Testimony from Hearing on Closure of Tamms Supermax Prison
Following Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s proposal to close Tamms Prison, the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability held a contentious hearing, with proponents and opponents of the closure voicing their views on the controversial supermax facility. Nearly 700 pages of testimony is available.
What follows is a sampling of some pieces of testimony to provide a glimpse into the debate–with links, where available, to the full written testimonies.
In support of closure:
The ACLU argues that “the devastating effects of solitary confinement have long been well known” and reviews evidence that solitary confinement has well-documented negative psychological effects, particularly when used for long periods of time. They cite a 2010 Illinois court decision finding that “Tamms imposes drastic limitations on human contact, so much as to inflict lasting psychological and emotional harm on inmates confined there for long periods.”
Further, the ACLU points to the reduction of supermax units in other states as examples that such reductions can be responsibly done without public safety concerns materializing. As one argument, they point to evidence that inmates released from prison from solitary confinement have higher recidivism rates than “comparable prisoners released from general population.”
Echoing concerns over the potential for supermax facilities to aggravate psychological problems, NAMI argues that “supermax facilities such as Tamms have highly negative long term psychological effects on prisoners who are confined in these facilities. For individuals with pre-existing serious mental illnesses, the effects of confinement in supermax facilities can be particularly cruel and disabling. For example, the symptoms of schizophrenia, e.g. delusions and hallucinations, will very likely worsen in settings characterized by extreme social deprivation and isolation, such as supermax.”
These problems are expanded upon in a joint statement of Dr. Stuart Grassian, Dr. Craig Haney, and Dr. Terry Kupers, who argue that “long-term solitary confinement places prisoners at grave risk of psychological harm without reliably producing any tangible benefits in return.” Responding to concerns that “the outright closure of a facility will result in heightened security threats and prison violence” they note the “recent experience in Mississippi found exactly the opposite—that a drastic reduction in the supermax population was followed by a reduction in prison misconduct and violence.”
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (pgs. 216-17), citing negative budgetary, safety, and psychological effects of solitary confinement, argue that the “excessive use of solitary confinement is a stain on our society and a moral and fiscal price we cannot afford to pay. Closing Tamms is not only common sense, it is a matter of conscience.”
According to the Illinois Department of Corrections (pg. 138): “One of the reasons Tamms was chosen for closure is because it is by far the most expensive facility to operate. At an average of over $64,800 per inmate per yearm housing an inmate at Tamms is more than three times as expensive as the state average of $21,405.Closing Tamms by August 31, 2012 would save taxpayers $21.6 million in FY13 and $26.6 million on an annualized basis.”
In opposition to closure:
Prison officials, however, argue that Tamms is a necessary component of system wide safety.
Tamms Lieutenant Bradley Shields (pgs. 153-4) writes, “Justice has been served, and the Tamms Super Max facility has done exatly what it was designed to do. It’s removed the most violent offenders, along with leaders of Security Threat Groups (a.k.a. GANGS), and housed them where they can no longer influence or be a threat to others.”
Scott Farner (pgs. 99-101), Correctional Lieutenant at Shawnee Correctional Center, expands on this point and argues that the closure of Tamms represents a negative economic and public safety threat.“Before Tamms Correctional Center opened 38 Illinois Correctional Officers were killed while on duty,” he writes, and continues,”since Tamms Correctional Center opened there have been zero staff killed in the line of duty.” Lt. Farner therefore argues that Tamms “has actually saved the taxpayers’ of Illinois, by decreasing staff assaults, inmate violence, riots and escapes.”
That supermax facilities reduce system-wide violence is generally supported by two academic papers published on pages 13-78.
Others, however, urged Governor Quinn to keep Tamms in operation for economic reasons. The Southern Illinois Electric Cooperative, for example (pg. 84), argues that “closing this facility, which is located in an already financially depressed area of the state, will negatively impact the lives of the area residents, correction officers and local businesses.” This is a perspective echoed by the Egyptian Community Unit School District No. 5 (pg. 86), and the AFSCME.
