Hunger Strike at Central Prison, North Carolina

Central Prison, Raleigh, North Carolina
January 20, 2020 – ongoing

Sixteen prisoners went on hunger strike on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in solidarity with two hundred prisoners allegedly facing brutality in the prison’s mental health unit. The strikers allege that prison staff uses chemical mace against mental health prisoners, neglects medication refills and healthcare generally, sends them to solidarity confinement at increasingly higher rates, searches their cells during their group therapy sessions, and destroys the prisoners’ property during searches.

The sixteen prisoners on hunger strike are not in the mental health unit. They have taken action as an act of camaraderie.

The Industrial Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) has twice asked supporters outside of the prisons to call prison administration and demand they:

End the excessive use of chemical mace on prisoners who have not been a threat to staff or others.
Stop the targeted searches of mental health prisoners who attend weekly group on Unit One. We know that this is an attempt to discourage them from receiving treatment.
Address the deliberate indifference shown by medical staff not refilling prisoners’ self-meds and neglecting to answer sick calls in a timely manner.

According to a survey published in 2010, mentally ill people were in jails and prisons more than they were in hospitals. Though North Carolina lawmakers allocated millions of dollars to mental health reform initiatives in prisons, a retired prison psychologist has indicted this a failure, with money not going to aid prisoners “as promised.”