Voices from Solitary: “Suicide Is Preferable to Long-Term Segregation” in Solitary Confinement

March 21, 2013 By 1 Comment
Monroe Correctional Complex. (Photo: Ambia-Inc.com)

Monroe Correctional Complex. (Photo: Ambia-Inc.com)

The following comes from a man currently incarcerated at Washington State’s Monroe Correctional Complex. The Washington State corrections system has been said by local media to use solitary confinement less than other states, with only 2.7 percent of prisoners (or ~400) in long-term solitary confinement. However, Solitary Watch has noted that the figure is actually twice this, when Administrative Segregation (which may last over a month) is taken into consideration. This prisoner, A.P., has reported that “the State’s Dept. of Corrections is expanding solitary confinement models to general population’s long-term lockdowns.” Incarcerated for a decade, he reports spending most of his prison time in solitary confinement, which he says is partly retaliation for his frequent litigation against the Washing Department of Corrections. He has advocated for accurate descriptions of solitary confinement by noting the types of disturbing behaviors that go on in isolation units, “‘Smearing feces on ones self or eating it’… rather than merely saying ‘Conditions are bad.’” -Sal Rodriguez

Out of the past ten years I’ve been incarcerated on two arson charges for burning two cars. I got 24 years for [it] (no one was hurt) while racking up repeated appeals, most of that has been in solitary confinement. I have a college degree and worked professionally for years before this mess came down. I’m now 53-years old; my family won’t communicate with me and most of all, my two sons won’t communicate despite my still never forgetting their birthdays and holidays with cards and such. Prison mail censorship has frustrated communications so much, most people simply give up trying to keep up.

I’ve seen prisoners in solitary degrade quickly and slowly, depending on their psychological strength and grasp on more in life than rap music no meaningful life experiences. Suicide is preferable to long-term segregation (and long prison sentences). Those who don’t kill themselves learn to compress their hatred that grows like cancer while being forced to suppress their true emotions, in a form of Stockholm Syndrome tactics, to survive. This promotes recidivism and violence. A person, like a dog at a kennel, can only be compressed so much before they either explode or implode. Either way, none is good. Prisoners teach deception to survive and force prisoners to become manipulative of DOC policies and staff because the truth and honesty only leads to negative treatment by D.O.C. staff. For example, to get adequate food, one must feint a medical condition requiring more just to get enough.

One can never be open with staff or even prison psychologists (help that hurts) because it is not confidential; is often interpreted and repeated by untrained staff and it is best to simply internalize and put on a fake (happy) front and never reveal any true feelings, or the prisoner will end up longer in solitary; in a strip cell (where they take away all your clothes, bedding, etc, and put you on a dirty, hands only diet) or some other adverse treatment.

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Filed Under: due process, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Voices from Solitary, Washington Tagged With: , , ,

The “Vicious Cycles” Created by Solitary Confinement

February 24, 2013 By 1 Comment

Intensive Management Unit in Washington State Correctional Center

In 1993, Dr. Stuart Grassian, following extensive interviews with men in California’s Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU), reported that extensive periods in solitary confinement lead to what he referred to as a “syndrome” particular to prison isolation units. Anxiety, ruminations, panic attacks, aggression, paranoia, and psychotic symptoms were observed as a consequence of prolonged solitary confinement. Prisoners already presenting problems with impulsivity, aggression, and other problematic mental health and behavioral problems may become far more aggravated in solitary confinement. This contributes to what Dr. Craig Haney has referred to as a vicious cycle in which emotionally troubled individuals placed in solitary become more aggravated and cause more problems, leading to longer or repeated terms in solitary confinement, and thus creates more negative behaviors in the process.

Unsurprisngly, it has also been well-established that inmates in solitary confinement have higher recidivism rates upon release from incarceration. An August 2012 report commissioned by the American Friends Service Committee found that prisoners released from Arizona supermax custody are emotionally and mentally harmed by the experience of solitary. Further, the report found that supermax inmates are  inadequately prepared for release, as they are prohibited from educational and vocational opportunities and are limited in visitation during their incarceration, which contribute to inmates being “deeply traumatized and essentially socially disabled.”

Presented here are profiles of two prisoners, in Washington and Utah, who have written to Solitary Watch about their experiences in isolation.  Both report extended periods in solitary confinement, which they report has had the effect of increasing their hostility against authority and leading to increased feelings of anxiety, respectively. They report receiving no constructive, rehabilitative programming, which they argue only contributes to escalating problems as they neither learn to “become productive” and are left at “rock bottom.”

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Filed Under: psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Utah, Washington Tagged With: , , , , ,

As Washington State Prisons Begin Reforms, 800 Remain in Solitary Confinement

January 16, 2013 By 4 Comments
IMU at Stafford Creek Correctional Center, Credit: TONY OVERMAN

IMU at Stafford Creek Correctional Center, Credit: TONY OVERMAN

On January 7th, the Seattle Times reported that “Washington’s prisons are at the forefront of a new approach to solitary confinement, finding that a new focus on rehabilitation may calm some inmates’ behavior in prison and prevent violence once they are back on the street.” The article reports:

[Washingon] began reconsidering solitary after violent clashes in IMU units at Shelton in the mid-1990s. About 400 of the state’s 17,500 inmates are in such units, which also house death-row prisoners and those in protective custody.

University of Washington professor David Lovell studied solitary confinement in the state under a DOC contract, and found the isolated inmates were most often gang members serving long sentences for violent crimes. Up to 45 percent were mentally ill or had traumatic brain injuries.

And once in solitary, they stayed in — for nearly a year, on average — because prison staff were reluctant to send likely violent inmates back into the general population.

Those who were released often returned, after committing new assaults on corrections officers or other inmates.

Most disturbing, Lovell found a quarter of inmates were released to the streets directly from solitary confinement. Unaccustomed to human contact, they were more prone to quickly commit new violence.

Life in the IMU, or Intensive Management Unit, has been described by one man in a letter to Solitary Watch:

You are not allowed meaningful recreation, just an hour of exercise an empty 15 x 12 cell, no church attendance, real library service or educational programming. All of your personal possessions are denied to you. You will remain in your 7×12 cell for 23 of every 24 hours five days a week. Two days a week you will not come out of your cell at all. You will eat all of your meals within a few feet of your toilet. You will be in handcuffs each and every time your cell door is opened for any reason.

The Seattle Times reports that Clallam Bay Corrections Center’s Intensive Transition Program (ITP) is a four-step, nine-month long process with gradually increasing privileges. Inmates participating in the program are allowed time out of their cells for coursework (while chained to desks) and the gym. As of last week, there were thirty participants in the program.

There are, however, some questions and information missing from the story. Using the Seattle Times numbers, Washington DOC holds approximately 400 inmates in solitary confinement out of 17,500 (or, 2.7%). A July 2012 News Tribune article even concluded that this figure indicates that “Isolating prisoners less common in Washington than most places.” This is slightly less than the 3-5% of inmates the average state prison system has in solitary confinement.

However, the 400 figure only counts inmates in Intensive Management Units. According to Chad Lewis from the Washington Department of Corrections: “Today we have approximately 430 offenders on Administrative Segregation Status.  This includes offenders at all custody classification levels.  The reasons for placement/retention include:  Pending investigation, Pre-hearing confinement, Disciplinary Sanctions, Pending transfer.   Administrative Segregation is a short term assessment process, used to identify the appropriate housing assignment for the offender.  Typical length of stay is less than 47 days, exceptions require approval at the Headquarters level.”

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Filed Under: media, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Washington Tagged With: , , , , ,

Washington Prisoner Subjected to Solitary Confinement for “Involuntary Protection”

July 30, 2012 By 1 Comment

A recent News Tribune article highlighted the relatively limited use of solitary confinement in Washington state. Only 2.7 percent of the state’s 17,800 inmates, or about 400, are currently held at the maximum custody level. According to Washington Department of Corrections policy, those placed in the Intensive Management Unit (IMU) are there for either being disruptive to the institution or for protective custody purposes. In the IMU, inmates are allowed one hour of exercise time  five days a week and three 10-minute showers a week.

The total number held in isolation, however, is unclear. Aside from the 2.7 percent officially held in solitary, those placed in Administrative Segregation units are not counted. Inmates in Ad-Seg may be there for days or months.

D. has been incarcerated for twenty years in Washington State. While Washington state claims to limit it’s use of isolation, D.’s experience has consisted of spending all of 2008, 2010, 9 months of 2011 and several months in 2012 in the IMU and Ad-Seg.

Disturbingly, D. has been repeatedly held in isolation for the purposes of “involuntary protection.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: due process, race, solitary confinement, Washington Tagged With: , , , , ,

Voices from Solitary: Washington Cell Extraction

July 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The following was sent to Solitary Watch from an inmate in Washington. He describes a recent “cell extraction”–the forcible removal of a prisoner from his cell–which he witnessed in a solitary confinement ”Intensive Management Unit.” He discusses the use of cell extractions in relation to the claim by corrections officials that such actions are necessary for the safety of inmates. Readers of this may be reminded of the story of the Dallas 6, who were also subject to brutal cell extractions for protesting by covering their cell windows. –Sal Rodriguez 

During this recent stay I witnessed, (as well as became collateral damage of) a typical IMU practice of “cell-extraction”, the forcible removal of an inmate from his cell. This is always an abusive overkill practice: At least five officers, (including women) in full SWAT riot gear and armed with pepper spray and often shock shields, storming a cell and pepper spraying, beating, electrocuting, stripping and then dragging the inmate off to a cold empty cell for 72 hours without clothing, mattress, or blanket.

The rarely asked question is: why do you ever need to do a cell extraction on an IMU housed inmate? First off, he is already in a cell which only contains the barest of necessities of existence: bedding, a rubber (flex) writing pen, paper and a couple of books; the water for sinks and toilets can be turned off from the outside.

The most common excuse used to frequently abuse men in this way is that the inmate covered their window–”Staff needs to be able to make sure that the inmate is O.K.”

The incident itself was as follows: The guy two cells away from me had full medium custody before being placed in segregation. The infraction that sent him to seg was a 5-point violation. This means that, if found guilt of this major rule violation, he would lose five of his accumulated custody level points. It takes the loss of ten custody points before you can be demoted in your custody level, and unless the infraction involved armed or gang activity violence, you can only be demoted in one custody level at a time. So this guy goes to his hearing and gets told that he is being demoted from full minimum to closed custody; a demotion of three custody levels. After speaking to the unit counselor, unit Sgt. and unit supervisor, and even though he didn’t qualify to be demoted, each one stated they “couldn’t/wouldn’t” do anything about what the hearings officer was recommending. [Read more...]

Filed Under: solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Voices from Solitary, Washington Tagged With: , , , ,

Voices from Solitary: Walla Walla IMU

August 28, 2010 By 3 Comments

Robert Longworth was awarded First Place in memoir in the PEN American Center’s 2010 Prison Writing Contest, for his piece about life in solitary confinement in the  Intensive Management Unit, or IMU, at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

Longworth provides this biography on the PEN website: “I am a forty-five year old state-raised prisoner. And, I will not be silent. Most of the time I have spent at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla, WA—which is also the subject of my essay. Entering the prison with only a 7th-grade education, I taught myself to write by reading books from the prison library. I work as a Spanish language translator.”

The bread is moving. A small piece broken off of what was pushed through the narrow cuffport to me earlier that morning. A horde of tiny red ants have surrounded it, are beneath it, hefting it up on little ant shoulders as they struggle to carry it back to where they live, a crack in the concrete floor a short distance away. Their task appears impossible. But the bread, I know, will soon make it to the crack. It always does.

Why do I do this? My mind searches for an answer as I continue watching the ants, looking down at them from where I sit cross-legged on the cell floor in stinking orange coveralls. Because they’re living beings? In some way like me?

Another question rises in my mind, piqued by the ones before it. “I am still alive, aren’t I?” And as ridiculous as the question seems, it holds my attention because it’s hard for me to be certain of anything in this place anymore. I haven’t spoken in months. What do I actually have to verify that I am still alive? A heartbeat? It strikes me that someone dead may still perceive his heart as beating. Breath? Dead people probably think they’re breathing too.

I look at the heavy steel cell door beside me. That is something—what keeps me sealed inside this concrete box, this IMU cell. If I am no longer alive, would it still do this to me? God, I hope not. I motherfucking hope not. The thought scares me. Deepens despair. Hell, in my mind, not the fiery nether world of Christianity. How can I adopt an abstract when I know something worse, a thousand times more concrete?…

Read the rest here.

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Filed Under: psychological effects, solitary confinement, Voices from Solitary, Washington Tagged With:

Inmate Allegedly Placed in Solitary for Refusing to Bribe Guards

January 22, 2010 By 4 Comments

This story by Adam Lynn, about Washington state’s McNeil Island Correctional Center in Puget Sound, appeared recently in The Olympian. It’s one extreme example of the retaliatory use of solitary confinement by prison staff. 

The guardians of a state prison inmate who suffered brain damage when he tried to hang himself claim in a lawsuit that at the time he was hurt, corrections officers were accepting bribes in return for granting special privileges. Access to cell phones and unauthorized conjugal visits could be bought, and money was extorted from prisoners who wouldn’t pay, the lawsuit says…

Quantcast[In September 2008, Leon] Toney, then 31, tried to kill himself after Department of Corrections officers retaliated against him by putting him into solitary confinement when he refused to meet their bribery demands, according to the lawsuit, which was filed last week.

They knew he might be a danger to himself because of previously diagnosed mental health issues, the suit contends. “DOC staff knew or should have known that improperly locking him in solitary confinement would aggravate his serious depression and suicidal ideation,” the suit states.

Belinda Stewart, communications and outreach director for the Corrections Department, said Friday that the agency would not comment on the allegations raised in the lawsuit.

Filed Under: lawsuits/litigation, mental illness, psychological effects, solitary confinement, suicide, Washington