Prisoner SOLIDARITY: for September 9.

September 9th is the 45th anniversary of the Attica uprising, a massive 1971 prisoner protest against dismal conditions and abuse, which ended with the state of New York murdering scores of people.

Given the continuing abuse, neglect, and enslavement of over 2 million imprisoned people in the US today, prisoners across the US have called for and will begin a nationally coordinated work stoppage and protest on Sep 9, 2016. Learn more at SupportPrisonerResistance.net. 

There is at least one Arizona demonstration on September 9, outside ASPC-Lewis, in Buckeye, and many others across the country in solidarity with those prisoners who will be stopping work. Oh yes, it's going down!

The following is the most moving poem on prisoner support I've ever heard, from our brother Ben at Insurgent Theatre. He wrote this is the wake of Mariam Abdullah's suicide at ASPC-Perryville in July...

Please share to help inspire people making personal connections with prisoners in the course of building this movement.  He's an impassioned and committed prison abolitionist and anarchist - he and the folks he hangs with have done some great work towards liberation for all.  

Great resources on the Attica uprising:

Attica Prison Uprising 101: A Short Primer

A story of Attica

By Benjamin Michael Turk

If there is not a fire burning in your heart that longs to spread to every prison emptying them out reducing them to ash and rubble then you don't know what world you are living in.

You don't know control unit suicides, humans reduced to hands full of pills to hands displaying makeshift razors through narrow reinforced windows begging to have the master's tools taken away from them begging the COs to save them from what the COs have made them.

The shit smeared razor cuts bedsheet nooses confined conflagrations. Legal briefs and case law stacked knee high on the concrete is at least flammable. If nothing else, these papers could go up in a relieving blaze finally serving the pursuit of freedom they so long promised but withheld. Immolation is another way to end the suffering.

When it happens, whether by noose or knife by pills or by fire an alarm goes up. The emergency call buttons don't work never worked so everyone kicks their doors and shouts. Man down! Man down! Save our souls!

But the COs come slow and they shrug. There is nothing unexpected about a person ending a life of torture.

If there is not a fire smoldering under wet blankets you've carefully arranged to get through your days but unextinguishable, reignited with each salvo of bullets tearing through black flesh on your computer screen, reignited by the dark eyes on a mugshot of an eighteen year old who hung herself in solitary, if that fire doesn't threaten your life everyday, then you and I, we must live in different worlds.

But if there is a fire burning in your chest as in mine, smothered but burning soaked with a deluge of your tears but burning stamped and pummeled to oblivion but burning wished and prayed and begged out but raging still that fire doesn't need to smolder there doesn't need to choke you with it's slow curls of noxious smoke of hopeless endeavors of shrugging shoulders, reconciled to defeat. You can open your heart and spill your angry flames into the world!

It is a fragile world, standing heavy on unstable history flammable as a house of paper. This world is nothing other than paper and us. It works through us having no power other than us, it sets us against us gets us burning our own selves up. It will burn you up until you learn to blow it back, to open your blast furnace spewing embers and sparks tongues of flame billowing smoke a moving wall of intolerable heat.

Be less afraid because an enemy cowardly enough to shoot black men dead this often is weak. An enemy who cannot hold a precious human without breaking, torturing, driving her into ever smaller boxes until she turns up dead in one of them, is utterly without defense. You don't need to take up arms, you don't even need to take the streets, there are many ways you can tend your flames. We can damage this enemy with our words, with paperwork, letters and love. If you put your fire in an envelope it may kindle flames in a body deemed disposable, a body gasping for air inside a box designed to suffocate it.

We can damage this enemy with our hearts, make ourselves its witness, our voices and eyes, just listen and repeat. All that we need is to reach through the bars and hold the trembling hand of someone who refuses to comply with a direct order. The walls will turn to ash, and crumble.

Do this not because you feel pity or some charitable obligation to the cause, but because you know. You know in your heart in this smoky and raw cavity below your ribs that while another person suffers you are never free.

