Dr. B. Cayenne Bird

Dr. Jeffrey Rohlfing, California's highest paid employee at $780,000 for 2010, will cost taxpayers far more in pending lawsuits. Removed from his duties in 2006 as a doctor at Susanville's notorious High Desert State Prison, he received preferential treatment which cast his disabled wife to the streets. The corruption in Susanville, CA of local authorities is well-known and highly publicized but there needs to be more intervention and relief.

Some of these articles may have been missed, but deserve closer examination due to the billions in budgets that the human bondage industry is wasting in California

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation along with the California Legislature have nearly killed the former Capitol cook. Dying parolee was innocent but prison neglect of diabetes deteriorated in congestive heart failure. Outgoing Prisons Undersecretary Scott Kernan is named by dying Teddie Rowe, former Capitol Cook, for deliberate indifference.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation along with the California Legislature have nearly killed the former Capitol cook. Dying parolee was innocent but prison neglect of diabetes deteriorated in congestive heart failure. Outgoing Prisons Undersecretary Scott Kernan is named by dying Teddie Rowe, former Capitol Cook, for deliberate indifference.

CDCR responded in one day to my last column which asked hard questions about two large fences that close off the breezeway and headquarters located at 1515 "S" Street. It takes them weeks, if ever, to respond to desperate pleas from sick and dying prisoners. Their figure does not include extra rent paid due to needed improvements above the nearly $500K per month, nor all the attendant costs. We will never know the actual cost of the steel gray fences built to lock out homeless people who are often parolees who were abused in prison.

Million dollar gates built by CDCR. At a time when California is struggling with the largest budget crisis in history, there is apparently no shortage of funds available to the California Department of Corrections. A fence which appears to be about 20 feet high now spans both ends of what has been for years an open breeze way separating the two buildings at their headquarters located at 1515 S Street in downtown Sacramento.

Inmate families and prison guards are filing complaints against Warden Frank X. Chavez and Dr. Rusty Otto with the Inspector General and Tuolumne County Grand Jury. Inmate lawyer Eric K'napp is suddenly moved to a Chino dormitory defying recommendations made by the San Quentin Crisis team where he spent two weeks this month after being carelessly double-celled at Sierra Conservation Center by Chavez. On September 15, 2010, a major riot took place at the prison involving about 150 inmates and requiring at least six hospitalizations according to reports. Tensions at the prison are mounting and complaints are also being filed with the United Nations over the denial of pain medications to three elderly inmates, one of whom has cancer and two preventable rapes due to careless double-celling.

Warden Frank X. Chavez lied to the media about a riot that took place at Sierra Conservation Center last week involving at least six serious injuries. There are reports of torture and murder at the prison and complaints are being filed with the United Nations in hopes that an investigation will actually take place. California prisoners have no place to go for help, so riots are predictable, and preventable

I really dread opening my email. After 12 years of taking complaints from 33 California prisons and helping scores of grieving families find lawyers for wrongful death lawsuits, I never have less than 27,000 emails in my inbox. The regular mail that is sent from desperate people each week is equiva...

See gut-wrenching video of five families whose loved ones were killed in prison, their attorneys, five clergymen, a former California Department of Corrections Forensic Psychologist and others who spoke out about the death toll taking place in the prisons beneath the radar of most media.

Collect calls from prisons are outrageously high from the families who can least afford them. It has long been established that family ties are critical to rehabilitation, yet phone company monopolies and correctional departments are making out like bandits. A legal action to cap the rates is before the FCC.

Citizen Paul Currier has filed two initiatives which would allow the people of California to re-write the State Constitution. There are no special interests behind the filings and the formula could change many laws that have all but bankrupted our state. California Constitutional Convention Articles 36 and 37 are the best of three plans that I reviewed. The timing is perfect.

Laws such as Three Strikes, Jessica's Law, and Prop 9 were fraudulently and unconstitutionally forced into place via the initiative process led by Republican politicians anxious to bolster their careers with a "tough-on-crime" image. These initiatives, now laws, were funded by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) at a cost of billions of dollars that should be going to education and human services if reducing crime were really the goal.

