This is one of the most comprehensive articles ever written about solitary confinement in the United States, and is particulary noteworthy for including the voices of prisoners, obtained through correspondence with those buried in isolation. It is also passionate and personal. The opening follows–but this piece needs to be read in full.

A few weeks ago, on the fifteenth anniversary of his first day in prison, Osiel Rodriguez set about cleaning the 87 square feet he inhabits at ADX, a federal mass isolation facility in Colorado.

“I got it in my head to destroy all my photographs,” he writes in a letter to me. “I spent some five hours ripping each one to pieces. No one was safe. I did not save one of my mother, father, sisters. Who are those people anyway?”

Such is the logic of the gray box, of sitting year after year in solitude.

Whether Rodriguez had psychological problems when he robbed a bank, burglarized a pawn shop and stole some guns at age 22, or whether mental illness set in during the eight years he has spent in seclusion since trying to walk out of a federal penitentiary in Florida – it’s academic. What’s true now is that he’s sick, literally, of being alone, as are scores of other prisoners in extreme isolation.

Among the misperceptions about solitary confinement is that it’s used only on the most violent inmates, and only for a few weeks or months. In fact, an estimated 80,000 Americans — many with no record of violence either inside or outside prison — are living in seclusion. They stay there for years, even decades. What this means, generally, is 23 hours a day in a cell the size of two queen-sized mattresses, with a single hour in an exercise cage, also alone. Some prisoners aren’t allowed visits or phone calls. Some have no TV or radio. Some never lay eyes on each other. And some go years without fresh air or sunlight.

Solitary is a place where the slightest details can mean the world. Things like whether you can see a patch of grass or only sky outside your window – if you’re lucky enough to have a window. Or whether the guy who occupies cells before you in rotation has a habit of smearing feces on the wall. Are the lights on 24/7? Is there a clock or calendar to mark time? If you scream, could anyone hear you?

In the warp of time and space where Rodriguez lives, the system not only has stripped him of any real human contact, but also made it unbearable to be reminded of a reality that has become all too unreal. It’s ripping him apart.

“Looking at photos of the free world caused me so much pain that I just couldn’t do it any more,” writes Rodriguez, 36. “Time and these conditions are breaking me down.”

This is what our prisons are doing to people in the name of safety. This is how deeply we’re burying them.

Fr. Bichsel, known to friends and colleagues as “Bix,” is a member of the Disarm Now Plowshares group. He has been arrested several times in connection with nonviolent civil disobedience at military bases, nuclear weapons manufacturers, and the School of the Americas. Most recently, he served a three-month sentence at SeaTac for a July 2010 action at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, future site of a new nuclear weapons plant.

On January 10, Bichsel was moved to a halfway house in Tacoma. According to the Disarm Now Plowshares blog, he was told that the facility had a rule prohibiting visitors for the first 72 hours of residency.  But on the evening of his arrival, a pair of Buddhist monks and a small group of students, on their way to a local protest, “made a small detour and stopped by the house Bix was in, to drum and pray for him outside the building for a few minutes.” The blog continues:

Bix was very happy to see and hear all who came to visit and wanted either to invite everyone in or go out and be with them. He had a strong sense they were angels, which gave him intense joy. He went onto comment that “it was so right they should be there.”

His captors on the other hand had a slightly different experience. First reprimanding him for being out of compliance (whatever that meant), he was told he was going to be “written up” and what happened was to be “reported.” The rest is history – in early morning he was suddenly awakened, grabbed out of bed, shackled, and returned to SeaTac by the marshals.

Their actions and manner of treatment made it known to him how he would proceed. Upon his arrival at SeaTac he made it clear he intended to be in complete non compliance with their demands; their recourse, which was to be expected, would be to place him in “protective custody or the special housing unit (SHU)”…“the hole”!

Bichsel, who suffers from circulation problems as well as a heart condition, reported to friends that it was “very cold for me all of the time” in his SHU cell at SeaTac, and that he was going “24 hours a day without sleep, fighting off the chill. I have asked for a jacket or a pillow or a mattress; they do not comply.” After supporters held a candlelight vigil outside of the prison last week, he was provided with additional blankets.

According to an article in the National Catholic Reporter, “A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said that while he couldn’t comment on the case of a specific inmate, he did say that the ‘typical issue’ for all inmates in the federal system is a blanket and sheet, and that there is a ‘full health services staff on duty at all of our facilities.” A public information officer for the BOP told the paper: “’If we receive information either from the inmate or the inmate’s doctor on the street that there was some sort of pre-existing condition that was being treated, obviously we would pick up the ball from there.’”

Several other religious peace activists have been held in solitary confinement at the SeaTac SHU in recent years. They include members of a group of others (all of them over 60 years old) who in 2009 broke into the Kitsap-Bangor Naval Base outside Seattle, where nuclear submarines are kept. At their trial for trespassing and conspiracy, the judge criticized the defendents’ “lack of remorse” and called their protest “a form of anarchy” that could lead to a “breakdown in the social order.”

