The Solitary Connection: Was Clements Suspect Affected by Years in Prison Isolation?

March 28, 2013 By 3 Comments
Colorado State Penitentiary. Photo: National Geographic

Colorado State Penitentiary. Photo: National Geographic

Solitary confinement may be at the heart of a tragic irony in the death of Tom Clements. The reform-minded Colorado prisons chief had expressed concern about the dangerous damage caused by prolonged prison isolation, and the risks of releasing prisoners directly from solitary onto the streets. Now, emerging evidence suggests that the main suspect in Clements’ murder, who was released from solitary confinement just two months earlier, may have suffered from precisely that kind of damage.

Evan Spencer Ebel was killed in a shootout with Texas police last Thursday, two days after Clements was shot to death on the doorstep of his Colorado Springs home. Prior to his release from prison on January 28, Ebel had served eight years for several armed robberies. Most of that time was spent in extreme isolation, locked down 23 hours a day in a small cell.

Ebel’s prison records, obtained by the Associated Press, show that he was placed in solitary because of ”28 different violations he racked up during his time behind bars.” According to the AP, “He was disciplined for smearing feces on his cell wall, punching a fellow inmate and punching a guard in 2006. Prison documents say Ebel also threatened to kill that guard and their family. That attack earned him another felony conviction.”

As early as a year ago, Evan Ebel’s father, Jack Ebel, testified before a committee of the Colorado State Legislature that after years in solitary, his son had trouble communicating during visits. ”Even though he’s well-read and he’s a good conversationalist and gentle  — he started out that way, what I’ve seen over six years is he has become increasingly … he has a high level of paranoia and [is] extremely anxious. So when he gets out to visit me, and he gets out of his cell to talk to me, I mean he is so agitated that it will take an hour to an hour-and-half before we can actually talk,” Jack Ebel told legislators. He was speaking in favor of a bill that would have more closely monitored the mental health of individuals in solitary, and required that they spend some time in the general population before their release from prison.  (The bill was voted down.)

The idea that Ebel’s alleged violent acts were triggered in part by his years of solitary confinement (and perhaps not, as earlier suspected, by his association with a white power prison gang) was bolstered earlier this week by evidence obtained by reporter Susan Greene. In an article in the Colorado Independent, Greene writes:

In the weeks before his death, Evan Ebel, suspected killer of Colorado Department of Corrections Director Tom Clements, had broken ties with white supremacist prison gang 211 Crew and was debilitated by the transition from prolonged isolation to social contact, according to a friend and former fellow inmate.

In a series of interviews conducted with The Colorado Independent, parolee Ryan Pettigrew dismissed widespread media speculation that Ebel shot Clements as part of an orchestrated 211 Crew “gang hit.” He said that, over the course of the last few weeks, Ebel was growing increasingly agitated in his adjustment to life outside of prison and beyond the tiny “administrative segregation” cells in which he spent years deprived of regular human contact. “Trust me, this was no gang hit. This was about what was haunting Evan Ebel,” Pettigrew says. “Clements’ name never came up.”

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Colorado, featured posts, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , ,

Fortresses of Solitude: Journalists Barred from Prison Isolation Units

March 5, 2013 By 9 Comments

The following essay by Solitary Watch’s James Ridgeway appears in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, which also includes an excellent story on the difficulties involved in reporting on prisons in general. For more on prison media policies, see our accompanying article by Rachel M. Cohen.

adx-florence-4Supermax prisons and solitary confinement units are our domestic black sites—hidden places where human beings endure unspeakable punishments, without benefit of due process in any court of law. On the say-so of corrections officials, American prisoners can be placed in conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation for months, years, or even decades.

At least 80,000 men, women, and children live in such conditions on any given day in the United States. And they are not merely separated from others for safety reasons. They are effectively buried alive. Most live in concrete cells the size of an average parking space, often windowless, cut off from all communication by solid steel doors. If they are lucky, they will be allowed out for an hour a day to shower or to exercise alone in cages resembling dog runs.

Most have never committed a violent act in prison. They are locked down because they’ve been classified as “high risk,” or because of nonviolent misbehavior—anything from mouthing off or testing positive for marijuana to exhibiting the symptoms of untreated mental illness.

