Statewide Meeting to Abolish the SHU

The next state-wide meeting of this United Front will be held:

Saturday November 13th
11am-1pm
Cell Space
2050 Bryant St (at 18th)
San Francisco

Who are we?
The United Front to Abolish the SHU is made up of organizations and individuals in California that have come together in to shut down the Security Housing Units (SHU) in California Prisons. We are united by our common goal to see these torture units abolished in prisons across the country. The United Front includes organizations such as the Barrio Defense Committee, the Maoist Internationalist Movement, the African People's Socialist Party, African People's Solidarity Committee, Justice for Palestinians, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League, Proyecto Common Touch, Committee on Raza Rights, and California Prison Focus. Participants also include family members of SHU prisoners and former prisoners themselves.

What is the SHU?
The Security Housing Units in California's prisons are another name for
the same Control Units found in prisons across the country. Control
units are prisons within a prison. They are solitary confinement cells,
usually 6 x 8 foot, where prisoners are locked up 23 hours a day for years at a time. The one hour a day these prisoner sometimes get outside of their cell is spent alone in an exercise pen not much larger than their cell, with no direct sunlight. This long term isolation causes serious mental and physical health problems for many prisoners. And these torture cells are used to target politically active prisoners using a system of classification that makes it impossible for prisoners to appeal their assignment.

Why YOU should be there:
This is an opportunity to gain knowledge, get involved, and take action about abolishing prison torture in California.
We will also be planning for a national conference in October 2005. The location is tentatively Oxnard, California and the tentative date is October 8th. This conference will focus on education and organizing around the struggle to shut down prison control units. It will include several workshops about prisons and control units, and workshops about organizing strategy. The conference is geared towards organizers, but we hope to attract new people to our struggle to attend the event as well. The format of workshops will be participatory rather than focusing on a few big name speakers just talking at the crowd. But we will invite a few speakers to open and close the conference.
All events at the conference will be bilingual.

Right now we are focused on the following tasks:
1. Produce a list of organizations to invite
2. Produce a list of speakers to invite
3. Put together a fund raising committee to raise money to bring
speakers and orgs from out of state

We need organizers and concerned people to be there on November 13th. This isn’t a popular issue, but we can win with the help of dedicated freedom fighters like YOU! Hope to see you there.