According to fellow activist Blake Kermer, who visited Bichsel on Saturday, “Bix wants everyone to know that as he continues on his fast – yesterday was his eleventh day – that he feels stronger and more confirmed in his resolution…Bix says that Christians can unite in conscience where God speaks to all of us, to abolish nuclear weapons and to oppose those policies of the US that are without conscience. This was a point that Bix was reminded of when he was taken back to the BOP and told by his jailer that his re-arrest was a matter of policy, not of conscience.  Bix talked about how policy without conscience reminded him…of the White Rose and their courage in protesting Nazi policies without conscience, even though they were beheaded for their resolve.”

Disarm Now Plowshares has provided addresses for public officials to whom supporters can write, as well as the prison address of Fr. Bichsel.

Wandsworth Prison, London. © Copyright Derek Harper.

Even though Great Britain (including England, Wales and Scotland) has the highest per capita incarceration rate in Western Europe, with 153 out of 100,000 behind bars, the figure pales in comparison to the United States’ 743 per 100,000. The use of solitary confinement is also comparatively low in the UK – not every prison has segregation facilities and the supermax trend is still non-existent. There are very few prisoners in long-term segregation, and these have carefull tailored programs that encourage good behavior and social engagement. Although far from a perfect system, a complex mechanism of prison oversight coupled with an increased legal protection of human rights have ensured that UK solitary confinement has not reached the levels or the conditions of that in the U.S.

Prison segregation in the UK is used fairly sparingly and for a limited number of reasons. There are two types of segregation in the UK: the first is similar to U.S. segregation and takes place in what are named intensive management units, while the second, arguably more experimental, type sees prisoners housed in small groups in “Close Supervision Centers.”

Rules governing prisoners’ entry into intensive management units are quite similar to those in U.S. prisons, in that they depend almost exclusively upon the judgment of prison officials. UK Prison Rule 45, known as the G.O.O.D. rule, states: “Where it appears desirable, for the maintenance of good order and discipline or in his own interests, that a prisoner should not associate with other prisoners, either generally or for particular purposes, the prison director may arrange for the prisoner’s removal from association accordingly.”

While this type of segregation is administered on a case-by-case basis and is officially non-punitive, there are some concerns that confinement orders may constitute punishment, sometimes arbitrarily. The G.O.O.D. rule is fairly open to abuse, as staff may place a prisoner in confinement merely if they believe that he may be a breach to security. Examples of the application of the G.O.O.D. rule include segregating prisoners who are suspected of possessing drugs or those who engage in “dirty protests” using body wastes, which is often a manifestation of a mental health problem.

Inmates may also be placed in intensive management as punitive “cellular confinement,” for attacks on other prisoners and guards. This is used as a disciplinary measure by prison authorities. Adults may be held for 21 days and young adults (including those under 18) for 10. Very short stints in solitary confinement are extremely common: In 2009, over a quarter of prisoners segregated in Wandsworth, the UK’s second largest prison, were allowed to rejoin integrated units after a few hours of isolation. An average-sized prison with a segregation wing typically has approximately 15 cells in it, a small number of which will be occupied at any one time. As there are no centrally collated statistics on segregation, it is difficult to estimate the total number of prisoners held in isolation at any given time. A very rough estimate of this number is 500, based on the number of prisons that have segregation facilities. In the United States, the total number of inmates in segregation is at least 80,000, with 25,000 in supermax facilities alone.

A second type of segregation takes place in small groups. Groups of less than ten people occupy cells in Close Supervision Centers. These centers, set up in 1998 in response to widespread prison violence, were intended to indefinitely separate the most disruptive prisoners from the mainstream prisons to “address their anti-social disruptive behavior in a controlled environment” and to “stabilise behaviour and prepare them for a return to the mainstream with minimum disruption.” There are approximately 30 prisoners in CSCs at any one time in the UK.

Conditions vary hugely from prison to prison, though all segregated prisoners are visited by a staff member, nurse, and chaplain every day. Segregated prisoners in the Isle of Wight prison are forced to choose between a shower or exercise on weekends and have no re-integration programs, while those in Acklington sometimes only received 30 minutes of exercise time each day. Most isolated prisoners are, however, permitted unlimited outside visits and have an in-cell television. Inmates housed in the Special Secure Unit in Leicester have their own kitchens to prepare their own food. Prisoners are usually given a written explanation of why they are placed in segregation as well as an informational leaflet about the process. Prisoners selected to enter CSCs are notified of the move months in advance.

Two Decades of Reform–and Regression

Reviewing the history of criminal justice trends in the UK, it is clear that the present situation is the product of deliberate reform over the decades. Overcrowding, brutal use of segregation and general mismanagement sparked extreme violence in British prisons throughout the 1970s and 80s. The most famous prison disturbance occurred in 1990 in Manchester’s Strangeway prison, where violence erupted as hundreds of inmates fought for better conditions. The event led to the 1991 Woolf Report, which successfully put forward a package of reforms that demonstrated a more preventive and less punitive approach to tackling prison violence.

