Play Review: The Box by Sarah Shourd

It's hard to say that watching The Box, Sarah Shourd's new play, was a pleasurable pastime. But it was an important play, incisively written, beautifully acted, and impressively produced, that could not leave the audience indifferent.

The Box is a play about solitary confinement. In a cleverly constructed set of six cells, approximately the size of a real SHU cell, sit six prisoners. Some are there for a brief disciplinary interlude; some have been there for years. Shourd's characters are fictional, but their biographies are reminders of real people in solitary, such as the Angola Three and Todd Ashker.

With the views, video projections, and convincing soundtrack of noises, we are transported to a world of cruelty and deprivation. We meet different people, who approach the reality of their situation in different ways. We see them in conflict; we see them in solidarity; we see them at their noblest and basest. Shourd, who has spent years fighting solitary confinement ever since her release from Iranian prison, based the play not only on authentic dialogue, but also on genuine proceedings in solitary (the play takes the trouble of taking us through the routine of getting people out for visitation, including the wait time of the visitor.)

The play is also a reminder of the importance of solidarity and interracial unification. It includes a brief and stylized version of the two Pelican Bay hunger strikes, complete with the court order to force feed the inmates that ended the second one. I highly recommend this unforgettable experience to anyone, especially those who have not yet become embroiled in the struggle to end solitary confinement in California.

The Box plays at Z Space until the end of the month. For tickets, click here.

Reiter on Solitary Confinement

Keramet Reiter of UC Irvine has recently done a Q&A with the Berkeley Human Rights Center on solitary confinement, her topic of expertise and focus of her forthcoming book.

Will the recent court settlement in California lead to any significant change in regard to solitary confinement practices?
Two big challenges with isolation in particular are that it’s been a very secretive process and there has been significant discretion over what circumstances and for how long people are sent to isolation….Now, under the recent settlement, you have to do something wrong instead of just being labeled a gang member and isolation terms are capped at five years. So that’s an improvement. But you still don’t have a right to a lawyer at the administrative hearing in which people decide whether you’ve done something wrong or not. The prison staff have a lot of control over what counts as a rule violation and who they charge with violations. Five years is a long time, and you’re under really intense scrutiny when you’re in isolation, and it’s easy to break more rules because of that.

Read the whole thing here.

What Does the Settlement in the Solitary Confinement Lawsuit Mean?

Almost a month ago we reported of a historic settlement ending Ashker v. Brown, the class action suit regarding conditions in solitary confinement. What remains is to figure out exactly what the settlement means. And who better to illuminate the matter than UC Irvine's Keramet Reiter, an expert on solitary confinement and the editor of the recently published anthology Extreme Punishment?

In a recent blog post at Social Justice, Reiter argues that the settlement is a good first step, but there is plenty more to do:

The settlement attracted national attention and is still being celebrated by prisoners, their families, and legal advocates. Perhaps it will be a model for other states to reduce or eliminate prison conditions the United Nations has conclusively defined as torture. One settlement agreement, however, cannot sweep away decades of abusive prison policies. First, it is a settlement, not a legal opinion. At best, the settlement is a non-binding model of what other jurisdictions might attempt. Second, even though prison officials withdrew many of their claims about the dangerousness of SHU prisoners by agreeing to the provisions of the Ashker settlement, these beliefs have hardly been renounced. The genuine fear prison guards experience in coping with hunger strikes, managing mental illness, or dealing with prisoners like Hugo Pinell must be acknowledged and addressed, so that they are motivated to strategize to support, rather than resist, reform. Third, the data collection and monitoring associated with the settlement is scheduled to conclude in two years—and may never be made public in the first place. The practice of solitary confinement has historically been defined by discretion and invisibility, and is therefore hard to investigate, control, and reform. So the practice of solitary confinement could easily retreat back into the shadows in two years, absent longer-term requirements to institutionalize transparency. 

We plan to continue monitoring the post-Ashker developments.

