Hunger protest by inmates ends
Strike leaders meet with top jail officials, reach agreement to improve conditions
SAN JOSE — A hunger strike by hundreds of inmates at the Santa Clara County Main Jail in protest of solitary confinement and other living conditions has ended following a meeting Friday between strikers and jail officials, authorities and jail sources said.
The meeting between Santa Clara County Assistant Sheriff Troy Beliveau and inmate leaders reportedly yielded an agreement to immediately increase out-of-cell time for high-security inmates, and release them in larger groups rather than individually, in response to complaints that the virtual isolation was tantamount to solitary con-
finement.
A source familiar with the meeting, which involved an audience of about 100 inmates, said it also entailed promises for better communication from jail officials to inmates about the reforms that are underway at the county’s jails, some of which addressed complaints at the heart of the hunger strike.
Among the inmates leading the talks was Larry Lucero, a regional leader of the Nuestra Familia prison gang.
Several hundred inmates were participating to varying degrees in the strike, which began Monday, and according to a letter penned by the Prisoner Human Rights Movement, was initially set to last until Oct. 30. While proponents said it was tacitly inspired by a national inmate movement to protest solitary confinement, the strike was spurred by local conditions.
The end of the hunger strike elicited sighs of relief not only from inmates, but from their families. A Santa Clara County woman, whose son is being held in the fourth-floor maximum-security wing most affected by solitary-confinement practices, said she was fasting in solidarity.
“I asked him if he was going to be eating, and he said ‘No,’ ” said the woman, who asked not to be named out of fear of retaliation to her son. “We’ve been fasting and praying.”
She added tearfully, “I couldn’t imagine eating if he’s not. Before today no one ever responded to our complaints about the fourth floor. I’m so grateful this ended.”
In an unusual turn, the Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, the union for the rank-andfile enforcement officers of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, publicly sided with the inmates and released a statement lambasting Sheriff Laurie Smith for not being responsive enough to the protest of conditions ranging from how solitary confinement is doled out to inadequate clothing.
“The issues raised by these inmates are not new concerns, nor are they concerns unique to the inmates,” the statement read. “We find ourselves in agreement with the striking inmates.”
Smith said earlier this week that she respects the inmates’ right to protest, but disagreed with their assessment of jail conditions. She asserted that inmates are now receiving twice as much clothing as they did a few months ago and that no one is being held in solitary confinement in county jails.
She said maximumsecurity inmates are held in individual cells, but are given six to eight hours of “out time” to a common area of the housing unit, which is double the state minimum.
But inmate advocates argued that the free time was in virtual isolation given that they rarely come across other inmates, and are kept in a mostly enclosed area. A plaintiff in a Prison Law Office lawsuit against the county said he did not see sunlight or breathe fresh air for seven months.
Smith contended safety issues are posed by allowing too much comingling among high-security inmates, at least half of whom she says are accused of murder and other violent offenses. She said the additional out time is being provided and that staff is on alert for a potential rise in inmate fights as a result of the overlap.
Another of the strikers’ issues was high prices for basic food items in the commissary, which sheriff’s officials said could change soon with vendor contracts up for negotiation in the coming year. Other demands called for more responsible spending of Inmate Welfare Funds for inmate education and rehabilitation, and for reform of jail-housing classifications so that inmates are placed based on individual behavior rather than broad affiliations, gang or otherwise.
Roger Winslow, vice president of the DSA, said chronic frustration with Smith’s “lackluster response” to the strike led to them aligning with the inmates. He, like the inmates, contends that the sheriff’s office is not moving quickly enough to implement a host of reforms recommended by the Prison Law Office, the National Institute of Corrections, and a county blue ribbon commission formed in the wake of the beating death last year of mentally ill inmate Michael Tyree.
“We concur with a lot of what came out of that commission, and independent oversight over the sheriff’s office as a whole,” Winslow said. “It all helps us to do our job better.”