Dining Hall Protest: Prisoners Challenge Food Cutbacks at SCI Coal Township

On June 16, 2014 prisoners at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Coal Township in central Pennsylvania are embarking on a peaceful protest of the dining hall by refusing to go to eat due to the administration’s cutback to their food portions and rations.

Prisoners are once again taking the lead in the struggle for human rights. Support them today by calling the officials below and advocating for their demands.

On May 26, prisoners were told that the cutbacks were related to budget concerns and that their morning meal portions would be severely reduced. Prisoners are now served half a cup of cream of wheat or oatmeal, 2 pieces of toast and 2 sugar packets at the minimum 3 times per week. Rations such as syrup have been cut in half.

The budget cuts have not, however, had any effect on staff dining options. The administration has not made any cutbacks in portions provided to the Staff Dining Room, where staff have multiple menu selections and food options, salad bars, and multiple desert entries that drain from the prison food budget.

Prisoners are requesting that:

1. The food portions and sugar rations be returned to levels prior to the May 26 memo from Superintendent Mooney authorizing cutbacks to food portions and rations.

2. The Staff Dining Room’s unjustified and expansive entitlements be eliminated and staff be required to eat from the same Department of Corrections Master Menu, receiving the same menu as prisoners with the same portions and rations. No multiple menus, optional deserts, salad bars or other entitlements. Eliminating staff entitlements would save sufficient money from the DOC’s food budget and not require cutbacks to prisoners’ food.

3. If the DOC continues to authorize cutbacks to prisoners nutritional needs then prisoners request that the DOC authorize policy and procedures allowing prisoners to receive monthly 60-pound food packages from family and friends as prisoners in New Jersey, New York, and Ohio are allowed to receive. If the DOC places the budget over our nutritional needs we request a means to provide for our own nutritional needs.

Food is a human right and the government must provide prisoners with adequate amounts of nutritional food to maintain physical and mental health. At a time when Governor Corbett and the DOC are seeking a record amount of money to warehouse people in prisons – more than $2 billion – there is no justification for forcing people to go hungry.

How you can help: Please contact the DOC officials below and inform them of the above requests by prisoners at SCI Coal Township:

DOC Secretary John Wetzel – 717-728-4901

SCI Coal Township Superintendent Vincent Mooney – 570-644-7890

Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson Rally in Harrisburg

Family and supporters of Lorenzo Johnson, a Pennsylvania prisoner framed for a homicide, will rally at the Office of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Thursday, May 29 at 2pm. Supporters demand that the Attorney General’s office drop its case against Lorenzo, which was built on police and prosecutor misconduct.

Although Johnson was not accused of participating in the shooting, only of allegedly being near the alley where the murder took place, he was found guilty of first-degree murder in 1996 at the age of 22. According to new evidence, Lorenzo was not in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on the night of the murder of Tarajay Williams. He was 170 miles away, at home in New York, when the murder occurred.

Johnson has been released from prison once before, when the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed his conviction in 2011 due to insufficient evidence. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed this decision in May 2012, sending Johnson back to prison without following the usual process of allowing his lawyers the opportunity to file briefs or make oral arguments.

On August 5, 2013, Johnson’s attorney Michael Wiseman filed a motion (PCRA) seeking a new trial based upon newly discovered evidence. The filing contains new sworn affidavits from people who had knowledge of the murder and of the real killer(s), information that discredits key prosecution witness Carla Brown, and evidence that Johnson was in New York at the time of the murder and could not possibly have been involved.

The newly discovered evidence contains numerous instances of unconstitutional conduct on the part of the police and prosecution in Johnson’s case. Johnson and his trial counsel were never told that the prosecution’s star witness, Carla Brown, was questioned on the night of the shooting and had to be worked on for months in order to get her to implicate Johnson.

Suquan Ripply Boyd also provided an affidavit to Johnson, revealing for the first time that he was coerced by Detective Duffin into providing a false statement. Boyd and Johnson were in New York City on December 14-15, 1995, the same date the murder occurred. Prior to the trial, Boyd signed a statement that he could not recall the exact date after Duffin threatened him with a longer prison sentence than the one he was serving at the time.

On March 5, 2014, yet more evidence of state misconduct was filed in a supplemental petition, exposing that the lead detective in the case, Kevin Duffin, has a close, family-like relationship with witness Victoria Doubs and “looked out for her” in her encounters with other police on robbery and drug charges. Doubs was used by the prosecution to establish the fabricated motive for the murder despite the fact that she was with Lorenzo Johnson in New York City at the time of the shooting.