We are all very anxious. Alone, without power, glued to screens and over-whelmed by secondary trauma virtual trauma hyper trauma a zeitgeist of feverish useless but exhausting obsession with trauma.

But the confined ask only that we use our freedoms wisely, that we turn away from distraction and anxiety, give up the numbing potions the dopamine triggers the performances of doing being okay and find instead, a place for them, in our flammable hearts.

Our cure is in clasped hands our cure is in angry chants our cure is in work parties in our feet and hands and voices. Our cure is in fighting to fucking win. Because it feels good to hurt a fascist good and necessary. It tends your fire, keeps you up and alive authentic and whole.

If there is not a fire of solidarity burning in you I want to start one. I want to put the pen to paper the kindling in your hand and matches protest banners stacks of flyers U-locks, pitchforks and torches.

I want you to tend your fire. If for no other reason than because when the prisons are done suffocating their current captives and suffocating the next class the next batch of surplus population the next group of precarious workers thrown to correctional dogs by ruling class austerity measures it will eventually get around to smothering you.

This fucking enemy called my mother a thug, my white middle-aged, college-educated elementary school teaching mother. It called her a terrorist, and then it stole from her pension. Very few of us are truly safe from this fucking thing.

There is a seesaw over an inferno and while you might feel and look different from those below you those sliding off the edge breaking their fingernails in desperate grips, the enemy is raising the angle increasing the slope, toward the incinerator which yawns at all of us.

If there is not a fire wanton inside of you clouding your vision causing you panic a blaze of impending doom always there tightening up tendons at the base of your neck pulling you so many ways piling ever smaller stresses till you're fit to choke or snap out if you don't feel the gravity, see the precipice, and fear the heat of those flames, then you aren't paying attention.

But if there is a fire, then you should know who built it you should know that we have enemies. Your body is warning you of danger why would you ignore it? Stop scrabbling at the ankles of those above you while kicking off those below. Recognize: greedy hands are creeping toward your own throat, and they look like yours. The enemy moves them closer as it slides us all down the incinerator's chute.

Instead of all that instead of living in fear of the thug and the terrorist that runs amok within you instead of cutting each other instead of ever smaller boxes instead of waiting to show up in the array of suicide mugshots we could fight together cuz if we did we would win.

Wexford Arizona: Deliberate Indifference Kills (UPDATED).

UPDATED 10/05/12 at bottom of post)

Wexford Health Sources

1850 N. Central Ave. Phoenix

October 3, 2012

Families: this is evidence for your loved one's civil rights suits if they've been suffering as a result of medical neglect at the AZ DOC and still can't get relief. Print and mail it to them. They MUST follow the grievance process, and not just file more HNR's on the same issues. Take this to an attorney if you can afford one, and get the following material/resources to loved ones inside so they know how to protect themselves from this predatory corporation:

ACLU: Know your rights: The PLRA (READ FIRST!!!)

Columbia University: Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (read chapter 1 to familiarize yourself, then download and print what chapters they need)

National Lawyer's Guild Jailhouse Lawyer's Handbook (more compact than the one above: download here or send the NLG  $2 and the prisoner's contact info, and they'll send them a bound copy) - every prisoner needs one of these for the rest of their incarceration.

AZ Department of Corrections Policies: Inmate Grievance Procedures

AZ DOC Policies: Inmate Access to Health Care

AZ DOC Policies: Inmate Mental Health Care

AZ DOC Policies: Inmate Health Records

"Parsons v Ryan" Class action suit over medical neglect and abuse of the mentally ill before Wexford  even came - they aren't the only culprits here. Anyone potentially suing the DOC for medical issues needs to have a copy.

Instructions for Prisoners filing civil rights suits in AZ - they need to know this is what their grievances lead to -mwhet they need to prepare for - if they don't get adminstrative relief from the DOC or Wexford- but they can get hurt if they don't file it right. Contact Middle Ground Prison Reform early in the grievance process for info about options for legal representation or professional criminal justice consultation services.

Report medical and conditions of confinement complaints to the ACLU-AZ

Contact Mary Lou Brncik at David's Hope to organize around mental illness in the criminal justice system.

