Here is letter and demands we delivered to DOC on Tuesday , June 21, 2016
To: Jon Litscher,
Secretary DOC
DOC Headquarters
3099 East Washington Avenue
Madison, WI, 53704
From: Coalition for Support of Prisoners
Cc: to Harris -Dodd, Taylor, Media
June 21, 2017
Secretary Litscher,
We are writing you today to present the demands of the
prisoners refusing food in order to bring attention to the overuse and abuse of administrative
Confinement in Wisconsin's Prisons. As the public becomes aware of the torturous effect of
any kind of solitary confinement longer than 15 days, you
can imagine the outrage and bewilderment when they learned that we have inmates who have
been in solitary for decades! It is time to change. Abolishing of long term solitary
confinement is a nationwide phenomenon now and soon will include all solitary
longer than
a few days.
Please look carefully at the enclosed demands made by the
striking prisoners. We support them in this and are working on our own list of demands
that supplement this list with greater detail. We also
realize that making this system rehabilitative, allowing the DOC to fulfill
finally its
mission statement, is a long term process but it must start with the questions
Administrative Confinement poses. What do we do with the disruptive
mentally ill and how do we separate the truly dangerous from the rest of the population?
"Proper mental health facilities and treatment of
"short " and "long "term Solitary confinement prisoners." Is
one of the demands. WI DOC knows what to do here- install mental health Treatment
facilities like were mandated by the Taychedah (TCI) lawsuit in 2009(Flynn Vs
Doyle 06-c-
537). The unit in TCI work well and a few years ago one was being planned for
CCI when funding
was directed elsewhere. Now is the time to build one at each maximum prison.
There is
no treatment now and staff is hard to hold- you will have no problem retaining
staff if they can do their work with proper tools.
Changing
the administrative rules back to where they were before the prison boom and Supermax, back the
1990's, is one way to begin to fulfill the other strikers demands. For when these rules were in
effect, there were about a dozen AC prisoners and the system worked well.
Here are the most dramatic
changes made that allowed the AC population to increase by the hundreds.
1990 Rule: One was
put in AC if you were "recently violent". Rule Now: A "history
"of violence"
is all that is required, so prisoners are on AC for crimes committed decades
earlier.
2)1990
Rule: One was put in AC if there was clear evidence you were a gang leader. Rule
Now: One need to be a gang member and confidential informants
are often used-to verify this.
3)Most Significant Rule: AC prisoners got the same
privileges as far as property and general population prisoners. Rule Now: they get the privileges that coincide with their area which is generally very restrictive.
With these rules and others that were in place before the
Supermax was even an idea, the A C rolls would diminish to a very few who are
mentally ill to the point of being dangerous. These people would get full privileges and intensive therapy
and be released as soon as is possible to transition to general population.
This is not a dream. It is
achievable. Please take the prisoner demand seriously .We will be working
with them to fill in the details and will have a further report for you soon.
One final matter:
At is writing, Cesar DeLeon is having trouble with the WCI water because of the corrosive effects of the lead and copper in it he
thinks. He has a history of sensitivity. He is refusing the water and is asking for bottled water which
you are refusing, if expense is an issue we will gladly pay for it. Cesar De Leon is not the least
disruptive and is totally aware and in control of his actions. We ask you to refrain from any
extreme measures and to do the- humane thing. Please Give Cesar De Leon bottled water.
We thank you for your attention,
Coalition
for Support of Prisoners
And Demands
Dying to Live
Demands from Hunger strikers, supported by petition signers
Human
Rights Fight at Waupun Correctional Institution starting June 10, 2016.
Prisoners in Waupun's solitary
confinement will start “no food and Water” humanitarian demand from Wisconsin
DOC officials.
THE WHY: In the state of
Wisconsin hundreds of Prisoners are in the long term solitary confinement Units
AKA administrative confinement (AC). Some have been in this status for 18 to 29
years concurrently
The Problem: The U.N., several
states , and even President Obama have come out against this kind of
confinement, citing the torturous effect it has on prisoners.
The objective: Stop the torturous use of long term solitary confinement
(A.C.) by:
1) Placing a legislative cap on the use of long term solitary
confinement ( A.C.)
2) DOC
and WIS legislators adopt/come into Compliance with the U.N. Mandela Rules on
the use of solitary confinement.
3)
Oversight board/committee independent of DOC to stop abuse and over classification
of prisoners to “short” and “long” term confinement.
4) Immediate
transition and release to a less restrictive housing of prisoners who been on
the long term solitary confinement units for more than a year in the Wisconsin
DOC.
5)Proper mental health facilities and treatment of
“short “ and “long “term Solitary confinement prisoners.
6) And
immediate FBI investigation into the mind control program that the DOC is
currently operating in the system designed to recondition and break the
prisoners the DOC considers a threat to their regiment.
