Within the last year or two we witnessed many more suicides, or attempted suicides. As a response, Sister Maryanne helped put together a “Grief share” program. It gives an outlet to help us cope with loss. We experience many losses: loss of freedom, of self-esteem, loss of life experience one would/should have had, loss of jobs, loss of ability to sustain yourself, not to mention loss of loved ones either through death or separation.
If you keep your feelings inside they become enormous, making you feel hopeless and helpless. Just being able to speak makes it more manageable, you know you are not alone.
It is amazing that here we are able to provide a safe space to be able to share, even though rumors spread fast here. Confidentiality is very important in our group. We honor and respect it. We support all others organizing their support groups, too, like a young lifer organizing a support group for young women in here.
Category: Issue 37 – Spring 2008
Precious Releases?
Elnora Francis, 69 years old, was approved for release by Governor Schwarzenegger on February 15, 2008 released from prison after serving nearly 24 years of a 15-years-to-life for sentence for the death of her abusive husband in 1984. This was the 4th time the parole board had found her suitable for release. Ms. Francis? release was the result of a collective effort of hundreds of concerned community members who supported her freedom over the course of many, many years.
Sheila Northrup has been approved for release by the Governor after serving over 28 years in prison.
Outrageous Denials?
Debbie Sims Africa, Janet Hollaway Africa and Janine Phillips Africa of the MOVE 9 were all rejected for parole on April 22, 2008. They have served 30 years of a 30-100 year sentence, in a highly charged political case. According to the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, they were denied because they minimized the nature and circumstances of their offense, they refused to accept responsibility and they lacked remorse. The MOVE organization condemned the Board for demanding admissions of guilt as a condition for parole when the MOVE 9 have maintained their innocence from the time they were arrested in 1978. Four men from the MOVE 9 are still pending a decision on their parole.
Joy Cordes was once again rejected for parole in March 2008.
Sara Olson was released from prison on March 17, 2008 based on the CDCR?s calculation that she had completed her sentence. Four days later, she was rearrested and returned to CCWF. In a highly unusual, politically driven move, the Los Angeles Police Department delved into Sara Olson?s case file and decided that she had been released a year too early. According to her attorney, Sara?s re-arrest did not follow any form of legal due process since she was returned to prison without even a hearing to determine the correct calculation of her sentence. The entire dysfunctional process trampled on Sara?s legal rights and was extremely traumatic for Sara and her family.
Ironically, records obtained by The L.A. Times in February 2008 showed that miscalculations of prisoner sentences were very common throughout the California prison system. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the miscalculations resulted in the prisoners remaining in prison longer than they should have.
Thanks in part to Free Battered Women for the information on releases and denials of incarcerated survivors and to the women prisoners for the information we received about their own cases.
WE INVITE OUR READERS TO SEND US INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR OWN RELEASE DATES OR DENIALS!
Marsy’s Law, also known as the “Crime Victims Bill of Rights” was recently submitted as a ballot initiative with 1.2 million signatures. Supported by victims’ rights organizations and funded by GOP millionaire Henry Nicholas to the tune of $4.8 million, Marsy’s law greatly expands rights accorded to victims and particularly targets term-to-life prisoners. It allows anyone who ever knew a particular crime victim to attend and speak out at the parole hearing of the offender convicted of the crime, including representatives of victims’ rights organizations.
The most dangerous provision is that it changes the standard parole denial period for life term prisoners to 15 years! It requires that the Board set forth clear and convincing evidence as to why a prisoner should have another parole hearing sooner than 15 years in order for a shorter period to be set! This drastic provision would be retroactive for current life-term prisoners and essentially eliminates the possibility of parole for life term prisoners. It is crucial that prisoner advocates, family members and prisoners themselves join together to organize against this terrible initiative!
Pam Fadem
From May 30 to June 1, 2008 the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) sponsored a conference in Philadelphia, PA to launch a new national campaign to shut down maximum-security prison units.
The mission of the STOPMAX campaign is to build a national movement to end the use of solitary confinement and other forms of torture in US prisons. The conference was an opportunity for about 400 former prisoners, families of prisoners, activists and concerned people to share their experiences and begin to plan future work to accomplish these goals. Over the 3 days, people participated in over 40 workshops addressing issues such as the History of Supermax Litigation, Strategies from the Chicano Mexicano Prison Project, and Family & Friends Emergency Response Network.
CCWP sponsored one of the only workshops on conditions for women in prison, showing the video,
Perhaps the most moving part of the conference was hearing the testimonies of Survivors of Isolation. This panel included people who endured and built resistance to solitary confinement and torture, such as sister Munirah El-Bomani, founder of My Sisters Keepers in Newark, NJ, and former political prisoner Ray Luc Levasseur who spent almost 20 years in federal prisons, many of them in control units.
Robert King Wilkerson of the Angola 3 was in prison for 31 years, 29 of them in solitary. At a rally in front of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia King said, “Prisons are not moral. ‘StopMax’ should not be our final goal. We need to raise the bar and think about doing the moral thing. We need to abolish all prisons. We need to tear them down. Because prisons are an extension of slavery.”
Laura Whitehorn, a former political prisoner who was locked up for 14 and 1/2 years, some of them in the Marianna, FL control unit said, “When I go to visit men in prisons, all of the visiting rooms are full. When I was in prison, the visiting rooms were not full. Women stand by their men inside. Men need to stand by their women, and support all women in prison. Guess I am lucky I was a lesbian. I had my girlfriend and a lot of women supporting me.”
AFSC’s Oakland office has just issued a new report,
write: 1730 Franklin St., Ste. 212, Oakland, CA 94612
call: 510-238-8080
email: LMagnani@afsc.org
The new policies implemented in September 2007 are euphemistically called “medications schedule change.” They really are a whole-sale denial of meds. It happened right in the middle of a rash of suicides and suicide attempts. They clearly did not care about the impact it would create. The first week our meds were cut there were over 600 602s filed. I was not able to participate then, because when they cut my meds I felt awful. I could not think.
I have submitted a 602 since, though. I won twice previously to be on the meds I was on. This time, they claimed the 602 was submitted on the wrong form, and then they claimed it was submitted on the wrong grounds, that my chronic depression is not covered under ADA, when many previous claims under ADA were accepted.
In the 2 months since they cut our meds I have been on 5 different anti-depressants, which are supposed to replace the one that worked for me for 3 and 1/2 years. All had horrific side effects. I had to be have emergency care just last week, because of the side effects of the latest one they tried.
The wholesale change of medications, which means also a lack of proper treatment for those who used to have it, is having a huge impact on our already overcrowded conditions. There are more nervous breakdowns, more fights between prisoners, more suicide attempts. There is also a more active black market to buy and sell the medications. People are desperate to get something that might work for them.
Robert Sillen’s intention for the expansion of mental health care is being skewed and abused by CDC, at least in this facility. Instead of expanding mental health, they are cutting it back. Those practices that were judged ineffective by Sillen’s research are being eliminated, but no effective ones are being implemented. It seems that the money that is supposed to be spent on mental health is being funneled elsewhere.
Meanwhile we have even more women who clearly do not belong here. They should be hospitalized, should be given help. They cannot be accommodated here. They need medical help, not to be incarcerated. Their presence here does not do them any good and is disruptive to all others here.
Something needs to be done. We need more mental health professionals to treat the women here, we need up-to-date meds available, and we need better screening of who should be here in the first place.