Contact me (Peggy Plews: 480-580-6807/arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com) to organize with other families and former prisoners who want to make a difference for all. 

And have prisoners write to me directly at AZ Prison Watch PO Box 20494 Phoenix, AZ 85036, for packets of info about their rights...I will send them out as long as I am able to. They must be persistent if they don't hear back from me in a week, and keep me posted about changes in their status if we're working on something.

---from Middle Ground Prison Reform-----

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 10:13 AM, DONNA LEONE HAMM <middlegroundprisonreform@msn.com> wrote:

Mr. Charles Ryan, Director
Arizona Department of Corrections
1601 West Jefferson
Phoenix, Arizona  85007

Dear Mr. Ryan:

 

Yesterday, Oct. 1, I received a telephone call from Dr. Lawrence D'Antonio, who works for a contractor who provides professional healthcare workers to Wexford.  As you know, Wexford, in turn, provides all medical care for prisoners within the Arizona Department of Corrections.  D'Antonio currently works at the Eyman Complex/Rynning.  He was originally supposed to work at Meadows, but now only works at Rynning. He says the Meadows Unit is a "lost cause."   If I understood him correctly, he believes there is no doctor currently assigned to Meadows Unit and that the Clinical Center there is essentially inoperative.  He has been a doctor (D.O.) for 27 years.  He has worked for the contractor who provides doctors to Wexford since about July 2012.

D'Antionio says that Dr. Tom Bell is the Statewide Medical Director employed by Wexford.  The Regional M.D. for Wexford is Dr. Hector F. Garcia.  He is Dr. Bell's boss.  Karen Grant is the Director of Nursing for Wexford.  D'Antonio refuses to converse with or take orders from Grant.  Grant was abusive, used obscenities with him, and was unprofessional during their initial conversation.  He believes that it is ironic that only current physican at the Eyman/Rynning Unit (D'Antonio) has no communication  with the Director of Nursing.  He has advised his own employer that either Wexford needs to obtain someone other than Grant for him to communicate with or he will not work there at all.

He says "personnel (medical) are leaving in droves."  Grant was ordering him to do things outside his training and outside of his expertise.  She was ordering him to see patients who needed specialists; he is not a specialist.  He says that Dr Bell ordered  that certain medications are to be stopped for some inmates.  When asked why the medications were to be stopped, Bell stated, "Because they are prisoners."  He asked Bell, "Is this your own medical decison-making?"  Bell replied, "This comes from Wexford."

Karen Grant has ordered D'Antonio to write prescriptions en masse for patients whom he has not seen.  He refused to do so, stating that in most cases he needs to see each patient individually before he can prescribe a medication.  He says Wexford is sabotaging everything by doing such things as excessive questioning of the doctor ("for more information") when he prescribes a medication.  When he makes a referral for a patient to have a procedure, obtain a specialist's opinion, have additional testing, etc., Wexford has a procedure which they call a "collegial" conference call.  Their staff get on a conference call and the vast majority of the time, they delay the additional procedure by requesting "additional information" from the referring doctor.  This goes on and on, back and forth, so that the procedure itself never gets done or is so delayed as to be meaningless (or dangerous) for the patient.

He says that he was told that all prior referrals (for specialists, tests, etc.) made by DOC healthcare workers prior to July 1, when Wexford took over, are cancelled, and will not be honored.  Instead, the inmate is required to go through the referral process all over again, thus further delaying what might be life-saving diagnostic testing.  D'Antonio says that many of the referrals are "shelved" and continuously cycled through the "get more information" process over and over.

D'Antionio refers to the mistakes and unethical conduct going on by Wexford employees as "staggering" and "criminal."  He says that while he does not consider himself to be soft on crime or criminals, "they are human beings and deserving of basic medical care."  He has restricted his exposure to liability for the type of care being provided to inmates by limiting the days he will work, the hours he works, and the units at which he will work.  He says what is happening at the Meadows Unit and throughout the Florence prisons is a "disgrace."

