Prisons Are Big Business.

      It is a cruel and strange world where large corporations make money from locking people up in cages.The prison "service" is big business especially in the US, where large corporations invest billions on building and running prisons. Like all large corporations, the have to keep cutting costs and increasing profits to keep their greedy shareholders happy. This can only mean deteriorating conditions for those unfortunate to get caught up in the web of greed. What sort of conditions would make 30,000 prisoners go on hunger strike, it is difficult to imagine those sort of conditions, and what is more distressing is that they are administered by ordinary people doing the dirty work for the corporations.

30,000 prisoners start hunger strike in California

     Around 30,000 prisoners in California have begun an indefinite hunger strike and work stoppage. They say:

     “We are grateful for your support of our peaceful protest against the state-sanctioned torture that happens not only here at Pelican Bay but in prisons everywhere. We have taken up this hunger strike and work stoppage, which has included 30,000 prisoners in California so far, not only to improve our own conditions but also an act of solidarity with all prisoners and oppressed people around the world.” 

 

       Nearly 12,000 prisoners in California are being held in extreme isolation, in cells with no windows, and no access to fresh air or sunlight. In 2011 Juan Méndez, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, recommended a ban on subjecting prisoners to solitary confinement for more than 15 days. But people in state prisons in California have been held in solitary confinement for 10-40 years.

 

More information and action you can take to support the hunger-strikers:
http://www.stopisolation.org/blog/prisoners-hunger-strike-california/