“[Jail] is not supposed to be a comfortable place.”
They’re not going to get recliners, he said.
If they want that, they can stay out of trouble.”
(Sheriff Vern Warnke, Merced Sun-Star August 13, 2016)
“We didn’t know if my dad was dead or alive,” said 13-year old Jeremiah after his mother, Victoria, received a call on June 30 that the cell block where his dad was incarcerated had been raided by masked officers for no apparent reason. Victoria was frantic and could not reach anyone to find out what was going on. By the time she did, her husband had been shot with rubber bullets and his hand was broken in 10 places while another bullet hit his temple near his eye. Two other men in the 35-inmate shared cell block also were hurt. The only explanation was that it was a routine raid to locate contraband. Nothing was found. So, was it a training exercise? Families are tired of this abuse and have started to organize.
Victoria is part of Live Free, a national campaign to reduce the mass incarceration that works to ensure the safety and well-being of loved ones. After numerous efforts to file grievances, about 150 inmates in the Merced (California) correctional facilities went on a hunger strike on September 9, the 45th anniversary of the 1971 Attica Uprising. (See sidebar) News accounts on the national prison strike reported 24,000 prisoners in 24 states and 29 different prisons joined in on September 9.
The reported strike actions varied among the prisons or jails. They included refusal to eat, to report to “work,” to go out on the yard, to court or to appointments. In Merced, about 150 inmates along with loved ones on the outside participated in a 10 day-long hunger strike. They called for the firing of Lt. Moore for not taking inmates’ grievances seriously and for “the continued biased mistreatment, including the misuse and abuse of authority within these facilities, as well as [for] inmates and detainees not being afforded rights and entitlements.” Pressure was also placed on the Board of Supervisors by the families to do something about unjust actions going on inside the jail. It got worse before it got better. Finally, corrections staff met with a group of inmates and changes started to occur. The hunger strike was ended and there was some hope to have the other demands met.
A Live Free report stated: “All roads to ending mass incarceration run through cities and counties. Our local jails are the front doors to a destructive and corrupt criminal justice system.” More specifically, the Live Free Merced County report stated:
Between 1985 and 2014, the per capita jail population in Merced County increased by 16 percent.
The number of incarcerated women increased by 274%.
Blacks in Merced are almost four times more likely to be in jail than the general population.
The percentage of Latinos in jail in the county has been increasing faster than Latino population growth and Latinos in low-income communities in Downtown, Southeast and Southwest Merced are subjected to aggressive policing and law enforcement.
Six of 10 inmates behind bars in Merced in 2014 had not been convicted of any crime.
The nation continues to mobilize to end mass incarceration and to reunite families to live free together. Live Free Merced has indeed had a victory with the huge investment of time and actions to ensure the humane treatment of persons imprisoned for varying crimes. Family members on the outside can make a real difference for their loved ones on the inside. Much more remains to be done.