The doctor says that there are such people as what doctors refer to as "hatchet" doctors or "administrative" doctors -- they work for a corporation and have given up their ethics (and oath) to 'do no harm' by accepting a huge paycheck just to go along with corporate policies and directions.  D'Antonio says there are doctors (or nurses) such as this that work for Wexford.

He says that each time he sees a patient, he must fill out a progress note.  This is a form.  When he orders lab work, an x-ray or a prescription, each requires a separate form.  At the Meadows Unit, it was nearly impossible to find the forms needed, thus delaying and complicating the already dysfunctional process.  He says chart work is ignored and there is no review process.  He was originally hired just to do induction physical exams for incoming (new) prisoners, but that he has ended up doing everything from emergency care, chronic care, diagnostics, etc. and that they are so back-logged in reviewing charts that there is no reasonable way that each patient's chart can be reviewed in a timely manner.

He states that he has been told by Wexford employees that, "We are forbidden from talking about what happens here. . ." and that he has been advised, "Prisoners have died at the Meadows Unit due to lack of care since Wexford took over . . . ." (He was unable to provide me any names or DOC #'s of inmates who have allegedly died at Meadows Unit due to lack of medical care since Wexford took over on July 1, 2012).

He says that the Wexford formulary for approved medication is "archaic." He gave an example of the medication that Wexford has approved for hay fever.  (I can't spell it).  He says this was a medication that was being phased out in the 1980's (it was a medication that he would have taken as a child)  -- and that the standard of care in today's world for allergies is an antihistamine and/or a nasal steroid spray.  He says Wexford approves a salt water/ocean spray which is so outdated, it is laughable.  So, when he writes a prescription for a timely/updated drug (a "non-formulary" drug), Wexford can't fill it (won't fill it) because it isn't in their formulary.  So, there is a huge delay for the patient in obtaining non-formulary medication, and the formulary list itself is actually responsible for delay after delay after delay for patients to obtain a prescribed medication, including for serious medical problems.  He states that Wexford would likely claim that their formulary medications are "great" and "adequate," but many of their medications are simply not used anymore in today's real world of medicine in the USA.

He says he works a 12-hour day with no breaks and he even eats lunch while charting.  He works the hours by choice in order to get in his weekly hours in as short a time as possible to get out of there as quickly as possible.  But the workload is so far behind, it would require a full team of doctors to get caught up and would take a year.

He is concerned because many of the inmates are complaining they are not getting enough food and the doctor is concerned about the weight loss he has actually observed.  His says he has heard comments from many people that the real reason for the recent riots/disturbances at Tucson and Rynning is because of an underlying tension or stress among the inmate population due to (1) not enough food; (2) being denied medical care.  The DOC explained the reason for the riots to the media as "racial disturbances."

Dr. D'Antonio has openly discussed with Dr. Bell his concern that Dr. Bell could have a work-related breakdown over his job.  He is deeply concerned about Dr. Bell's mental well-being and feels it is possible that Dr. Bell may become "overwhelmed" by his job duties as Medical Director.  D'Antonio believes the various relevant Arizona professional medical boards and nursing board should immediately become deeply involved and investigate what is happening.  The Hippocratic Oath:  Do no harm -- is being violated directly.   He says he is witnessing "outrageous" medical neglect and actions contributing to such neglect by staff.

When a patient is referred for an outside professional test, procedure or consultation, the referral goes to the Wexford "collegial board."  He has asked, "What happens if it (the referral) is denied?"  Dr. Bell told him, "Well, it goes back to the referring doctor."  D'Antonio said, "Well, what happens if I refer the same patient a second time for the same procedure because I obviously believe he needs it?"  Bell replied, "Well, then we fire you because you keep making referrals."

He says many doctors and nurses have quit.  About 9-10 doctors have quit between the Florence and Eyman Complexes.  Describing the situation as "under-manned" or "under-staffed" is a diversionary term by Wexford.  The doctors who quit need to come forward to explain the reasons why they quit.  The under-manned situation is a result of the very problematic things that are happening.

D'Antonio says that what is happening in the Department of Corrections with respect to inmate medical care is "nothing short of outrageous."

