'Gang validation'
Latino prisoner challenges Pelican Bay torture
By Luis
Talamantez
Sacramento, Calif.
After seven solitary years inside a "prison of tomorrow"
where natural sunlight does not penetrate, prisoner Steve
Castillo finally got his day in court June 11. Appearing on a
habeas writ before Sacramento State Court Judge Ronald
Tochterman, the 40-year-old Chicano prisoner, looking pale and
thin, managed a clenched-fist salute to his supporters despite
being severely encumbered by handcuffs, shackles and a waist
chain.
His two teen-age daughters sat in the front row. Benita, 16,
couldn't recall ever seeing her father before.
Like hundreds of others in solitary confinement at Pelican
Bay State Prison, Castillo is accused of belonging to a prison
gang. Within California's mammoth prison system, being
"validated" as a prison gang member means automatic placement
inside the notorious SHU (security housing unit) at PBSP. Other
SHU units exist around the state, including one for women at
Chowchilla.
Prisoners at Pelican Bay have been propagandized as the
"worst of the worse," deserving of their grim fate. But over
the years and through dozens of organized visits to the prison
site, members of California Prison Focus have become convinced
that the real violators of the law are the prison staff.
CPF has been a voice for prisoners over the last eight
years. It monitors human rights abuses in many of California's
worst prisons, including Corcoran, where eight inmates have
been fatally shot since its opening.
SHU: Entombment
with no recourse
Through an elaborate scheme practiced nowhere else in the
U.S., the California Department of Corrections systematically
targets prisoners--mostly Latinos and Blacks--from its other 32
prison compounds to feed into its SHU warehouse depots. The
Internal Security System actively collects evidence against
prisoners, using informants. Then, during closed-door hearings
where no self-defense is allowed, it routinely convicts them.
They are then transported to SHU. This insures that the
state-of-the-art facility near the Oregon state line continues
to operate at full capacity, at an annual cost of $50
million.
Evidence used to entrap prisoners into gang validation and
transportation to indefinite hell can be anonymous snitch
notes, group photos, tattoos, innocent letters from home, or
some other flimsy item. Once charged, all are found guilty.
Prisoners designated "a threat to institutional security" are
sent off to be warehoused inside an expensive SHU cell. The
only way out is "parole, snitch or die."
Castillo is serving a 35-to-life sentence for murder and has
no parole date.
The only real option Castillo and hundreds of others
similarly situated have, other than becoming state informants,
is to file writ after legal writ in hope of obtaining release
from this bureaucratic maze of institutionalized racism and
injustice. Some 85 percent of all prisoners kept in the SHU are
prisoners of color.
Castillo makes a dent in system
In 1993 Castillo filed a petition of inquiry before
California's Office of Administrative Law asking for a ruling
on regulations that make no allowance for due process or
constitutional protection.
Gang validation, indefinite SHU placement and debriefing
make up what is commonly thought of as the "deadly triad." Over
the last 10 years, tens of thousands of prisoners have been
warehoused without proof of wrongdoing. After years of silence
the OAL issued a 20-page administrative finding that says the
CDC has for 10 years been illegally operating "underground"
regulations never legally promulgated under the Administrative
Regulatory Act, which all state agencies are bound by and which
the OAL oversees.
Time and again, Castillo has been brought before prison
kangaroo courts in an attempt to break him. He has repeatedly
denied gang ties and has, instead, accused his oppressors of
targeting him because of his jailhouse-lawyer activities. He
has been told that he must "debrief" if he wants any
consideration for release from life-long lockup.
Prisoners spend all their time inside windowless cells with
no fresh air. Many commit suicide or are driven insane. CPF has
found that numerous prisoners housed inside the SHU can claim
years of clean time, having done absolutely nothing illegal.
Their only real prison infraction has been refusal to surrender
their personal identities or collaborate with their
oppressors.
Many like Castillo are active jailhouse lawyers who give aid
to others and are considered prison leaders, revolutionaries
and prisoners of conscience.
Pelican Bay opened in 1989 and has been the subject of many
lawsuits. Despite prisoner victories, little has changed.
Conditions remain deplorable. PBSP is presently under federal
investigation for a string of mysterious deaths inside SHU
cells last year.
This is the first time the prison system has been
successfully challenged by an inmate on the issues of
debriefing and validation. For the first time, the CDC has been
found to be in violation of its own regulations because of
failure to legalize them as required by law.
For the sake of perpetuating itself and its $5 billion
annual budget, the prison-industrial complex has resorted to
unconstitutional methods. Castillo's jailhouse activism has set
in motion what is hoped will be an avalanche of petitions by
prisoners for release from warehousing, not only at Pelican Bay
but throughout the prison system.
To date, thousands of prisoners in the SHU system remain
entombed for life.
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
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