2nd Renaissance -36 : Melbourne Indymedia

Let The Girls Go! [263]
In a recent case in Sydney, Australia, a judge sentenced a woman, who had killed her 10-year-old autistic son, to a 5 year good behaviour bond. The judge said, as he delivered the non-custodial sentence, that he considered that "This offender has suffered enough .... All the evidence leads to the inevitable conclusion that this offender will punish herself significantly for the rest of her life [for] taking the life of her beloved son." The woman was reported to have told a psychiatrist that:

* "My soul had left my body. I wish I had my boy back. I love him so much. I didn't do it because I didn't want Jason. It's never that I hated Jason for his disability. I loved him the way he was. It just happened ...I snapped."

Notice again, the key presumption that underlies all Western justice systems; that offenders must be punished and made to suffer. In the above case the judge concluded that since the woman would continue to blame and punish herself for the rest of her life there was no need to send her to jail to be punished.

Judges and prosecutors in the Australian justice system, and in that of the USA, see it as their role to dispense the punishments set out in the law. They are, in fact, administering a punishment system. It is not a 'justice' system or a 'correctional' or a 'rehabilitation' system. Nor does it offer victims much more than useless revenge and, sometimes, a little monetary compensation for the harm they suffered. The perpetrator's fate is always clear and prescribed. They must be punished.

As discussed earlier, sending offenders to prison, especially those run by for-profit contractors, is to condemn them to suffering over and above the punishment prescribed within the rule of law. Such suffering is often of a cruel and inhuman nature and in violation of various human rights covenants. Yet judicial officers, with a few rare exceptions, continue to sentence offenders as though the additional suffering does not exist, or is nothing to do with them. They know what's happening in the jails but they choose to ignore it. In so doing these officials are converting the system they serve into one of injustice rather than justice.

Society then needs to consider whether offenders, particularly women and children, should ever be incarcerated at all. It might still be appropriate to contain unrepentant rapists and serial killers in order to protect the general community. However it is hard to see how imprisoning women who have killed their children, but who pose no threat to the general public, is anything but barbaric and totally uncivilized.

During 2003 an Australian woman, Kathleen Folbigg, was sentenced to 40 years in prison, with a non-parole period of 30 years. Her crime, which she continues to deny, was to consecutively smother her four children when they were aged between 8 and 19 months. She was largely convicted on the basis of entries in her private diary, although these did not specifically refer to her having killed her two sons and two daughters; only that she was her father's daughter. Her lawyers are appealing her conviction.

Whether Kathleen Folbigg is guilty or not it is an obvious fact that shutting her away for up to 40 years is not going to rehabilitate her nor serve as a warning to other mothers who might be tempted to smother their infants. Motherhood just does not work like that. For a woman to take the life of her child requires exceptional circumstances; it is not a natural act that any mother might consider in the light of likely penalties, or the chances of evading detection and punishment. There has to be something seriously wrong for a woman to commit the murder or manslaughter of her offspring. In Kathleen Folbigg's case something was, indeed, terribly wrong.

When she was herself just a toddler Kathleen witnessed the violent murder of her mother by her father. The man used a knife and inflicted 27 vicious stab wounds to young Kathleen's mother, who might have been trying to protect her from her father. A psychiatric report made shortly after the killing indicated that the young girl had a "bizarre preoccupation with her genitals" and considered this and her "retarded" state of mental development to be indications of sexual abuse during her first 18 months of life. Kathleen Folbigg never have a chance of growing up and becoming a 'normal' mother.

The judge noted her background and considered that because of it there was little chance of rehabilitation in her case. He said, "She is remorseful but unlikely ever to acknowledge her offences to anyone other than herself. If she does, she may very well commit suicide."

Kathleen Folbigg is currently segregated from other prisoners and is locked up for 22 hours out of every 24; "for her own safety". What an injustice, what an unnecessary punishment, and what a waste of a life.

Another case, this time in California, also underlines the futility and barbarity of the incarceration of women. Kristin Rossum's trial made headlines all over the world because it was seen as a classic love triangle and it was billed by the media as the 'American Beauty' murder, because of the red rose petals found at the death scene.

In 2003, Rossum was convicted of poisoning her husband of six years, by administering an overdose of fentanyl - a painkiller that is up to 100 times more powerful than morphine. Because Krisitn Rossum worked as a poisons expert, a toxicologist, and would be aware that fentanyl is an odourless and colourless drug that would be difficult to detect unless it was specifically tested for, she came under suspicion when it was found in her husband's body.

Despite her story that her husband had become depressed after she had told him that she intended to leave him for another man, and he had most likely taken a lethal cocktail of drugs from stocks she had purchased a long time before in Mexico, she was not believed by her husband's brother. He requested that police question Kristin further and keep the investigation open. High levels of fentanyl were detected during the subsequent inquiry.

Given the fact that Rossum still strenuously denies having poisoned her husband, and the lack of any witnesses to the killing or evidence to directly link her to the poison, there must still be considerable doubt that she is guilty. The media feeding frenzy that her case caused did her no favours, and it could well have contributed to the "guilty" outcome of her trial.

The prosecution alleged that Rossum killed de Villiers because he threatened to tell her employer, the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office, that she was having an affair with her supervisor and that she had also relapsed into a methamphetamine addiction. They claimed that she staged the death scene to look like a suicide and scattered red rose petals around the body to emulate scenes from her favourite movie, American Beauty. The prosecution claimed that Rossum gave false evidence when she testified that she spoke to her husband on the phone, around lunchtime on Monday, November 6, when medical experts said he would have been already comatose.

In Kristin Rossum's version of events she left her husband at home in bed on that Monday morning, she said he was speaking in a slurred manner and that he seemed sluggish. He had been very upset about the prospect of losing her and had always been very 'clinging' during their marriage. He was depressed and he told her he had taken several sedatives. She called his workplace and told them he would not be at work that day, and then she went to work herself. Rossum claims that she spoke to her husband at lunch time (by when the prosecution claims he would have been unconscious) and that when she arrived home that evening he was asleep and snoring. During the night she says that she realised that he wasn't breathing and she phoned emergency, while trying to revive him by CPR. She said that when she pulled back the bedclothes she saw that her husband's chest was covered with red rose petals and that he had their wedding pictures in the bed with him.

