My name is Alejandro Rodriguez-Ortiz of the Vaughn 17.Two months ago I was transferred to Sci-Phoenix from Sci-Mahanoy to be put in a program called “The Intensive Management Unit”.This program was supposedly established to give us an avenue to get off of the “Restricted Release List”,the one of the most austere security housing levels left in this country,Indefinite solitary confinement.

First of all,I was placed on this status without due process.I have no write ups in Pennsylvania.My last significant issue in Delaware was in February 2014.I wasn’t convicted of the events of the Vaughn Up Rise.So administration has no way to justify this.Yet I was given any means to appeal their arbitrary decision.

This housing for my comrades & I is strictly a means to punish us for crimes that they couldn’t convict us in court for.So they send us to a state that hasn’t abolished this archaic,tortuous punishment known as solitary confinement.

Now we’ve been in this “IMU” program for up to 3 months.You would think that the things that the state funded Sci-Phoenix to run like educational programs,rehabilitational programs,etc would be running.There is nothing.To date,we are told that no policy for the “IMU” has been written.We live in the “IMU” yet the “IMU” doesn’t exist.

For the last 72 hours,a couple dozen like minded comrade & I have been on a hunger strike.We has some minor issues that we are in talks with handling in house.But our primary issue is that we have no “IMU” policy & procedure book.How to we grieve a program that doesn’t exist?How to do complete a program that never starts?We need to know what is actually expected of us & what we can expect from them.We can’t move forward until that basic element is established.

We are not ending this movement until central office stops procrastinating & produces the program that the tax payers have been paying for for the last few months.

We aren’t asking for anything but our basic rights.