August 7, 2010
In prisons throughout the country, perceived gang membership is one of the leading reasons for placement in solitary confinement. In California alone, hundreds of prisoners are in Security Housing Units (SHUs) because they have been “validated” as gang members. The validation procedure used by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) employs such criteria as tattoos, reading materials, and associations with other prisoners (which can amount to as little as a greeting) to identify gang members.It is a system clearly open to abuses. California Prison Focus, the prisoners’ rights organization based in Oakland, often documents these abuses in its newsletter, and even publishes a Prisoner Self-Help Manual to Challenge Gang Validation. The report on the Corcoran SHU in CPF’s Summer 2010 newsletter included the following:
Many prisoners report that they are validated as gang members with evidence that is clearly false or using procedures that do not follow the Castillo settlement… CPF has received hundreds of requests for its legal manual on how to challenge a prison gang validation, even though we ask for a $20 donation to cover costs. Prisoners generally report that the SHU cells are overflowing and Administrative Segregation Units are now being filled with prisoners with indeterminate SHU sentences. CDCR officials use the torturous conditions of SHU confinement against the prisoner in order to find out more about prison gangs. CDCR officials pressure prisoners to “debrief” (that is, implicate others who are involved in gang activities) so that they can get out of SHU and sent to a special needs yard.To continue reading click the title.....
Prisoner K reported several pieces of fabricated material used against him (details omitted in order not to identify the prisoner). He suggests that CSP-COR officials are trying to “break” mainline prisoners by plucking out those with any sort of “structure” (meaning psychological balance, ability to think for oneself and stand up for one’s rights) and trying to “break” them (psychologically) by keeping them in solitary confinement SHU cells.
Prisoner L reported that he was offered release from the SHU. When he arrived at general population housing, he was asked to sign a prepared statement that implicated another prisoner of being a member of a known prison gang. He refused to sign and was re-validated using over-six-year-old evidence from a prison where he was previously housed.
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