ILDA JACOBS, Washington | Tuesday
A SOUTH African woman married to an African-American prisoner has embarked on a 40-day hunger strike in a bid to have him declassified as a gangster so that he will be given parole.
Lara Johnson, 34, who was born in Volksrust in Mpumalanga, met Demian Johnson, 36, when he appealed for help over the internet. The couple was married in a prison waiting room in October 1997.
Johnson was jailed in 1983 for a second-degree felony murder after he and some friends refused to pay a taxi driver and then shot and killed him.
He was sentenced to 15 years to life and has served 18 years. He has stayed in eight prisons and is currently at Salinas Valley State Prison in California. In 1987, while he was at San Quentin Prison, he was incorrectly classified as a member of the Black Guerilla Family after a tip-off from a police informant and was put in solitary confinement for six years.
Since then, he’s tried to correct the error and succeeded twice, in 1998 and 1991, but when he was moved to other prisons, the classification was re-recorded and his parole application turned down.
He lost his last parole hearing in August, but nine days after Lara started the hunger strike, he was declassified as a gangster.
Lara says she’ll continue the hunger strike, however, until her husband is released on parole, and to highlight the general plight of prisoners.
“I’m doing this for the hundreds of men and women who cannot write, but who get treated like this because local prison authorities do not follow their orders,” explains Lara, who has done humanitarian work in prisons for the past four years.
She’s lost nine kilograms after starting the hunger strike on November 19 and drinks only juice and water. She believes she can easily maintain the hunger strike for 40 days.
“The hunger goes after three days,” she explains.
On August 9, the Office of the Inspector General confirmed that the label was deleted, but during a review of Johnson’s case on August 15, Johnson’s records still indicated that he was a gang member. This prompted the hunger strike.
Former prison official and retired professor of criminal justice, Richard Korn, says the refusal of prison authorities to comply with the order to correct the gangster label, was indicative of a department out of control. – African Eye News Service