thing that blew me away was, we only get a 1/2 a bar of soap every week, not a bar, a 1/2 of bar. Two pairs of boxers, 2 shirts, 2 socks, 1 jumpsuit, 2 blankets and 4 sheets. We turn out laundry in on Sunday and get it back the next Saturday, a week later. Which means we have to wash our boxers, shirts and socks, shower 3 times a week, if we're lucky, and clean our cells with that ½ a pair of soap. You get 2 pieces of blank paper a week which I appealed all the way to Sacramento under CCR title 15 sec 3134, indigent inmates, which in short says "writing paper, envelopes and the minimum postage required for first class domestic mail for up to five one ounce letters per week shall be supplied to an indigent inmate as defined in section 3000, upon the inmate's request." I'm indigent and can't get it. I have to ask people for paper when I run out.

Some people in here with mental problems sometimes flip out and kick on their doors. What happens you ask? These pigs spray them down with O.C. pepper spray, then strip out their cell. Shit, I've come to the point after all I've seen and been through, that I'm starting to get paranoid! I'll think that there's a microphone or a little video camera inside of my cell somewhere. Then I get a grip on my thinking. The SHU comrades are on a lockdown program. We shower 3 times a week, if lucky, and are supposed to receive 10 hours of yard a week in the dog cages .But if the main line gets locked down, we get locked down also. Which means no yard or showers until the warden, captain, or lieutenant says so. It's January 22 today and I've had 5 showers this month and have only gone to yard 4 times for around 2.5 hours per yard. That's 10 hours of yard in 22 days. Madness! I'd like to see our so-called state officials spend 22 days in our situation, shit even one day would make 'em think twice about saying SHU are not unjustified or cruel.

In the summer, the heater was on and now in the winter the cooler is on. Cruel and unusual? Hell yea, to top it off with mind games. Here's something else: I'm trying to educate myself while I'm in the SHU. I asked that I be able, as well as other inmates, be able to study for and take the GED test and/or study for my high school diploma. I 602 appealed on the grounds that I'm wanting to educate myself and, it is a requirement by the state parole board for a lifer to have either a GED or a diploma. The appeal was denied on all levels, I am including a copy of the whole 602 appeal with this letter so people outside can see that the department of Korruption wants to keep comrades in the SHU ignorant.

I tried to enroll in the correction learning network, that they said is offered to me, and I was told the materials I needed were not available at that time. So I put in for different study materials and never heard from them again! I plan on taking this issue into the courts and due to the fact that I am a layman of the law, I can use all the help anyone may offer.

- a prisoner in California, Tehachapi SHU, January 2005