It's bad enough that almost 12,000 adults are in solitary confinement in California's prisons currently, each with an average "sentence" of five years - some for twenty and at least one for forty. Now we find out that California's insanity towards those it cages extends to children as well. Disabled children.
Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall locks youths with disabilities in solitary confinement for weeks or months at a time, depriving them of education and allowing them to "deteriorate mentally," according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday...
At the county's 290-bed Juvenile Hall in Martinez, the suit says, teens have been locked up for up to 23 hours a day in conditions similar to a maximum-security prison...
A 14-year-old girl referred to as G.F., who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and ADHD, entered Juvenile Hall at age 13, spent about 100 days in solitary confinement and "has received no education at all," the suit says.
W.B., a 17-year-old boy, began hearing voices and talking to himself in solitary confinement before he had a "complete psychotic break" and smeared feces on his cell wall, his attorneys say.
California's attitude towards those it imprisons is truly the "worst of the worst." California consistently ignore its own laws...
California and federal laws require special education and related services for all young people with disabilities, as well as determinations before punishment for misbehavior about whether their behavior was related to their disability.
... and its officials time and time again have fought tooth and nail against lawsuits and ultimately court orders demanding more humane treatment (both in terms of confinement and medical care) of prisoners, both juvenile and adult. While other solitary confinment programs have been reformed across the country, California officials continue to defend their torture regime.
Speaking of Torture:
Thursday represented the one-month mark in the California Prisoners' Hunger Strike. According to prison officials - who have every reason to lowball their count - some 360 prisoners are still partipating in a hunger strike that has now lasted thirty two days in protest of the conditions of solitary confinement. To the best of my knowledge, this is the largest, longest (combined) hunger strike in history.
On July 22nd, one of the hunger strikers, Billy Sell, died, possibly denied the medical attention he had requested. And those enduring thirty one days of no nutrition are facing other, inhuman, shall we say, problems but are still resolute.
Reports from prisoners at Pelican Bay indicate escalated mistreatment from guards in the Administrative Segregation and Security Housing Units. Prisoners report being verbally abused by guards and over hearing them discussing orders "to treat some prisoners really nicely and others really badly."
Despite the abuse, prisoners remain steadfast in continuing their protest. "They are obviously feeling the effects of not having eaten in over a month, but they remain strong and in high spirits." said Anne Weills, a lawyer representing strikers at Pelican Bay. "They are fighting for themselves, their fellow prisoners, and those who will come after them. They are incredibly inspired by all the support they've received, and are steadfast in their commitments to improving conditions."
On the outside, prisoners’ loved ones, activists, and advocates continue their fight to compel the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and Governor Jerry Brown to urgently address the human rights violations happening in the prison system by calling for immediate good-faith negotiations with strikers.
"These men are risking their lives to insist on humane conditions and an end to indefinite sentences of solitary confinement in California’s prison system," Said mediator Barbara Becnel... "How many prisoners have to be harmed by guards and conditions which violate international human rights standards before state authorities are willing to seriously consider their demands for real change? How many prisoners have to die?"
In a new development
the US Department of Justice has gotten involved - not in the hunger strike itself but in the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's solitary confinement system.
The U.S. Justice Department has weighed in on California's use of solitary confinement and other forms of isolation for mentally ill inmates, saying it has found that such conditions subject prisoners "to a risk of serious harm."
In a court filing Friday, lawyers in the Justice Department's civil-rights division took no position on inmates' request for a court order to block California from keeping mentally ill prisoners in its controversial isolation units.
But they call U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton's attention to a May 31 decision the agency issued about similar circumstances in Pennsylvania, where it found that such treatment violated prisoners’ constitutional rights.
I couldn't not eat for more than a day or two, let alone 32 days, let alone stuck in an 11'7" x 7'7" cell with nothing to think about but food. These men have found within them something more than themselves.
It's time for the State of California to listen and start treating them like human beings, instead of throwing a tantrum when being ordered to be humane by a Federal Court.
Is that really too much to ask of the California I live in?
8:56 AM PT: Link to children's solitary confinement lawsuit filing (pdf)