It is a black day. Although many citizens with a loved one in prison faxed in details about CDCr Agency Secretary Matthew Cate's deliberate indifference that has resulted in irreparable harm to prison inmates, the Senate Rules Committee confirmed him anyway. What this indicates is that the three m...

What is happening right now in California´s prisons is flying under the radar of the media because the journalists are still unconstitutionally banned from being able to report on the humanitarian crisis that has bankrupted our state. The jailhouse lawyers are suffering severe retaliation which is being intentionally supported by Secretary Matthew Cate through his deliberate indifference despite numerous reports of unlawful activities by prison employees. Some of the better journalists are being bombarded by law enforcement labor union members in a desperate attempt to silence the reporting. By hiding the truth of what is really going on in the prisons, those who feed off the suffering of medically and mentally ill people in captivity hope to save a failed human bondage industry from major cutbacks. Not being one who has ever cooperated with the media restrictions or caved into harassment, lies and efforts to silence our voices, I would like to share with you this letter sent to me by one of our UNION family members who will never get over the shocking news that her sister had died only one month before her release.

With more than half the prisoners in for silly technical violations, a higher rate than that of any other state, it is clear that parole needs dramatic reform. Much of it could be eliminated as I believe these "technical violations" are a scam to keep the prisons stocked with fresh humans. One of the most asinine laws in existence is that prisoners must parole back to the area where they were arrested, regardless of whether or not they have a job or support of family/friends there. Many prisoners want to leave the state or the country when they are paroled but this is prohibited. Why? They are thrown back to the same influences, the same vindictive people who originally prosecuted them in many cases, with only $200 and in worse physical and mental shape than before incarceration. Allow the prisoners to be paroled out of state, or at the very least to an area where they have some support. Let them leave the country if they want, why not if that is their choice?

The roughly 3,900 prisoners confined two to a cell were completely without water; 379 prisoners and eight staff members were seriously sickened by some sort of diarrheal disease, variously identified as the Norovirus, Campylobacter and, according to one Doctor I spoke to, "a mixture of fecal bacteria" that were never conclusively identified.

This photo of a large throng of desperate but grateful families is what Donald Specter, lead attorney in the historic Plata case saw when he arrived at the Federal courthouse on Nov 21, 2008. Many other families of dead and dying prisoners arrived during the morning as we packed Judge Thelton Hender...

UNION Rally, this Friday, Nov 21, 450 Golden Gate Ave, San Francisco, Philip Burton Federal Building, 9 am sharp to stand up against prisoner medical neglect and in support of Judges Thelton Henderson, Lawrence Karlton ahd Rhinehardt on the Plata case. A crowd is needed.

An important part of the present prison reform should be oversight and protection of the jail house lawyers, paralegals and whistle blowers who exercise their rights while incarcerated. No one is allowed to actually become a lawyer while serving a prison term, but those who have some legal tra...

As the UNION turns ten years old on July 5, 2008, it is time for reflection and planning for the future. I plan to detail in a separate column the torture of jailhouse lawyer (paralegal) Eric K'napp at Salinas Valley State Prison whose access to the courts is being blocked by denial of his medica...

The UNION turns ten years old on July 5, 2008. We worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week as family members to bring attention to medical neglect issues and to urge release of the terminally ill. In every case where we were able to get a parole of a dying prisoner, the families all said the same th...

I am so outraged at the lawless fools sitting in elected office who are murdering people in prison by medical neglect due to the overcrowding crisis that I have obtained a permit so that we can rally with protest signs outside the federal building where the finale of Judge Henderson's hearing wil...

Important Prison Reform Campaigns need volunteers. Dr. B. Cayenne Bird sets the priorities and calls for action from those who want to see laws changed and reforms brought about in 2008

For the past nine years, the UNION families have set aside the last two weeks of December to decide which two or three campaigns they will work on in the following year. It is usually the parents of the prisoners who do all the work and pay for all the campaigns behind prison reform. Often UNION fol...