According to the American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees: “Tamms is a well lit, well maintained clean facility” where, “far from being 23-hour ‘solitary confinement’” inmates at Tamms “have human contact that is often more meaningful and focused on positive outcomes than may occur in the general prison population.” Further, they argue, “Tamms is a crucial economic anchor in an area of our state that has few employment opportunities—especially for jobs that play a decent wage on which it’s possible to support a family.”
Regarding the potential economic impact, the Southern Five Regional Planning District and Development Commission (pg. 7) claim that “based upon our forecasting models the loss of these 250 jobs will result in the loss of an additional 201 indirect and induced jobs. The closing of the Tamms Correctional Facility will result in lost earnings alone of $24 million for those 451 jobs affected. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Southern Five Region will be reduced by $55 million. The total lost economic output will be approximately $92 million.”
Three current Tamms inmates submitted testimony in support of keeping the facility open (pgs. 177-182). One of them, who asserts that he has “a rage problem,” writes that “Tamms has an excellent mental health unit. I am keeping myself in check because the staff cares.” He goes on to say that Tamms “is a deterrent from keeping us from hurting” the staff, and urges people to “just remember there has been no correction officer deaths by inmates since this place opened.” Another Tamms inmate who was “sent to Tamms for taking a hostage…and sexually assaulting her” writes that “I need to be in Tamms for the safety of others and safety of myself from others.”
Families of California Prisoners Respond to Controversial Reforms of Solitary Confinement
LOS ANGELES (April 16, 2012) — We live in a state whose citizens are more morally outraged about the confinement of chickens and dogs than of human beings. We are the families of thousands of loved ones who have been incarcerated indefinitely—some for decades—in California’s “supermax” segregated and administrative housing units. Solitary confinement, even for short periods, has been known for centuries to cause irreparable physical and psychological damage: torture. Yet California continues to condone this practice in violation of both Constitutional and international law against the use of this and other inhuman and degrading treatment.
In March 2012 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) came out with its long-awaited proposal to overhaul its use of prolonged solitary confinement to manage gangs and violent prisoners. Families, lawyers, prisoners and activists had hoped that after two peaceful hunger strikes in 2011 engaging 12,000 prisoners protesting CDCR’s illegal practices, the Department would follow several other states that have successfully and significantly reduced their use of solitary confinement and instituted effective rehabilitation and re-entry programs—and at great savings to overstressed state budgets.
By definition “torture” is the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering by or with the consent of state authorities for a specific purpose: With CDCR, this purpose is to extract information about gang activities, real or fabricated. There is nothing in these new proposals that leads any of us to believe that a sincere reform of CDCR’s extremist policies is at hand; in fact, the language is more obscure, the policies more layered, and the prisoners’ demands for decency and rehabilitation virtually ignored. Amnesty International and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture among others issued immediate statements repudiating this document as not going far enough to address the inhumane conditions that have persisted in California prisons for decades. If anything, much of the new document appears even more Draconian. We are very concerned for our loved ones inside this prison within the prison.
Prisons are by nature closed systems, yet they are funded by taxpayers and are public institutions whose function is to oversee the deprivation of liberty, an extreme use of power against an individual. Our loved ones are human beings first and prisoners second. Too many have endured retaliation, arbitrary interpretations of CDCR’s regulations code, poor food, medical negligence, and an inability to program out of solitary unless they self-incriminate, snitch, or die. This is not to ignore crime and punishment, but we believe the public interest in law and order can best be served through standards of morality and human decency.
All California communities are stakeholders in what happens in our prisons because many of these inmates will eventually return to society. Even if our state’s citizens may not generally be sympathetic to prisoners, we must hold our public institutions to high ethical standards, including assuring that both prisons and communities are safe.
Gov. Jerry Brown and Secretary of Operations Matthew Cate recently applauded CDCR for removing the last “bad beds” in prison overcrowding—a move to eliminate degrading and inhuman conditions, creating a more effective penal regime that honors dignity and human rights. This thinking must now be transferred to prisoners in solitary. California’s version of supermax is extreme on every level, involving more prisoners for more of their sentences under worse conditions. Many states are revisiting their use of solitary confinement, but given California’s documented tendency to create torturous conditions under the justification of security, large-scale use of solitary confinement in this state should end.