Through the report and several other reforms, by 1998 solitary confinement was reduced in favor of the Close Supervision Centres–according to one account, “largely on the basis of English compromise and pragmatism.” In these centers, which were designed to combine isolation with engagement, prisoners have access to education programs, libraries and daily exercise. Individual monthly reports review prisoners’ progress in the units. In these centers, prisoners are rewarded with increased responsibility and freedom for showing signs of co-operative behavior, in an “incentive and progression” model. CSCs’ system of rewarding social behavior has often been successful in reducing violence, and many high-risk prisoners who have been repeatedly moved between intensive management units in various prisons are often placed in them. However, a 2000 report found that Close Supervision Centers were still too focused on punitive techniques, and similar to the traditional solitary confinement they was intended to counter. The report also criticized the “lack of adequate psychiatric support” offered to prisoners and the anonymity of the system as a whole. Due to lack of personalized attention and care, many prisoners remained disruptive in segregation, commonly using techniques such as “dirty protests.” There have also been criticisms surrounding the selection procedure for CSC admission – many have committed isolated violent offences in prison and others are mentally ill. Prisoners may also now be placed in CSCs for certain gang activity and, perhaps worryingly, religious extremism.

Segregation techniques reappeared in the public eye a few years ago when concerns were raised relating to their use on children. The Carlile Inquiry of 2006, established to investigate treatment of children in custody, revealed that isolation was being used as punishment for children and youth in prisons and corrections centers. Cell conditions were found to be poor and the high level of self-harm among the youth alarming. The UK Youth Justice Board responded to the inquiry’s recommendations and extreme custody for children has since been reduced.

A second well-publicized problem plaguing British segregation units is high suicide rates. A fifth of prison suicides in England and Wales in 2005 took place in isolation units. A 2002 report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists stated: “In general, solitary confinement necessarily fosters the suicidal tendency by depriving the prisoner of the obvious safeguards inherent in useful activities and more particularly in healthy social intercourse.” A 2009 Prison Report found that a number of inmates at risk of self-harm were being held in segregation units.

A System of Oversight for British Prisons

The EU is, officially, no friend to isolation. Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR – to which the UK is signatory) states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” and The European Court of Human Rights has in the past stated that “complete sensory isolation coupled with complete social isolation can no doubt destroy the personality.”

Though there has overall been an increased willingness to investigate prison conditions in adherence to the European Convention, rulings are still somewhat inconsistent, mainly because of the open-ended wording of Article 3 and differences in practice between Member States. Courts seem reluctant to qualify many cases as violations of Article 3, demonstrating a certain tolerance towards segregation. “The judicial view seems to be such that is not in breach of Article 3 provided it [the segregation] is reviewed, necessary and not too lengthy,” says Dr. Steve Foster, human rights specialist and Principal Lecturer in Law at Coventry University.

Rulings trickle through on a case-by-case basis and the EU has been reluctant to make standardized rules on solitary confinement. Courts have been described as following a “reactive rather than pro-active stance” that make them unreliable as a sole mechanism for enforcing standardized rights in prisons.

More effective than European-based monitoring, however, is the domestic tripartite system established in 1980 to inspect prisons, after it was deemed necessary to set up a prison-inspecting body independent of the government to prevent human rights violations. The system was “designed to be preventive and proactive, as well as to expose and deal with abuse or malpractice.”

The National Preventive Mechanism is made up of three bodies: the Prisons Inspectorate, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman and the Independent Monitoring Boards. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons (HMCIP), set up in 1982, has the statutory responsibility to inspect and report on every prison, police custody site and immigration detention center in England, Scotland and Wales. The Inspector has the right to enter any prison at any time. The Inspector may also by invitation inspect prisons in Northern Ireland. Adult prisons are inspected twice in five years; once for a full (often unannounced) inspection lasting a week and once for a follow-up. The United States has no such system of oversight. It is clear that the multitude of human rights violations seen in U.S. prisons would be curbed if a comparable system of checks and balances were in place. As a result, the pressure to expose and change violations is shifted towards advocacy groups and non-profit organizations.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) has two functions. It investigates individual prisoners’ complaints and on the basis of these, makes recommendations that are usually enforced. It also investigates each death occurring in prison (even if from natural causes). Out of total of 5,291 complaints received by the PPO in 2010-2011, only 12 were regarding segregation. There were 32 complaints about prison food. The PPO investigated all 12 of the segregation complaints, all of which were relatively minor and generally questioned the reasons for being placed in short-term isolation. Because it deals solely with individual issues and complaints, the Ombudsman does have a limited impact, though its transparent methods and reports give a valuable snapshot of what the most pressing issues within prisons are.

