U.N.I.O.N. (United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect)
Contact Rev. B. Cayenne
Bird,
PRESS
RELEASE
Thursday, August 24,
2006
For Immediate
Release:
Sacramento,
CA - At dawn on Sunday, August 27,
2006, in Soledad,
California, at the entrance to adjoining
California prison facilities, a protest will
begin against unreasonable visiting policies and visitor
abuses statewide. Family members of inmates from as far
away as San Diego will gather in solidarity with signs,
banners, and documented accounts of the suffering that
inmates, inmates' families, and sadly their children
have endured as a result of unfair California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation's visitor
regulations, which are often rigidly enforced by apparently
callous Corrections' Visiting personnel. Families are often
turned away for seemingly minor, unimportant details,
after having driven hundreds of miles for a long-awaited
visit with their imprisoned loved one. Many of Sunday
morning's protestors are members of the U.N.I.O.N., a
volunteer organization advocating reform in the
California Criminal Justice System, from arrest through
parole.
The U.N.I.O.N.'s statewide communication network
has been active on all fronts of criminal
justice, prison, and sentencing
reform for over eight years.
Its mission statement contains the words: "We
prefer to attack crime through a strong economy for
everyone, prevention through education, free after-school
activities, adult supervision of youth, support of
teen-age mothers, rehabilitation of incarcerated criminals,
medical care for the mentally ill, restorative justice
and other programs clearly proven to be more of a
solution to crime than prisons. We believe this can be
done through the political processes established in
our democracy: by the power of the vote, by
letter-writing to newspapers, and by demonstrating in
mass."
As the protestors gather in front of the combined
Salinas Valley State Prison and the California Treatment
Facility location on Highway 101, they will be greeted by
perhaps 200 people already waiting in line for the
7 a.m. opening of the prison gates. It is common
for inmate visitors to arrive and sit in darkness for
hours before the gates open in order to ensure that they
will be among those allowed in for the day. It may
still take hours after the gates open before they are
allowed to visit until the 3 p.m. closing.
A
number of the most pressing issues that the U.N.I.O.N.
will be focusing on during the protest
include:
- Visitors
of inmates who are too ill to come to the visiting room
or to a visiting window are not allowed to see the
inmate at all. No provision is made for a hospital or sick
room visit. To add insult to injury, families are given
little or no information about the condition of the
inmate. Cases like this can go on for months with families
remaining ignorant about the health status of their
loved one. Prisoners often die alone and in pain, with no
phone calls allowed
- Visiting
appointments to see inmates in Administrative Segregation
or Segregated Housing Units are nearly impossible to
get. Most prisons have only a few windows available
for hundreds of men on each yard. Often the telephones
needed for a window visit do not work so all windows are
not functioning. These inmates are
often mentally ill and isolated for months and years at
a time. They need family contact the
most yet this is not happening.
-
- Minor children of inmates who have been
convicted of any from a long list of
crimes, some of which are not even against children, are
without exception denied visitation with their parents,
regardless of the sex or age of the
minor. A conviction of broad
interpretations of the penal code is
not necessary, only an accusation is required and that
could be an accusation that occurred after they were
imprisoned. (i.e. prosecution for masturbation is
common) They may with special permission be granted a
non-contact visit (one hour behind a glass window), but
this would call undue attention to the inmate, who
would then risk becoming a target for violence. This denial
of a relationship with their parent punishes children
and is too often used as a cruel punishment to
prisoners.
· Visitors wearing colors
remotely resembling a gang colors can be denied access;
visitors wearing a hat will be denied access; visitors
wearing denim or plain white, green, blue, brown or a
sleeveless blouse will be denied access. The list goes on. It
is difficult to know what is acceptable, and
enforcement is arbitrary and inconsistent. An example of CDCR
personnel mishandling dress code regulations: an
elderly female visitor wearing a three-piece suit,
with a tank top underneath her jacket, was denied
visitation. When she questioned the policy, she was accused of
"disrupting the visiting room" and was banned from
visiting her loved one for months. She felt degraded, as if
she were being judged as some kind of
"hussy."
· Children visiting the
prisoners are questioned by guards wearing weapons, asked
their names and other questions, even
toddlers. Half the time the babies
have no idea what is being asked and are fearful of people
with weapons and an attitude of authority.
This interrogation slows down the
line. Babies in carriers wearing
blue jeans are turned away at Salinas
Valley.
·
Many families have reported constant abuse by the
visiting Sgt. Nuckles at Salinas
Valley including full body searches, as if the
family members are criminals, The prison guards are
never checked for contraband in spite of numerous
convictions over the years. Complaints with
the Office of Internal Affairs are being filed against
Sgt. Nuckles and the UNION Director
has asked that she be fired immediately.
. When something does go wrong, there is
no to appeal to that is really
going to help the families. The 602
process and 115 processes are
completely
corrupt and the wardens always back up the prison guards.
There is no place to go for help with visiting
injustices so the guards are
getting away with
retaliation with no consequences. At
Salinas Valley,
known as the infamous
Green Wall, one guard can lie and all the others
stick together on it, which is exactly what is
happening to the prisoners.
This is tearing
families apart and putting children, mothers and
grandmother
under
tremendous stress not to mention the prisoners who rely
on their
families to give them a
reason to live.
To appeal to the Warden and CDC
director to
right any wrong, particularly around visiting, is a cruel
joke.