A recent lawsuit filed on behalf of prisoners in adx, the federal supermax in Florence, CO, described how humans respond to such isolation over the long-term. Some “interminably wail, scream, and bang on the walls of their cells” or carry on “delusional conversations with voices they hear in their heads.” Some “mutilate their bodies with razors, shards of glass, sharpened chicken bones, and writing utensils” or “swallow razor blades, nail clippers, parts of radios and televisions, broken glass, and other dangerous objects.” Still others “spread feces and other human waste and body fluids throughout their cells [and] throw it at the correctional staff.” While less than 5 percent of US prisoners nationwide are held in solitary, close to 50 percent of all prison suicides take place there.

After three years of reporting on solitary confinement for Solitary Watch, a website I co-founded, I’m convinced that much of what happens in these places constitutes torture. How is it possible that a human-rights crisis of this magnitude can carry on year after year, with impunity?

I believe part of the answer has to do with how effectively the nature of these sites have been hidden from the press and, by extension, the public. With few exceptions, solitary confinement cells have been kept firmly off-limits to journalists—with the approval of the federal courts, who defer to corrections officials’ purported need to maintain “safety and security.” If the First Amendment ever manages to make it past the prison gates at all, it is stopped short at the door to the isolation unit.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: California, civil liberties/civil rights, Colorado, Constitution, featured posts, Illinois, Maine, media, New York, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Profile of an ADX Prisoner: “Just Half Crazy And Trying To Hold On To The Other Half”

December 9, 2012 By 10 Comments

J. has been incarcerated for 12 years, the last eight of which have been in solitary confinement. Initially convicted of robbery and sentenced to a five year term as a juvenile, he was returned to prison in Mississippi on a parole violation. He was caught drinking beer at a beach. Admitting that he was “at war with the guards” and engaging in both physical and verbal attacks on guards, he was placed in the infamous Unit 32 at Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman.

In 2007, he killed a death row inmate at Unit 32 and was sent to the United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) facility in Florence, Colorado, where prisoners spend 23-24 hours a day in their cell.

His record at Unit 32 included the stabbing of multiple prison guards. “I admit, I was at war with the guards,” he says. Disrespect, he says prompted the attacks. For these incidents and his frequent verbal berating of guards, he was kept in isolation in the once infamous unit.

One prisoner has described his cell this way,

“The confined space that you are housed in is a 7-by-9 foot sound proof cell that comes with a concrete slab and a thin mattress for a bed, a shower within the cell with a timer to conserve water and prevent flooding, a sink with no taps, just touch buttons…a toilet with a valve that shuts off the water after two flushes automatically for an hour, an immovable concrete desk and concrete stool, a polished steel mirror riveted to the concrete wall and a thirteen inch black and white television encased in plexiglass to prevent tampering.”

J. has spent five years in this bleak environment, except without a television. He has not seen or been able to speak with family for the five years that he has been in the federal supermax.

“We’re poor folk,” he says of his family, “and coming to visit is too expensive…from what I can tell very few people get visits…this place is too far from anyone’s family.”

He is currently looking forward to a visit from his sister next year. “My younger sister has been saving up to come visit me,” he writes.

J. is allowed one hour of exercise in “basically another cell” five days a week. The rest of the time he spends confined in his small cell. He spends his time meditating, reading, and exercising. He says of his self-described “vicious workout routine” as being a consequence of being “just half crazy and trying to hold on to the other half.”

While reading writers such as Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Machiavelli, he spends his time in isolation listening to screaming inmates around him. “The crazies,” he calls them.

The food he receives is “very, very small, just enough to stay hungry.” He writes, “When I first came here they fed really good, the last couple years it’s been dropping off, now it is horribly small. It hurts to be so dependent.”

“Solitary effects a persons mind, you can become anti-social or hate filled and murderously angry,” he writes.

He argues that the death penalty is a more humane punishment than solitary confinement.

He describes the psychological torment of his situation:

I hate living in a cage, handcuffed, chained, no contact with family. It hurts the soul. It is a pain my words do no justice. To be treated as if I’m dangerous and need to be caged and chained hurts. And no matter how long I’ve been in this situation or will be, never makes me prefer it. This whole reality is unnatural, but solitary is above and beyond. Humanity escapes this place. Men lose their minds. This whole scene is ugly. Year after year alone in a cage affects the strongest mind. This why I tell you death is more humane. I’d never take my own life, but I’m not at all in fear of death. This, what I’m living in is torture. Believe that. Words do nothing in explaining the truth of it.