He will agree to an interview with the media or with the ADC Director, but will only do face-to-face.  He lives in Tucson.

Mr. Ryan, on September 5, 2012, I wrote you an email expressing my concerns about the care being afforded to inmates by Wexford, and wondered why the company did not seem to be attempting to especially impress the Department during the early stages of their multi-million dollar, multi-year state contract.  You did not respond to this email.  It now appears as though Wexford sees the ADC as a cash cow for corporate profits at the expense of the very care they supposedly are contractually, legally, morally, and medically committed to providing.  This cannot be permitted to continue, and corporate assurances of corrective action are fundamentally insufficient as a response to the level, nature, and depth of the issues that now are emerging as a result of the outsourcing of inmate medical care to Wexford.

Just prior to the Sept. 5th email, I had notified you of a Wexford nurse who had ordered a female inmate to lick a powdered prescription medication from her own hand after the nurse had poured it into the hand.  The inmate protested because of the unprofessional and unorthodox method of medication administration and ended up with a disciplinary sanction and movement to another yard.  It is unknown if the nurse was sanctioned or terminated, but you did advise me that Wexford had "retrained" their nurses in the proper method of distribution of medication.

Now, with the above serious information as provided to me, I have no choice but to contact the relevant Medical and Nursing Boards of the State of Arizona.  Human lives are at stake.

While we appreciate the recent well-written noncompliance letter from Joseph Profiri, that letter does not go far enough.  For example, there is no mention that families can't get in touch with or recieve call back response from Wexford about their loved one's medical care.  Families repeatedly complain to me that Wexford's "hot line" is completely non-responsive.

Sincerely,

Donna Leone Hamm, Judge (Ret.)
Executive Director
Middle Ground Prison Reform
(480) 966-8116
MIDDLE GROUND HAS BEEN ARIZONA'S PREMIER ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF THE INCARCERATED SINCE 1983

----------------EMAIL #2: OCTOBER 5, 2012----------------

October 5, 2012
 
Mr. Charles Ryan, Director

Arizona Department of Corrections

1601 West Jefferson

Phoenix, Arizona  85007

                                                 Re:  EMERGENCY ACTION NECESSARY

Dear Mr. Ryan:

It is my understanding, based on information coming directly from Dr. Lawrence D'Antonio, that Dr. D'Antonio was escorted off the Rynning Unit by the Deputy Warden of the Unit and a security officer, after my recent email to you had been (apparently) forwarded to Wexford.  This is apparently the procedure applied toward whistle-blowers by Wexford.

It is also my understanding that Karen (or Caryn) Grant, Director of Nursing, resigned very recently (since my email to you).  I don't know if her resignation is connected to the fact that when I filed a complaint against her with the Arizona Nursing Board, they advised me that there is no "Karen Grant" who is licensed to practice nursing in the State of Arizona at this time, but that a "Karen Grant" was licensed up until 1991.  I believe that impersonating a nurse is a felony in Arizona.
 
Meanwhile, I have learned some additional very disturbing information from Dr. D'Antionio which, if verified as correct, amounts to an EMERGENCY situation.  The following information cannot simply be passed along to the "appropriate personnel" as you advised about my previous email.  Each and every prisoner who is incarcerated in the state Department of Corrections is entrusted to your department's care and custody, and you and your Department are ultimately responsible for their care, welfare and safety, which -- of course -- includes providing the community standard of care for serious medical needs.
 

During the time he worked at the Rynning Unit, Dr. D'Antonio personally observed that some inmates are given incorrect medications.  He also observed that some inmates are receiving medications which are contraindicated for other conditions that they have (for example; no inmate who is a diabetic should take a beta-blocker, etc.).  Some combinations are drugs which have the potential for being lethal.   He also observed that some inmates are being given double doses of prescribed medication, each dosage from a different manufacturer with a different name.  Once again, in some cases, the double dose could be fatal or seriously debilitating.  He reported to me that he advised Dr. Tom Bell of his observations, and Bell essentially shrugged him off and did not seem to grasp the import of D'Antonio's concerns.  As Dr. Bell had previously stated, "They are just prisoners."

