Stop Walla Walla Ad-Seg Lynchings

Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) is the only institution in the state that houses death row inmates and its execution chamber. It is also one of the five states that still execute prisoners by hanging. WSP is also practicing a sub-lethal form of lynching: ADMINISTRATIVE LYNCHING.
"LYNCH verb: To execute, esp. by hanging without due process of law."
The Administrative Segregation Classification Committee, a cabal type of tribunal, has been making biased, discriminatory, hypocritical and insidious use of authority, Confining inmates in its Intensive Supervision Unit (ISU) for extremely extended periods of time in direct violation of its Own administrative policies ( DOC.320.000)
What is Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg)? It is a policy tool used to place, transfer, remove or separate/isolate any prisoners it wishes, without the prisoners' commiting any rule violation or being infracted. All the justification needed is "placed on Ad-Seg pending an investigation"!

Criteria and Categories of Placement:

1. Threat to others. 2. Threat to self. 3. Threat to security. 4.Threat to orderliness of facility. 5. Others (meaning anything). Once placed you are given your Due Process Hearing Notice. At that time you are read or explained your rights of due process while on Ad-Seg status. 72 hours later you are scheduled to your initial hearing. If you are bound over you have a second hearing 7 days later (totaling 10 days). Only working days count: no weekends. If you're bound over again you're scheduled 20 days later, for a total of 30 days. If the institution is still investigating or they JUST WISH TO RETAIN YOU, you are scheduled at 30 day intervals from then on! The whole Ad-Seg investigation process according to policy is to take no more than 81 days. After this sufficient amount of time -- unless they START THE INVESTIGATION PERIOD OVER AGAIN -- they are to make a recommendation decision to either, by policy: Release, transfer, demote custody level, over-ride, maximum custody (IMS: Intensive Management Status).

Facts about the Administrative Segregation lynching procedure and the hypocracy of its tribunal:

On June 21, 2005 two serious incidents occured: At 10:45AM 45 prisoners (culinary workers) including inmate Ronald Henderson initiated a non-violent act of civil disobedience in the WSP main kitchen dining hall, inresponse to the Administration's taking away the worker showers starting that day. (See article at http://www.petitiononline.com/TPR1/petition.html also http://ronaldhenderson.blogspot.com/2005/01/dangerous-showers-at-walla-walla.html )
Because of this spontaneous non-violent solidarity the workers' complaints were heard by on-site administrators, who were forced to rush and respond to the situation. Inmate Henderson verbally took full responsibility for orchestrating the incident and all prisoners went back to work peacefully after administrators said they would rectify the problem immediately. Three hours later inmate Henderson on his kitchen job assignment, was the only prisoner out of 45 taken into custody and placed on Ad-Seg.
INCIDENT #2: On June 21, 2005, two hours after inmate Henderson was taken into custody a melee occurred between 15 Mexicans and four black prisoners in a cell located in Unit Six. All were taken into custody and into Ad-Seg. (Turn back the clock two months to an April incident involving a melee of 25 Mexicans and five black prisoners in the dining hall over a table territory dispute that both groups had mediated on months before. Non-lethal force was used to quell this disturbance. Three prisoners were shot with rubber bullets, all were taken into custody and Ad-Seg, the whole facility was placed on lock-down for a week in both incidents.)
Ad-Seg tribunal hypocrisy at its best: Ironically the black prisoner who was the alleged reason for the disturbance was released from Ad-Seg status 2 months later and returned to the same unit. His release was not taken kindly to by other prisoners, who questioned how he got released, while none of the others involved did. So general population prisoners had their own hearing, and that same night he was attacked by other prisoners, taken back into custody, and three weeks later transferred to another facility's general population. Four other inmates involved in that disturbance were given IMS Maximum custody programs. (Why not all? it was a spontaneous incident and all were involved.) The remainder were transferred or let back out to population.