Asked during her trial whether she had loved her boss at the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office so much that she was prepared to take her husband's life so that she could be with him, she replied: "Absolutely not, that's what divorce is for." When challenged as to whether she had, with or without her lover, killed her husband, Rossum replied simply. She said: "I wouldn't hurt Greg."

Nevertheless, Kristin Rossum was convicted of murdering Greg de Villiers on purely circumstantial evidence. The prosecution emphasised her probable love triangle motive, her opportunity to kill her husband, and her knowledge of and access to poisons. But the jury was obviously confused by the lack of hard evidence. This is indicated by the fact that after the prosecution had spent seven and a half hours on its closing arguments and conjectures - while the defence took less than two hours to point to a complete lack of evidence; just a whole lot of suppositions and allegations - the jury in the case needed to deliberate for some eight hours over a period of two days. This was not a simple case of 'here's the hard evidence, pronounce her guilty'. The jurors, along with most other people, could not honestly be certain that Kristin Rossum was a murderess.

There are, to anybody who decides to look at the matter coldly and objectively, some serious reasons to doubt the seemingly obvious guilt of this young woman, and to doubt that she was ever likely to be afforded a fair trial. Here are a few of the misgivings that persons of conscience might have about the finding at Rossum's trial.

* While there was an amount of fentanyl missing from the laboratory where Kristin worked, the prosecution totally failed to tie her to that deficiency. She claimed that she did not take any fentanyl, but a presumption of innocence on this point seems to have been overlooked by the jury in the flurry of allegations that they were bombarded with during the lengthy closing address. Anyone could have taken the drug, Rossum was taking methamphetamine for her own use. Who knows how many other people were dipping into the drug supplies at the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office. If Rossum could do it so could others, the security on drugs where Rossum worked seems to have been lax. Many of the people in such a lab would know what to do with fentanyl, other than using it as a poison. Fentanyl is considered to have a high potential for abuse. No one has suggested that Rossum ever used it in that manner - to engender a high - but other people might have. They would hardly come forward and admit to it though.

Greg de Villiers would have been aware that toxicologists in Kristin's circle considered fentanyl to be a difficult drug to detect, at least on the part of a victim, he was said to have been at a party where this had been discussed, and the L.A. County toxicologist, Dan Anderson, and authored a paper titled Death by Fentanyl. While the defence lawyers for Kristin Rossum were unable to prove that de Villiers had acquired a quantity of phentanyl, and administered it to himself, nobody ever tried to prove that he didn't. He is described as having been "a top biotech executive" and he would, more likely than not, have had contacts in the laboratory equipment and drugs supply industry who might have been willing to get him some.

* Fentanyl can be administered in three ways; by mouth, as a slow-release skin patch, or by intravenous injection. The prosecution contended that the drug was given to de Villiers during a struggle, and that there was an extra needle wound beyond those made by the medics who had attended his death and tried to revive him. The prosecution's expert witness testified that this particular puncture was not made correctly, and that it was consistent with the damage that could be caused if someone had forcibly administered a needle while de Villiers was resisting the injection.

Unfortunately, the defence were unable to prove their suspicion that Greg de Villiers had drunken a large dose of fentanyl from a glass found at his bedside because it was never tested for traces of the drug. The police had initially assumed the death was a suicide and had not treated it as a murder scene until it was too late to capture vital evidence. Again, the presumption of innocence might have been applied, but it was not.

In the absence of hard evidence to show that de Villiers drank fentanyl of his own accord, and in the face of prosecution claims - supported by expert testimony - that there was a suspicious needle wound on his arm, the jury seem to have been convinced that - circumstantially - Kristin Rossum injected her husband with a lethal dose of fentanyl.

* The known facts of de Villier's death could equally fit a suicide motive; that of a rejected, highly attached and dependent lover, who wished to end his unhappy life and also leave a message, that was not necessarily malicious or vengeful, to his wife and her new lover. But the defence was frustrated in their attempts to develop this quite probable case.

Not enough seems to have been done by the state investigators to rule out this scenario, and Kristin Rossum's team lacked the authority and resources to explore it in full. This often happens to accused persons who have to contend with a state team that is seeking to gain a conviction, come what may, and is prepared to either overlook or even to deliberately exclude possible clues.

One such failure to pursue the investigation to the full extent possible involves Rossum's claim that she bought a yellow rose on the fatal day, not one with red petals. The prosecution, with great diligence, tracked down a copy of her supermarket docket that showed that she bought a rose that day, but the colour was not recorded.

Given the extent of electronic surveillance in all supermarkets and convenience stores it should have been a simple matter for the state to determine whether the tape showed a red or yellow rose in her hand when she was at the checkout. Although the recording would be in mono it should still have been forensically practical to detect the difference in hue between the shade of a red rose and that of a yellow one.

This was not pursued and, of course, such an investigation was beyond the capacity of the Rossum defence team. The state always enjoys this sort of advantage in any test of 'justice'.

* Another line of investigation that should have been pursued, but wasn't, concerns Kristin Rossum's claim to have phoned her husband at lunch time on November 6, when he was supposedly already near death and, according to expert testimony, had not emptied his bladder for some 10 hours. If it were to have been shown that Rossum did indeed speak to her husband when she claimed it would almost certainly have cleared her of the murder charge. But her defence team lacked the authority to requisition transcripts of the conversation and confirmatory details as to its time, date, and the calling and receiving numbers involved.

The prosecution did not seek out this information for two reasons: (a) Such information is not officially supposed to be available, although it is an open secret that the governments of all the COW nations have routinely recorded all phone conversations for decades, and certainly well before 911 and the War on Terror. (b) Their case against Kristin Rossum could have been seriously undermined and the death of Greg de Villiers might have had to be treated as a suicide; which is the way the police initially saw it.

Ordinary citizens such as Kristin Rossum who come under suspicion of criminal acts face a daunting task to clear themselves. They invariably have limited financial resources and, more significantly, they lack the authority and resources needed to fully seek out evidence that could prove their innocence. Ranged against the accused are the enormous financial, legal and investigative resources of the state. Because the so-called justice systems of the USA and Australia are so adversarial, deriving as they do from feudal times and English law, the prosecution are always 'out to get' the accused.