Juvenile Solitary Bill Fails

Amidst the joyous news following the settlement in Ashker v. Brown comes a less encouraging development: AB 124, which would severely limit the use of solitary confinement in juvenile facilities (to four hours at a time, and not as a form of punishment), failed in the Assembly Appropriations Committee and won't be proceeding forward. The East Bay Express reports:

Proponents of SB 124 — co-sponsored by state Senator Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, an Oakland nonprofit — have argued that the bill could go a long way in protecting youth inmates in county and state facilities from the inhumane and unjustified practice of isolation. The documented psychological deterioration associated with solitary confinement — which was a key argument in the state class-action suit — can be especially damaging for vulnerable youth inmates who have often already experienced a wide range of trauma in their lives. With California now agreeing to dramatically curb the use of isolation for adults and with officials increasingly acknowledging the harms of solitary, the failure of SB 124 was particularly painful for advocates who have been pushing versions of the bill for several years. 

"We're talking about the health and lives of young people who are endangered by this practice," Jennifer Kim, Ella Baker Center's director of programs, told me yesterday. Kim helped write the legislation and has repeatedly amended the bill in response to criticisms of correction officials, who have continued to argue that isolation of juveniles is an important tool to control "dangerous" kids. In reference to the state lawsuit and settlement, which will have no impact on juvenile facilities or inmates, Kim added, "Thousands of adults are going to be ordered out of solitary confinement ... [because] the courts have had to intervene. ... And yet the legislature has been largely not leading in the way they could be." 

SB 124, which successfully passed the Senate in June, would ban the use of solitary confinement in juvenile facilities for longer than four hours at a time. The legislation would also prohibit correctional officers from using solitary as a form of punishment and would only allow isolation when youth pose an immediate, substantial risk to themselves or others. Facilities would also be barred from isolating inmates who pose a threat as a result of a mental disorder. Additionally, the legislation requires jails to document all instances of solitary through a statewide reporting system. Correction and probation officials across the state have consistently opposed the measure, arguing that facilities do not use the kind of inhumane solitary confinement tactics that advocates describe. The opponents have also contended that the restrictions of SB 124 would put staff and youth at risk by making it harder for officers to isolate violent youth. 

What with SB 261 passing only recently, the California legislature's approach to juveniles can only be seen as puzzling. Are we treating them as children? as adults? for what purposes? are we willing to resentence but not to limit solitary confinement? and, under the circumstances, what is worse--adult prison or state juvenile facilities?

Join us on 9/17 to discuss these issues with juvenile justice advocates.

BREAKING NEWS: Settlement in Ashker v. Brown: The End of Indefinite Solitary Confinement in CA

Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights has announced that the parties to Ashker v. Brown, the case challenging indefinite solitary confinement in California, have reached a settlement. According to CCR's press release,

Today, the parties have agreed on a landmark settlement in the federal class action Ashker v. Governor of California that willeffectively end indeterminate, long-term solitary confinement in all California state prisons. Subject to court approval, the agreement will result in a dramatic reduction in the number of people in solitary across the state and a new program that could be a model for other states going forward. The class action was brought in 2012 on behalf of prisoners held in solitary confinement at the Pelican Bay prison, often without any violent conduct or serious rule infractions, often for more than a decade, and all without any meaningful process for transfer out of isolation and back to the general prison population. Ashker argued that California’s use of prolonged solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment and denies prisoners the right to due process. 

. . . 

Today’s settlement transforms California’s use of solitary confinement from a status-based system to a behavior-based system; prisoners will no longer be sent to solitary based solely on gang affiliation, but rather based on infraction of specific serious rules violations. It also limits the amount of time a prisoner can spend in the Pelican Bay SHU and provides a two-year step-down program for transfer from SHU to general population.

The agreement creates a new non-solitary but high-security unit for the minority of prisoners who have been held in any SHU for more than 10 years and who have a recent serious rule violation. They will be able to interact with other prisoners, have small-group recreation and educational and vocational programming, and contact visits.

The full details of the settlement are available here.