Because you now are in possession of the above information as related to me by a licensed doctor in the state of Arizona and based upon his own personal observation, I believe that you are obligated to order an immediate audit/investigation of ALL inmate medical files for inmates housed at the Rynning Unit.  The investigation must be conducted by an independent qualified doctor or doctors who are not connected to Wexford or to the Department of Corrections in any manner.  Wexford should pay for the audit/investigation.  Other units should be audited as well because there is no reason to believe that these egregious mistakes are isolated to the Rynning Unit only.

Again, it is insufficient to simply pass this message along to Wexford. This potentially dangerous and/or lethal information must be addressed at once and I expect to receive a report of the findings in a timely manner.  A report that addresses these issues would not have to reveal HIPPA protected information because a code number could be assigned to each case.  It is imperative, however, that any incorrect medications, double-dose medications or contraindicated medications must be identified at once; hopefully, prior to an emergency situation induced by deliberate indifference or by gross negligence.

Please advise.

Donna Leone Hamm, Judge (Ret.)
Criminal Justice Consultant
Executive Director
Middle Ground Prison Reform
(480) 966-8116 (or contact James Hamm at (602) 339-0176
MIDDLE GROUND HAS BEEN ARIZONA'S PREMIER ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION PROTECTING THE RIGHTS OF THE INCARCERATED SINCE 1983

Prisoner resistance to institutional inhumanity spreads...

This came to me today from several different sources, and is hitting the other prison watcher sites, so we're putting it up here. May it bring inspiration to those who think they are alone resisting the brutality and inhumanity in Arizona's prisons...you are in very good company. Write to me, and I'll do what I can to support your non-violent efforts to bring about changes from the inside out. Peggy Plews, PO Box 20494, PHX, AZ 85036.

---------------------------------------

"We’re tired of being treated like animals."

By Jen Waller and Thomas Hintze
Waging Nonviolence, via: http://www.indypendent.org/2012/06/01/wave-prisoner-resistance-sweeps-south
Thanks to: The Real Cost of Prisons

June 1, 2012

Last week, prisoners in two different facilities in the United States resisted inhumane conditions — one through an uprising that the mainstream media dubbed a “riot,” and the other through a hunger strike. The tactics employed by the two groups differ, but the messages are clearly linked: Prisoners are protesting their conditions and are willing to put their lives on the line to fight for better treatment.

On May 20, inmates took control of the Adams County Correctional Facility in Mississippi for over eight hours. One inmate managed to access a cell phone during the uprising and called WLBT TV in Jackson, proving his presence in the prison by sending pictures. He gave the station the following statement: “They beat us; we’re just [paying] them back. We just need better treatment and services. We need medical attention. We just want some respect. They call us wetbacks” — referring to a racist slur used against undocumented immigrants.

The prison is privately owned by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which manages over 60 facilities and touts a capacity of 90,000 beds. The prison in Adams County is populated by immigrants from over 70 countries awaiting deportation and is part of a larger war on undocumented immigrants in the United States. 2011 was a record year for deportations: 396,000 people were removed from the country, and more than half of those people were convicted of crimes and held at private immigration detention facilities like the one in Adams County.

During the uprising, one guard was killed, and several guards and inmates were injured. Over two dozen guards were reportedly held hostage. The prisoners were subdued by SWAT teams, which dropped pepper spray grenades and tear gas bombs into the facility. Before it was quashed, more than 600 of about 2,500 total inmates were reportedly involved in the takeover.

The mainstream media, much like the prison officials themselves, have sought to silence the grievances that motivated the uprising. Nearly every headline has emphasized images of violence, tumult, disorder. Many news outlets claimed that a gang fight started the revolt, yet they fail to explain how a clash between rival gangs could result in an apparently unified uprising with clear demands.

