Lynwood Archives - Dignity and Power Now

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Witnessing Wellness

Witnessing is a word that gets used a lot these days in social justice circles. Like many of our words that come into fashion, it can be easy for them to lose their meaning and or it can be hard to really figure out what that word looks like in action.

Institutions like jails, prisons, and detention centers are made to hide away and prevent witnessing.

So it felt very powerful to set up outside Lynwood Jail on February 10th and bear witness to the very regular trials, tribulations, and heartbreak that people experience visiting their loved ones inside. It felt very powerful to be able to offer support in the form of food, water, and gifts that support health. We gave out 30 DPN wellness kits with a Rest Easy Tea and a Cleansing Body Scrub. We listened to people talk about their families and what their incarcerated loved ones are going through.

This month we were a small group and without tables to boot. But we were able to connect with a lot of people who are interested in building people power and resistance to caging people.

Most of the folks we spoke to had family inside who were dealing with mental health problems. It was heartbreaking to hear how often that was the case. All the more motivation and fire to fuel the jail fight. LA County’s plan to use billions of dollars to make a jail for mentally ill people are blueprints for tragedy, further heartbreak, and injustice.

Let’s take care of ourselves and each other so that we can keep up the fight.

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Female Incarceration at CRDF

Incarceration at Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF, “Lynwood”, or simply “the women’s jail”) comes in all colors, brown, black and white – but those are not the colors you need to worry about. The color green, the men and women in Los Angeles County Sheriff uniforms, that will scare you.

LASD does not keep track of how many women are incarcerated each year in the facility. Neither does the facility allow an inmate a secured avenue for filing complaints against officers and staff. I personally know this to be fact. While incarcerated for six months at CRDF I was subjected to horrors and criminal acts perpetrated against me and others by LASD. I saw over-medication, inhumane treatment, verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, drugs, (heroin, cocaine, and numerous prescription pills being sold inside), sexual favors, and numerous (too many to count) coverups perpetuated and inflicted by deputies against prisoners, including the mentally disabled. These issues affect every female in that facility. I was kicked out less then eight hours after verbally complaining to LASD about a staff member exposing his penis to me in the medical module during a shoulder x-ray. At 2 a.m. I was cut loose in the dark, no money, no way home.

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CRDF is an institution run for profit, not rehabilitation. The officers that work inside have no accountability for the criminal acts that they commit. I have long stated these facts, filed numerous complaints with the FBI, Governor Schwarzenegger, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Most recently again in October 2014 to Chief David Fender who promised an inquiry and research in a “timely manner”. Neither Chief Fender nor Lieutenant Vic Allende have returned my calls for concern regarding an investigation into the cruelty I was subjected to and the cruelty so many others currently endure.

Where is our liberty and justice for all?