The Attorney General’s office has refused to consider the newly discovered evidence and is continuing the frame-up with the intention of forcing Johnson to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Lorenzo’s wife Tazza spoke at a press conference called by the Families of the Wrongfully Convicted in NYC on April 9, 2014:

“Greetings and support from my husband Lorenzo Johnson, an innocent man, sentenced to life without parole in Pennsylvania for a murder he did not commit eighteen years ago. He fought and won his freedom. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction. The court said there was insufficient evidence. Lorenzo was home for four months. But the state of PA appealed and the U.S. Supreme Court reversed and ordered him back to prison. My husband along with his friend Jeff Deskovic drove himself back to prison—to a sentence of life without parole. He had the courage to do that, to fight for his exoneration and freedom.

“I am pleading to our “Justice System” to do what’s right and free Lorenzo Johnson today!!! Bring our nightmare to an end!!"

This rally, “Call to Free the Innocent! Free Lorenzo Johnson!” is supported by the Freedom March for the Wrongfully Convicted from Western PA, Families of the Wrongfully Convicted in NYC, the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice (NYC), HRC-FedUp (Pittsburgh), the Abolitionist Law Center and others. Join Us!! Sign the petition to Free Lorenzo Johnson.

Federal Court Rules that Human Rights Coalition’s Censorship Lawsuit can Go Forward

On Thursday, May 15, United States Federal District court ruled that a lawsuit challenging censorship of political literature in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) can go forward. The court denied the defense’s request to dismiss some of the censorship claims and all of the supervisory officials named as defendants.

The lawsuit, _Holbrook et al. v. Jellen et al_., was filed in January on behalf of the Human Rights Coalition (HRC), politicized prisoner Robert Saleem Holbrook, and College of Charleston Professor Kristi Brian against several employees of the State Correctional Institution (SCI) at Coal Township and the (PA DOC) for confiscation of mail sent to Holbrook, a co-founder of HRC who is currently held at SCI Coal Township.

The suit details a series of confiscations of Holbrook’s mail since January 2012 that includes academic correspondence with a college professor, issues of The Movement, essays written by Angela Y. Davis and James Baldwin, and a newsletter published by HRC which focuses on prison abuse, solitary confinement, and ways that prisoners’ family members can come together to challenge human rights abuses and injustice in the criminal legal system. The content of the materials censored by SCI Coal Township and Central Office officials touch on the most vital issues of the operation of the prison system in Pennsylvania: juveniles sentenced to die in prison, deaths in solitary confinement, repression of human rights defenders inside prisons, advocacy efforts by families of prisoners, and the pervasive racism that defines the criminal legal system in Pennsylvania and the United States.

Plaintiffs are represented in the case by the Abolitionist Law Center and Necia Hobbes of the firm Jones Day.

Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison

Listen to Book Discussion:

Download

Joshua Dubler discusses his recent book "Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison" that takes place about 35 miles outside of Philadelphia at Graterford Prison.  The book explores seven days in the religious life of the prison, focusing on the history of Islam, and the internal social structures that once unified prisoners that have since decayed.  The book talk held at the Big Idea Bookstore in Pittsburgh, touches on historical trends that got us to this moment of mass incarceration and the absurd necessity to struggle for prison abolition.

Quotes from the book and talk:

Graterford I would say is the cultural flagship of the system. It's a prison where people are serving really long amounts of time.  Of the 3500 - 4000 men who live at Graterford, maybe a quarter are serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

Prior to the 1990s there was a robust commutation system, which went away in the 90s.  What I want to read to you will in part describe that transition. It was a transition locally that mapped onto law and administration shifts nation wide.

There are 15 men who work in the chapel as janitors and clerks, and with the exception of one of these people, they are all serving the sentence of life without parole.  So those are the central characters of the book.

Within this monument to American unfreedom, you actually find this earnest commitment to the protection of peoples first amendment right to free religious exercise.

The spirit of the prison is not what you would be led to believe by television.  The spirit of the prison is more like the DMV.  Where everyone is lax and in various ways trying to do as little as they can. But there are all these rules on the books. And what that means in practice is, the rules aren't enforced, and everyone is in violation of the rules at all times.  At any point, if the administration wants to crack down, they are in their right to do so.  Or if I'm a prisoner and you're a prisoner, and you have something I want, I can drop a slip on you that you have too many books in your cell and you can be punished for that too.

Back then the administration's reliance on prisoner leadership for the maintenance of social order was undisguised.  But a decade into the crack epidemic, violent crime was up, conservative social theorists warned of a new generation of super predators and even democratic politicians couldn't be tough enough on crime.  Corrections was the new master category and control it's lynch pin. In institutions across the country, prisoner movements were restricted and surveillance heightened. Educational and psychological resources were gutted.  The nominal purpose of prisons ceased to be about rehabilitating prisoners.  Prisons were now for punishment.

