PA Prison Report - January 23, 2012

 

 

 

Prisoner at SCI Pittsburgh harassed for sexual orientation: On October 26 during a cell search, Jason Stine, a prisoner at SCI Pittsburgh, was placed up against the wall and called a “freak faggot” and “nasty” by prison guard Burger. When Stine tried to ignore the comments, Burger grabbed him by the neck telling him to not look away when he was being talked to and to “act like a man.” Since this incident, and Stine’s stated desire to press charges against the involved prison guards, he has continually been the victim of verbal abuse based primarily on his sexual orientation.

 

Stine has been denied both yard and commissary on numerous occasions. He reports being told “only men go to yard, faggot.” Four other prisoners submitted affidavits to HRC corroborating Stine’s reports. One prisoner states that he overheard prison guard Garris tell Stine to "kill himself” and "hang himself.” Prison guards Hunt and Dingman are also specifically mentioned in the instances of verbal abuse and Stine’s denial of yard and commissary. On January 10, Stine was told that if he wanted his commissary or yard, then he should “stop writing Fed-up.”

 

Stine has lived with Hepatitis C for 15 years and states that he is not receiving proper medical treatment. He has reported his disease to the mental health department but they continue to give him medication that can be very harmful to his liver and refuse to make any changes.

 

Youth Activist Organizes Trip to DC in Protest of Guantanamo: Jordana Rosenfeld, a senior in Pittsburgh Public School who is active in human rights and environmental campaigns with Amnesty International, organized 50 people from Southwest PA to attend the protest of the 10th year anniversary opening of Guantanamo Bay prison. Rosenfeld became interested in U.S. torture of prisoners when she learned about the Amnesty International "Security with Human Rights" campaign and when a group of people came to her school cafeteria and sat in cages wearing orange jumpsuits. Rosenfeld reported, “It really shook people up, and got people talking about it.” Rosenfeld organized people from Pittsburgh Public Schools, universities, and Occupy Pittsburgh to attend the event on January 11th in Washington DC. She said there was a crowd of about 800 people who gathered in front of the White House, many of whom were dressed in orange jumpsuits and hoods in recognition of the torture of prisoners held without due process of law. Speakers included habeus corpus attorneys who represented some of the prisoners held in Guantanamo, experts in international human rights and foreign policy, and an Arab American woman whose son was a first responder at ground zero. Rosenfeld stated that, “People were there because when President Obama was elected, he said that he would close down the prison and he hasn’t. Many of the Guantanamo detainees have been cleared for release, but have nowhere to go. I went because I am upset that politicians get to do something so heinous in the name of this country. The prison has been open for half of my life, so I’m not allowed to feel proud to be American.”

 

 

Prisoners Spend Years in Solitary in Virginia Super-Max: A recent article in the Washington Post finds prisoners in Red Onion State prison spending an average of 2.7 years in solitary confinement. The state prison holds around 750 prisoners with over 500 in solitary cells according to October data gathered in an interview with a Virginia Department of Corrections spokesperson. The spokesperson indicated that prisoners could be held in solitary for years based on their risk assessment, but that the prison operates in accordance with national standards, and is accredited by the American Correctional Association. Though the psychological effects of long term solitary confinement have been documented by scientists, the trend of housing people in segregation remains throughout the country. The article quotes a prisoner named Malcolm Springs who has been held in solitary for five years, and transferred to different prisoners based on his mental health classification. Litigation director at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Abigail Turner states that over half of her clients in solitary in Virginia have mental illnesses and are not getting adequate treatment.

 

 

Mississippi pardons benefited whites by big margin: Reuters reports that 222 pardons issued by former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour disproportionately benefited white offenders although the majority of people in Mississippi prisons are African American.

 

“It should be made absolutely clear that ethnicity is not a factor in determining who should be pardoned. It would be a violation of the equal protection clause. It would be a violation of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Mississippi constitution”, said Jimmy Gurulé, Notre Dame Law School professor.

 

Jack Glaser, professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, said the racial disparity, while dramatic, might have more complex underpinnings than simple racial prejudice. “There’s also a very good chance that black prisoners are less likely to apply for pardons. They’re more likely to be disenfranchised and less likely to have financial means and so that could also be a source of the disparity.”

 

Criminal lawyer Merrida Coxwell said, “I don’t think anyone will ever admit wealth and race play a role in the legal system but no one who works in the system can deny it with a straight face and then go home and have a peaceful night sleep.”

 

Though this type of observational information cannot prove causality, the odds of a random sample with the same or greater disparity in racial proportions as the pardons list is less than one in a trillion, if race were truly unrelated to pardons, said University of Georgia statisticians. They also found that based on Mississippi’s prison demographics, white prisoners were about four times more likely to be pardoned than black prisoners echoing a recent examination of 1,918 applications for pardons during Bush’s administration by ProPublica.

 

“Race was not a factor in his decision. In fact, it wasn’t even listed on the Parole Board’s application.” Barbour spokesperson Laura Hipp said. On CBS’s “Face the Nation”, Barbour said “Sure, we could have done it better because we had no idea that the reporting of it, in particular some of the misstatements by political opponents, would let the public think we were letting 200 some people out of the penitentiary,” he said. “We let 26 out of the penitentiary … half of them for health reasons. Most of them had been out for years and years and years. They’re no more a threat to the people of Mississippi now than they were the week before they got their pardon.”

 

State Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat, argued that more than three-quarters of those pardoned did not meet state criteria has filed a complaint alleging that 156 of the pardons were unconstitutional.

 

Article follow up and last week’s report on topic

 

 

U.S. Appeals Court says Sex Offenders have Right to Libraries: The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled on January 20, 2012 that a policy barring registered sex offenders from public libraries in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was unconstitutional.

 

The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of a sex offender who regularly employed city library services before a 2008 “administrative injunction” by then-Mayor Martin Chavez, who ordered city libraries to send letters to registered sex offenders holding library cards informing them that they were no longer allowed in libraries.

 

But the panel left open the possibility of allowing restrictions less stringent than an outright ban, including designating certain hours for sex offenders, requiring them to check in with library staff or restricting areas of the library that they could use.

 

Friday’s decision could have nationwide implications, as the state of Iowa, three cities in Massachusetts and jurisdictions in North Carolina and Texas all have tried to enact some sort of sex offender library ban, according to an Indiana University law school article.

 

Story from Reuters

 

 

 

Philly area: Wednesdays are Write On! Prison Letter Writing Night at the LAVA space at 4134 Lancaster, 6-9 pm. Come help us stay connected with the many prisoners who write to us with news from inside, learn to document crimes committed by prison staff, and help bring an end to the abuse and torture of our brothers and sisters behind bars.

 

If you’d like to know more about the Human Rights Coalition or would like to get involved, come to Write On!, to our monthly general meetings (second Monday of each month, 6pm), or call us at 215-921-3491, email: info@hrcoalition.org, or visit our website at http://www.hrcoalition.org./

 

Pittsburgh area: Write On! – Letter writing to prisoners and HRC work night every Wednesday at 5129 Penn Avenue from 7 -10pm. To get involved with HRC/Fed Up! in Pittsburgh, email: hrcfedup@gmail.com or call 412-654-9070.

 

You’ve been listening to the Human Rights Coalition’s PA Prison Report. HRC is a group of current and former prisoners, family members, and supporters, whose ultimate goal is to abolish prisons.