Both police officers and prosecution lawyers can advance their careers, pay, and status by securing convictions, especially in high profile cases like the 'American Beauty' murder. These guys simply didn't want Rossum to be found 'not guilty'.

Trial by jury simply isn't a 'fair' system in which a balanced view is taken of all the facts and a just decision is reached. The whole process by which people are convicted and sent to prison is seriously flawed, and the authorities and others who live from it know this only too well.

The star prosecutor in Kristin Rossum's case was thereafter promoted to Judge. Similarly, various advancements followed the prosecution, in Australia, of Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her baby Azaria Chantel Chamberlain, in 1980. The cases, though in different countries and 20 years apart, also have other similarities.

In both trials the evidence was predominantly circumstantial, there were no actual witnesses to the deaths and, in the Chamberlain case baby Azaria's body was never found. Both Kristin Rossum and Lindy Chamberlain were convicted on the basis of conjecture, media hype, and expert testimony. In Lindy's case she told of a dingo (a native wild dog descended from a species originating in Thailand) entering the Chamberlain's tent in the Ayres Rock Camping Ground on August 17, 1980 and carrying 9-week-old Azaria off in its mouth. Kristin's version of the events surrounding the death of her husband have already been outlined above. Both women strenuously denied any guilt but both went to prison.

Lindy Chamberlain spent 3 years in Darwin jail and gave birth to another daughter there. Luckily for her she was not required to wear leg irons during labour, as she would have been in California where Kristin Rossum is now incarcerated. Chamberlain was released following the revelation that the 'fetal bloodstains' found under the dashboard of the family car and which had played a major part in the conviction of her and her husband, were nothing but red undercoat - just common old paint. A forensic scientist in the employ of the Northern Territory government had seemingly 'mistaken' paint, which is an inorganic compound, with fetal blood, which is an organic substance.

The deceit and misrepresentation in the official explanation of how such a 'mistake' ever happened beggars belief. The person responsible for the error still works for the Northern Territory government and is currently involved in the investigation of another high profile murder where no body has been found and the evidence is largely circumstantial!

In reviewing the 1988 film, Evil Angels, about the Chamberlain case, Robert Ebert of the Chicago-Sun Times warned of the danger of allowing accused people to be convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence. He also noted that, if the death penalty had applied in Australia, a wrongful conviction could have resulted in Lindy Chamberlain's execution.

As the Chamberlain case showed, expert evidence can be just as dangerous as circumstantial evidence. Since the development of DNA testing numerous convictions have been appealed and overturned on the basis of misleading or untrue evidence given under oath by expert witnesses. Nobody knows how many innocent men and women have gone to their deaths as convicted murderers or are still serving time in 'punishing' prison conditions because of the unchallenging acceptance by juries of 'expert' evidence.

The adversarial nature of the justice system and, ingrained 'convict for your career's sake' attitudes within the law enforcement, legal, judicial and forensic cliques that investigate and prosecute suspected wrongdoers, have often combined to deny accused people a fair hearing and to send them to imprisonment, institutionalised and unjustified 'punishment' or even death.

The expert testimony in the Rossum trial said that de Villiers had been dead for most of the day on November 6, 2000 and that he was already comatose by the time she claimed to have spoken to him on the phone. The expert evidence also indicated that Greg de Villiers died from a massive injection of fentanyl that was administered roughly, as would occur if there had been a struggle. The expert evidence said that de Villiers death was the due to large amounts of fentanyl detected in his body. The expert evidence in the Chamberlain case said that red automotive undercoat was fetal blood. Who knows what the truth really is?

Well, for one thing, somebody already knows or can readily determine whether Rossum made the lunchtime phone call that might well have cleared her of murder. They just aren't saying because to bring such evidence to light might not only overturn a 'highly successful' prosecution and conviction, it would reveal to the US populace the extent to which their everyday communications are being monitored by the Feds. Unfortunately for Kristin Rossum, even if her version of events is true, nobody will ever admit that there is a record of her conversation with Greg. It will not be deemed to be 'in the national interest' for authorities to admit that judicially authorised wire-tapping is an anachronistic farce, and that due to the wonders of modern communications technology all phone conversations can be, and already are, monitored 24/7.

It was also difficult for Rossum's legal team to authenticate the expert evidence that was tendered in court. It is not clear whether they were able to verify the conclusions about the time of death, or whether there really was a large amount of fentanyl in de Villier's body. Kristin Rossum herself would have been able to determine the concentrations of the poison, she is a summa cum laude graduate in chemistry from San Diego State University and a trained toxicologist. But as the accused person it was not possible for her to do any such analysis, it had to be independent.

Her supervisor and lover at the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office could also have determined whether the amounts of fentanyl in the body were suggestive of a frenzied attack and intravenous injection of a massive amount of the drug, sufficient to kill de Villiers very quickly, or whether there were substantially lower amounts of fentanyl in the body; more consistent with his having drunk a smaller quantity from the glass found at his bedside, and then expired more slowly and in the manner that Rossum described at her trial. But no such analysis by Rossum's lover - or apparently anyone else on her side - was permitted. He was ordered to stay right away from the investigation that eventually jailed her.

Despite the above commentary Kristin Rossum does bear a degree of guilt in relation to the break-up of her marriage and the death of Greg de Villiers. She is clearly guilty of adultery. She is also guilty of causing her 'clinging' husband great distress in the manner of her proposed separation and divorce. The right thing to have done, if her marriage was so intolerable to her, was to have divorced Greg before she took another lover. The way de Villiers was confronted with absolute betrayal and rejection could, very possibly, have caused him to end his own life. Kristin Rossum was also guilty of substance abuse and possibly of the theft of drugs from her place of employment. Nevertheless, many women have done very similar things; they're not commendable actions but they aren't really hanging offences either.

The issue here is not whether Kristin Rossum is a 'good' or a 'bad' person. All of us are a bit of each. Although there are many reasons to doubt it, suppose, for the sake of the argument, that Rossum really is a murderess and that she is the scheming, self-centred, spoilt and over privileged brat she has been portrayed as in the media and at least one book written about her trial. Should she be in prison for the remainder of her natural life; without the possibility of parole? Should she be further punished within a prison that functions to exploit and torment its inmates beyond all the bounds of human decency, morality and human rights? The important issues involve questions of whether she should have been incarcerated as she has been, and whether she should be additionally punished by way of harsh treatment and, more than probably, sexual abuse.