Most California prisons are in complete chaos as members of the state legislature focus instead on a bill to increase their terms in office and meet with one another and lobbyists, even at the height of the inmate "suicide season." Packages sent by the family members to try and console their ...

Dr. B. Cayenne Bird is an ordained minister and a 37-year veteran op-ed journalist and publisher. She volunteers her time as founder and director of United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect UNION. The UNION is active in prison reform and criminal justice issues. She is a mother and grandmother...

This is something you probably won't see on the Discovery Channel this Sunday night October 7, 2006 as Ted Koppel reports on California State Prison Solano. Check your local listings for the time it will air in your area. Imprisoned Journalist Boston Woodard and Sophanareth Sok came to me and th...

A report on an emergency Sept 7 Human Rights Rally at the Sacramento Capitol attended by and supported by primary leaders of the prison reform movement. The theme of the rally was "A Call to the Governor for Common Sense and Compassion in Corrections". The legislative sponsor was Assemblymember Mark...

The animal rights people would never allow abuse to happen to a chicken to the degree that people in California's prisons are suffering right now. As Americans, it is our choice whether we prefer to rally for animals or for the mostly mentally and medically ill people who are locked in cages in our ...

There's an old saying that "no good deed goes unpunished" and that is certainly the case for anyone who stands up for prisoners, who are considered by those who profit off them as being less than subhuman. The public has received such fearmongering from elected officials that most folks are led to b...

All it takes to bring out the Republican ugly machine is a single email sent to law enforcement labor unions, crime victims groups, district attorneys, and/or most of the radio stations, which are owned and operated by right-wing nuts. One call to action via email can set in full motion ...

James Tilton's confirmation hearing as Secretary of the California Department of Corrections which was held on July 11, 2007 before the Senate Rules Committeee is online now for viewing at www.calchannel.com Everyone with a loved one in prison or people who care about the billions of educat...

Wednesday, June 27. 2007 was the unforgettable day that two senior judges who are legends in their own time made a decision that will likely change the course of California’s history. Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton made it very clear that they are leaning toward creating a judicial pa...

One of the most frustrating aspects of having been a prison reformer for the past decade is low voter knowledge of the issues which I have always referred to as ignorance. I do not mean general ignorance, although there is plenty of that out there too, I am referring to citizen ignorance of how the ...

Sometimes I am forced to voice a strong opinion when a bunch of milquetoast politicians and their court jesters don't see the bigger picture and scare the bejeepers out of the people who must suffer the brunt of their ridiculous ideas and actions. This is one of those times so I am going to come st...

As the headlines all scream that low voter awareness is causing support of a $7 billion plus prison expansion, a young man is dying a slow, tormented death. I have mentioned Mark Grangetto and his courageous elderly mother Nora Weber, an insurance agent from Bakersfield in my columns many times over...

Picture Caption: A few of the UNION members who came to San Francisco July 12, 2006 and filled Judge Henderson's Courtroom to welcome Sillen. Note the smiling faces and pink carnations, a symbol of "hope" and "trust." Thirteen months later the people in this photos have had little or no remedy to ...

This coming Wednesday May 9, 2007 is an important date for those who are tired of seeing billions of tax dollars wasted on sick and dying prisoners. Timing is everything and Room 4202 at the Capitol Building in Sacramento should be overflowing with people to support AB 1539. (link to read the b...

Thinking people know that the practice of locking people in cages is from the dark ages. Even so, most politicians do not have the courage to admit that such a primitive action is a non-solution to crime prevention. There are no statistics anywhere that prisons, jails, isolation, lockdowns or h...

Of course I know why none of the politicians are questioning US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the “Interim Rule” called SORNA which he has been bragging about as his great crime fighting contribution. But the timing of it with the comment period ending next week on April 30, 2007 compels m...

For nearly a decade the subscribers to our interactive UNION Daily Newsletter have fought one medical neglect battle after another and helped to find lawyers for 28 families who have filed lawsuits. Press conferences have been held to announce many of the filings and there has been extensive pre...