J. is unsure of when he’ll ever be able to get back to general population and be able to interact with others. Sentenced to life in prison, he will likely remain in solitary confinement for many more years to come. He is currently awaiting charges for an incident with another ADX inmate, whom he attacked eight months ago.

Filed Under: Colorado, federal prisons, life without parole, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , ,

Judge Rules Against Colorado Supermax That Keeps Prisoners Indoors for Years

August 30, 2012 By 7 Comments

We’ve written at length about the case of Troy Anderson, a prisoner with mental illness who has spent more than ten years in solitary confinement at the Colorado State Penitentiary. This past April, a Federal District Court in Denver heard a case brought on Anderson behalf by students at the University of Denver Law School’s Civil Rights Clinic. As we wrote, “it was his untreated mental illness that first landed him at CSP, Anderson contends, and now the same symptoms are keeping him there indefinitely. Without proper treatment, he is unable to convince corrections officials that he’s fit for the general prison population. This catch-22, his lawyers say, condemns him to an effective life sentence under conditions that are increasingly being denounced as a form of torture—particularly when applied to mentally ill prisoners.” The suit claimed that Anderson’s treatment violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and its guarantee of due process. Among other things, his lawyers pointed out that it has been more than a decade since Anderson had “felt the sun on his back.”

Westword‘s Alan Prendergast, who has also followed the case closely, reported earlier this week on the judge’s ruling in the case:

In what amounts to a landmark decision, a federal judge has ruled that the conditions of solitary confinement at the Colorado State Penitentiary constitute “a paradigm of inhumane treatment” and must change — notably, so that inmates locked down in their cells 23 hours a day can have at least three hours a week of natural light, fresh air and outdoor exercise. “The Eighth Amendment does not mandate comfortable prisons, but it does forbid inhumane conditions,” U.S. District Judge Brooke Jackson wrote in an order issued last Friday.

CSP has an interior courtyard that could be modified to permit outdoor exercise for inmates, Jackson notes. But since it opened in 1993, the state supermax has permitted its high-security inmates only to exercise in an odd-shaped room on each tier equipped with a chin-up bar; small holes allow some fresh air from outside to reach the room. Calling CSP “out of step with the rest of the nation” — even the notorious federal supermax in Florence allows its inmates outdoor recreation in individual cages — Jackson declared that prison officials must provide its charges with “meaningful exposure” to natural light and air.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, Colorado, Constitution, due process, Eighth Amendment, lawsuits/litigation, mental illness, solitary confinement, supermax prisons

Voices from Solitary: “No Longer a Part of the World”

June 12, 2012 By 7 Comments

The following comes from an inmate currently in Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison, describing the three years he spent at the United State Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado. He describes the facility as exceptional in its ability to overwhelm inmates with the sense that they are no longer a part of society, and the bleak physical nature of the facility. He is currently corresponding with Solitary Watch on the conditions at Red Onion.–Sal Rodriguez

The moment you set your eyes on it it’s a mixed ball of emotions and feelings that hit you, it’s extraordinarily spectacular–the ADX facility. I have seen many prisons/penitentiaries not even Red Onion can compare to the federal supermax, it was built to be a spectacular view of  intimidation from the moment you set your eyes on it. The psychological intimidation starts without even setting one foot into the ADX and the remoteness also adds a touch that you are no longer to be a part of the world the moment you arrive you realize you’ve reached a level of solitary living that is specifically designed to keep you totally separated from human contact–it’s a chilling feeling.

The sensory deprivation starts from the moment you arrive into the intake, the deadly silence adds to the reality that you’re not in a normal prison…what was normal was the humiliating experience of becoming a new inmate. After the intake process I was shackled and box-cuffed and escorted by a number of corrections officers with black batons at hand and ready to beat me down if I made a wrong move.

I was escorted down a series of never ending, lengthy wide and tall hallways that were painted an off white and were at a downhill angle which make your ears pop as you move down them. It’s just another drop added to the emotional and psychological design and purpose of solitary life. I was then housed in the famous D-Unit…The confined space that you are housed in is a 7-by-9 foot sound proof cell that comes with a concrete slab and a thin mattress for a bed, a shower within the cell with a timer to conserve water and prevent flooding, a sink with no taps, just touch buttons…a toilet with a valve that shuts off the water after two flushes automatically for an hour, an immovable concrete desk and concrete stool, a polished steel mirror riveted to the concrete wall and a thirteen inch black and white television encased in plexiglass to prevent tampering.

