Michael Saavedra

Access to EducationLong SentencingRacial JusticeRestorative Justice

Oct 16

Written By Gary Ricke

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Michael Saavedra is a legal advocate, solitary confinement survivor, and hunger striker.
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About Michael

Michael Saavedra was released from prison in February 2017 after being inside for over 19 years. Of those 19 years, Michael was placed and kept in solitary confinement for 15 years. During that time, he helped organize, lead, and participated in all three separate California prisoner hunger strikes against solitary confinement between 2011 and 2013. He also educated himself while in solitary and was able to learn and utilize the law to successfully sue the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation several times, as well as assist and teach others to do the same.

Michael graduated as a Pathway to Law School student at Riverside City College and recently earned his bachelor’s degree from UCLA, majoring in American Indian Studies with a minor in Chicanx and Central American Studies. Michael also started Riverside City College’s first formerly imprisoned student organization. While at UCLA Michael was chosen as a Justice Catalyst and UCLA Law Fellow. Since his release, he has been working with many different social justice and anti-prison industrial complex organizations locally and nationally such as Disability Rights California, and Dignity and Power Now, to help abolish mass incarceration, solitary confinement, over policing and advocating for directly impacted people of color in his community.

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~The Strike

Gary Ricke http://orbisdesign.com

Michael Saavedra

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About Michael

Dolores Canales

#RepresentJustice