Over 500 hunger strikers in third week at California prisons

Solitary Watch - As the current California prison hunger strike reaches its 25th day, one striker in the Corcoran SHU, Billy Michael Sell, is dead, and others are on increasingly dangerous ground, with no apparent intention to resume eating.

All strikers are to have received by now “written information about advance directives and a Physician Order for Life Sustaining Treatment,” and a document informing them “You may die, even after you start to eat again,” and that “Now is the time for you to think about what medical care you want when you are no longer able to talk to health care staff.”

Solitary Watch has received confirmation from the Office of the Receiver that hunger strikers at San Quentin did refuse water for one day last week. One San Quentin hunger striker also was rushed to the Emergency Room at an off-site hospital, and returned the same day. Two Pelican Bay hunger strikers were also transported to off-site hospitals for medical attention as well. The Office of the Receiver also responded that it would not consider the use of forced feeding.

Meanwhile, the news has come out that CDCR is allowing independent monitors to observe the hunger strike, and court documents have been filed by medical experts blasting healthcare at Corcoran as posing “an ongoing serious risk of harm to patients.”

As of Monday there are 561 hunger strikers continuing their protest against long-term solitary confinement and the system that places them there after three weeks. Of these, 385 have been on hunger strike the entire three weeks. The hunger strike and work stoppage that began on July 8th with the participation of approximately 30,000 California prisoners across the state and included out-of-state facilities is the third time California prisoners have launched hunger strikes since June 2011, when thousands of prisoners participated in a mass hunger strike that also lasted approximately three weeks for the same set of demands as the current strike.