I have been to many different prisons and none can compare to ADX’s conditions. Of course I’m not taking away the fact that the animalistic treatment isn’t the same when it comes down to the beatings, torture, and psychological abuses…These places are designed to drive you crazy, you can feel the madness closing in on you. You can feel it eating away at you and there is nothing you can do to stop it…you can slow it down by writing and reading but that’s all it does, slow down the process of mental madness.

Filed Under: Colorado, federal prisons, psychological effects, supermax prisons, Voices from Solitary Tagged With: , , , , ,

Federal Judge Criticizes Supermax Confinement in Colorado

May 8, 2012 By 4 Comments

Last week we wrote about a trial beginning in Federal District Court in Denver, in which Troy Anderson, a prisoner with mental illness, is challenging his twelve years of solitary confinement at the Colorado State Penitentiary. The lawsuit, filed by student lawyers at the University of Denver Law School’s Civil Right Clinic, could have broad significance because it argues that the long-term isolation of mentally ill prisoners as it is practiced at CSP violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, as well as the Constitution’s guarantee of due process and its ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The always excellent Alan Prendergast, who writes for Denver’s Westword and has been following Troy Anderson and his lawsuit for years, is covering the trial, and yesterday provided a detailed report on what seems to shaping up as a promising case for the plaintiffs–and for all opponents of long-term solitary.

After nearly five days of testimony in a lawsuit brought by Troy Anderson, a prisoner who’s been in solitary confinement for twelve years, a Denver federal judge was strongly urging Colorado Department of Corrections officials to fix the harshest conditions at the state’s supermax prison — before he has to do it for them. “It shouldn’t take a federal judge to write an opinion and embarrass the department in the public eye to get this accomplished,” U.S. District Brooke Jackson said.

Jackson’s remarks, suggesting that there might have to be some drastic changes in the way the Colorado State Penitentiary operates, came midway through testimony in the case brought by Anderson, a state inmate serving what amounts to a life sentence for charges from two shootouts with police in the late 1990s. Anderson, who’s been diagnosed with mental illnesses ranging from ADHD to “intermittent explosive disorder,” has been confined at CSP since 2000 — deprived of direct sunlight or outdoor recreation, books (he’s allowed two a year), and, he claims, the medications that might actually help him control his behavior, reduce his sentence and get him placed back int the general prison population…

Anderson’s attorneys contend that the supermax fails to provide adequate treatment for mentally ill inmates — who, deprived of medication, exercise and socialization, deteriorate in solitary confinement. Inmates can also receive negative write-ups, or “chrons,” from guards that help keep them in segregation, even though they have no opportunity to contest the information.

The article–which needs to be read in full–reports on testimony by other CSP prisoners–delivered remotely by video–and by former CSP warden Susan Jones, who insisted that Anderson was where he belonged, .

Breaking into an unusual colloquy with Jones when she was on the stand, Jackson said he was troubled by the lack of meaningful administrative review and the absence of due process in the use of negative “chrons” to keep inmates in solitary for years. “It doesn’t seem fair to me,” he declared. And some of the other conditions described by inmates, if true, were clearly “inhumane” in his view.

The trial is expected to end next week, but it may be several weeks before the judge hands down his ruling. You can follow Alan Prendergast’s reporting here.

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, Colorado, Constitution, due process, Eighth Amendment, lawsuits/litigation, mental illness, prison health care, psychological effects, solitary confinement, suicide, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , , ,

Solitary Confinement on Trial in Colorado

April 30, 2012 By 2 Comments

Our latest piece over at Mother Jones concerns an important trial beginning today in Federal District Court in Denver, in which a prisoner with mental illness is challenging more than a decade in solitary confinement in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Also included is background on the groundbreaking work of the University of Denver’s Civil Rights Clinic; on the use of solitary confinement to warehouse the mentally ill; and on recent challenges to solitary in the state of Colorado. What follows is the beginning of the article; you can read the full piece on MotherJones.com.

Troy Anderson lives in Cañon City, a high desert town in a dramatic setting at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. But for more than a decade he has neither seen those mountains nor felt the sun on his skin. He spends 23 hours out of each day confined to an 8 x 12 isolation cell at the Colorado State Penitentiary (CSP)—one of the state’s supermax prisons—and the remaining hour in a bare exercise room. Well over half of his 42 years have been spent behind bars, most of them in what prison authorities euphemistically call “administrative segregation.” In practice, this means Anderson will remain in solitary confinement until prison officials feel it’s time to let him out.

