About 40 demonstrators gathered outside the state
Capitol in Atlanta on Monday to express support for Georgia prison inmates who
have reportedly been on a hunger strike for nearly a month.
The protesters, including members of the Occupy
Atlanta movement, also demanded that the state enact prison reform. They were
brought together by the family of an inmate who has allegedly been kept in
solitary confinement for 18 months.
Demonstrators said that inmate Miguel Jackson was
beaten by prison guards at Smith State Prison in December 2010. Jackson,
imprisoned for armed robbery since 1996, was transferred in 2011 to the Georgia
Classification & Diagnostic Prison, where he currently resides.
There, according to his wife Delma Jackson, Miguel
Jackson and nine other inmates started a hunger strike on June 10 to protest
prison conditions.
"Miguel and other inmates at Georgia Diagnostics
have been denied access to proper hygiene [and] medical treatment for their
numerous and severe injuries, many of which were inflicted 18 months ago," she
wrote in a Change.org petition.
The protesters Monday called on the state to change
the way it treats all prisoners, particularly its use of solitary
confinement.
In the online petition, the Jackson family also
demanded that Georgia provide prisoners like Miguel Jackson with "status reviews
every 30 days as [required by Georgia procedure], restoration of their visiting
and communications rights, and access to their meager personal property." More PrisonerPal.com True Crime Today Discount Magazine Subscriptions
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