Substantial, meaningful and ethical revision of the CDCR proposals will be a large step toward restoring basic justice in California, with no less concern for the real issue of public safety. We believe California’s faith communities have a considerable stake in this humanitarian reform and we ask your participation in our efforts to raise awareness and end torture in California prisons.
Contact information: California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement (CFASC), 8018 E. Santa Ana Canyon Rd. Suite 100 #213, Anaheim, CA 92808-1102; 714.290.9077
The latest issue of The Nation includes an excellent article by Matt Stroud, about the common practice in Pennsylvania of placing prisoners with serious mental illness in solitary confinement–where, unsurprisingly, they sometimes resort to suicide. The article begins:
By the time John McClellan Jr. was found dead inside Pennsylvania’s State Correctional Institution (SCI) at Cresson last May, he had long been categorized as “special needs” for his history of addiction and mental instability. Yet prisoners and staff say the 42-year-old inmate was not living in one of the facility’s treatment units but in the Restricted Housing Unit, or RHU—otherwise known as solitary confinement.
Two months earlier, McClellan had written a letter to his father, a Philadelphia police officer, saying that five correctional officers had assaulted him, then filed false charges against him. John McClellan Sr. had already contacted an attorney; threats and abuse from guards were allegedly so frequent his son kept a makeshift calendar on legal-sized notebook paper to keep track. A former SCI Cresson prisoner, Tim Everard, who says he spent time in a neighboring RHU cell, recalls seeing guards kicking the younger McClellan’s cell door, calling him names and goading him to kill himself. When Everard told the manager of the ward that McClellan seemed suicidal, Everard says she brushed him off, saying of the impulse to commit suicide, “If he’s going to act on it, he’s going to act on it.”
On December 1 the Justice Department announced an investigation into SCI Cresson as well as SCI Pittsburgh in response to allegations of prisoner abuse. Since then, another inmate, who reportedly asked repeatedly for and was denied mental health treatment, has committed suicide inside SCI Cresson. An investigation by The Nation uncovered details of the claims at the center of the probe, through interviews with current and former Department of Corrections (DOC) employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. At least three sources with knowledge of the mental health procedures at SCI Cresson have provided corroborating evidence to the Justice Department, claiming that they were threatened with physical harm or false charges by prison authorities if they raised concerns.
Stroud goes on to detail the grim history of SCI Cresson and the allegations of abuse and suffering that have gone on there and throughout the Pennsylvania system, which “historically…been at the forefront of the use of solitary confinement, and…has continued to experiment with new forms of isolation.”
The article is particularly important in parsing the system’s attempts to deal with mentally ill inmates by placing them in various forms of solitary confinement. They have euphemistic names like the Secure Special Needs Unit (SSNU), but critics argue that with inadequate treatment and staff training, they in effect are just slightly less noxious torture chambers. And not all prisoners with mental illness even make it to the SSNU, instead remaining in regular solitary cells–which is where John McClellan Jr. killed himself.
Stroud points out that the current DOJ investigation “could have important implications beyond Pennsylvania.”
In addition to determining whether it “provided inadequate mental health care to prisoners who have mental illness [and] failed to adequately protect such prisoners from harm,” according to the DOJ’s official release, investigators will also consider the practice of subjecting mentally ill prisoners to “excessively prolonged periods of isolation, in violation of the Eighth Amendment,” with its ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Even if the particular abuse leveled at McClellan is found to be an aberration, holding mentally unstable prisoners in solitary confinement is a common practice in prisons and jails across the country. With major studies showing that prolonged isolation can aggravate—and even contribute to—mental illness and a small number of states moving to reduce their reliance on the practice, the DOJ investigation could be a significant step toward banning solitary confinement for mentally ill prisoners.
In addition, while the federal courts’ record on limiting solitary confinement has been pretty dismal, ”some civil rights advocates believe that now is the moment to take on solitary confinement in court.”