I must have a thousand emails asking me what happened to SB40 during the Assembly Appropriations Committee hearing on March 22, 2007. You can watch it for yourself on the California Channel, the statewide television network that covers many of the hearings. The first seven minutes are of the mee...

SB40, a destructive bill that will cost hundreds of millions of dollars will go before the Assembly Appropriations Committee tomorrow morning, March 22, at 9 am sharp, Room 4202, Sacramento Capitol. Not very many people are aware of it and legislators are moving rapidly to get it approved before ...

I can't remember any time in the past decade when I have disagreed with a bill brought forward by Senator Gloria Romero who has done so much for prison reform. But the day has arrived when I must voice strong opposition to her proposed bill SB40 which has already passed the Senate and now goes to t...

Long before the elections, I spoke of Conservative politicians posturing "tough on crime" and using fear tactics to get votes. One of the worst applications of this tactic was the writing of and campaigning for the initiative patterned after other "Jessica's Laws." State Senator George Runner and hi...

California's criminal justice system is corrupt arrest through parole. I wasn't born with these views, they are conclusions I've reached after having interviewed literally thousands of prisoners and their families over the past decade. I believe that my observations and recommendations contribute...

I attended the Gubernatorial debate at CSUS, Sacramento last night for the same reason that hundreds of other people did, to back up my favorite candidate and listen to the sound bites of what the other two had to say. There were kids of all ages there up to the age of about 94, and I thoroughly...

I have promised a fourth column on prison reform dealing with the dysfunction and corruption of the state courts and criminal justice system at every level. This is not it. What this column amounts to is an appeal to the public to demand that the legislature over-ride Governor Schwarze...

My previous two columns in this series on prison reforms discussed the need to deal with current emergency situations threatening prisoners and their families and with cleaning the (big) house of extremely serious wrongs. You can find these columns at the following links: Voters Must Demand S...

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently thinks that sending people out of state away from their court cases and families is a right way to create more beds in prisons. Locking people in cages has never worked to lower or prevent crime since civilization began. This desperate plan is more evidence...

Ailing and elderly mothers and other family members are traveling to protest outside Salinas Valley Prison this Sunday, August 27 at daybreak. California Treatment Facility which also has visiting policy issues is on the same property and is also targeted The reason is centered around visiting ab...

It’s difficult to get excited about the legislative session to focus on prison reform taking place right now. With an election pending and the CCPOA dangling a multi-million dollar donation to the candidate who best serves their interests, I wonder just how much constructive prison reform can take p...

It was never my goal to be “popular” in life. I always felt that people who had this goal were too likely to compromise their higher principles in order to fit into some silly group or get elected to public office. Any semblance of popularity that I have gained is not because I sought after it ...

It's excellent news that the Federal Receiver Robert Sillen has recommended building new hospitals instead of prisons and that Governor Schwarzenegger has announced initial support of that idea. What is critical in these reform efforts is that new hospitals are not put under the control of th...

When the voters empowered politicians who are little more than cartoon characters and aging action heroes, it devastated millions of California families. I know how it happened alright. Blustering hypocrites spewing “tough on crime” rhetoric were elected to office by law enforcement labor unions whi...

I wrote this for my grandchildren Krystina, Trevor, Brandon and Marcus Maybe you'd like to share it with yours. Why do we celebrate July 4 as a day of freedom and independence when those ideals went out with powdered wigs and dancing the minuet? Most folks know that we aren't really ...

Some of the most irresponsible, pointless and cruel treatment policies that the California Department of Corrections has put in place are designed to punish the mentally ill via "Rules Changes". I refuse to recognize their all new title which adds the word "Rehabilitation" until I actually see tha...

Photo Caption: This black 3-piece suit was deemed "inappropriate attire" by the visiting Sgt. K. Knuckles at Salinas Valley Prison. Only the fingers and a small portion of the neck show. I have worn this same suit to at least 50 other prison visits. Photo was taken in Friendship Trailer where I i...

