moment of adversity, to experience another moment of happiness. Happiness comes and goes with moments, not decades. But never give up! my precious loved ones, never ever give up! And hurl yourselves into the flames. Just because the going gets tough. Stand tall! And focus on surviving! Not dying,

P.S. Recently I've just completed 16-straight years of being in S.H.U. (On August 8, 1997, Mr. Swon went to the main population.)

James H. Swon
California

Things a SHU Prisoner Should Know

The purpose of the California Department of "Corrections" SHU program is to reduce prisoners to a state of submission essential for their ideological conversion. That failing, the next objective is to reduce them to a state of psychological incompetence sufficient to neutralize them as efficient, self-directing antagonists. That failing, the only alternative is to destroy them, preferably by making them desperate enough to destroy themselves.

Recovery from the SHU experience -

In a situation removed from the reinforcing pressures of the SHU program, the ex-detainees should be encouraged to think for themselves, so that they are once again in charge of their own volition and their own decision-making.

The primary purpose of the SHU program is mentacide - which can be defined as consisting of any organized system of psychological intervention in which the perpetrator injects his own thoughts and words into the minds and mouths of the victims. By assaulting ego strengths, culture shock is deliberately created, with isolation, alienation, and intimidation, and the victim becomes increasingly vulnerable to the implantation of ideas or the suggestion of behavior that would ordinarily be rejected as unacceptable or abnormal. Mentacide consists of four major components:

1. Behavior control 2. Thought control 3. Emotional control 4. Information control

Prisoners who survive the SHU program should be told first that s/he was, is, in a trap - a situation where s/he was psychologically disabled and couldn't get out. Second s/he should be shown s/he didn't originally choose to enter a trap. Third, it should be pointed out that other prisoners were in similar traps. Fourth, tell the prisoners that it is possible to get out of the trap through restoring their will power and sense of self.

It is a fact that mentacide renders its victims virtually unresponsible for "their" actions or beliefs. The process whereby the victim is "psychologically incarcerated" in the oppressive SHU system is a subtle, but powerful force over which the victim/prisoner has little or no control, and therefore the victims need not feel either guilt or shame because of abnormal experiences, thus resulting in abnormal behavior.

Victims of the SHU program would need to relearn how to relate to others, restore a positive selfconcept and self-esteem, how to think and make healthy decisions. Prisoners who have suffered from the SHU should be told that the strength to move obstacles begins in our minds.

Troy Thomas
California