Each prison has an Independent Monitoring Board (IMB), composed of a group of local volunteers. There are 1800 volunteers attached to 137 prisons and 9 immigration removal centers throughout England and Wales, all of who perform routine inspections. Board members, who have full access to prisons at all times, submit an annual report to the Home Secretary. Prisons must notify their IMB of each decision to place a prisoner in segregation within 24 hours. A member of the board then has a duty to visit the prison within 72 hours. In a 2009 thematic review of segregation by IMBs, some complaints were raised about failures of being notified in time as well as staffing and security issues in segregated units. However, no concerns were made about the use of Rule 45 to place prisoners there in the first place, suggesting arbitrary segregation is fairly limited. The report did note that there were too many mentally ill prisoners in segregation. Though their website states they: “perform a vital ‘watchdog’ role on behalf of Ministers and the general public,” IMBs are the weakest of the three mechanisms, probably due to their lack of executive power.

HMCIP’s inspection visits are preceded by a survey of over one hundred questions sent to prisoners. HMCIPs then visit the prison where they have unrestricted access, are free to interview all prisoners and look over all the prison’s records. Assisted by healthcare specialists, substance inspectors and education experts, the Inspector assesses all aspects of prison life. The Inspector then makes judgments on a prison, called “Expectations,” that use international human rights standards to evaluate that prison. Overall judgments are made on the “health” of the prison: whether the inmates are held in safety, treated with respect for human dignity, whether they are able to engage in purposeful activity and whether they are prepared for resettlement.

After receiving the Inspector’s report, each prison must draw up an action plan on whether they will follow the given recommendations or not. Incredibly, even though recommendations are not legally binding, they are adhered to 95% of the time. An unannounced follow-up visit by the Inspector measures how far the prison has implemented its action plan – 70% of the time implementation is found satisfactory.

“The last Inspector [Anne Owers] was quite instrumental in highlighting inadequacies and forwarded a good number of issues to parliament, the government and the public,” says Dr. Steve Foster. Owers called solitary confinement a “prison within a prison” and led a thematic review of all segregation units in 2006. Though the report praised recent efforts to integrate mental health treatment into custody, it also found a great number of segregated inmates in need of much greater psychiatric help. The report stated that though “There is no doubt that the system has evolved positively,” certain conditions were still inappropriate. Recreation opportunities were found to be inadequate and mental health treatment limited: “Many of those prisoners are deteriorating further while held in lengthy solitary confinement. At the very least, they need individual, multi-disciplinary and properly-resourced care plans.” Segregation was found to be used disproportionally on non-white prisoners; 73% of isolated inmates were black or belonged to ethnic minorities. One encouraging finding of the review was that the number of prisoners in segregation was actually decreasing.

Owers’ recommendations following the inspection included tailor-made mental health treatment for individual prisoners and increased opportunities for out-of-cell recreation. Of the 38 recommendations made by the inspection team, 16 were adopted.

A “Parallel Universe” of Persistent Prison Problems

Though this is no doubt encouraging, improvements in reports should not always be taken at face value. “We have a “parallel universe” going on here, whereby what the Governor of the prison thinks has been implemented is not necessarily how things operate on the ground,” says Professor David Wilson, Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University.

Later reports on segregation describe almost identical problems, 4 years on. A 2010 general report stated that though many segregation units had been “redesignated” care and integration or care and separation, reorientation or “intensive supervision” units, “they continued to operate as traditional segregation units, with the emphasis on separation rather than care.” Segregation was over-used in many prisons and the inadequacy of staff training to deal with the most problematic prisoners was highlighted. Some units did not have daily access to washing facilities and telephones and conditions were generally poor: “Communal corridors were ingrained with dirt, despite attempts to keep them clean, walls were damaged, and there was no natural light. Cells were dirty and poorly maintained with graffiti on many walls. In-cell toilets needed deep cleaning”.

Similarly, recommendations made in 2007 concerning approaches to tackling prisoners’ self-harm in Woodhill prison were clearly not adhered to properly when a prisoner with a history of self-harm was permitted to enter a shower with a razor, later committing suicide.

Overall the monitoring system presents impressive checks and balances to the Home Office’s authority and has been met with relative responsiveness. There is no doubt that the mechanism is generally positive, though clearly much more care needs to be taken to ensure that prisons adhere to recommendations. One main issue seems to be the need for a more standardized set of prison conditions, which would eradicate the wild disparities in segregation conditions across the country.

The monitoring system aside, solitary confinement is not seen as a pressing human rights problem by the government. It is instead considered more of a management issue by a government with perceived greater prison problems. “The government’s main concern at the moment is over-crowding and expense,” says Dr. Foster.

It seems that although attention has been paid over the years to ameliorating prison conditions as a whole, segregation issues remain fairly low on the public agenda, with only small snatches of information on the segregated underworld reaching the media. It is feared that future cuts in public spending will make prison conditions deteriorate, and segregated prisoners will no doubt feel the effects of this.

All are welcome to attend, but advance notice is necessary. Details from the NYCLU’s announcement appear below.

Prolonged Isolation in New York Special Housing Units (SHUs)

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is a non-profit legal organization that seeks to defend and expand the civil rights and civil liberties of all New Yorkers, including individuals incarcerated in New York’s prisons.