Picture caption: Mothers of every race and religion come together to issue this warning to California's parents. “Sex Offender laws destroy more children that they protect. Teens have become ensnared for life in these witch hunts. The foster care system is already burgeoning from too many prisoner’s...

Picture caption: Mothers of every race and religion come together to issue this warning to California's parents. "Sex Offender Laws Endanger Your Teens and Young People much more than they protect them. Even more children will be left at the mercy of a broken foster care system where child molestat...

One of the great benefits of having been one of only a handful of people to actually show up in the legislature on matters of criminal law and public safety is that you know the score and how the game is played. That's what it is to those in elected office who use prisoners as their political foo...

"The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." - Plato To be a good watchdog of the government and an opinion writer, it's necessary to be cynical. The reason, of course, is that everything the legislature does is packaged more for the marketing and advancement of p...

People Must Organize to Change the Death Penalty Laws Formula to change the laws is easy when many people help with the work and expenses I am very certain that the prisoners and the rest of us who do not like our hard-earned tax dollars to be used to murder in our names are still mourning the ...

This is an excerpt from my daily newsletter that goes to the media, legislators, families of prisoners, inmates, doctors, teachers, nurses, social workers, members of the clergy from every religion and others who believe that untreated mental illness and substance abuse are problems which should be ...

It's difficult to get the holiday spirit when Repugly politicians are so blood thirsty that they set the date to execute Stanley Williams just before Christ's birthday. Whose bright idea was this and how much are we as taxpayers paying this person to muck up our Christmas with yet another State murd...

On a daily basis for more than seven years I have been alerting other journalists and the legislators that the prisoners are dying preventable deaths. We have nineteen families in our UNION group who have lost a son or daughter to the unbearable callousness and incompetence of the prison bureaucrac...

This letter drafted by the family members of prisoners throughout California deserves to be shared with the citizenry who cannot know of their suffering due to an unconstitutional ban on the media. U. N. I. O. N. United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect P.O. Box 340371Sacramento Ca. 958334 ...

Photo Caption: Eric K'napp has been literally tortured in California's prisons for exercising his First Amendment rights. Well, we have dozens more prisoners injured and two in critical condition as the terrible crisis which exists in almost all California prisons continues to worsen. The riot ...

Photo Caption: Eric K'napp has been literally tortured in California's prisons for exercising his First Amendment rights. Well, we have dozens more prisoners injured and two in critical condition as the terrible crisis which exists in almost all California prisons continues to worsen. The riot ...

Prisoners are always the pawns when politicians decide to play their re-election games. Fear tactics, lies and every lowdown manuveur is perpetuated upon a gullible public during the silly season or whenever a politician is in a pickle. The football to be kicked, punted and passed is always the p...

I have a sister working out of Alabama on human rights and prison reform. Her name is Roberta Franklin and she blasts out clear messages that would create a conscience in any decent human being via her radio show. Indecent human beings don’t want to hear that much truth when there’s a pro...

You gotta love the courage of Cindy Sheehan camped outside Shrub's ranch in Texas in this horrible heat. Her own son Casey is dead after being killed in a war over oil in Iraq. So now her concern and action can only be for those soldiers who aren't dead - yet. Across the globe the story of her...

In a civilized society such as ours, there is no excuse for committing acts of brutality, although we expect such behavior from the mentally ill. That mechanism which enables the mentally ill to follow the rules is broken. When they often predictably act out their illnesses in a violent manner, we p...

It is only common sense that if prisoners are psychologically and physically tormented, they will return to their communities much sicker than before they were incarcerated. The atrocities taking place in California’s prisons were aptly described by Judge Thelton Henderson as “depravity.” Yet th...

It isn't the usual thing that happens in California courtrooms, where a judge is actually informed about what is terribly wrong within the system and takes corrective action. After all, if most judges ever faced the reality that every sentence to prison is a potential death sentence, they wouldn't...

We as taxpayers paid a fortune for the report on the shooting death of Daniel Provencio at California State Prison, Wasco, which was released last week from the State Office of the Inspector General (OIG). In fact at least three different agencies stumble-bummed over the top of one another, not even...