USW Interview's Pelican Bay SHU prisoner

California USW interview's Pelican Bay SHU prisoner

Question: Why were you placed in Pelican Bay SHU?
Answer: I was placed in Pelican Bay's SHU on February 20, 1992 for what Corcoran State Prison Institutional Gang Investigators claimed on 12/4/91 was my alleged involvement with a prison gang. I was falsely labeled a prison gang associate and simply placed in a modified unit at Corcoran pending approval of the gang packet that was submitted on me to Sacramento's Special Service Unit (SSU). I wasn't afforded any type of due process or hearing on it at all until I was finally up here and they finally gave me a 114D hearing in March of 92 but by then Sacramento's SSU had already approved the five pieces of fabricated information that they had on me. My only options after that were to challenge the information via the appeals process which was to no avail and then take it to the courts which was also just as useless.

Q: And approximately how long have you been confined in the Security Housing Unit (SHU)?
A: I have been confined in the SHU of Corcoran State Prison and Pelican Bay for the past 14 years now. Three years in Corcoran's SHU and 11 years in Pelican Bay's SHU. The past 11 years have been for prison gang association.

Q: How are the conditions of the SHU?
A: The conditions of the SHU I feel are what you make of it and also how you deal with it psychologically. I have seen so many guys let the loneliness, solitude and lack of program and activity get to them and either drive them crazy or into debriefing and cooperating with the prison officials as an informant just to get out of the HSU and its restricted program and privileges.

It also affects your health after long term confinement. You become deathly pale due to the lack of sun. Your skin develops spots that doctors can't explain or properly treat. You become very sensitive to noise and irritated by sounds out of the ordinary. To keep yourself busy and occupied you read, write, study, or watch your TV if you have one?

The administration officials too are always trying to make life and obtaining things from the outside world as hard, complicated and restrictive as possible for us. It's always in the name of "security risk" too. Life in the SHU sucks especially when you have done nothing wrong at all to be placed in it other than the man's labeling you falsely as a prison gang associate.

Q: What about due process? Were you given an opportunity to exercise your due process rights?
A: Due process?? That's a joke. I had no due process at all during my initial labeling as a prison gang associate. The man just gave me one piece of paper that said I was a prison gang associate and that they had five pieces of information on me. When it came time to have my hearing I was already up here and they assigned me a regular c/o to be my investigative employee on my 114D hearing. This c/o didn't even try to help me out, he just falsified his report and submitted it to the Senior Hearing Officer. At my hearing they didn't care what I said or had to say about all of this. They just told me that if I wanted out of the SHU I would have to parole, debrief or die in here. They don't give anybody any type of due process in here at all.

Q: What is the likelihood of you getting released to the general prison population? What are the avenues available to you to obtain a release from SHU housing? A: Well I have a 50/50 chance of maybe getting out of the SHU or at least getting rid of my prison gang associate labeling come April of 2004 when I'll be eligible for non-active prison gang associate review. This is a program that the CDC was forced to create back in August of 1999 when they were found out by the courts that their debriefing policy was their own underground regulations.

My release then of course all depends on whether or not there has been any new confidential information given on me by informants who have sought protective custody by debriefing and divulging all that they know about the prison gang that they are supposed to be a member or associate of. If they say during their debriefing that you're an associate or that you've done anything for them, the man uses that against you to keep you in the SHU for another six years until you become eligible again. This year to my knowledge five prison gang members have debriefed, one whom I know from home, so I just might be ass out in 2004.

Q: What type of information is being used against you to retain you in the SHU? A: Well the latest right now is an informant who sought protective custody in April of 1998. He was a prison gang member who told prison officials that while I was working as tier tender in our pod in April of 1998 that I was trafficking in metal weapons for his gang. I was never charged formally for this nor did I lose my job behind it because it never happened. I was never the tier tender during that time nor did I ever have any metal weapons then or ever. I have appealed that piece of information to no avail or with any cooperation by prison investigators. They don't want to change it because they know that if they do that it jeopardizes all of the other information that he divulged on many others. So I won't be eligible for my next review until April 2004. Hence six years after April 14, 1998.

The only two options we have of getting out of the SHU are the debriefing process (to turn informant) which I won't do, or to qualify for the inactive prison gang associate review every six years.

Q: Are you a "lifer", that is, are you sentenced to a life term in prison? A: Yes, I am a lifer, serving a 17 years to life prison commitment for second decree murder that I committed on 7/22/83 and was sentenced to via a plea bargain agreement on 9/17/84 and I've been inside ever since.

Q: Due to being validated and retained in the SHU indeterminately or indefinitely, does this status preclude you from receiving a parole date?
A: Yes it most certainly does. Being housed in the SHU indeterminately as a prison gang associate most certainly precludes me from obtaining a parole date as the board of prison forms will never give a prison gang associate a parole date if he's a lifer in a SHU. I have been denied parole twice. Jan 30, 1997 for four years and July 11, 2001 for a 3 year stipulation agreement that I signed rather than face them and denied 5 years just because I'm a prison gang associate. I'll be up for parole again in July of 2004 and if I'm still in here as a prison gang associate I'll only be denied again. How much time I have served means nothing at all to them.