The NYCLU recently launched a project to investigate the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s (DOCCS) use of Special Housing Units (SHUs). As part of this project, the NYCLU has begun organizing a broad-based coalition, including prisoners’ rights and mental health advocates, family members of the incarcerated, and formerly incarcerated individuals, to coordinate efforts to raise awareness about and advocate for an end to the NY SHUs.

The NYCLU will be holding its next coalition meeting on January 19th at 6 PM. We welcome participation by all those whose lives have been affected by the NY SHUs.

If you would like to attend this meeting or learn more about the coalition, please contact:

Scarlet Kim

125 Broad Street, 19th Floor

New York, NY 10004

skim@nyclu.org

(212) 607-3343

Last month, Tewhan Butler received word that he had earned his way to a transfer from USP Lewisburg in Pennsylvania to USP Pollock in rural central Louisiana, a high-security prison where he may nonetheless be somewhat less restricted than he has been in Lewisburg’s Special Management Unit. In the following post, title “The Process,” he describes his long route from prison to prison. (Ironically, shortly after Butler’s arrival, Pollock went on lockdown following a fight among inmates, meaning all prisoners faced round-the-clock confinement to cells with no visits–conditions similar to those at the SMU.)

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Again, I find myself in pursuit of the penitentiary’s dangers. I am told to pack up. My turn has come. I couldn’t fill the plastic bags with my property quick enough. For the past twentymonths, I fell in love with my dictionary, thesaurus, world almanac, Book of Morals, and the world’s best poets to have ever lived. For a brief moment they are forced to be boxed-up and not heard from again until we reach Level 6 Penitentiary Pollock. Level 6 means violence. Violence. Sleep. Violence. Wake-up. Violence. Only a few escape such violence…

After having my things ready to go my door was unlocked and opened by a unit officer, a stand-in officer and a Lieutenant. There were no intimidating looks and NO cuffs. I, to a certain degree, was free; certainly a long time coming…

In the unit’s dayroom I joined nine others who had successfully completed the aches and pains categorized as “The Program” (S.M.U.). The date was November 29, 2011. The time was 4:45am. Only once a week is the penitentiary’s rule of absolute silence ignored, and this day was one of them. The nine of us begin yelling to those we have journeyed with who still have to travel through extreme hardships, “Keep your head up”, “Stay safe” and “Remain solid”. Such words on the inside speak of a man’s care for another who struggles. We have those we would want to stand beside and fight with to the end. However, the Federal Bureau Of Prisons (FBOP) understands this and separates comrades by thousands of miles in attempt to block the brotherly love. Our shouts are returned. Then, “Let’s roll men” the Lieutenant ordered.

Personally, I could not wait to roll. With plastic garbage bags in hand, we nine overly-disciplined prisoners followed the footsteps of those in uniform to R & D (Receiving and Discharge). Once inside R & D, we were reminded that we were not free at all. “One straight line gentlemen; now strip!”

The Process–“Open your mouth; show me  your gums, hands, sack; turn around; bottom of your feet- left, right; bend over; cough. Now put your clothes back on!”  Humiliation to the tenth power. We are not seen as men but as property.

Following The Process, we were thrown into a bullpen to wait for hours. There was nothing to eat with the exception of two stale pieces of bread and two slices of bologna. Hunger pains mixed with anticipation’s butterflies. Almost there…

In walks three officers. The clanking of chains filling the room with their noise…

One by one we are cuffed, shackled, waist-restrained, and leg-ironed; each with a tightness to numb whatever they touch. Again, my mind tells me that I’m almost there…

The bus ride was painful as the iron dug into my skin with each bump in the road. How refreshing were the sights. One never knew when would be the next time the free world would be seen. I cherished each passing car, pedestrian, building, and home. The small things removed from my life for years, I stare out the bus window wishing I had understood then the importance of freedom. It was mine to lose, and I lost it. Before I knew it, we were pulling up along side maybe a dozen or so Greyhound buses with escape-proof tinted windows- interior fitted with bars and gates. The all white Federal plane lands moments later and out comes United States Marshals with shotguns and automatic rifles in hand. The perimeter is heavily secured. We were at Harrisburg Airport but far away from the fancy airplane services you know…

The name calling begins. So and so, what’s your number? Your number? “26852-050.” I step off the bus and take my place amongst the other men and women dressed in pumpkin seeds, paper pants, dingy t-shirts, and shackles. The sight before me is one I could have never imagined. I’m almost there…

We enter the plane. Hundreds of prisoners packed like sardines. Prepare for take off. In case of emergency do not panic. Listen to the Marshal’s instructions and you’ll be fine. A man with his wrists strapped to his waist and his feet chained together could never be fine in the case of emergency…

We are in the air. Next stop FTC (Federal Transfer Center) Oklahoma City. One would never know what the outside looks like, as it’s located on the fringes of an airport and the plane pulls up directly to the building like they do the terminal at the airport. Upon exiting off the plane, we immediately enter FTC OKC…

Corrections Officers line the walls of a corridor which is about half of a football field’s length. With bright lights and everything white, it resembled a mental institution. After we all are unshackled, we are handed yet another bag lunch of two slices of bread and two slices of bologna and directed to a bullpen with one toilet, one sink, no tissue, and at minimum 100 inmates. The game is now one of patience…

The Process is repeated and after the strip out there’s photo, medical and psychological evaluations and back to the bullpen. It all takes hours on top of hours…

I reach my cell, their cell, at 11:45pm. Before I am able to situate my bedroll (blanket, sheet, hotel-size toiletries) I am told that I will be leaving in the morning. The morning being 2:45am. Physically drained, I call for sleep. However knowing that I am almost there my body wont rest. I am forced to go through the entire process again, as if I just had not done so hours ago. Prison is not a place of convenience…

Back on to the plane we go. Maybe the flight will be short, as Louisiana is not a far distance from Oklahoma City…

We take off. Hours later we land in Pittsburgh. The swapping of prisoners begins. Five here. Ten there. Unload. Reload. Fair exchange a body for a body. The automatic rifles are tucked when all is done. The buses roll away and the Federal plane hits the runway…

Finally, Alexandria, Louisiana–United States Penitentiary Pollock. They say it’s a place of rocking and rolling. A non-stop work call. The faint-hearted do not belong here. I enter with a lion’s roar. What comes next? We shall wait and see…

I shall keep you posted…

A statement and call to action being circulated by Prison Radio and the Human Rights Coalition describes Mumia’s conditions. It also notes that he hopes to use his status as perhaps the nation’s best-known prisoner to draw attention to the plight of the tens of thousands of other inmates being held in solitary confinement.

Mumia is being kept in solitary in SCI Mahanoy’s dungeon. Its restrictions and conditions belie its modern construction. Mumia just told us on Friday that he wants all of his supporters to broaden this call, to not just focus on his case, but to understand that all torture units must be shut down…

Mumia Abu-Jamal is being held in extremely repressive conditions. And like thousands of prisoners, residents of solitary confinement and isolation units in every hole in every prison across the country, Mumia is being subject to draconian, dehumanizing and brutal conditions. Solitary confinement. He is shackled whenever he is outside his cell, even to the shower. He is shackled around his ankles, waist and wrist. He is shackled while behind Plexiglas during visits. Subject to strip searches before and after visits. Unable to walk freely. Having bits of paper to write notes on, with a rubber flex pen. No shelves, 4 books. No access to news reports, letters delayed. Restricted visiting. Glaring lights on 24 hours a day. Only one brief phone call to his wife. No access to adequate food or commissary. These conditions are worse than death row.

Attorney Rachel Wolkenstein argues that “There is no legal basis for Mumia to be confined in AC. At the point he was no longer under a death sentence, he should have been transferred into general population. This is not dependent on a court date for Mumia to be formally resentenced to life imprisonment.” In response to her inquiries, the Department of Corrections said that ”Mumia is in AC pending resentencing and further evaluations.” But Wolkenstein points out that “The District Attorney has stated there will be no trial to obtain a new death sentence..nor is there a reason or basis for “further evaluation.” Mumia has been confined in Pennsylvania prisons for some thirty years. The DOC unquestionably knows his history, conduct and behavior. There is nothing in Mumia’s personal record to justify holding him in Administrative Custody.”

Conditions for the 2,500 other inmates currently in solitary confinement in Pennsylvania’s “Restricted Housing Units” has been well documented in reports from the Human Rights Coalition; they can be read here, here, and here.

Update: Attorney Rachel Wolkenstein reported last night: “Mumia informed me tonight in a legal phone call that today he was given a new, additional reason for being held in AC status — his long dreadlocks.  For over eight years Mumia had been held in disciplinary custody on death row for no stated reason except his hair. DC [disciplinary custody] is yet one step below AC in the prison’s torture blocks. No books at all, no outside communication. No commissary. It has taken over five weeks for the DOC to come up with this.”

LA County Jail

The U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay turns 10 today, and activists are marking the anniversary with protests and petitions, reports and retrospectives. A decade after its founding, Guantánamo remains a dark stain on the national soul.

Even today, while the worst instances of torture may have ceased under the Obama Administration, prisoners are still subjected to solitary confinement and other forms of deprivation and abuse. According to a February 2009 report from the Center of Constitutional Rights: “The descriptions of ongoing, severe solitary confinement, other forms of psychological abuse, incidents of violence and the threat of violence from guards, religious abuse, and widespread forced tube-feeding of hunger strikers indicate that the inhumane practices of the Bush Administration persist today at Guantánamo.”

Then there’s the fact that the prisoners at Guantánamo have been deprived of their liberty without any semblance of due process. Over the last decade, 779 prisoners have been held at Gitmo; 171 remain. Only six have ever been convicted of a crime.

When it comes to depriving people of their human and civil rights, Guantánamo stands as an unprecedented extreme. But it is far from the only place where these things happen. Today, in our cities and towns, in every state in America, there are places where individuals are incarcerated without trial, and where they suffer deprivation and abuse. They are our local jails.

Take the issue of pre-trial detention. According to the Pre-Trial Justice Institute, a full 61% of U.S. jail inmates–nearly half a million in all–have not yet been convicted of any crime. Many have not even been accused of a violent crime. The majority of them are in jail because they cannot afford the modest bail required for their release. A 2010 study by Human Rights Watch looked at defendants in New York City arrested on nonfelony charges. ”Most were accused of nonviolent minor crimes such as shoplifting, turnstile jumping, smoking marijuana in public, drug possession, trespassing, and prostitution.” It found that “87 percent were incarcerated because they were unable to post the bail amount at their arraignment,” even though bail had been set at $1,000. These defendants faced weeks, months, or years in pre-trial confinement for no reason other than poverty.

While awaiting trial, these individuals face appallingly overcrowded conditions, inadequate food–and far worse. On New York City’s Rikers Island, nearly one in twelve prisoners is held in solitary confinement at any given time; the jail maintains two isolation units specifically for inmates with mental illness, and another for juveniles. Pre-trial solitary is routinely used on underaged inmates, to separate from the adult jail population; one report out of Texas found juveniles in the Harris County Jail spending a year or more in complete isolation. In the most extreme cases–such as that of Syed Fahad Hashmi, pre-trial detainees are held under “Special Administrative Measures” that constitute acute sensory deprivation.

Solitary confinement is not the only form of torment that detainees face in local jails. A recent report by the ACLU’s National Prison Project showed a pattern of brutal abuse, carried out by sheriff’s deputies, in the Los Angeles County jail system: “In the past year, deputies have assaulted scores of non-resisting inmates…Deputies have attacked inmates for complaining about property missing from their cells. They have beaten inmates for asking for medical treatment, for the nature of their alleged offenses,and for the color of their skin. They have beaten inmates in wheelchairs. They have beaten an inmate, paraded him naked down a jail module, and placed him in a cell to be sexually assaulted. Many attacks are unprovoked. Nearly all go unpunished: these acts of violence are covered up by a department that refuses to acknowledge the pervasiveness of deputy violence in the jail system.”

“America’s criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace,” said Senator Jim Webb, using a phrase that has often been applied to Guantánamo Bay. But just as it has thwarted any attempts to close Gitmo, the U.S. Congress has blocked all of Webb’s attempts to propel the kinds of domestic criminal justice reforms that might have kept local jails from remaining Gitmos in our own backyard.

Following a series of highly publicized hunger strikes and a hearing in the California State Assembly, the CDCR promised to revisit the process through which it condemns prisoners to long terms in the SHU. Any proposed changes apparently would not affect the Administrative Segregation Units, or ASUs, where prisoners are also held in solitary; a number of hunger strikers have been sent to ASU.

The following notes from the December meeting serve as a status report on that process.

On December 28, 2011, two members of Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity’s mediation team spoke with Undersecretary Terri McDonald about the status of the new regulations on gang validation/SHU classification policies and procedures.

Undersecretary McDonald stated the following:

1. CDCR is changing to a behavior-based policy about SHU consignment, so that prisoners could be designated as members of “security threat groups” without being sent to the SHU.  Others currently in SHU who have not had behavior issues could be returned to the general population.  It remains to be seen how broadly CDCR will define “behavior.”
2. In addition, CDCR is designing a 4-step “stepdown program” designed for exiting gang members.  Step 1 is high security and step 4 is transition to general population.  Debriefing is not required to qualify for this program.
3. CDCR has drafted a “concept paper” about these new policies, which it intends to send to its national experts in early January.  CDCR did not adopt the prior recommendations of the 2007 experts’ report, mostly because of cost.  CDCR’s concept paper will not be available to prisoners and their advocates until after the experts weigh in.
4. CDCR hopes to hear back from these experts by late January or early February.
5. CDCR will then revise its concept paper and send it to “stakeholders” for feedback.
6. Stakeholders include such groups as legislators, law enforcement leaders in the community who work with gangs, the Prison Law Office and the mediation team.
7. After hearing from the stakeholders, CDCR will then turn its concepts into detailed regulations.
8. Then CDCR will propose these changes officially through the public hearing process, negotiating with unions, etc.  McDonald also stated that the Castillo case would have to be factored in, so that someone coming up for a six year review doesn’t lose ground with the new provisions.  All of this will take time.
9. The status of individual prisoners who are currently in SHU will not be reviewed until all of this has happened, other than those who are up for annual review by the ICC.
10. The stepdown program can be implemented sooner, as it does not involve policy changes.  McDonald gave an example of prisoners going to an “integrated yard,” composed of prisoners affiliated with enemy gangs, to see if they can get along.
11. She cautioned that there will be no large-scale exodus from the SHUs.  They are concerned that, if they move too fast and violent incidents occur, the entire reform process will be destroyed.
12. Although the process will be slow, she stated that CDCR is committed to reworking its validation procedures, making SHU consignment behavior-based, opening the stepdown program and re-evaluating all current SHU occupants when the new regulations on validation and SHU placement are in place.
13. Regarding the specific promises that Scott Kernan negotiated as part of demand #5 (calendars, hobby items, sweats, etc), McDonald states that they have all been accomplished already with the exception of the chin-up bars, because they involve some expensive structural changes, and the photographs, which are happening over time, when prisoners get their ICC reviews.  She states that these items are not privileged-based.
14. CDCR officials who are involved are George Giurbino (who has retired but will remain on contract with CDCR for this purpose), Suzan Hubbard and Richard Subia.  Hubbard and Giurbino will be on the panel reviewing individual prisoners’ cases once the new regulations are rolled out.

Although the Undersecretary’s comments do not provide all of the detail we need, this information is helpful in general terms.  We will provide more information as we learn it.

At Red Onion State Prison, built on a mountaintop in a remote pocket of southwest Virginia, more than two-thirds of the inmates live in solitary confinement.

In a state where about 1 in 20 prisoners are held in solitary, Red Onion, a so-called supermax prison, isolates more inmates than any other facility, keeping more than 500 of its nearly 750 charges alone for 23 hours a day in cells the size of a doctor’s exam room…

As more becomes known about the effects of isolation — on inmate health, public safety and prison budgets — some states have begun to reconsider the practice, among them Texas, which, like Virginia, is known as a law-and-order state…

Now critics have set their sights on Virginia, where lawyers and inmates say some of the state’s 40,000 prisoners, including some with mental-health issues, have been kept in isolation for years, in one case for 14 years…

The Legal Aid Justice Center, which represents 12 inmates in isolation in Virginia, has requested an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, which recently launched a probe into a 1,550-bed Pennsylvania prison where inmates complain of long periods of isolation and a lack of mental-health treatment…

A group of legislators…have been visiting prisons, including Red Onion, to examine how their most violent inmates are treated. Del. Patrick A. Hope (D-Arlington), who is leading the effort, said he will urge the General Assembly to study ways to limit the use of solitary confinement and offer more treatment before inmates are released.

The story does a good job of explaining how solitary confinement became common practice in Virginia–and throughout the United States. Factors include the explosion in sentencing–and with it the boom in prison building–as well as the increasing criminalization of the mentally ill.

Although solitary confinement has long been a tool of prison discipline (and a staple of pop culture depictions of prison life), the use of solitary became increasingly common in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, many legal and medical experts have argued that inmates in isolation for long periods suffer from higher suicide rates, increased depression, decreased brain function and hallucinations…

Virginia opened Red Onion — deep in coal country and about 400 miles from Richmond — a dozen years ago as part of a major prison-building effort after the abolishment of parole and the lengthening of prison sentences. Like many other supermax prisons, Red Onion was designed to confine — but not necessarily rehabilitate — the most-dangerous criminals.

As of October, 505 of 745 inmates at Red Onion were in solitary, according to the state. When legislators toured Red Onion on Sept. 1, prison officials told them that 173 inmates in solitary there were considered mentally ill.

State officials said they do not keep statistics on the length of isolation stays, but they told Hope in a recent memo that Red Onion inmates have been isolated from two weeks to almost seven years, with an average stay of 2.7 years.

Unsurprisingly, Post reporter Anita Kumar encountered resistance and obfuscation when she sought information for the story: “Virginia officials were reluctant to answer questions from The Washington Post about the practice of solitary confinement. In some instances, they provided contradictory information to The Post and legislators; at other times, they declined to talk about the use of solitary confinement.”

Read the full article here.

A bill introduced in the California State Assembly seeks to challenge the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations ban on interviewing prisoners in its notorious Security Housing Units (SHUs) and ease restrictions on interviews with other prisoners. Assembly Bill 1270 was introduced by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano of San Francisco. Ammiano chairs the Public Safety Committee, and held hearings on California’s SHUs in August 2011, following the historic inmate hunger strike that began at Pelican Bay State Prison in July.

According to a fact sheet released by Ammiano’s office, AB 1270 “seeks to restore the media’s ability to conduct pre-arranged in-person interviews with specific prison inmates…It would allow the media to provide more balanced information about our prison systems to keep the public informed and our institutions both transparent and accountable.” (The full fact sheet appears at the end of this post.)

The fact sheet notes: “Media is even more restricted access to the most controversial correctional facilities such as the secure housing units (SHUs).” It goes on to describe the extreme isolation of the SHUs, and mentions findings that link solitary confinement to mental illness and suicide.

According to the bill, the interviews would take place “under the discretion of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,” which could choose, for safety reasons, to deny a media request to interview a particular inmate. However, “Any responses denying a request must be accompanied by a written explanation for the request denial.” According to the text of the bill, it would also “forbid retaliation against an inmate for participating in a visit by, or communicating with, a representative of the news media.”

Earlier this week, the bill was referred to the Committee on Public Safety, which will decide whether it goes any further.