State Complicity in Prison Violence

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State Complicity in Prison Violence
Summary of the Reading
The History of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
Before 1993, prisoners in CDCR facilities had often self-isolated themselves by ethnic groups and race to some extent, and although the type of inter-racial inter-prisoners ferocity that took place in the 1980s was not universally known in the past decades, there had often been an atmosphere of pressure and infrequent attacks, assaults, and killings between and among various racialized convict groups.
On July 1, 2011, about 400 inmates in the Pelican Bay State Prison SHU program, accounting for all of the major racialized mob divisions in the CDCR facility, continued an unrelenting famine strike to dispute and repel the unpleasant environment of their undefined solitary incarceration, and the facades that put them there. More than six thousand inmates from all over the CDCR facility had joined the protesters in the famine strike. On July 22, 2011, the strike culminated, continuing for two weeks.
Furthermore, on August 12, 2012, a faction of more than a dozen SHU prisoners, including associates of opposing racialized prison mob group, the Mexican Mafia and Black Guerilla Family in the CDCR facility, produced a document called Agreement to End Hostilities, in which these inmate gang spearheads requested a universal termination of aggressions between all prisoners across the CDCR and county prison premises.

Besides, on July 8, 2013, at least 30,000 prisoners across the CDCR facility continued a long famine strike that took two months as opposed to two weeks, leading to the killing of one of the strikers when on starvation strike. The second much greater practice of collective confrontation also gathered the focus of the national broadcasting and the compassion of a substantial percentage of the general community and was canceled with the pledge of judicial trials on the circumstances undergone by SHU prisoners serving unspecified punishments in the SHU program. Finally, on February 11, 2014, those trials occurred in the California Legislature, in which hundreds of inmate rights advocates crowded the Assembly to provide their backup for the eradication of the SHU program in CDCR systems, when the Assembly member, Tom Ammiano (D – San Francisco), condemned CDCR top executives for their persistence on upholding the SHU program in its new structure.
Application of the Theories proposed by Malatesta and Collins
Malatesta’s theory proposes that the anarchism and violence are two opposite things and that the anarchists are against violence. The theory explains that the violence against government laws and other conditions on the general public are justifiable only when it is necessary to defend a person from violence or to save a life. It explains that the government has the power to oppress the violence by establishing relevant laws and policies that punish the law breakers. The theory applies to the reading in that it relates to the causes of the violence in the incarceration facilities and what the government does to reduce the associated strikes and protests.
On the other hand, Collins’ theory is concerned about the micro-sociology of violent oppositions. The theory discusses the different types of violence acts and what causes such violent activities, such as strike and protests. It provides and explains the various conditions that shape and determined whether violence is going to occur or not, and the form that the violence will take. It applies to the reading in that it augments the explanations given in the reading in regards to the issue of violence: The types, causes, and conditions shaping its occurrence.