by TChris

A prison reform group, United for No Injustice, Oppression or Neglect (U.N.I.O.N.), is using the courts, as well as political activism, to call attention to the dismal conditions in California prisons. The group's director, B. Cayenne Bird, realized how deplorable prison conditions have become after her son was incarcerated.

Bird, a self-proclaimed human rights journalist for 30 years, formed U.N.I.O.N. in 1998. She said part of the goal is to get families of prisoners together in a voting block so that the state's prisons can be reformed. "There's enough there to create a voting group," she said.

Scores of U.N.I.O.N. members join Bird at rallies at the state Capitol, and the organization also frequently pickets at prisons where it feels an inmate has suffered a preventable death.

The group has filed lawsuits in at least three cases on behalf of inmates who died while in a prison's care.