The nature of the uprising and the death of a prison guard in the midst of it have given the media a pretext to ignore the massive violence and brutality that prisoners suffer across the country every single day. The incident is also symptomatic of the fact that the privatization of prisons like the one in Adams County means a lack of oversight and responsibility, which results in inhumane conditions for inmates. The Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance has received numerous complaints about the conditions of this CCA facilitity and many others, with reports of beatings, overcrowding, substandard food and lack of proper medical care, among other grievances. These are precisely the kinds of problems that were cited by those who took matters into their own hands in Mississippi by mounting an occupation.

Meanwhile, 45 prisoners at Red Onion State Prison in Wise County, Virginia were plotting another kind of resistance: a hunger strike, which they launched on May 22. With the help of a network of prisoner-support activists in the area, the hunger strikers released 10 demands and a press advisory. Among these demands were such basics as fully-cooked food and access to fresh fruit and vegetables, access to complaint and grievance forms, an end to torture in the form of indefinite segregation, and adequate medical care. Five hundred of the 1,700 inmates at Red Onion — Virginia’s only “supermax” prison — spend 23 hours a day in isolation. Inmates at Red Onion have also reported being beaten by guards and bitten by dogs.

Prisoner hunger strikes like this have been growing in frequency. Just in the past year, hunger strikes have happened at the Ohio State Penitentiary, the Corcoran State Prison, Pelican Bay State Prison, Ironwood State Prison, Kern Valley State Prison and more. Prisoners around the world are also choosing to resist by hunger striking, most notably the 2,500-strong Palestinian prisoner hunger strike that went on for weeks and was ultimately hailed as a victory. As we write, there are prisoners fasting in resistance in Dubai, Morocco, Egypt and, earlier this week, a 110-day hunger strike ended in Bahrain.

On Tuesday, a flurry of articles, including one in The Washington Post, ran with headlines claiming that the hunger strike at Red Onion prison had ended. In order for the state to officially recognize a hunger strike, inmates must reject their meals for nine consecutive days, which Virginia Department of Corrections Director Harold Clarke said they had not. In response to the news, activists with the group Solidarity with Virginia Prison Hunger Strikers issued a response challenging the validity of the DOC’s statements:

There has been a history of organizing at this prison to protest the inhumane conditions since the opening of the prison. Because it was the prisoners themselves who put their bodies on the line to call attention to injustices at Red Onion, it should be the prisoners to whom we listen over the press releases of the Virginia Department of Correction. Given that the VA DOC both failed to acknowledge the hunger strike at the onset and engaged in sending out misinformation, their version of events is suspect.

At Red Onion, one of the hunger strikers’ representatives denounced the inhumanity of the prison:

We’re tired of being treated like animals. There are only two classes at this prison: the oppressor and the oppressed. We, the oppressed, despite divisions of sexual preference, gang affiliation, race and religion, are coming together. We are rival gang members but now are united as revolutionaries.

Those affirmative words echo a rich and varying legacy of prisoner resistance that is all but forgotten in the American consciousness. Perhaps the most famous prison uprising in U.S. history was the Attica rebellion of 1971, when prisoners took control of the facility in upstate New York for five days before Governor Nelson Rockefeller approved a military siege. Thirty-one prisoners were killed, and nine guards died in the hail of bullets used to quash the occupation. Yet, over the course of those five days, the prisoners at Attica built a sense of community, about which one black prisoner later said, “I never thought whites could really get it on … But I can’t tell you what the yard was like, I actually cried it was so close, everyone so together.”

As the speaker from Attica and the representative at Red Onion State Prison both allude to, it is when divides of race, identity, and affiliation start to break down that prisoners are empowered to seek better conditions and more rights. These struggles also depend on those on the outside who show solidarity and help to spread awareness of the prisoners’ grievances. Supporters of the Red Onion hunger strike are organizing through their website and an online petition. The San Francisco Bay View has posted a further list of ways people can support the Red Onion revolutionaries. Inmates are putting their lives in danger to fight for meaningful change in a brutal system, but without people outside the prisons echoing them, their cries can continue being silenced and ignored.
-------
http://virginiaprisonstrike.blogspot.com/

This article was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

http://www.indypendent.org/2012/06/01/wave-prisoner-resistance-sweeps-south