The DOJ probe could lead to such a case. Federal investigators have toured SCI Cresson and interviewed current and former SSNU prisoners. Although the DOC has said it will cooperate fully, it may object to a basic claim: solitary confinement, in the hairsplitting definition of one DOC press secretary, means “an individual has no contact with other individuals.” By that logic, none of the inmates at SCI Cresson qualify, given their regular contact (abusive or not) with guards.
A legal clash could be significant. Human Rights Watch has estimated that up to 19 percent of US prisoners “have psychiatric disorders…and another 15 to 20 percent require some form of psychiatric intervention” in prison. A 2010 HRW report gave similar estimates for those in solitary confinement.
It is often estimated that about 25,000 prisoners are living in solitary confinement, but Jean Casella and James Ridgeway, who run SolitaryWatch.com, have noted that this number counts supermax prisons without including the many different isolation units in state prisons, like the RHU and SSNU at SCI Cresson. They put the nationwide total closer to 80,000.
“The DOJ investigation has the potential to further expose the utter depravity…of the prison system,” says Bret Grote of the Human Rights Coalition. The use of punitive isolation at CSI Cresson, he says, fits “squarely within the norm for how solitary units are run throughout [Pennsylvania], where instances of cruelty and insanity are deliberately multiplied by government employees as a matter of policy.”
The full article is a must-read for anyone concerned with solitary confinement in general, and solitary confinement and mental illness in particular.
Montana Settlement Limits Solitary Confinement for Juveniles, Prisoners with Mental Illness
One of our very first posts, when we started the Solitary Watch blog, concerned a suicidal Montana teenager locked in solitary confinement because he was deemed a discipline problem after he damaged prison property. It’s a story so gut-wrenching that we still often tell it as an example of how isolation becomes torture for many people in prison. As the Helena Independent Record reported the story in December 2009:
A 17-year-old boy suffering from mental illnesses was so traumatized by his deplorable treatment in the Montana State Prison that he twice attempted to kill himself by biting through the skin on his wrist to puncture a vein, a lawsuit filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana alleges.
The lawsuit filed in Lewis and Clark County District Court claims that the boy, “Robert Doe,” has been treated illegally and inhumanely and has been detained for about 10 months in solitary confinement. Doe was Tasered as part of a “behavior modification plan,” pepper-sprayed and stripped naked in view of other inmates, the complaint states….
His available mental health treatment consists of a prison staff member knocking on his door once a week and asking if he has any concerns, according to documents, and then he must answer by yelling within earshot of other inmates.
Since March, he has been locked in a solitary cell all but five to six hours a week, and he is not allowed personal visits or telephone calls.
In 2010, the teenager–who was identified as Raistlen Katka once he turned 18–told a federal judge that he had tried to bite through his veins because he was so desperate to get out of solitary: “My thought process was if I don’t die, at least I’ll get out of my cell for 30 seconds,” Katka testified.
The case epitomized the plight of two groups of inmates–juveniles in adult prisons, and prisoners suffering from mental illness. Members of both these groups are disproportionately likely to end up in solitary confinement, even though they are even less equipped than other prisoners to tolerate the effects of long-term isolation.
This week, the American Civil Liberties of Montana has reached a settlement with the Montana State Prison over the case, Raistlen Katka v. State of Montana. According to a press release:
[The settlement] limits the amount of time juveniles can be placed in isolation and provides for better treatment of mentally ill inmates in solitary confinement, protecting our state’s most vulnerable prisoners.
“I am glad the prison is changing how it treats young offenders,” said plaintiff Raistlen Katka. “I brought this lawsuit so no one else would have to endure the torture I endured.”