Anderson has been in and out of jail since he was a juvenile on account of his erratic and sometimes violent behavior. In 2000, he was sentenced to 75 years for myriad charges stemming from two incidents in which he shot at police, the second time in an attempt to escape custody. Offenses committed in prison have landed him in “ad seg” at CSP. (His last disciplinary infraction was in 2005, when he was written up for somehow managing to get envelopes to another prisoner.)

But there’s more to the story. Anderson, like hundreds of other prisoners confined in isolation in Colorado—and thousands held in solitary across the nation—is seriously mentally ill. His diagnoses include bipolar disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, cognitive disorders, and a seizure disorder. He has attempted suicide many times, starting at age 10. He is seen periodically by prison psychiatrists, all of whom seem to concur that he needs therapy and medication. At CSP, however, his treatment has consisted of a fiasco of intermittent and inappropriate meds and scant therapy, typically conducted through a slot in his solid steel cell door.

Yet unlike most of those other prisoners languishing in solitary, Anderson is about to get his day in federal court. Beginning today, in a trial that could have broad implications for how states handle inmates with mental illness, Anderson’s lawyers will argue before the District Court in Denver that their client’s predicament violates his civil rights, under both the Constitution and federal law.

It was his untreated mental illness that first landed him at CSP, Anderson contends, and now the same symptoms are keeping him there indefinitely. Without proper treatment, he is unable to convince corrections officials that he’s fit for the general prison population. This Catch-22, his lawyers say, condemns him to an effective life sentence under conditions that are increasingly being denounced as a form of torture—particularly when applied to mentally ill prisoners.

Read the rest here.

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, Colorado, Constitution, cost/budget issues, due process, Eighth Amendment, featured posts, lawsuits/litigation, legislation, mental illness, prison health care, psychological effects, solitary confinement, suicide, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How Many Prisoners Are in Solitary Confinement in the United States?

February 1, 2012 By 11 Comments

The number of inmates held in solitary confinement in the United States has been notoriously difficult to determine. Most states do not publish the relevant data, and many do not even collect it. Attempts to come up with a figure have been denounced as imperfect, based on state-by-state variances and shortcomings in data-gathering and in conceptions of what constitutes solitary confinement.

A widely accepted 2005 study found that some 25,000 prisoners were being held in supermax prisons around the country. And in the last year, that figure seems to dominate in the mainstream press. The Washington Post, in a recent front-page article on solitary confinement in Virginia, noted that “44 states…use solitary confinement,” and cited an “estimated 25,000 people in solitary in the nation’s state and federal prisons.” The problem here is that the 25,000 figure (as well as the 44) applies to supermax prisons only. It does not claim to account for the tens of thousands of additional prisoners held in the Secure Housing Units, Restricted Housing Units, Special Management Units and other isolation cells in prisons and jails around the country. Yet it is being cited as a total for the nation’s overall use of solitary confinement.

An alternative figure does, however, exist–and while it may not be perfect, we believe it more accurately reflects the total number of prisoners held in isolated confinement on any given day. A census of state and federal prisoners is conducted every five years by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. The most recent census for which data are available is 2005. It found 81,622 inmates were being held in “restricted housing.” This number was recently cited by the Vera Institute of Justice‘s Segregation Reduction Project. The 80,000 figure has also been used by National Geographic and The New Yorker, among others.

An earlier version of this number, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’s 2000 census, was cited by the widely respected Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, convened by Vera. The Commission further broke the figure down to show types of ”restricted housing.” In 2000, the BJS found 80,870 inmates in some form of segregation, including 36,499 in administrative segregation, 33,586 in disciplinary segregation, and 10,765 in protective custody. The Commission noted that the 2000 figures represented a 40 percent increase over 1995, when 57,591 inmates were in segregation. During the same period of time, the overall prison population grew by 28 percent. (See page 56 of the Commission’s 2006 report, Confronting Confinement).

The census uses the term “restricted housing,” which clearly includes segregation units outside of supermax prisons. Since it captures where prisoners are housed on a given day (June 30, 2005), it is meant to include both long-term or indefinite isolation (years or decades) as well as shorter stints in solitary (weeks or months). It may include a small number of prisoners who are held in 23-hour lockdown in double cells, a practice popular in some states. (For this reason, some advocates prefer the term “isolated confinement” to “solitary confinement”). The number  is based on self-reporting by wardens and state corrections departments, so it may reflect some errors and inconsistencies. But prison officials are not, as a rule, known for their tendency to overrreport the number of inmates they hold in solitary.