This is a major victory for those of us who have been fighting against indefinite solitary confinement for many years--especially the inmates, who have participated in two hunger strikes to protest against the physical and psychological harms associated with this practice. It is also remarkable that, in an era in which such struggles often take the shape of bipartisan financial improvements, this struggle was fought as an old-skool human rights pursuit, and ended in an impressive and important victory. The statement from the plaintiffs reads as follows:

This settlement represents a monumental victory for prisoners and an important step toward our goal of ending solitary confinement in California, and across the country.  California’s agreement to abandon indeterminate SHU confinement based on gang affiliation demonstrates the power of unity and collective action.  This victory was achieved by the efforts of people in prison, their families and loved ones, lawyers, and outside supporters.  Our movement rests on a foundation of unity: our Agreement to End Hostilities.  It is our hope that this groundbreaking agreement to end the violence between the various ethnic groups in California prisons will inspire not only state prisoners, but also jail detainees, county prisoners and our communities on the street, to oppose ethnic and racial violence.  From this foundation, the prisoners’ human rights movement is awakening the conscience of the nation to recognize that we are fellow human beings.  As the recent statements of President Obama and of Justice Kennedy illustrate, the nation is turning against solitary confinement. We celebrate this victory while, at the same time, we recognize that achieving our goal of fundamentally transforming the criminal justice system and stopping the practice of warehousing people in prison will be a protracted struggle.  We are fully committed to that effort, and invite you to join us.

Todd Ashker

Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa

Luis Esquivel

George Franco

Richard Johnson

Paul Redd

Gabriel Reyes

George Ruiz

Danny Troxell

Solitary Confinement Lawsuit Attains Class Action Status

The struggle against long-term solitary confinement in California continues! Months ago, we reported about the certification hearing for Ashker v. Brown, a lawsuit against solitary confinement.

The most recent news are from June 2: U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken granted the lawsuit class action status. The L.A. Times reports:

"We pose a fundamental question: Is it constitutional to hold someone in solitary confinement for over a decade," said Alexis Agathocleous, staff attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. 

The class action motion was filed by 10 Pelican Bay inmates in solitary confinement, but California has since moved five of them to other quarters. Wilken's order allows the remaining five prisoners to represent the larger class of some 500 Pelican Bay prisoners who have spent more than a decade in isolation, and some 1,100 put into solitary because of alleged gang associations.

Many of the inmates named in the suit also were organizers of a lengthy statewide prison hunger strike last summer. 

Wilken refused to allow the state prison guard union to intervene in the lawsuit. The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. had argued that it had an interest in protecting the safety of its members by preventing prisoners from leaving solitary confinement.

We will keep following up on the lawsuit and reporting on its progress.

-----
cross-posted with some changes at Prawfs Blawg.

Worse than Iran: Solitary Confinement

Seven months after his release from prison in Iran, former hostage Shane Bauer visits Pelican Bay and is shocked by the conditions. His prison conditions in Iran were better than those he saw in California.

 

Behind the Hunger Strike

Todd Ashker. Photo courtesy CDCR,
reproduced from New York Magazine

In the aftermath of the hunger strike against conditions in the SHU, we are witnessing legislative interest in improving conditions in solitary confinement. We recently reported on CDCR's changes to gang restrictions, on the legislative hearings in Sacramento, and on Tom Ammiano's proposition to limit gang-related SHU stays to 36 months. At this point, Benjamin Wallace-Wells' article in New York Magazine, The Plot from Solitary, is particularly welcome. The article is so interesting, thorough, and multifaceted that I strongly recommend you read it in its entirety. Here are just a few highlights that interested me the most:

The article does a very good job juxtaposing the position of inmates and their supporters to that of CDCR staff.

From the beginning, even the most basic matters about the strike—what Ashker and the others were after, why so many people joined them, what the strike ­demonstrated—were opaque, and profoundly disputed. To the prisoners and their supporters, this was a protest against barbaric treatment, and the SHU was both an outrage in itself and a symbol of the arbitrariness and brutality of the prison system across the nation. The strike’s leaders had challenged the SHU’s constitutionality in court, arguing that the limits it placed on social interaction violated the Eighth ­Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, and they had watched closely as a few other states, some pressured by prisoners and others mandated by judges, had de-emphasized solitary confinement. They believed they were part of a human-rights movement. But the prison officials saw something far simpler at work: a tactical maneuver by the gangs, acting in collusion, to end a system that had made it much more difficult for them to operate as they pleased.

We also get fairly in-depth backgrounds of the Short Corridor strike leaders, complete with their lives before incarceration and some information about their standing vis-a-vis their own gangs, which adds to the complexity of the organization. And, we also get a blow-by-blow description of how news of the strike were transmitted across SHU cells:

Jamaa thought his fellow inmates might need some concrete encouragement. His private fast the previous fall had lasted 33 days, and he believed he could have gone longer. Soon after last summer’s strike began, the four leaders were moved from the SHU to a unit called Administrative Segregation, and Jamaa, entering the unit, started to holler, “Forty days and 40 nights! Forty days and 40 nights!” If prisoners can be counted upon to know any literature, it is the literature of suffering that in the Bible precedes redemption. Jamaa had chosen his slogan with intent: They were Moses in the desert. At night, Jamaa would drop on his knees, put his mouth to the crack between the door and the floor, and yell: “Forty days and 40 nights!” Soon, new hunger strikers arriving in AdSeg were shouting the slogan as they were hustled in. It was then that Jamaa began to believe their movement had some possibility, some momentum. 

And a very sophisticated explanation of the gang leadership controvresy from Craig Haney:

Haney returned to Pelican Bay last year, for a ­follow-up study, and found that these ­patterns of self-isolation had deepened. Many inmates had discouraged family members from visiting, and some seemed to consider all social interactions a nuisance. “They have systematically extinguished all of the social skills they need to survive,” Haney says. Those inmates who do comparatively well tend to replace the social networks outside the SHU with those within it—which, in a society composed of alleged gang members, often means gangs. “In isolation,” he says, “gang activity is the only contact that is possible; it is the only loyalty that is possible; it is the only connection that is possible.”

And this bit about the effects of Judge Henderson's ruling allowing force-feeding of inmates:

Until this point, the prisoners had thought of the guards—and, more broadly, the state—as their captors. But the state is also their warden and their protector: A prison is designed to separate convicts from society and prevent them from doing more harm, but also to shelter them and keep them alive. The judge’s order returned repeatedly to the problem of coercion. The specter of gang influence was so strong, Henderson’s ruling suggested, that the state could not trust that a prisoner’s advance medical directive had been made freely—that he had made his own decision about the terms under which he was willing to die. The strike leaders had thought that by volunteering to risk their own deaths they could compel the state to see them as individuals, and that in at least this one instance they could reassert freedom of control over their lives. But they had been wrong.

Read the whole thing. It's fascinating and very well written.

Juveniles in Solitary: News

Lots of things moving in the right direction in the world of solitary confinement. For one thing, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has just introduced AB 1652, the product of the legislative hearings, with the intent to limit usage of solitary confinement in California. Among other things, the bill text limits confinement to serious offenses, and creates a 3-year maximum confinement if the assignment to solitary is based on gang status alone.

But there are other news as well. As some readers know, there is an ongoing lawsuit against the Contra Costa Juvenile Hall for locking up youth with disabilities for 23 hours a day. Today, the feds have joined the battle - on the side of the inmates. Disability Rights Advocates reports:

Youth with disabilities generally are disproportionately represented in juvenile correctional facilities and by Contra Costa County’s own estimate, roughly 32% of the students at the Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall have disabilities that require some form of special education. Despite their disabilities, youth at Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall are locked for days and weeks at a time in cells that have barely enough room for a bed and a narrow window the width of a hand and length of an arm. Indeed young people are routinely held in conditions like those in a maximum security prison. The results of such conditions are devastating. For instance, named Plaintiff W.B. was placed in solitary confinement for more than 90 days, during which time he deteriorated mentally to the point where he was smearing feces on the wall and, ultimately, was held in a psychiatric hospital for three weeks.

“The United States Department of Justice and Department of Education have singled out Contra Costa County Juvenile Hall for a reason,” said Mary-Lee Smith, Managing Attorney at Disability Rights Advocates. “Contra Costa County and Contra Costa County Office of Education's refusal to accept their legal obligations cannot continue, too many young people with disabilities are suffering and that must end.”

“United States Department of Justice and Department of Education involvement in this case should be a wake-up call to Contra Costa County and the County Office of Education,” said Laura Faer, Statewide Education Rights Director. “Every day more young people are harmed by their failure to take responsibility and follow federal and state law. These flagrant violations of children’s rights to education and rehabilitative services must stop.”

Note that the feds are dressing their objections to this practice as an educational issue: that is, the problem is not that segregation is cruel and unusual per se, but that it hampers these students educational opportunities. Even on such a narrow basis, it's remarkable that the feds have found it politically sayable to oppose these practices and place themselves squarely on the side of the inmates.