In '60, when King would talk about law, he would talk about law as standing in some kind of tension with justice.  And justice was this horizon that he thought that, as a kind of liberal protestant, he wanted us to bring the law in line with justice. Justice being something that belongs to god and it's perfect.  By 1964, Goldwater loses, but first articulates what's going to be the standard doctrine of the conservative movement controlling the rest of the 20th century.  Justice has fallen out.  And what law becomes about is essentially one follows the law. Ones obligation is to follow the law. And following the law means obeying the law and the law is about protecting essentially property rights and what contemporary property rights are. This framework of thinking about law in that way as opposed to law in relationship to higher justice (which I think is a religious construct) works well for evangelicals for whom justice will arrive at the end of time, and secularists who are uncomfortable with those kind of abstractions.  Some of the work I think that we might have in front of us if we are going to organize around this stuff is to develop a language that posits a horizon of justice beyond that law.

I felt as though it had to be in the present tense, because I believe that on some level the present is all there is.  And it had to be in the present tense because the present is the tense when the status quo is perpetually reproduced. And I want to hail the reader into recognizing his or her position in that present where which we receive a lot of things that seem to be fixed but that we can trouble and change.

HRC FedUp! Delivers Petitions to Drop Case against SCI Dallas Prisoners

On December 2nd, members of HRC FedUp! traveled to the Luzerne County Courthouse to deliver 250 petition signatures to District Attorney Salavantis asking her to drop riot charges against 5 PA prisoners colloquially named the Dallas 5.  FedUp! members held signs and handed out flyers for a few hours and then delivered petitions to the DA's secretary.  Members were asked to move from the steps and told by court security that there were rules governing picketing during trials.  The trial for the Dallas 5 is set to begin next Monday.  

This week, Shandre Delaney is interviewed on the Legacy of a Nation radio show about the case.
Listen Here!

Link to video outside the courthouse

Link to video of interview with Times Leader Reporter

Link to article published by the Times Leader

The District Attorney would not meet with us.

Supporters Petition DA Salavantis to Drop the Case

For Immediate Release 

Contact:  Shandre Delaney
Phone: (412) 403-6101
sd4hrc@gmail.com

Family Members Petition DA to Drop Case Against Prisoners

Luzerne County, PA - December 2, 2013- Family members and supporters of PA state prisoners accused of riot at SCI Dallas in 2010 are calling on the District Attorney of Luzerne County to drop the case, before the trial set to begin on December 9th. They will deliver petitions to DA Salavantis and convene at the Luzerne County Courthouse today at noon.

In April of 2010, six prisoners who were incarcerated at SCI Dallas covered their cell windows with towels and barricaded their cell doors leading to cell extractions by prison guards. The prisoners were removed from their cells, pepper sprayed and tased by correctional officers, strip searched, and moved to different cells. The prisoners filed grievances against the prison on conditions of confinement and food deprivation leading up to the events and wrote to outside human rights agencies. The Department of Corrections filed riot charges against the prisoners in July of 2010.

Since 2010, one prisoner has been released from prison and plead out of this case, and another, Duane Peters, has been removed from the case and will be tried separately. Court watcher, Debby Rabold, attended a preliminary hearing for 5 of the prisoners on September 19th in Judge Lisa Gelb's court, and found that one of the prisoners had not been arraigned yet and one had not been transported to the hearing. 

"If the District Attorney had any factual evidence against the inmates with which to proceed, the case would have been adjudicated long ago. Lacking evidence, the case has been continued month after month for over three years -- all at the expense of tax dollars which could have, and should have been, spent more wisely," Rabold said.

"After watching the 35 minute cell extraction video of Carrington Keys, it becomes clear that the conditions of confinement are inhumane," says Amanda Johnson of the Human Rights Coalition FedUp! "The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture concluded that solitary confinement for over 15 days could be defined as torture. No one should have to live or work under these principles and procedures. "

Prisoners who are housed in the Restricted Housing Unit within the PA Department of Corrections are confined to their cells for 23 hours a day with little recreation or social stimulation. Prisoners can be held in the Restricted Housing Unit for years for disciplinary or administrative reasons. The Disability Rights Network filed a lawsuit against the PA Department of Corrections last March on behalf of prisoners with serious mental illness being held in solitary confinement and not receiving treatment. The U.S. Department of Justice expanded their investigation from two to all PA prisons this past year.

Direct Aid for Karimah and Kids

Karimah's electric and gas have been shut off for lack of funds and she cannot get emergency heating assistance until the first week of November. Karimah zawjatul Khalid Muhammad supports her husband Sergio, who is in prison, and cares for three special needs kids.  They are members of the Human Rights Coalition.  You can read some of Sergio's writing here http://hrcoalition.org/node/255.  We are raising money to help Karimah and her three kids get their utilities back on, which is $583 dollars.

You can send a check donation directly to the energy company at:

For Delon Lewis Account # 59404-15015
PECO
P.O. Box 37629
Philadelphia, PA 19101

You can use the paypal button to donate:

For other donations, or if you have alternate housing in Philadelphia to offer contact karimah1020@gmail.com