Q: Can you please communicate your thoughts regarding the systematic repression and injustices at Pelican Bay, particularly in SHU?
A: I find it quite pathetic that prison officials would literally warehouse prisoners in a Security Housing Unit indeterminately and force them to turn into informants if they want to get out of the SHU and from under the label of "prison gang associate or member." These are labels that they themselves impose on those of us whom they feel aren't being "good inmates" who will simply fall into line. I was never even a street gang member let alone a prison gang associate. I have no desire to be either one as my goals and intentions when entering prison 18 years ago were to do my time as productively as possible, without any problems. I was placed in the SHU the first time for weapons on Sept 6, 1988. I did one year in Corcoran's SHU and on Sept 1, 1989 was sent to New Folsom's C facility main line which was a line full of stab victims and prisoners who sought protective custody. I lasted 75 days when on Nov 16, 1989 I was picked up at work and taken to custody where I was falsely accused and charged with an alleged stabbing assault that had occurred two days prior. The accusations against me were solely based on confidential information. They had no eye witnesses, no weapons, the victim said it wasn't me who stabbed him and the alleged informants refused to testify in court. Nonetheless I was found guilty and sent back to Corcoran's SHU with a twenty month SHU term. When I arrived at Corcoran's SHU I was placed on a yard where prison officials knew I wouldn't be welcomed and when I went out I was forced to defend myself against alleged gang associates from rival factions of prison gangs and thus began what corcoran's gang investigators dubbed my alliance to the Southern Mexicans and thereafter the Mexican Mafia prison gang. For all of the time I was in prison up to that point I was never involved in alleged gang activity or problems with any gangs or other races until Corcoran's staff placed me in such environments. That's how I wound up here with an indeterminate SHU term for alleged prison gang association.

Once you're in PBSP SHU you're pretty much here for good as their inactive program's a joke and hard as hell to qualify for. Their appeals process is a joke too in that those in charge of investigating your appeals issues don't even do so and fabricate responses as if they had done so. The gang investigator can use any type of confidential information he or she wants to use against you as their definition of what constitutes gang activity is so vague and overbroad. For instance, on my last law enforcement investigative unit (LEIU) review on 10/10/00 they used the signing of a get well card to an alleged prison gang member who was at the time dying of cancer in June of 1999 and later died, to constitute gang activity. They also use such things as drawings or talking or exercising with alleged prison gang associates or members to constitute "gang activity." The Institutional Gang Investigators have a field day putting together gang packets on prisoners as they can use any little petty things they want to constitute gang activity and get away with it as Sacramento's SSU approves everything they send 'em to warehouse prisoners who aren't even old enough to know who any of these alleged gang members are that they're supposed to be associates of right now. Prison officials misuse and abuse their authority to associate any and all prisoners that they cannot control by associating them with a prison gang or disruptive group? to keep their SHUs at Pelican Bay and Corcoran State Prisons full.

Postscript from USW:

For many years the California Department of Corruptions policy has been to segregate all purported prison gang members and associates indefinitely in SHU. Gulag ICCs (Institutional Classification Committee) depend up on the conclusions reached by the IGI (Institutional Gang Investigator) apropos the relationship between a prisoner and an alleged "prison gang." Thus segregation is based on the IGI's determination whether a prisoner is a member or associate of a "prison gang." Due process, of course, requires these prisoncrats to have an evidentiary basis for conclusions to consign a prisoner to the SHU, be it for disciplinary or administrative reasons. As a rule it appears due process is (always) trampled up on by these prisoncrats. Confidential informants or inmates functioning as petty pig agents are heavily depended upon by prison authorities to provide information against a prisoner. Confidential informants often concoct or exaggerate information for their own interests such as when an informant debriefs and provides (fabricated) information to obtain a release from SHU. Many inmate petty pig agents fabricate information to execute their own machinations of revenge. These informants are cloaked in confidentiality thus impossible to be confronted and cross examined. IGI's sometimes manipulate the information obtained so as to assure a prison gang validation and subsequent indeterminate SHU term. As you can see, the risk of being validated improperly and entombed in the SHU indefinitely due to bogus information and arbitrary procedures is very high. Not only that, these arbitrary prison gang validations and indeterminate SHU terms have an adverse impact on parole for lifers -- people who are serving a life sentence (some who are victims of the draconian 3- strikes law) and are arbitrarily validated are left to languish in this mausoleum for the living until they expire or go insane.

The avenues for obtaining a release from SHU are unreasonable -- parole, debrief, die or go insane. People who are stuck in the SHU indefinitely and serving a life term are unlikely to be ever granted parole, it just doesn't happen. The many people that are in SHU have been inappropriately validated and have no involvement in alleged "prison gang activities" whatsoever. This is contrary to what IGI "charges." Thus debriefing is not an option. And many people have in fact expired and gone insane.

In reference to CA Dept of Corruption's other sham policy -- prisoners are eligible to get their cases reviewed by these prisoncrats for possible release from SHU to the general prison population if the prisoner has remained free from "gang activity" for six years. This is a load of manure, pure manure. Although some people do indeed get released to the general prison population, they eventually get hauled back to the SHU (indefinitely) due to something that doesn't even constitute "gang activity." The majority of people are retained in SHU and never get classified as 'inactive" even after the six years in SHU because these prisoncrats criminally distort and transform trivial, petty material (get well cards, drawings, a simple "hello" to someone, etc.) that don't constitute gang activity at all, into an item that can be used against prisoners as evidence that they are engaged in "gang activity" and consequently must be retained in SHU for security purposes!

Due process must be an "exception to the rule" or something because as the interviewee correctly stated, "Due process?? That's a joke!!!"

Unlock the Box: An Organizing Conference to Shut Down Prison Control Units

Friends and family of prisoners, activists and all who want to end oppression are invited to a day of information, discussions, performances and planning with the goal of putting an end to long-term isolation and other forms of torture within U.S. prisons.