“The effects of solitary confinement on any inmate are profound, but are even more pronounced for adolescents whose brains are still developing and for persons with mental illness,” said ACLU cooperating attorney Andree Larose. “On top of that, experience nationwide shows that solitary really does not work. This settlement is a step in the right direction toward making sure inmates are treated humanely and consistent with the Montana Constitution, and are incarcerated in conditions that promote successful reintegration when they are released.”…
“Once Raistlen was released from solitary confinement and given mental health treatment, he began doing far better than he did under the prison’s ‘behavior management plans,’” said attorney Jennifer Giuttari who filed the case on behalf of the ACLU of Montana, and has continued working on it at her new law firm, Montana Legal Justice, PLLC. “Raistlen’s story shows that prisoners can successfully re-enter into society when given proper treatment during their incarceration.”
The settlement mandates several new policies at the Montana State Prison. Juveniles cannot be placed in solitary or so-called behavior management programs for longer than 72 hours without the approval of the director of the Department of Corrections or warden. Classification of teen inmates “Will take into account their unique needs for education and mental and medical treatment and their lack of full maturity.” In addition, ”mentally ill prisoners cannot be placed into solitary confinement if it is determined it will harm their mental health, and those who are placed in solitary confinement must receive private treatment sessions with a mental health professional as often as necessary.” Finally, ”suicidal inmates cannot be placed in behavior management programs.”
Torturous Milestone: 40 Years in Solitary for the Angola 3
Today marks 40 years in solitary confinement for Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. Our article on the Angola 3 appears today on MotherJones.com.
On the world stage, Guantanamo may well stand as the epitome of American human rights abuses. But when it comes to torture on US soil, that grim distinction is held by two aging African-American men. As of today, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox have spent 40 years in near-continuous solitary confinement in the bowels of the Louisiana prison system. Most of those years were spent at the notorious Angola Prison, which is why the pair are still known as members of the Angola 3. The third man, Robert King, was released in 2001—his conviction was overturned after he’d spent 29 years in solitary.
Wallace and Woodfox were first thrown into the hole on April 17, 1972, following the killing of Brent Miller, a young prison guard. The men contend that they were targeted by prison authorities and convicted of murder not based on the actual evidence—which was dubious at best—but because they were members of the Black Panther Party’s prison chapter, which was organizing against horrendous conditions at Angola. This political affiliation, they say, also accounted for their seemingly permanent stay in solitary.
For four decades, the men have spent at least 23 hours a day in cells measuring 6 x 9 feet. These days, they are allowed out one hour a day to take a shower or a stroll along the cell block. Three days a week, they may use that hour to exercise alone in a fenced yard. Wallace is now 70; Woodfox is 65. Their lawyers argue that both have endured physical injury and “severe mental anguish and other psychological damage” from living most of their adult lives in lockdown. According to medical reports submitted to the court, the men suffer from arthritis, hypertension, and kidney failure, as well as memory impairment, insomnia, claustrophobia, anxiety, and depression. Even the psychologist brought in by the state confirmed these findings.
Read the rest of the article for updates on the Angola 3′s legal challenges to solitary confinement, as well as to their convictions. We also cover the latest from the two men who are determined to keep Wallace and Woodfox in prison and in solitary: Angola Warden Burl Cain, who says the two men are too “militant” to be in the general population, and Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, who has said he opposes releasing them “with every fiber of my being.”
Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox in the 1970s, with Angola prison in the background. From the film "In the Land of the Free."
“Herman’s House”: New Film Explores “the Injustice of Solitary Confinement and the Transformative Power of Art”
Premiering today at the Full Frame Documentary Festival in North Carolina is Herman’s House, a film ”that follows the unlikely friendship between a New York artist and one of America’s most famous inmates as they collaborate on an acclaimed art project.” The inmate is Herman Wallace, one of the Angola 3, who on Tuesday will mark 40 years in solitary confinement in the Louisiana prison system.
The following is an excerpt from the film’s press release:
In 1972, New Orleans native Herman Joshua Wallace (b. 1941) was serving a 25-year sentence for bank robbery when he was accused of murdering an Angola Prison guard and thrown into solitary confinement. Many believed him wrongfully convicted. Appeals were made but Herman remained in jail and—to increasingly widespread outrage—in solitary. Years passed with one day much like the next. Then in 2001 Herman received a perspectiveshifting letter from a Jackie Sumell, a young art student, who posed the provocative question:
“What kind of house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?”
Thus began an inspired creative dialogue, unfolding over hundreds of letters and phone calls and yielding a multi-faceted collaborative project that includes the exhibition “The House That Herman Built.” The revelatory art installation—featuring a full-scale wooden model of Herman’s cell and detailed plans of his dream home—has brought thousands of gallery visitors around the world face-to-face with the harsh realities of the American prison system.
But as Herman’s House reveals, the exhibition is just the first step.
Their journey takes a more unpredictable turn when Herman asks Jackie to make his dream a reality. As her own finances dwindle, Jackie begins to doubt if she can meet the challenge of finding land and building a real house. Meanwhile, Herman waits to find out if the Louisiana courts will hear his latest appeal.
Along the way we meet self-confessed “stick-up kid” Michael Musser, who credits Herman for helping him turn his life around while in solitary; Herman’s sister Vickie, a loyal and tireless supporter despite her own emotional burden; and former long-term solitary inmate and fellow Black Panther activist Robert King who, along with Herman and Albert Woodfox, was one of the so-called Angola 3 that became a cause celebre in the 2000s.
“I’m not a lawyer and I’m not rich and I’m not powerful, but I’m an artist,” Jackie says. “And I knew the only way I could get [Herman] out of prison was to get him to dream.”
There are 2.2 million people in jail in the U.S. More than 80,000 of those are in solitary confinement. Herman Wallace has been there longer than anyone.
With compassion and meaningful artistry, Herman’s House takes us inside the lives and imaginations of two unforgettable characters–forging a friendship and building a dream in the struggle to end the “cruel and unusual punishment” of long-term solitary confinement.
We had an opportunity to view Herman’s House before its release and to meet its director, Angad Singh Bhalla. The filmmakers were, of course, not permitted to shoot or record inside the prison where Herman Wallace resides. Yet his voice emerges from the depths, clear and strong, through letters and recorded phone calls. The house he imagines–and Jackie Sumell builds for him–is brought to life through creative use of animation. Through the moving story of their collaboration, the film makes a powerful statement about the cruelty of solitary confinement.
Readers of Solitary Watch will not want to miss seeing this film, so we will provide updates on Twitter and Facebook about any theatrical release and television screenings in the coming months. In the meantime, you can watch the trailer, below. (And for more on Herman Wallace’s case, see our earlier article on Mother Jones, “Southern Injustice.”)
Late yesterday, the Connecticut Assembly passed legislation to bring an end to the state’s future use of the death penalty. The governor has promised to sign the legislation, making Connecticut the 17th state to repeal capital punishment.
This is, of course, a significant victory for death penalty opponents. But the legislation has two troubling components. The first is the fact that it will not apply to the 11 men currently on death row. The second is an amendment added last week to the legislation in the Connecticut Senate, where it faced a steeper hurdle. As reported by the Connecticut website The Day:
The House bill is nearly identical to the Senate bill passed last week. It creates new imprisonment standards for future Class A felony murderers convicted of “murder with special circumstances,” what is currently known as a capital offense.
Under the bill, those convicted must be housed separately from other inmates, subjected to twice-weekly cell searches and must change their cells every three months. They would get no more than two hours a day outside their cells and would be allowed only “non-contact” visitation privileges.
The amendment–which can be read in full here–is meant to ensure that prisoners who might previously have received the death penalty will serve life without parole in 22-hour-a-day solitary confinement, in conditions that mimic death row. In pledging to sign the bill, Governor Dannel Malloy stated: “Going forward, we will have a system that allows us to put these people away for life, in living conditions none of us would want to experience…Let’s throw away the key and have them spend the rest of their natural lives in jail.”
Even for steadfast opponents of long-term solitary confinement, it would be difficult to argue that this is not the lesser of two evils. But it is an evil nonetheless, in that it replaces death penalty with a lifetime in conditions that are widely considered to constitute torture. It also risks spreading the use of life in solitary confinement beyond what would originally have been capital cases–which is effectively what happened with life without parole.
European Human Rights Court Rules Terror Suspects Can Be Extradited to a Lifetime of U.S. Supermax Confinement
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.
“Complete Lawlessness” at Orleans Parish Prison
Check out our latest piece over at MotherJones.com, on a new lawsuit filed on behalf of inmates at New Orleans’ main jail. Here are some excerpts:
As hellholes go, there are few worse places in America than the Orleans Parish Prison.
New Orleans’ teeming city jail first hit the radar of most Americans following Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of inmates were abandoned for days in flooded cells without food, water, ventilation, or electricity—some of them “standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests,” according to the ACLU. But OPP’s problems did not begin with Katrina, nor end in the storm’s wake, when prisoners were shipped back to the jail’s surviving buildings.
This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of OPP’s inmates. The 38-page complaint—which names as defendants Sheriff Marlin Gusman, along with the jail’s wardens and medical directors—describes a facility where prisoners “are at imminent risk of serious harm.” About 44 percent of the inmates are there awaiting trial, and haven’t been convicted of the crimes they were charged with. But pretrial detention at OPP, the suit contends, is in itself a brutal punishment that can expose people to physical and sexual abuse, and even death.
“Rapes, sexual assaults, and beatings are commonplace,” the lawsuit states. “Violence regularly occurs at the hands of sheriffs’ deputies, as well as other prisoners…People living with serious mental illnesses languish without treatment, left vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. These conditions have created a public safety crisis that affects the entire city.”
“It’s just complete lawlessness in there,” Katie Schwartzmann, the SPLC attorney representing the prisoners, told us in an interview. “The place is full of knives. There are tons of assaults, beatings.”
Stints at OPP are particularly horrendous for inmates with mental illness, whom the SPLC believes make up as much as two-thirds of the jail’s population—though their condition often goes undetected, since there’s no real classification system.
When inmates are booked into OPP, the lawsuit notes, prison officials suspend their medications for 30 days and sometimes longer: “Unsurprisingly, this practice causes some individuals to experience suicidal ideation.” When this happens, “suicidal prisoners with mental health needs are transferred to a direct observation cell, in which they are held almost naked for days.”
Schwartzmann cites one inmate, William Goetzee, who tried to snatch a security officer’s gun outside a courthouse, professing that he wanted to kill himself. “They bring him to OPP,” she says. “He attempted to hang himself. They cut him down and two days later he killed himself by eating toilet paper. He ate enough toilet paper that he asphyxiated. Tell me if that’s not deliberate indifference!”
Inmates deemed mentally ill but not suicidal “are transferred to the psychiatric tiers—where they are locked down in their cells for 23 hours a day and deprived of mental health interventions,” notes the complaint. “People living there are not allowed to go outside or visit with their families. Overhead lights are on 24 hours per day, and the tier contains actively psychotic people living on the ground in overcrowded cells. Deputies do not walk the tiers. Rape is rampant.”
Prisoners seeking mental health services, the suit continues, “are discouraged from seeking necessary care” not only by the strict lockdown but also because they are charged a copayment for submitting the request.
You can read the rest of the article here.
This month marks 40 years in solitary confinement for Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, the two members of the Angola 3 who remain in prison–and in 23-hour lockdown–in Louisiana. They were placed in solitary confinement following the 1972 murder of a prison guard, for which they were convicted on highly dubious evidence. They believe that they were targeted because they were members of the Black Panther Party–and that they remain in solitary today for the same reasons. (You can read our stories about the case on MotherJones.com, here, here, and here.)
A new half-hour BBC radio program provides comprehensive and moving coverage of the case. It features Robert King–the third member of the Angola 3, who was released when his conviction was overturned after 29 years in solitary. It also includes interviews with lawyers, family members, activists–and Solitary Watch’s Jean Casella.
You can listen to the full program here, and read the accompanying article here.
You can also sign Amnesty International’s online petition demanding that Wallace and Woodfox be released from solitary confinement.
We’ll be writing more about the Angola 3 next week.
Herman Wallace's sketch of the dimensions of his prison cell