Not only does the following argument find the answers to these questions to be a resounding NO, it raises the further question: if Rossum, assuming that she really is a husband poisoner, should not be confined and so treated, then what about the other 7,000 women serving time in the twin prisons complex at Chowchilla? What about all the rest, all over the US, and those in Australian jails for that matter?

How many women really need to be kept away from society because they pose a clear risk to it? The answer is damn few. It is quite probable that there are less than 100 women in the Chowchilla prisons complex where Rossum has been incarcerated that really should be kept off the streets. Even it there are three or four times as many women in the latter category, they should not be incarcerated in places like Chowchilla or treated as sub-humans, to be abused and tormented by a cruel system. As far as the rest of the women in the twin jails are concerned, the correct response is obvious:

Let the girls GO!

The Awful Realities Of Chowchilla [264]
In December, 2002, Kristin Rossum was sentenced to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. She is now incarcerated in the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) Chowchilla, in a complex that holds more convicted women than any other jail on planet earth. The judge had earlier denied a number of defence motions for a new trial and, at the short sentencing hearing, he ordered Rossum to pay a $10,000 fine. The de Villiers family have also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her.

In California, Rossum's conviction for murder made her eligible for the death penalty, as is also the case in many other states of the US. The prosecution chose, however, to seek a life prison term. They would, undoubtedly, have been aware that such a sentence would involve far greater and more protracted punishment than would a quick, lethal injection. Sadly, Kristin Rossum is presently discovering the nature of the unrelenting punishment that awaited her in Chowchilla. From many accounts, that place is not far short of HELL.

A probation officer's report of an interview with Rossum following her conviction, and just prior to her sentencing, indicates that she had at least two misconceptions at that point. Firstly, she told the probation officer that: "I still can't believe the jury convicted me." It wasn't the jury that was responsible, it was the investigation and prosecution teams full of career-focussed people. The jury, as noted above, would seem to have been unsure of their ground in the face of purely circumstantial evidence. It was, more than likely, expert evidence that convinced them that there were some 'hard' facts involved and that these could convict Rossum.

Secondly, although she expected to be sent to prison, at least until she and her family could win a retrial, Kristin Rossum does not seem to have expected a life sentence. She certainly showed by her remarks that, like most people on the outside, she had no conception of what the place she would be incarcerated in was really like. She told the probation officer that if she were sent to jail she hoped to take advantage of the educational opportunities available. When she was eventually exonerated, as she expected she must surely be, she planned to attend graduate school and earn a doctorate in analytical chemistry. She also expressed a wish to have a family. None of these expectations would prove to be realistic.

She was about to be put in the care of a system that would mistreat and punish her for the rest of her days.

The following excerpts are from various sources judged to be reliable. Not only first-hand accounts by inmates but also quite public scandals, investigations, and rebuttals surrounding Chowchilla, that give some idea of the conditions that Kristin Rossum is presently enduring. As you read them ask yourself whether, if your daughter, sister, or wife were experiencing the same things; how you would feel about it.

Yes, that's the way Kristin's parents, Constance and Ralph Rossum, are feeling too. Because what their daughter is now facing, no matter what she might have done to 'deserve' it, is emphatically NOT civilization! It's plain SADISTIC!

* From the California Department of Corrections web site:

"The primary mission of the Central California Women's Facility is to process and incarcerate California's female offenders in a secure, safe, disciplined and ethical institutional setting"

Rossum's family should no doubt be comforted to know that she's in a safe and ethical institution.

* The educational opportunities in Chowchilla are listed on the same CDC web site

"Vocational: Auto body repair and refinishing, computer technology, cosmetology, electronics, graphic arts, landscaping, mill and cabinet, office services, painting, silk screening, small engine repair, upholstery, welding.

Academic: Adult Basic Education, High School / GED, Pre-Release, English as a Second Language, Literacy Program."

Not much there for a person like Kristin. Since she's a lifer she probably won't be eligible anyway. the state does not waste money on the health or education of inmates who have no prospect of rejoining the outside community.

* There's plenty of work at Chowchilla though. The Californian Prison Industry Authority is the euphemistic name for the slave labour system operating there. But it all sounds pretty good on the official web site.

"Develop and operate manufacturing, agricultural, and service enterprises that provide work opportunities for inmates "

"Create and maintain working conditions within enterprises, as much like those which prevail in private industry as possible, to assure inmates assigned therein the opportunity to work productively, to earn funds, and to acquire or improve effective work habits or occupational skills."

(This stuff has to have been written by external consultants to the CDC who have never been near any of the prisons it operates.)

* The PIA work at Chowchilla is listed as:

"Dental laboratory, fabric products, farming, garment making, silk screening."

there is also a small manufacturing operation that is described as:

"Joint Venture Electronics: A public-private partnership which employs approximately 45 inmates in an electronics manufacturing program. The inmates are paid a prevailing wage. Deductions are made for room and board, crime victim compensation, prisoner family support and mandatory savings for release."

* On many aspects of life inside Chowchilla, prison activists, human rights organisations, and various journalists, medical practitioners, religious bodies, and inmates tell quite different stories from the official CDC line.

"Women in California state prisons make only pennies an hour. ... In California state prisons women earn as little as 5 cents per hour."

"In California state prisons women are forced to pay inflated prices for basic hygiene products. Indigent female inmates (those with less than five dollars in their prison account) are provided a total of five sanitary pads per month. The rest of California's female prison population must purchase sanitary pads from the prison commissary that sells such items at two to three times the market rate. ... Such practices combined with the repressive pay scale create an environment where women will barter sex or other acts in order to acquire their most basic needs."

* "The administration has demonstrated an attitude of 'mass punishment.' For example; in November 1996 the inmates of CCWF were no longer allowed to purchase of possess a cigarette lighter due to an alleged lawsuit. Our lighters were confiscated and possibly sold to the women's prison across the street, Valley State Prison for Women. ... The second recent incident of this type of behaviour, mass punishment, was the discontinuance of foods and personal hygiene items in packages. The administration alleges this is due to the introduction of narcotics. CCWF has expensive equipment to specifically detect narcotics that now sits, unused, collecting dust."