It is also worth noting that the census figures do not include prisoners in solitary confinement in juvenile facilities, immigrant detention centers, or local jails; if they did they would certainly be higher. We know that New York’s jails alone contain 990 isolation cells, according to the New York City Department of Corrections.

A survey of available data from a handful of states also suggest that the 80,000 figure is likely low, rather than high. Just eight states and the federal government hold some 44,000 prisoners in isolated confinement.

  • In 2010, a spokesperson for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons told CNN that there were about 11,150 federal inmates being held in “special housing.” ADX Florence holds approximately 400 of these inmates in ultra-isolation.
  • In California in 2011, Scott Kernan, Undersecretary of Operations of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, testified before the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee that approximately 3,000 inmates were held in California’s Security Housing Units, including over 1,100 at the Pelican Bay State Prison SHU alone. A 2009 report from California’s Inspector General found 8,878 inmates in Administrative Segregation Units. This means that, all told, there are close to 11,000 prisoners in solitary confinement in California.
  • As reported by the Houston Chronicle based on figures from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, in 2011 there were over 5,205 inmates in long-term isolation in administrative segregation, and approximately 4,000 more serving shorter terms in solitary for disciplinary violations–for a total of more than 9,000.
  • According to a 2003 report by the Correctional Association, New York state had approximately 5,000 inmates in disciplinary lockdown in 2003.
  • At the end of 2011, Pennyslvania Department of Corrections reported that 2,406 inmates were held in segregation in the state’s Restrictive Housing Units.
  • A 2011 study carried out in Colorado by independent researchers funded by the National Institute of Corrections found that nearly 1,500 inmates, or 7% of the prison population, were in administrative segregation and a further 670 in disciplinary segregation–for a total of more than 2,100.
  • In Virginia, according to a 2012 article in the Washington Post, there were 1,800 inmates in solitary confinement, 500 of whom are held at the supermax Red Onion State Prison.
  • A 2007 report by the American Friends Service Committee found 1,623 inmates held in isolation in Arizona’s SHUs.
  • In a 2008 report to the state legislature, the Michigan Department of Corrections said that that the daily average number of inmates held in administrative segregation in FY 2007-08 was 1,294.

In our opinion, the most accurate possible description of how many prisoners are solitary confinement in the United States would go something like this: “Based on available data, there are at least 80,000 prisoners in isolated confinement on any given day in America’s prisons and jails, including some 25,000 in long-term solitary in supermax prisons.”

Research for this article was provided by Sal Rodriguez.

Filed Under: Arizona, California, Colorado, federal prisons, media, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Texas, Virginia Tagged With: , , , , ,

New Fact Sheet: The High Cost of Solitary Confinement

January 31, 2012 By 8 Comments

This new fact sheet collects data from a number of states to show that prisons using solitary confinement on a large scale pay a high price in dollars, as well as in safety and humanity.

FACT SHEET – The High Cost of Solitary Confinement

We hoped to also include data from the federal system, but apparently the federal government does not know how much it is spending to incarcerate prisoners in extreme solitary confinement at its own supermax prison, the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum (ADX) in Florence, Colorado. A Freedom of Information Act request for the annual cost of keeping a prisoner in ADX yielded the following response from the federal Bureau of Prisons:

The BOP does not collect separate or specific data held in Administrative custody or at USP Admin Max Florence. These costs are included in the general per capita costs for the applicable facility. Since the prisons at Florence make up a Federal Correctional Complex [which also has maximum, medium, and minimum security inmates], the operating costs are based on all complex operations, shared services and facility expenses at this site.

Thanks to our brilliant intern Sal Rodriguez for this latest entry in our Fact Sheet series.

Filed Under: California, Colorado, cost/budget issues, Illinois, Ohio, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Texas Tagged With: , ,

“The Gray Box”: Must-Read Article (Plus Video) on Solitary Confinement in America

January 25, 2012 By 11 Comments

The Dart Society, which supports journalism “covering trauma, conflict and human rights,” has published an essential new article and accompanying video on solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. The story, called “The Gray Box,” is by Susan Greene, who as a columnist at the Denver Post often wrote about the widespread use of solitary in Colorado’s prisons and at the federal supermax, ADX Florence.

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.

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, Colorado, cost/budget issues, due process, federal prisons, mental illness, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts