Hunger strike to protest solitary confinement at SWPa. prison continues | Friday Morning Coffee

Good Friday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

A hunger strike at a state prison in southwestern Pennsylvania went past its second week on Thursday, as a group of incarcerated individuals sought to end what they described as their “indefinite” solitary confinement at the facility.

At least 16 incarcerated individuals at the State Correctional Institution-Greene, in Waynesburg, Pa., began refusing food on June 7 to protest the conditions of their solitary confinement, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Coalition, a Philadelphia-based advocacy group, said in a statement.

The strikers said they planned to continue their protest until the state Department of Corrections “meets their demand for a pathway” out of solitary confinement.

“I am not cooperating with these people on any level because they are weaponizing this [Intensive Management Unit] program against us, Michael Rivera, one of the incarcerated people said in a statement, referring to the high-security unit where he and the other strikers are being held.

Rivera said the strikers are “being denied yard, hav[e] a light on 24 hours a day in our cell, and [had] privileges stripped with no explanation, no due process, no anything. So we’re no longer cooperating with this program.”

As of Thursday, all but three of the strikers had accepted food, Corrections Department spokesperson Maria Bivens told the Capital-Star.

“Each of the three men continue to have access to their food which was purchased at the commissary,” Bivens told the Capital-Star.

Data provided by the Corrections Department identified the three men still refusing food as Kendall Hudson, 33; Kahil Kahree Hammond, 33, and Dwight Bowen, 45.

(Photo via The Philadelphia Tribune)

In their statement, the strikers accused the Corrections Department of “denying yard time to entire tiers without explanation, restricting phone calls, withholding property, denying access to the law library, and confiscating legal correspondence.”

The incarcerated individuals also said the Corrections Department was charging them an “exorbitant medical copay of $25/day for unsolicited nurse visits,” in retaliation for speaking out against the conditions of their confinement.

Because of the rules of their confinement, the strikers said they’re barred from holding a prison job — which would only pay about 19 cents an hour in any event. This “practice is forcing the strikers into debt with the [Corrections Department] on top of the physical and psychological torture they are forced to endure in solitary,” the Human Rights Coalition said in its statement.

The strikers at the Greene County facility have asked that the state to:

  • Restore “access to programming that is required for parole eligibility.”
  • Follow “its own policy in regards to the length of the IMU program—individuals must graduate a phase after nine months, especially if they have remained misconduct-free.
  • “Provide full access to commissary to supplement inadequate, cold, uncooked food trays,” and
  • “Provide the two additional family visits that were promised for Phase 4, but never granted.”

In an e-mail, Bivens told the Capital-Star that there are currently 50 people housed in the Green County prison’s intermediate management unit, which she described as “the highest level of custody” maintained by the Corrections Department.

Prison officials are “following hunger strike protocols to ensure the health and safety of those who continue to decline meals. Per policy, those engaging in a hunger strike are medically assessed three times each day,” Bivens told the Capital-Star.

The hunger strike at the Greene County prison comes about a year after people incarcerated at SCI-Phoenix in Montgomery County mounted a similar hunger strike to protest conditions of their own solitary confinement, the Capital-Star reported in July 2021.

The incarcerated people in the SCI-Phoenix hunger strike similarly demanded that the Corrections Department acknowledge that they were being held in an “intensive management unit,” as is currently the case in Greene County, and provide a policy and guidelines in the department handbook for it.

They further demanded that the state provide people being held in this unit with programming and mental health services, give incarcerated people a path out of solitary confinement, and end long-term solitary confinement in the state, the Capital-Star previously reported.

Rivera, the spokesperson for the strike in Greene County, was previously incarcerated at SCI-Phoenixaccording to a report by the independent Workers World. He was transferred to the Greene County lockup “in retaliation for helping men with mental disabilities at SCI-Phoenix file lawsuits,” Workers World reported.

Research has clearly detailed the long-term impacts of extended solitary confinement on a person’s mental and physical health.

(Image via the Prison Policy Initiative)

Those impacts include shortening an incarcerated person’s life after they are released. Solitary confinement also can lead to death by suicide while they are incarcerated, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

In an e-mail, Bivens said the goal of holding people in the high-security unit “is to provide benchmarks/objectives for each inmate in the unit to work toward a way to get back to General Population.”