"For those who can't afford to purchase their hygiene supplies: soap, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, etc., at the sky high prices on CCWF canteen, these packages were their only means to take care of themselves. The hygiene items supplied by the state, only for the indigent, are, at best, inadequate.

Some require alternative diets due to medical restrictions like ulcers, gallstones, liver problems, sickle cell anaemia, etc. It they can't afford to purchase foods on canteen, they either simply do not eat or are forced to eat foods that will further aggravate their illness, only to be told by medical staff that they shouldn't have eaten that food."

* "CCWF's response to all the deaths has been to blame the women: to spread lies and disinformation that women prisoners died because they ingested illegal drugs or misused their prescription medicine. Thousands of cells were torn apart by guards in January [2003] and many women had their life-saving prescription medicine confiscated. Toxicology reports and the CDC's own medical investigation by outside doctors have disproved the theory that scapegoats the dead women. But the punishment still continues. Women requesting medical care after lockdown may now have their cellmates subjected to the most brutal forms of repression and humiliation."

It is clear from a large amount of stories, reports and other material of this type that the CCWF prison system, and the wider CDC and justice systems of California, punish not only inmates but also their families, who are unable to support them from outside. Kristin Rossum's parents will be punished in this way for as long as they live. Yet they did not commit any felony. The argument that they have to suffer with Kristin because of the suffering that Greg's death caused to the de Villiers family is aptly rebutted by one of the posters in the following image of a demonstration outside CCWF.

* Constance and Ralph Rossum will be punished by more than their inability to send their daughter packets of supplies and medicines. There are numerous restrictions, and many other factors, that will make it hard for them to converse with or visit their daughter.

"In the California prison system, visitation is a privilege not a right. Prisoners on death row and prisoners in California serving life sentences without parole cannot receive unsupervised family visits."

"All potential visitors to California's prisons must submit a visiting questionnaire that requires the individual to state personal information, including full arrest record and criminal history. Verification time can be lengthy, and if any piece of information proves to be incorrect, access can be denied for up to 6 months."

"The exorbitant cost of the current phone system for California state prisons places another enormous financial burden on inmate's families. MCI charges California prisoners $3.00 just to connect collect calls from the prison, in addition to high collect call fees. Calls made by prisoners accrue high surcharges and charge the maximum per-minute rates. Prisoners are not permitted to use discount numbers like 1-800-COLLECT. ... Telephone companies are offering higher and higher commissions for states in order to get contracts. In some states these commissions have gone as high as 60% of the profits earned by the state prison telephone system."

Kristin Rossum's parents are not poor, but they will have to bear the communication and transport costs involved with contacting their daughter for the rest of their lives - if Kristin survives for so long.

* Travel to the Chowchilla prison to see their daughter will always be a distressing experience for Constance and Ralph Rossum. Their fears about her physical safety and state of mind will be accentuated by their contact with the institution that incarcerates her. In one sense they will want to see their daughter, in another they will probably come to dread the surroundings. Such thoughts will be in their minds every time they make a journey to Chowchilla.

The first of the following excerpts describes the approach to Chowchilla as recorded by Anne De Groot M.D. who went there to find out why so many prisoners were dying in such "safe and ethical" surroundings, well before their time. The second is from a comment on the WWW about Kristin Rossum's incarceration there.

1. "We travelled through towns called Gilroy and Bano, across great flat plains where wild birds splash in sloughs left by spring rains, where fields extend to the distant mountains, and where life goes so slowly that children will lie in the highway at night to gaze at the stars. Somewhere in the distance Yosemite, where bears and wildcats prowl the cliffs and streams - that same wild freedom is here in the high plains: boundless, limitless, horizonless freedom of the fields and hills beyond the California coast.

Yet, just beyond Bano, is another kind of expanse. An expanse of silver gleaming razor wire fence, glinting in the sun. An expanse of concrete block housing, windows like slits. Row upon row of concrete block, and watchtowers. Watchtowers high above the glinting fences, rising like silos, like missiles, like sentinels. Locks, gates, a metal detector, double sliding doors, and we are in. I walk with two escorts. Laughing, we compare notes: snow versus sun, wind versus hail and slush. I am from far away, they are curious to see me here. I can see their teeth behind their smiles, and wonder: friend or foe? I ask - how many women are here? they say: 3400, perhaps 4000 at the prison across the road.

This is not boundless, limitless freedom, there is no stargazing here. How many women? as many as would people a small town. As many as would be mothers to almost 10,000 children - those children are out there somewhere, motherless. As many as would be daughters and sisters to 10,000 more. An expanse of women, incarcerated. An expanse of lives, arrested. Are these towers, fences, razor wire enclosures for them? what have they done, what have they done? How did they come to be here? did they come from those boundless plains, or from the cities on the coast? did they see the wild birds in the sloughs, on their last drive in?"

2. "Female inmates have already taken a long hard look at this little blonde princess and have already calculated what they will be introducing her to soon after her arrival at camp chowchilla! Some females have certain desires in mind that will definitely be fulfilled in the late hours of the night that will be forever unavoidable for Miss Rossum. Other ladies will wait their turn as they wait for Miss Rossum's defiance to wear down before they force their midnight 'antics' on the newest celebrity on the block.

Meanwhile, mommy and daddy are busy planning their exhausting drive to a place where the California Department of Corrections has placed a prison as far away from normal humanity as possible. A place that will become gravely familiar to a set of parents that will hold back tears as well as vomit when they see the guard towers and barbed wire for the very first time. They will see the many miles of constintine wire and cement walls as they arrive in the parking lot for the very first time. Soon they will have to face the fact that the only way their little child beauty queen will leave this cement hell hole is when she is placed in a coffin and loaded into the back of some state hired cremation van or mortuary vehicle. ..."

The reality that comes through these descriptions is that it is not only Kristin Rossum who has been condemned to suffer, it is also her family. The 'Eye for an Eye' principle is not only barbaric, it is simply unrealistic. There is no way to 'balance' one wrong with another. Greg de Villier's family are also suffering as a result of his death, but punishing the Rossum family does not make things any better for the de Villiers - it simply extends the suffering and punishment surrounding Greg's death. The placard at the demonstration outside the gates of the CCWF is right:

AN EYE FOR AN EYE LEAVES US ALL BLIND.

It is the justice system, and its emphasis on 'eye for an eye' punishment, that is terribly wrong. The resultant impacts of Kristin Rossum's family, due to her incarceration in Chowchilla, are simply not outcomes that could ever form part of a civilized society.

It will not be harsh treatment and sexual abuse in Chowchilla that will torment Kristn Rossum the most, it will be the knowledge that her parents and her family are also suffering on the outside. Since her sentence is for life there is no prospect of a diminishment in the grief of her parents. It will be with them always and it will be heightened for them, and for their daughter, every single time they make the journey to the prison.

The families of the women in Chowchilla and other jails have not committed any crime, yet they are being made to suffer, in some cases for the rest of their lives. This situation can't be defended on any grounds either legal or otherwise; this situation contains the seeds of massive class actions by families of incarcerated persons, against the federal and state prison systems that unreasonably torment and punish both felons and their families.

Think about it, contingent fees lawyers would drool over the huge potential payouts. In the current taker society there would be many attorneys ready to line up class actions for families against both state and private prisons; and also the wider law making and law enforcement systems that feed the jails with dirt-cheap labour so that corporations can better compete in the global economy. Few lawyers would be concerned about their short term actions and gains undermining the very system that supports them in the long term. They could drive a serious wedge into the 'club' that currently organises and benefits from a harsh and inhuman rule of law, so that it becomes greatly weakened. Now that would be an outcome worthy of their toil!

If, on the other hand, lawyers in the system are disinclined to help bring it to account then the many, many, families of mistreated and abused felons will just have to represent themselves - stridently and in ways that the courts have not seen before.

One thing these people are likely to be saying, in court and in public, is that they want out. They will not only want their loved ones out of the clutches of a cruel and inhuman system of incarceration, they themselves will want out of their citizenship of federal and state jurisdictions. They will want to take their chances in the new-tribal societies of free cities. The will want to secede and live in free cities with the loved ones they have forced federal and state prisons, and their immoral industries within the jails, to disgorge.

* There are many grounds for prosecution of the prison and justice systems with regard to Chowchilla and other jails. Besides those already mentioned there are serious examples of medical neglect and failure to observe a duty of care to protect inmates from sexual abuse by guards or other inmates.

"Since December 2001, Delores ("Dee") Garcia, a woman prisoner living with chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, sleep apnoea, hepatitis C and arthritis, has been speaking out against physical abuse, medical neglect and staff callousness in the so-called Skilled Nursing Facility at the Central California Women's Facility. This SNF is the only 'licensed' medical facility for women prisoners and staff there exhibit some of the worst attitudes and actions towards seriously ill and dying women prisoners.

For her courage and determination, Dee has been threatened and locked down by SNF staff, Over the past two months, CCWF has been playing a dangerous game of diesel therapy with Dee. In May, Dee was abruptly moved from the SNF at the Central California Women's Facility, the only prison able to treat her chronic diseases, to Valley State Prison For Women, which has only a part-time staffed unlicensed infirmary. After a month of advocacy by Californian Prison Focus, Justice Now and Legal Services for Prisoners and Children, Dee was returned to CCWF only to be threatened again by staff. She was told point-blank, if you continue to file grievances against staff (called 602s) and speak to advocates, you will be punished and sent back to Valley State Prison. Dee immediately filed a grievance against staff and on July 12, she was sent back to Valley State Prison. Medical staff at VSPW admit that they cannot adequately treat Dee's illnesses at that prison. She requires a special diet, 24-hour oxygen and a special machine for sleep apnoea. ..."

* Anne De Groot M.D., who wrote the earlier description of the approach to Chowchilla, described her medical examination of one woman in CCWF:

"In the medical centre two doctors come to greet me. Old, unshaven, padding in their sneakers, shirts open at the neck. Come out of retirement to tend the women. How do they see their role? do they ask how the women come here?

Patti is lying in bed. Every available surface in her room is covered in pictures: wolves, eagles, feathers, dream catchers, proud faces of native American women. She is frail -barely there. The doctor comes with me. He has not seen her in some weeks - last I looked he says, she was walking. I look at her: she is not walking now.

I ask her to sit, wondering why she lies so crocked in the bed. With her left hand, she takes off the covers, revealing a wasted frame. Barely 80 pounds, she weighed 130 when she was well. She takes her left hand and lifts her right arm over her body. By pulling hard and leaning, she can shift her torso over. Next she reaches for her legs, pulling on the cloth of her shorts to lift her knees one by one off the bed, using them as a counterbalance to pull her torso up. Then she rolls over on her elbows, grimacing in pain. She rolls over until she is in a prayer position, leaning on the bed with her elbows. I am afraid to help her, knowing that would injure her pride in some way. I am afraid she will fall - but she surprises me by her sheer force of will. Just when I am sure she will slip to the floor, she reaches back for the wheelchair and swings her body into it, using her legs as a pivot.

This woman has one good arm, and three useless limbs. She has end stage AIDS, much beyond end stage. She has a T cell count of 7, she weighs less than 60 percent of her ideal body weight. She has less than a few months left to live. Yet she is denied compassionate release? It would be more accurate to say that she is denied compassion. Where is compassion for her condition? Who comes to bathe her? no one. Who helps her dress, eat, who helps her move from wheelchair to bed to toilet? no one. the last time the doctor saw her, he said she could walk. How many weeks ago? How long has she gone without medical examination while living in the infirmary? Do we know why she has only one good limb out of 4? is the condition reversible? Most likely not - but could something have been done before it was too late? Most certainly.

This is about more than compassion. this is about locking women up and throwing away the key. How many others are there, in this great warehouse for women in Chowchilla, who are getting less than standard medical care, who are living in limbo, serving time, when they should be home with their families and children? This is about denial - about wanting to forget who sits behind those prison walls, out in the fields and sloughs of central California."

Dr De Groot subsequently wrote an open letter to prison doctors regarding women prisoners with HIV. It said, in part:

"These are thoughts about a trip I took on a beautiful Spring day with Judy Greenspan to Chowchilla. I wrote it on the airplane home. The part about Patti was in a letter to her Parole board. She was released, as you know, after the last parole hearing this Spring. That fact doesn't change the bare truth about her condition when I saw her, and the poor standard of medical care given to HIV infected women who are incarcerated in California. I couldn't believe what I found, and I couldn't get over the contrast between life inside and outside prison walls. ..."

* "Seven inmates at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla have sued prison medical staff members, alleging malpractice, negligence and unprofessional conduct.

The lawsuits, received this week in Madera County Superior Court, demand the firing of Dr A[..]M[..],the prison's chief physician and surgeon. The inmates also seek more oversight of California's prison employees, especially medical staff."

Report by Lisa Alerman-Padilla in The Fresno Bee, December 20, 2003.

"Kinser, a San Jose native, began suffering extreme weight loss, tremors and pain in and around her pelvis and bladder nearly two years ago. Though she was diagnosed with a possible bladder mass, Kinser said, M[..]cancelled two referrals to a surgeon and an oncologist.

She said M[..] told her she was suffering from a mental disorder and was imagining symptoms despite a history of multiple carcinomas, or cancerous growths, including bladder cancer that required chemotherapy in 1995. M[..] did not return the Bee's phone calls."

"The Chowchilla prison, which opened in October 1990, houses more than 3,000 female inmates and employs more than 900 workers. Russ Heimerich, spokesman for California Department of Corrections, said the agency is frequently sued for medical neglect by inmates, but almost always prevails in court." [The justice and corrections system is a club, you see.]

* An earlier lawsuit to the one reported above included "case after case of shockingly deficient treatment" yet nothing had been done by the time Michelle Kinser and her fellow inmates filed suit late in 2003. The callous treatment and lack of compassion surrounding CCWF continues to this day.
"A seizure patient at CCWF who is paralysed on her left side has never been given occupational or physical therapy."

"A woman at CCWF who suffered burns over 54% of her body gradually lost mobility because she was denied the special bandages which would prevent her burned skin from tightening."

"A woman at CCWF unsuccessfully begged staff for months to allow her to see a doctor, and was finally diagnosed with cancer. Though in enormous pain, she received almost no pain medication. Because of swelling in her legs, she could barely walk, yet she was required to walk to the dining hall if she wanted to eat. She died approximately nine months after the diagnosis."

* "I'm a woman with HIV. Since I've been here in prison, I've gotten abused, mistreated and emotionally and mentally stressed out. My t-cells dropped a great deal. The MTAs (Medical Technical Assistants) don't have a clue how to treat any medical problems, never mind serious, chronic illnesses.

One day, my friend walked me to the MTA after I had a bad epileptic seizure in the dayroom. The MTAs told my friend, "she can't come in here, let her finish her seizure outside." It was 107 degrees outside. I then went into another seizure. When they finally brought me in, the MTAs told the doctor that I was faking it.

That's only one incident of many. I never get my medication on time. They started me on triple combination therapy, including a protease inhibitor, and never told me about the side effects of any of the drugs, including Crixivan. "Just take it." they said. "Now if you're late taking that medication, its extremely detrimental. ..."

If we are ill with some serious infection like boils, the MTAs give us bandaids and tell us to go to work anyway. In the heat, when it's 90 degrees or above, they give 'heat cards' to women on psychotropic medications. But if you have epileptic seizures or heart problems, then you are out of luck!

Two weeks ago, I witnessed a young lady pass away in my unit, possibly of food poisoning. She was also ill with the HIV virus. She had been trying to go to sick call for weeks. One day, I heard one of the corrections officers tell her, "If you can walk to the bathroom you can walk to the MTA." They just refused to help her or even call for a wheelchair."

"I'm a very angry woman, though not for myself so much. I'm paroling next year. But what about the other thousands of women left behind in this institution? My heart goes out to the other HIV+ women in here. I want to help and I am going to. This abuse has to stop! No one asked to come in here to die. We just want to do our time and make it out alive. Lately, that doesn't seem likely.

We do not want to die in here alone. Pray for us, please, say a special prayer for the lifers. Thank you."

All these instances of abuse and malpractice surrounding the care of women incarcerated at Chowchilla are public knowledge and, in some cases, have been the subject of legal proceedings. All these terrible things were known but not admitted to by the prosecution and incarceration 'machines' of California at the time of Kristin Rossum's sentencing.

Yet the Judge sent her to Chowchilla for life, in the full knowledge that due to the conditions there it might well be a short existence for her.

Kristin was known to have had a substance abuse problem. It was also well known and well documented that not only did CCFW have no program to treat addicts, but there was and continues to be a problem with inmates there using dirty, stolen, hypodermic needles to shoot heroin into their veins. If he didn't know that Kristin would be in considerable danger of regressing to drug addiction and using HIV infected needles in CCWF, the judge was completely out of touch with the system he was consigning her to. Or alternatively, he choose to send her to her fate and pass the accountability on to the prison system.

However, it is clear to any thinking person that the responsibility for the degree of punishment inflicted on convicted felons rests primarily with the judiciary. It is not only the judge in the Rossum case that bears that duty of care, it is all of them.

Every one of the 7,000 women incarcerated at Chowchilla was sent there by a judge, there is no getting away from that, nor the fact that the judiciary broadly consider that the purpose of prisons is to punish rather than rehabilitate wrong doers. But the punishment is supposed to be a loss of freedom, not abuse and neglect of the proportions now facing all those women. Judges simply cannot avoid blame for the situation and the fact that punishment in Chowchilla is at inhuman levels, and has been for more than a decade.

When a California judge sends a women to prison he is not just denying her liberty, he is placing her in grave danger of assault and criminal neglect. Leave aside the CDC's propaganda web site; Chowchilla is a HELL HOLE!

What do the families of the judges who commit women to a term in such a place think of them? For that matter, what do the congregations of the churches they attend think of them? By rights, when one of these judges walks into a church the rest of the congregation should get up and leave. The consequences of sending women to Chowchilla are of such bestial severity that no person who signs an order to 'punish' a woman in the CDC system should ever be accorded any respect within a place of worship.

But, of course, life goes on and everyone looks the other way. Congregations continue to treat judges as pillars of respectability in the community. They aren't, not while Chowchilla is still operating, not while 7,000 poor souls are still suffering there, and not while they, the judges, keep silent and ignore the indecency and inhumanity of that place.

Justice systems and their many injustices, together with prisons and their deteriorating standards are rich sources of material for Us-2-Us discussion. Once ordinary people come to realise the immorality of the 'prison as punishment' notion that underlies the criminal justice machine, and when they come to realise the extent of the culpability of the judiciary who preside over it, their acceptance of the system will plummet. They will begin to talk of establishing new and better societies outside the current federal and state regimes.

They will become predisposed to peaceful secession. Not revolution, not an overthrowing of the cruel injustice system that is the reality of Chowchilla and many other prisons and detention centres like it, but leaving - seceding and setting up free cities where people who do wrong will not be repaid in an 'eye for and eye' fashion, but given genuine opportunities for redemption and rehabilitation.

It is not fanciful to believe that criminals can be rehabilitated or that the harm they have caused might be repaired, various tribal societies managed to achieve such outcomes for thousands of years. It can be done, and discussing the presently catastrophic regimes of justice and incarceration will lead people to fathom ways of doing so again, within a Level 4 Civilization.

Related:

2nd Renaissance -35

But, before considering the implications of the death penalty, there is reason to consider how we already treat each other in relation to the imprisonment and punishment of women and their families. Great barbarity is going on right now in this area; within the ambit of the rule of law and the revenge and punishment systems of our "civilized" societies.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113143.php

New Strategy for an Autonomous Politics

My aim in this article is to present some hypotheses on issues of strategy for anti-capitalist emancipatory movements. The idea is to rethink the conditions for an effective politics, with the capacity to radically change the society we live in. Even if I will not have the space to analyze concrete cases, these reflections are not a purely "theoretical" endeavor, but spring from the observation of a series of movements I had the chance to be part of -the movement of neighbor's assemblies in Argentina, some processes of the World Social Forum, and other global networks- or that I followed closely in the past years -the piquetero (unemployed) movement also in Argentina, and the Zapatistas in Mexico.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113147.php

2nd Renaissance -34

Punishment By Imprisonment Is A Medieval Concept [258] Although this is the 21st century, the societies of the Level 3 Civilization have not yet abandoned the medieval notion of prisons being places of punishment. Today’s institutions of incarceration are called 'Correctional Centres' and other sanitised terms, but they remain vehicles for revenge and punishment exacted by courts under the Rule of Law.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/113003.php

2nd Renaissance -33

The natural, some would say instinctive, organisation model for humans is the tribe. But there is no suggestion here of attacking or harming the less numerous members of big government and big business organisations that are structured along institutional and militarist lines. Any physical attack on the forces of the OWO would not only violate the sixth commandment, it would fail to advance humanity or benefit society in any way. No, the conflict between the OWO and the rest of us is a battle of ideas and, as such, it holds great potential as a transformational force that will benefit all of humanity - even those people who are presently on the side of federalism, capitalism and a creeping totalitarian control of the many by a few.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112747.php

2nd Renaissance -32

Then the penny drops, literally. The earthlings are selling water, they are treating it as a commodity. For the sellers of water this means that the scarcer fresh water is the higher the price and the greater the profit. There is still CAPITALISM on Earth; a system that became redundant in most galaxies aeons ago. No wonder water is scarce here.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112562.php

2nd Renaissance -31

The dissemination of information about the end of the 20th century scientific Dark Age and the advent of wondrous new spike technologies is something we can all do. It is not yet illegal to write or talk about such matters. In order to help raise general awareness of already existing opportunities to end economic scarcity it is necessary to first discover and absorb information that is never presented by the OWO controlled media. Then it is time to spread those alternate perspectives of science and technology at the interpersonal level.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112310.php

2nd Renaissance -30

"Near-Spike technologies will ensure that everyone could have access to this cornucopia, and while different cultures and moieties within those cultures will respond idiosyncratically to the great change, we might expect a general drift back toward the ancient codes implanted by evolutionary pressures. Humans have evolved in a million years and more of moderate ease, each tribe's small numbers drawing modestly upon the self-replenishing bounty of the earth. We will slip easily back into that blissful state, spared its occasional murderous bouts of uncontrollable fire, flood, drought, plague and infestation.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/112101.php

2nd Renaissance -29

There is a simple answer, however, and that is to set up the bomb, and arm it to go off when the Sun passes through the required geometric point. The newspapers warn us that the tests will be carried out over a series of months, so we sit back with a set of astro tables and paper on which to calculate Sun positions, and wait for the results. When the first start coming in, we must confess to a certain excitement. What began as a theory is proving in actuality to be perfectly correct. We have cracked a code that the atom bomb countries have long tried to hide. "

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/111933.php

2nd Renaissance -28

Far Out Ideas For a Far Out Century [226] This freesite is not concerned with the existence or otherwise of aliens or UFOs, nor is it concerned with what such beings might be doing in our skies. There are thousands of web sites and publications that deal with UFOs and aliens. This freesite is concerned with far more serious threats to the freedom and well-being of humanity than extraterrestrial visitors. These threats have already been identified as takerism, nationalism, capitalism, and militarism. The iron grip of the OWO on the world's resources has far more serious consequences than the alleged activities of aliens and UFOs.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/111733.php

2nd Renaissance -27

At first impression this might seem a good thing, but the real price of such a concealment has been more than seven decades of denying the means and capability to bring abundant energy to the whole world. Not only could the release of such knowledge have ended all militarism and the related suffering caused by wars, it could have enabled presently 'developing' countries to feed, house and clothe their populations to levels that would have freed them from poverty, disease, and the burden of debt they currently 'owe' to the capitalist West.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/111574.php

2nd Renaissance -25

This diagram is not reproduced here to suggest that the absolute amount of energy that can be obtained from matter is known, Cramp points out that it is theoretical. The purpose of the diagram is to drive home the realisation that energy is by no means scarce. All that is required to tap it is the right knowledge. Tesla and many others have already shown that such knowledge exists and that it is practical to draw energy from beyond matter - from the ether itself.

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/04/111235.php

2nd Renaissance -24

The defection of large numbers of people from federal citizenship, and the establishment of free cities that will run on free energy, can and will break the hold of old ideas and false scientific notions that held us back during the entire 20th century. That 2nd Dark Age i

It is clear from a large amount of stories, reports and other material of this type that the CCWF prison system, and the wider CDC and justice systems of California, punish not only inmates but also their families, who are unable to support them from outside.