Voices from Solitary: “Extradition”

May 13, 2013 By Leave a Comment
talha family

Talha Ahsan’s brother, mother, and father in their London home.

Today we arrive in London, where on Thursday we will speak at a forum entitled “Extradited to a Future of Torture: The Reality of Solitary Confinement in America.” Hosted by the International State Crimes Initiative (ISCI) at Kings College London, the event features the premiere of a film made by the Yale Visual Law Project, The Worst of the Worst, about Northern Correctional Institution, Connecticut’s supermax prison. It will also include talks by Tessa Murphy of Amnesty International and Hamja Ahsan, the brother of Talha Ahsan, a young British national who is currently being held in pre-trial solitary confinement at Northern.

Talha Ahsan is one of five UK residents extradited last year to the United States to face terrorism-related charges. The story of their extraditions was not big news in the United States (though we covered it on Solitary Watch, here, here, and here). In the UK, however, it was a huge and controversial story involving inside British politics and the European Court of Human Rights. The story of the extraditions–and particularly, of Talha Ahsan, who suffers from Asberger’s Syndrome and is accused under vague “material support” charges of participating in a jihadist website–is told in dramatic detail by the ISCI’s Ian Patel in a recent New Statesman article, “The Impossible Injustice of Talha Ahsan’s Extradition and Detention,” which deserves to be read in full.

Talha Ahsan is a poet who has continued to write throughout his imprisonment. The following poem was composed while he was being held in (comparatively unrestrictive) detention in Her Majesty’s Prison Long Lartin. It refers to ADX Florence federal supermax prison in Colorado, which is where Ahsan, with good reason, fears he will end up.

. . . . . . . . . .

Five years ago they brought me to a cell

and ever since a waiting game plays here.

As they decide on sending me away,

my parents grow so grey and sad at home.

How will they manage visiting me there

or must they wait until the end of time?

 

Ma, hear my oath, by him whose hand is time,

bars stand in worship with me in this cell.

So even if I’m extradited there

and taken from my humble parents here,

then tell them paradise is our true home

whose gardens years will never fade away.

 

To Florence prison I’ll be sent away

It doesn’t matter what will be my time.

No prison ever can be called my home,

how ever long they put me in a cell.

A higher power occupies me here

who’s closer to me even over there.

 

Perhaps they’ll clean their hands of me once there.

And then my country feels I’m wiped away.

Though germs stay always floating from me here:

these particles will gather born in time,

a culture breeding from a tiny cell,

to carry on infecting every home.

 

Theresa May, a minister at home

though feeble servant to her masters there;

a solitary torture chamber cell,

To put me in, she’ll simply say, ‘Away!’

So let me while I can devote my time

to work for my own justice over here.

 

I pitch a tent for battle waiting here.

And in this heart of mine you’ll find a home,

free from the crumbling effects of time

or any rotting thoughts of being there.

It is a sin for me to run away

As patience brings my glory to this cell.

 

For time will be a brief sojourning here,

and there, or anywhere I make a home -

Away! A caravan escapes my cell.

 

–HMP Long Lartin, 19 July 2011

 

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, Connecticut, federal prisons, human rights, international, international agreements, media, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, terrorism cases, Voices from Solitary Tagged With: , , , , ,

At U.N. Prisoners’ Rights Meeting, U.S. Resists Limits on Solitary Confinement

December 18, 2012 By 4 Comments

un flagDavid Fathi, who directs the ACLU’s National Prison Project and its Stop Solitary initiative, has been reporting from the U.N. Intergovernmental Expert Group Meeting on revising the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (SMR), held last week in Buenos Aires. Fathi reported that the United States delegation proposed some “concrete and positive changes to the SMR”–but fell far short when it came to limiting solitary confinement.

Unfortunately, the U.S. continues to defend the use of long-term solitary confinement.  Several governments and NGOs endorsed a 15- or 30-day limit on solitary confinement, as well as an absolute ban on solitary for vulnerable groups like juveniles, pregnant women, and persons with mental illness.  The U.S. delegation rejected all of these proposals.  To be fair, the U.S. was not the only government resisting meaningful restrictions on solitary confinement, and the U.S. proposal did contain some positive elements, such as a provision that visiting shall not be restricted for prisoners in solitary absent security justifications.  But it’s notable that the Chinese government endorsed without hesitation a 15-day limit to the use of solitary confinement.

In addition, Fathi reports today, the U.S. seems to have pulled a fast one at the last minute. “[A]s the meeting was drawing to a close,” he writes, ”the U.S. suddenly insisted that the Draft Report be amended to state that none of the recommendations hammered out over the previous three days had actually been agreed to. Instead, the Draft Report now says only that ‘[t]he Expert Group identified for consideration the following issues and Rules for the revision of the Standard Minimum Rules’ (emphasis added).”

A related post, published on the ACLU Blog of Rights to mark the 64th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, discusses “The Human Rights Implications of Solitary Confinement in the United States.” The U.S. “was a leader in developing the declaration, but has fallen behind in translating it into domestic laws and policies,” the piece argues. “For example, when it comes to the punishment of criminals and the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty, the U.S. is an outlier, continuing to use practices that have become increasingly rare as the world moves towards compliance with human-rights norms”–including widespread and prolonged solitary confinement.

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, human rights, international, international agreements, solitary confinement Tagged With: , , , , ,

Kids in Solitary Confinement: America’s Official Child Abuse

October 11, 2012 By 16 Comments

The title of this post is the title of our most recent piece for The Guardian. It draws on a new report released yesterday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, titled Growing Up Locked Down: Youth in Solitary Confinement in Jails and Prisons Across the United States. The report is a shocking and powerful document, and should not be missed. Our piece on it follows.

Molly J said of her time in solitary confinement: “[I felt] doomed, like I was being banished … Like you have the plague or that you are the worst thing on earth. Like you are set apart [from] everything else. I guess [I wanted to] feel like I was part of the human race – not like some animal.”

Molly was just 16 years old when she was placed in isolation in an adult jail in Michigan. She described her cell as “a box”: “There was a bed – the slab. It was concrete … There was a stainless steel toilet/sink combo … The door was solid, without a food slot or window … There was no window at all.”

Molly remained in solitary for several months, locked down alone in her cell for at least 22 hours a day.

No other nation in the developed world routinely tortures its children in this manner. And torture is indeed the word brought to mind by a shocking report released today by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. Growing Up Locked Down documents, for the first time, the widespread use of solitary confinement on youth under the age of 18 in prisons and jails across the country, and the deep and permanent harm it causes to kids caught up in the adult criminal justice system.

Ian Kysel, author of the 141-page report, interviewed or corresponded with more than 125 young people who had spent time in solitary as children in 19 states. To cope with endless hours of extreme isolation, sensory deprivation and crippling loneliness, Kysel learned that some children made up imaginary friends or played games in their heads. Some hid under the covers and tried to sleep as much as possible, while others found they could not sleep at all.

“Being in isolation to me felt like I was on an island all alone dying a slow death from the inside out,” a California teen wrote in a letter to Human Rights Watch.

One young woman, who spent three months in solitary in Florida when she was 15, described becoming a “cutter” while in isolation: “I like to take staples and carve letters and stuff in my arm … Each letter means something to me. It is something I had lost.” She started by carving into her arm the first letter of her mother’s name. Another girl who cut herself in solitary said, “because it was the only release of my pain.”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Eighth Amendment, featured posts, human rights, international agreements, juveniles, psychological effects, sexual assault, solitary confinement, suicide Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Voices from Solitary: Can’t You Hear Us?

July 14, 2012 By 2 Comments

The following is an excerpt from testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Human Rights, and Civil Rights by Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit inmate Gabriel Huerta. He has been in isolation since November 1986; like most in the SHU, he was validated as a gang member on questionable evidence of gang activity. He writes about the latest basis for his renewed SHU term, the need for social contact, and argues that long-term solitary confinement constitutes an act of torture. The rest of his testimony can be read here.–Sal Rodriguez

Many people may not know what it’s like to be isolated for so long, the way that we’ve been here, and I would say that it’s like being locked in the trunk of a car with just enough weather stripping removed so you can breathe, and with enough food and water stuffed in every day so that you can physically survive. You’re soon going to realize what it actually means when it’s said that we’re social beings. You’re going to crave social interaction and human contact. Soon you’ll be hollering out there, “anyone” you can at least talk to for even a brief time. Just like that Pink Floyd song says, “Hey you out there beyond the walls, can you hear me?” And yet every time you talk, every time you act like a human being and interact with other human beings, you’re told that that’s gang activity and you have to stay another 6 years now before your next review.

A book was found in my cell on 12/8/08, that my neighbor had let me read. It had his name and number on the book cover. This same neighbor also shared with me some pages from a Readers Digest that someone had sent him–the jokes section. These pages also had his name and number on them. It was concluded by staff that, “A friendship with a validated gang member proved through this lending and borrowing personal property solidifies the association with the gang itself.” My next review will bow be 2014.

Now let me ay this, there are many of thus who can endure this and much more–to the very end. But you know what? It doesn’t make the is existence any less “sorry.” It’s a sorry existence no matter how well you can endure it. I myself can, if I let myself, get lost in my own little world within the trunk of this car, reading my books and drinking my little pulque. I myself can, if I let myself, become “comfortably numb.” But that’s sorry, and so I’ve got to struggle in whatever way that I can. [Read more...]

Filed Under: California, human rights, international agreements, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, torture, Voices from Solitary Tagged With: , , , ,

Children Spend Months in Solitary Confinement in Texas Jails

May 10, 2012 By 8 Comments

A new report produced by researchers at the University of Texas’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs describes conditions faced by children who are “certified” for transfer to adult criminal justice system. Many of these juveniles are housed in adult jails in Texas while they await trial. The report finds that the majority of youth placed in adult jails are housed in solitary confinement, most with just one hour of out-of-cell time per day. While they are placed in isolation for their own protection, they live in conditions that mirror punitive segregation, and often remain there for months or even years.

“When making housing decisions,” the report states, ”jails are forced to choose between protecting the mental health or physical safety of a juvenile.” If they are placed among adult prisoners, they are at high risk of physical and sexual assault. If they are instead placed in solitary, it is their mental health that’s most at risk–and the damage may be permanent.

The report, titled Conditions for Certified Juveniles in Texas County Jails, surveyed 41 jails, which in the course of 2010 housed well over a hundred juveniles who had been accused of a crime, but not yet convicted. ”Given the broad range of physical risks to youth who are commingled with adult offenders,” the report found, ”the majority of jails surveyed chose to house juveniles in isolation cells. Although these jails are making efforts to protect the physical safety of the juveniles in their custody, this isolation has its own risks.”

It can have a detrimental impact on the juvenile’s mental health, aggravating existing mental illness and augmenting suicidal ideation. Segregation may hurt adolescents’ chance for proper socialization and damage their ability to develop a healthy adult identity. This reduction in socialization and impairment to identity formation may limit the possibility for future mental health recovery.

Even short periods of isolation can produce symptoms of paranoia, anxiety, and depression. In fact, “even a few days of solitary confinement will predictably shift the electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern toward an abnormal pattern characteristic of stupor and delirium.” The harm caused by isolation does not end at release; prolonged or permanent psychiatric disability may occur, including impairments that seriously reduce the inmate’s capacity to reintegrate into the broader community upon release from detention. Amnesty International has condemned the practice of placing youths in isolation, finding that it both violates international law and is particularly damaging to “children and adolescents, who are not yet fully developed physically and emotionally and are less equipped to tolerate the effects of isolation.”

 It is worth noting that certified youth in county jails have not been convicted of any crime, and are merely awaiting hearings or trials on their charges. They must be presumed innocent. Some of these youth will have their cases dismissed; some will be given probation; and others will be given time-served or short sentences. Despite the speed with which these youth may re-enter the community, the effects of detention may be severe. For example, the impact of prolonged isolation may have mental health consequences that will make it difficult for these youth to reintegrate, and may increase the likelihood that they will recidivate…

National research indicates that juveniles held in adult jails have by far the highest suicide rate of any age group in adult jails. Additionally, national data shows that juveniles in adult facilities are 36 times more likely to commit suicide than their counterparts in a juvenile detention facility. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that for every suicide committed by young adults (not specifically incarcerated youths) between the ages of 15 and 24, there were between 100- 200 attempts. This is significant, as the likelihood a youth will harm himself or herself in adult jail is exponentially increased from the already heightened suicide rates for juveniles in adult facilities. Given the significantly increased risk of suicide, self-harm, and aggravation of mental health issues, the choice to separate juveniles from adults only trades physical safety for mental health risks…

There is no good option for the jail administrators who are confronting this challenge. In contrast, juvenile detention centers do not have to make this choice between a youth’s physical safety and mental health, because they have the capacity to house youth with other youth.

For personal stories of children in solitary in adult jails in Texas, see the award winning article “For Their Own Good,” which appeared in the Houston Press in 2010.

Filed Under: international agreements, juveniles, physical effects, psychological effects, sexual assault, solitary confinement, Texas Tagged With: , , ,

European Human Rights Court Rules Terror Suspects Can Be Extradited to a Lifetime of U.S. Supermax Confinement

April 11, 2012 By 9 Comments

The European Court of Human Rights ruled yesterday that Britain can extradite five men to the United States to face terrorism charges. In the likely event that they are convicted, they face life sentences in solitary confinment in the notorious ADX Florence, the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”

The AP is calling the high-profile case “a European referendum on whether conditions at Colorado’s Supermax federal prison amounted to torture.” In agreeing to extradite the suspects, the court is saying that life in solitary at ADX would not violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

We will be writing more on this case in the coming days. In the meantime, readers are encouraged to consider two documents, and judge for themselves.

The first document consists of the evidence presented on behalf of the prisoners in question, as summarized by the court, which reads like a rudown of arguments against long-term solitary confinement in general, and ADX in particular.

The second is Susan Greene’s searing report on solitary confinement, “The Gray Box,” which focuses largely on ADX and includes the most powerful evidence of all–the testimony of the men who live there.

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, human rights, international agreements, life without parole, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, terrorism cases, torture Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

California Prisoners in Solitary Confinement Petition the UN to Intervene

March 21, 2012 By 7 Comments

Comparing their conditions to a “living coffin,” a group of lawyers for hundreds of California prisoners placed in long-term or indefinite solitary confinement petitioned the United Nations yesterday to intervene on their behalf.

The petition, drawn up by the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, names 22 main inmate petitioners and refers to hundreds more held in 23-hour-a-day lockdown in California’s Security Housing Units (SHUs) and Administrative Segregation Units (ASUs). The prisoners have been joined in their petition by a coalition of state and national advocacy groups.

These petitioners accuse California’s prisons of subjecting inmates in its  to “cruel, degrading and extreme punishment prohibited by international human rights norms and obligations of the United States of America, including the State of California.” It describes their conditions as follows:

[N]ot only do California prisoners face cruel and dehumanzing long-term and indefinite confinement in small concrete cells with no windows, no natural light, and no furniture, they also endure frequent episodes of cruelty by guards, inadequate medical care, entirely inadequate mental health services, inadequate access to the outdoors and sunshine, inadequate food, inadequate access to legal counsel, inadequate visitation with friends and family and no opportunities to work or engage in productive activities of any type. They are effectively locked in a concrete small space that becomes a “living coffin” in which many have been confined for many year, even decades.

The prisoners in question, the petition asserts, “are being detained in isolated segregated units for indefinite periods or determinate periods of many years solely because they have been identified as members of gangs or found to have associated with a gang. The policy that has resulted in their prolonged detention does not require that they have actually engaged in any misconduct of illegal activity, or that they even planned to” do so.

The petition calls upon the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to take a number of actions in response, including conducting site visits to California’s SHUs to investigate conditions and interview prisoners. It also suggests visits by the Red Cross and by an independent panel that would review inmates’ medical records and medical care. It wants the UN to issue a report holding that solitary confinement as practiced in California’s SHUs violates international law, and then “call upon the Government of the United States to insure that California terminates its policy of placing prisoners in isolated segregation for periods of several years merely based upon their alleged membership in or association with a gang.”

Describing the genesis of the petition, prisoner advocate Kendra Castaneda writes in the San Francisco Bay View: “After the first Pelican Bay State Prison SHU statewide hunger strike in July 2011, Peter Schey, president and executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, reached out to men being held in isolation in solitary confinement units across the state.” The group secured  the collaboration of ”22 main plaintiffs of different races at different California prisons, ranging from one year in segregation up to 39 years in complete isolation based solely on a process of prison gang ‘validation’ by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.”

The petition itself is a notable document for anyone concerned with solitary confinement in the United States. It runs to 63 pages and includes case studies of each of the named plaintiffs, along with extensive discussion and documentation of how their confinement violates both U.S. and international law.

Filed Under: California, civil liberties/civil rights, due process, Eighth Amendment, human rights, international agreements, physical effects, prison health care, psychological effects, race, retaliation, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

New Resource: Solitary Confinement FAQ

March 19, 2012 By 2 Comments

Our amazing intern/reporter/researcher Sal Rodriguez, author of several fact sheets and articles on this site, has produced a new resource: Frequently Asked Questions on Solitary Confinement. Questions include:

What is solitary confinement?

How many people are held in solitary confinement?

Who gets put in solitary confinement?

What are conditions like in solitary confinement?

How long do people spend in solitary confinement?

What are the psychological effects of solitary confinement?

Are people with mental illnesses put in solitary confinement?

Are juveniles held in solitary confinement?

What effect does solitary confinement have on recidivism?

How much does solitary confinement cost?

How have the courts ruled on solitary confinement?

What are the alternatives to solitary confinement?

How do other countries use solitary confinement?

What do international bodies say about solitary confinement?

This comprehensive source of information has a permanent home at the FAQ page link above. To download the FAQ as a printable Word document, scroll down to link at the bottom–or just click here: Solitary Confinement FAQ

The FAQ is meant to be a community resource, collecting the most relevant data on various aspect of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails. Please send suggestions for changes and additions to solitarywatchnews@gmail.com.

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, Constitution, cost/budget issues, due process, Eighth Amendment, federal prisons, gender/sexual orientation, human rights, international, international agreements, juveniles, mental illness, psychological effects, solitary confinement, suicide, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , ,

UN Human Rights Council Considers Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons

March 5, 2012 By 4 Comments

This account, from the American Civil Liberties Union’s ”Blog of Rights,” includes a link to the ACLU’s full statement to the UN on solitary confinement in the United States, as well as to the report by UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez.

The ACLU’s Amy Fettig appeared before the U.N. Human Rights Council today to condemn the use of solitary confinement in the United States, following a written statement we submitted last month urging the Council to address this widespread violation of human rights. Also appearing today was Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, who has said before that solitary confinement can amount to torture and today called for a review and reduction of the use of solitary confinement as a matter of human rights. Mendez has also called on the United States to allow him to visit to investigate the use solitary confinement in U.S. supermax prisons; the U.S. has yet to respond.

The U.S. is unique among nations in its use of solitary confinement as an integral and regular component of its treatment of prisoners. Though there are no official numbers, a conservative estimate is that about 80,000 human beings are locked alonefor 22 hours or more each day in small, often windowless cells, isolated from any human contact (with the exception of very limited contact with prison staff), with no access to classes, job training, drug treatment, work or any other kind of rehabilitative programming.  The mentally ill, disproportionately represented in solitary confinement, often become even more desperately ill, sometimes engaging in self-mutilation or even suicide. Even some healthy prisoners begin to exhibit symptoms of mental illness after a short time in solitary. Thousands of youth are also locked away in this manner each day, in both adult and juvenile facilities.

The use of solitary confinement in the U.S. is an urgent and pervasive problem deserving of the world stage and worldwide condemnation. The U.S. should implement the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur, but greater global attention and action will be needed to ensure this nation’s use of solitary confinement is consistent with international human rights standards.

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, human rights, international, international agreements, juveniles, mental illness, psychological effects, solitary confinement, torture Tagged With: , ,

National and International Events Challenging Use of Solitary Confinement

March 1, 2012 By 2 Comments

Following is information on two important upcoming events that examine and challenge the practice of solitary confinement, both in the United States and internationally.

The first will take place in New York on Thursday evening, and is sponsored by the Human Rights Committee of the New York City Bar Association:

“SUPERMAX” CONFINEMENT IN U.S. PRISONS:

A NECESSARY PRACTICE OR TORTURE?

March 1, 2012

6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

The Association of the Bar

of the City of New York

42 West 44th Street

  SPEAKERS:

 Juan E. Mendez

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture

 Martin Horn

John Jay College of Criminal Justice

 Michael Mushlin

Pace University Law School

 Moderator: David Stoelting

Committee on International Human Rights

 Sponsored by the Committee on International Human Rights, Stephen L. Kass, Chair

This program will examine whether the widespread use of extended solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, affecting tens of thousands of federal prisoners, is a necessary administrative measure or whether, despite the absence of physical abuse, “supermax” detention amounts to torture or other human rights violations and, if so, what changes should be made in current U.S. practices.

This program is free to members of the bar and the public.  Advance registration is suggested, but not required, at http://www.abcny.org/

The second event, the first of its kind on this subject, will be held next Tuesday at the 19th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland:

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AND ITS HUMAN RIGHTS IMPLICATIONS

Tuesday, 6 March 2012

11.00 – 13.00

Room XXIV, Palais des Nations

Every day tens of thousands of prisoners and detainees are held in solitary confinement worldwide. Usually in isolation for at least 22 hours a day and denied all meaningful human contact, these prisoners and detainees are frequently held for months, years, and sometimes decades. They are held in conditions that the Special Rapporteur on Torture has found can amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and even torture. In a global study of the practice published last year at the General Assembly and in his statement to the 19th session of the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur called on all countries to ban solitary confinement except in very exceptional circumstances and for minimal time periods. This briefing will examine the detrimental impacts of solitary confinement, the research that finds it to be a human rights violation, and the disproportionate impact of its use on mentally disabled persons and youth. The briefing will also offer concrete recommendations for future action to increase protections and effective safeguards from abusive and prolonged solitary confinement.

Prof. Juan Mendez, Special Rapporteur on Torture

The global practice of solitary confinement

PANELISTS:

Amy Fettig, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

The practice of solitary confinement in the United States

Dr. Sharon Shalev, University of Oxford & International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS)

European practices of solitary confinement and its use during pre-trial detention

Dorottya Karsay, Mental Disability Advocacy Center (MDAC)

Persons with disabilities in solitary confinement

Justice Renate Winter, Appeals Chamber of the Special Court of Sierra Leone

Juveniles in solitary confinement

Andrea Huber, Penal Reform International (PRI)

Solitary confinement of death row inmates/ lifers and the lack of international

safeguards against solitary confinement

Moderator: Jamil Dakwar, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, corrections industry, death row, Eighth Amendment, human rights, international, international agreements, juveniles, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , , , ,
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