CONTRADICTIONS:

A Mexican inmate who was involved in the June 21 melee went to his Ad-Seg hearing right after inmate Henderson. Henderson was recommended for an IMS program while the other inmate was released from Ad-Seg status. This is a typical game of ambiguous, capricious disciplinary and administrative punishment the Ad-Seg classification tribunal uses to keep selected inmates confined for extremely long periods of time in its ISU.
The program and curriculum modification design of the ISU is only supposed to be used for temporary placement. Inmates placed in this type of modification environment is, by policy, to be only up to 81 days. Inmates are being housed in this type of sensory deprivation limbo setting for months, some even longer than that, depriving them of the same privileges as other inmates housed in IMUs throughout the state.
CONDITIONS: According to DOC policy prisoners of the same custody status are to have equal access as other prisoners of the same status. This is not happening in WSP's ISU. They are using their ISU as an excuse for long-term confinement status, AND to use the statistics resulting from this corrupt practice in order to threaten and flimflam the state legislature into soaking Washington taxpayers for ever more UNNEEDED maximum security unit building boondoggles.

The following are summary excerpts of a few of the insidious abuses of the classification tribunal -- in their own words from DOC documents:

7/15/05: Disciplinary hearings appeal response by Custody Program Manager (CPM) Schettler, who was present at the 6/21/05 incident work strike negotiations: Re I/M Ronald Henderson #729397: "Your appeal states you were not afforded the opportunity to see the video tape, and the other inmates involved were not given infractions.... Guilty findings affirmed: based on the infraction report, Inmate Henderson clearly showed himself to be a leader in the passive resistance displayed by a group of inmate workers in the south dining hall on 6/21/05. The finding of guilt is justified. There is no need for the video tape to be entered into evidence."
Schettler 8/4/05: Classification hearing appeal: "You state the recommendation is unjust and biased, due to the consideration of length of infraction and behavior history. You state you should be credited for programing for six months despite your behavior record. The Administrative segregation recommendation is based on many criteria of those prior behaviors. You continue to engage in such as evidenced in this case. Your retention is warranted. Your appeal is denied."
9/7/05, classification recommendation, "Demote to Max-custody. This inmate was found guilty of WAC#652 - organizing a work stoppage. This inmate poses a threat to security and the orderly operation of the facility. This inmate was the primary instigator of a strike by over forty inmates that had the potential to escalate into a very serious incident."
10/28/05 Inmate Henderson's grievance about the classification neglect and unprofessional conduct by not documenting his completion and certificate of a vocational custodial janitor services class. CS Sundberg states: "Classification reports are intended as a summary and in no way is seen as an inclusive document." This is Henderson's official prison central file. All information is inclusive and has relevance to judgment, facts, behavior, decisions, placement, points, parole, release -- and can be used as a reference document for me or against me. This omission of my factual programing information did and does have a relevant bearing on Ad-seg. CS Sundberg comments saying: "although the completion of this course is commendable, it would have no bearing on his retention on Ad-Aeg or his referral to an IMS program. His actions in general population were extremely serious and had a great potential for violence. He does not have the skills to act appropriately around other inmates in a general population setting." WHY DID HE NOT APPLY HIS OWN LOGIC OR STATEMENTS TO THE SERIOUS MELEE INCIDENTS THAT HE ALSO MADE AND OVER-SAW THE CLASSIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS ON? If inmate Henderson did not have "the skills to act appropriately around other inmates in a general population setting," then HOW DID HE MAGICALLY INDUCE 45 OTHER PRISONERS TO SUPPORT EACH OTHER IN A NON-VIOLENT PROTEST OF A LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCE?
These are just a few of the systematic corrupt practices at WSP. The writer leaves it up to the readers to draw their own logical conclusions.
Please consider contacting government and Washington DOC officials and media to help stop the misuse of the Administrative Segregation confinement policy. (This petition can be quoted, or cut&pasted in its entirety, and mailed or emailed to media, organizations, officials, etc. such as: [email protected] (with "Secretary of Corrections" in the subject line).
Governor Gregoire's email form: http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/govemail.htm
Governor Christine Gregoire
Office of The Governor
PO Box 40002
Olympia WA 98504-0002

And don't forget to email this petition to your list! (See below)

Contact the writer at:
Ronald Henderson #729397
WSP 1-A-5
Walla Walla WA 99362

"Only through their own struggle for liberation will ordinary people come to comprehend their true nature, suppressed and distorted within institutional structures designed to assure obedience and subordination. Only in this way will people develop more humane ethical standards, a new sense of right, the consciousness of their strength and their importance as a social factor in the life of their time and their capacity to realize the striving of their inmost nature." --Noam Chomsky