“The striking inmates are unhappy with application of IMU policy and/or their transfer from other facilities for placement in the IMU at SCI- GreeneDOC leadership at the facility level and at Central Office continue to monitor the situation,” Bivens said.

Kalim Brown, of Philadelphia, who spent five years in SCI-Greene’s IMU from 2003 to 2008 as he served out a 20-year sentence for kidnapping and robbery, told the Capital-Star that Rivera and the other strikers were “going through hell,” as a result of their confinement.

“That jail is like an entity of its own,” Brown, who finished his sentence at the state prison in Huntingdon County this year, said Thursday. “They don’t answer to no one … They do what they want, all in the name of punishment.”

U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-10th District, speaking at a Capitol news conference on Thursday, 7/29/21 (C-Span screen capture)

Our Stuff.
In the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2020, attack on the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-10th Districtpushed to restructure the Department of Justice as former President Donald Trump and his allies led efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Marley Parish reports.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York law that made it illegal to carry a firearm in public without showing a special need for protection. Capital-Star Washington Reporter Ariana Figueroa has the details.

Experts on election security have warned U.S. lawmakers about targeted disinformation campaigns that could occur in the upcoming midterm and presidential elections, Ariana Figueroa also reports.

A measure that would expand the access that partisan poll watchers have at election precincts is moving through the state House, with backers saying the measure would foster more trust in the state’s elections and improve transparency, our partners at City & State Pa. report.

On our Commentary Page this morning: The GOP activist U.S. Supreme Court is assaulting the separation of church and stateDavid DeWitt, of our sibling site, the Ohio Capital Journal, writes. And red flag laws saved 7.3K Americans in 2020 alone – and could have saved 11.4K more, opinion regular John A. Tures writes.

En la Estrella-Capital: Shapiro emerge de la temporada de primarias con una fuerte ventaja de recaudación de fondos sobre Mastriano. Y el comité de la Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos examina los esfuerzos para presionar a los funcionarios estatales Republicanos, incluso en Pa. – para anular las elecciones del 2020.

State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, attends the Senate Education Committee Hearing held at the Pennsylvania Capitol on May 24, 2022 in Harrisburg, Pa. (Photo by Amanda Berg, for the Capital-Star). State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin, attends the Senate Education Committee Hearing held at the Pennsylvania Capitol on May 24, 2022 in Harrisburg, Pa. (Photo by Amanda Berg for the Capital-Star).

Elsewhere.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano is trying to fix intra-party rifts so he can raise money to compete with Democrat Josh Shapiro, the Inquirer reports.

The FBI has interviewed Allegheny County GOP Chairman Sam DeMarco about the fake electors scheme, the Post-Gazette reports.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th District, also has been drawn into the fake electors scamWESA-FM reports (via WITF-FM).

Democrat Shamaine Daniels, who’s opposing U.S. Rep. Scott Perry this fall, says voters will break with the 10th District Republican over revelations about his involvement in efforts to topple the 2020 election, PennLive reports.

A western Pennsylvania lawmaker wants to hold up Penn State’s budget funding unless it comes clean about where it’s storing the statue of former football coach Joe PaternoPoliticsPA reports.

LancasterOnline looks into how the local tourism industry is dealing with a worker shortage.

A York County judge has refused to remove Mayor Michael Helfrich from office in a dispute over how the Democrat took the oath office, the York Daily Record reports.

Mike Fleck, a former adviser to disgraced Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowskiwill leave prison early, the Morning Call reports.

Philadelphia City Councilmembers Alan Domb and Derek Green, both likely mayoral candidates, foreshadowed their exits from council on ThursdayBillyPenn reports.

Here’s your #Pennsylvania Instagram of the Day:

What Goes On
The desk is clear. Enjoy the silence.

WolfWatch
Gov. Tom Wolf has no public schedule this morning.

You Say It’s Your Birthday Dept.
Best wishes go out this morning to Sean Adams, of PennLive, who celebrates today. Congratulations, sir. Enjoy the day.

Heavy Rotation
We’ll go out this week with a classic from English electro-poppers Erasure. Here’s the wonderful ‘Heavenly Action.’

Friday’s Gratuitous Soccer Link
The Guardian updates on the latest summer transfer news in European football, including the latest on Barcelona’s new offer for Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski.

And now you’re up to date.



Originally published at www.penncapital-star.com,by John L. Micek

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