Confronting Torture in U.S. Prisons: A Q&A With Activists/Journalists James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

Prisoners in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in California have announced they are beginning an indefinite hunger strike on July 1, 2011 to protest the conditions of their imprisonment, which they say are cruel and inhumane. An online petition has been started by supporters of the strikers. While noting that the hunger strike is being “organized by prisoners in an unusual show of racial unity,” five key demands are listed by California Prison Focus:

1) Eliminate group punishments; 2) abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria; 3) comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to long term solitary confinement; 4) provide adequate food; 5) expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates.

Notably, Pelican Bay is "home" to the only US prisoner known to have spent more time in solitary confinement than the 39 years that Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3, have spent--since April 1972. Imprisoned now for a total of 47 years and held at Pelican Bay since 1990, Hugo Pinell has been in continuous solitary for over 40 years, since at least 1971--probably even since the late 1960s. Pinell was a close comrade of Black Panther leader George Jackson, who organized a Panther chapter inside California’s San Quentin Prison, similar to the prison chapter organized by the Angola 3 in Louisiana.

Journalist Kiilu Nyasha writes that on Aug. 21, 1971, the day of George Jackson’s assassination, “three prison guards and two inmate trustees were also killed. Subsequently, six prisoners, including Hugo Pinell, were singled out and put on trial. Reminiscent of the slave auctions, they were each forced to bear 30 lb. of chains in a Marin courtroom after being charged with numerous counts of murder and assault.” They became known as the San Quentin Six. Johnny Spain, the only defendant to be convicted of murder, was released in 1988, making Pinell the last of the San Quentin Six behind bars, despite having being convicted of a lesser assault charge  (read more).

Robert King, of the Angola 3, released in 2001 after 29 years in solitary, has expressed support for Pinell, saying that he "is a clear example of a political prisoner." In January 2009, Pinell was denied parole for the ninth time, despite a clean record with no write-ups for the past 25 years. Now, in 2011, with 27 years of "clean time," Pinell is eligible for parole once again, but his hearing has been postponed for six months and is expected later this year.

For decades now, human rights activists have criticized the infamous Pelican Bay supermax prison. Journalists James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, co-founders of the new Solitary Watch Web site, are similarly critical of conditions at Pelican Bay, and they argue that the treatment of prisoners at Pelican Bay is a reflection of a widespread human rights crisis throughout the US prison system.

Angola 3 News: How did you first become interested in the issue of solitary confinement and ultimately become inspired to start Solitary Watch?

Solitary Watch: We started Solitary Watch because this issue grabbed us by the throats. The solitary confinement of tens of thousands of prisoners may be the most grievous mass human rights violation that’s taking place on American soil, yet it’s been largely concealed from and ignored by the public, and seriously under-reported by the press.

Solitary confinement is a hidden world within the larger hidden world of the prison system, and prisoners in solitary are an invisible and dehumanized minority within the larger population of prison inmates in general--who also remain remarkably invisible and dehumanized, considering that they now number nearly 2.3 million and constitute one in every 100 adults in this country.