|
Ten prisoners
at OSP [Ohio State
Penitentiary] have been on hunger strike since Monday
March 16th. Supporters have been calling the prison and the legal services
department at ODRC [Ohio Dept of Rehabilitation and Correction] central office
with no discernable effect.
The Warden
and OSP staff refuse to take the hunger striking
prisoners seriously. Unit manager Charmaine Bracy and Major Hurst have both said that range rec will not be returned at all and that 5B prisoners will
have access to religious programming through their cell doors. See below for
what that means and why it is unacceptable.
Trevor Clark in legal
services either ignores calls or re-directs callers in meaningless circles. It
seems there is no one in legal services at the ODRC is taking responsiblity for making sure OSP does not abuse its
captives' basic constitutional rights.
So, we're going to their boss, and
then to his bosses.
Gary Mohr is the director of the ODRC. Please call
him and tell him that the Warden at OSP is refusing to take the ten hunger
strikers seriously. Demand that Mohr reverse this Warden's illegal policy
changes. Tell him that it is not okay for him to turn a blind eye when his
employees pursue collective punishment by putting through illegal and
unconstitutional policies because of a few incidents with one or two
prisoners.
Gary Mohr 614-752-1150.Write
letters: Gary Mohr, ODRC Director, 770 West Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio
43222
Email:
drc.publicinfo@odrc.state.oh.us
Gary
Mohr is the top of the ODRC hierachy, but the ODRC is
supposed to be accountable to the people of Ohio. The mechanism for that
accountability is the Correctional Institution Inspection
Committee (CIIC). Please join other supporters in filing complaints on their
website http://www.ciic.state.oh.us/complaint-form
You can also
contact these elected officials (especially if you live in their district) and
ask them to investigate the recent policy failures at OSP.
Sandra Williams (D) Senate District 21 (614)
466-4857
Cliff Hite, Vice Chair (R) Senate District 1 (614) 466-8150
Edna Brown (D) Senate District 11 (614)
466-5204
John Eklund (R)
Senate District 18 (614) 644-7718
Click the names to send emails.
Mailing
address:
Senate Building
1 Capitol Square, 2nd Floor
Columbus,
Ohio43215
Paul Zeltwanger (R)
House District 54 (614) 644-6027
Nicholas J. Celebrezze (D) House District 15 (614)
466-3485
Bob D. Hackett (R) House District 74 (614)
466-1470
Michelle Lepore-Hagan (D) House District 58 (614)
466-9435
Click the names to send emails.
Mailing Address:
Vern Riffe Center
77 South
High Street 13th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215-6111
Religious programming
through a cell door means that a clergy person or spiritual leader will speak
with the prisoner through the closed cell door on the range for less than 5
minutes. The doors at OSP are solid steel. They are thick, and the range is a
loud echoing concrete room with a dozen of these doors looking out on it.
Prisoners behind each door attempt to converse with each other by shouting to be
heard. It is a very loud place with no privacy.
Imagine being a catholic
giving confession at the top of your lungs through a steel door while other
prisoners carry on shouted conversations around you. Imagine trying to receive
any kind of religious instruction in that environment. It is absurd for OSP
staff to pretend that is a suitable replacement for the one hour long sessions
in a seperate space that they are depriving these
prisoners of.
More
details on the issues:
Two recent
policy changes at OSP are the main issues, though prisoners have many other
specific grievances. The biggest issue, effecting the
most prisoners is the withdrawal of congregate recreation. All but the cadre and
long timer prisoners at OSP are no longer allowed to go out on the range
together for their one hour a day recreation out of their cells. This policy
change reduces human contact between prisoners, isolating and dehumanizing them
further, and denying them opportunities to demonstrate that they are not
security threats, a key component of the security step-down process they need to
go through to get out of solitary confinement. It also creates a logistical
problem, if only one prisoner at a time is allowed to rec, there is not enough time in a week for each of the over
450 prisoners to get their legally required five hours of rec time per week. This policy change violates court
decisions that are supposed to bind OSP to a minimum standard of humane
treatment.
The second
change, OSP has decided to deny programming to prisoners at level 5B. This
directly effects a few dozen prisoners, who are at the
highest security level in the Ohio system. Depriving these prisoners of access
to programming demonstrates the ODRC's commitment to
cruelty and punishment, rather than rehabilitation and counseling for their captives. Like the recreation
restriction, it slows the process by which 5B prisoners can step down to lower
security levels, acquiring more privileges. It is also illegal. Some of the
denied programming includes religious programming. Any prisoner placed on level
5B will be there for at least a year. It is a violation of the first amendment
right to freedom of religion to deny anyone the ability to practice their
religion for over a year, and a violation of the fourteenth amendment equal
protection under the law to exclude these prisoners from opportunities afforded
to other prisoners without just cause.
There are
many other issues at OSP, everything from unsafe and slippery conditions in the
showers that have caused multiple injuries, to restricted access to hardcover
books in violation of US Supreme Court decision Turner v Safely. The
Warden at OSP is not taking the prisoners' demands seriously and appears to not
have consulted ODRC legal services before instituting these illegal and
unconstitutional policy changes.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment