Committee Frames Legislation To Help Prison Hunger Strike

The American Friends Service Committee will file legislation by next month to increase access to maximum-security prisons, restrict prisons' methods of disciplining and obtain a moratorium on prison building in Massachusetts, a staff member said yesterday.

James Jackson said legislation stems in part from a hunger strike now in its 14th day, among ten prisoners in the solitary-confinement unit Cellblock 10 in the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Walpole.

Jackson, an ex-convict from Walpole, said the Cambridge Committee wants to use the legislation "to embarrass the Commonwealth" and gain publicity for prisoners' plights, but doesn't expect it to pass. "The only thing we can do is raise consciousness," he said.

The striking prisoners in Cellblock 10 are also trying to publicize their conditions and treatment, Jackson said. Two inmates were briefly hospitalized for observation.

But Walpole's administration has no intention of modifying its policies to meet prisoners' demands, Joseph Landolfi, a Walpole spokesman, said yesterday.

Landolfi said one policy the inmates object to--rectal searches for contraband whenever they enter or leave their cells--"may be humilitating, but it's something we have to do, based on past problems." Prisoners are also protesting strip searches of visiting family members suspected of carrying contraband, he said.

The 60 prisoners in Cellblock 10, the segregation unit, were place there for attacking a guard or fellow inmate.

Landolfi said he thinks the strike "has been winding down from the beginning." He added that no prisoner has gone for two weeks without food and only two have refused food for close to a week.

Jackson predicted a different resolution of the strike. "It will probably end with a few people being brutalized, a few shipped out of the prison, and maybe a court suit by the prisoners," he said.

Charles Stastny, expert in prison systems and professor at the Center for European studies, said yesterday Walpole has a reputation as a "real trouble spot" in the Massachusetts prison system.

Court suits and prisoners' rights legislation may be less likely to pass in the apparent swing towards conservatism, he added.