Solitary Confinement Hearings Aftermath

The SHU hearings in Sacramento yesterday were a success from the inmates' rights perspective. The Sac Bee reports:

Corrections officials have touted a new pilot program allowing inmates to ease their way out of solitary confinement, and regulations recently submitted to the Office of Administrative Law would allow the pilot to be applied throughout the prison system.

But legislators seemed skeptical that the changes would substantially reduce the practice of walling off inmates in the "Security Housing Units," or SHU, that exist in four state prisons.

But wait! There's more!

Later in the day, Ammiano announced a bill that would cap "administrative" terms in the SHU - those not related to a specific incident, which would include stays stemming from gang affiliation - at 36 months. The legislation would also allow inmates to exit more quickly by accumulating good behavior credits.

Now: SHU Hearing in Sacramento

Tune in NOW for the legislative hearings regarding the SHU, gang validation policies, and the new CDCR regulations to remove gang status.

BREAKING NEWS: CDCR To Ease Gang Restrictions

Reported an hour ago by the Associated Press:

Prison officials revealed new rules Friday that they say will make California the first state to recognize that inmates can quit prison gangs and put that lifestyle behind them, allowing them to escape the tough restrictions that gang members are subject to.

However, gang associates would have to steer clear of gang activities for about a decade to qualify, while gang leaders would have to behave for a minimum of 14 years.

The draft regulations made public Friday are the latest changes to rules that keep some gang members locked in special isolation units for years and have led to widespread inmate hunger strikes. A spokesman for a coalition of reform groups that backed the hunger strikers called the changes "woefully inadequate."

The new regulations are an extension of a 15-month-old pilot program that has allowed gang members to get out of isolation units at Pelican Bay in far Northern California and other prisons without renouncing their gang membership.

Since the start of the pilot, the department has reviewed 632 gang members who were in isolation units. Of those, 408 have been cleared to be released into the general prison population and 185 were given more privileges but remain in isolation.

Those 2012 policies, which are being updated in Friday's filing with the Office of Administrative Law, let the gang members and associates gain more privileges and leave the isolation units in as little as three years if they stop engaging in gang activities, and participate in anger management and drug rehabilitation programs.

Officials said that change was based on programs in seven other states. California is now the first to go a step farther by removing the gang designation entirely if the inmate continues to behave, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR.

CDCR gives reasons for the new regulation:

Despite the successes the CDCR has had in removing violent and disruptive STG affiliates from the general population settings of the institutions, the Department has recognized a need to evaluate current strategies and implement new approaches to address evolving STG trends consistent with security, fiscal, and offender population management needs. Fortunately, the inmate population reductions associated with Public Safety Realignment is affording CDCR the opportunity to reconstruct aspects of its STG policy that are consistent with successful models used in other large correctional agencies. The Public Safety Realignment will result in easing overcrowding and providing CDCR with more housing options to support this effort.

And here are the actual regulations, which define the step-down processes that are to be taken. The multi-step process of being cleared of gang affiliation (referred to in the regulations as STG - security threat group) is lengthy and features various monitoring options.

Solitary Confinement: What Could the Legislature Do?

Two months have passed since the joint legislative hearing held by the California Senate and Assembly Public Safety committees. At the hearing, lawmakers heard testimony from CDCR personnel, academics, and families of  SHU inmates.

At the hearing, several of the lawmakers, especially Tom Ammiano, Loni Hancock, and Nancy Skinner spoke up about their discomfort with SHU conditions. If this is truly the zeitgeist in the legislature, what can they do to modify the conditions?

It is highly unrealistic that California will do away with solitary confinement altogether. Short of extreme creativity, it's hard to repurpose a maximum-security facility. Nor is it realistic to express political consensus that the institution is unnecessary. But there are various ways to mitigate our use of SHU units. Many of these are detailed in Confronting Confinement, a 2006 report by the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons. In the California case, the legislature could decide to:

1. Limit long-term solitary confinement to, say, ten years.
2. Monitor the entrance to solitary confinement. One possibility would be to limit solitary to punishment for infractions, but if the legislature doesn't want to go that far, they could focus on demanding more evidence of danger before admitting someone to solitary confinement.
3. Monitor the exit from solitary confinement. The legislature could decide to abolish the debriefing process, or it could call for modifications, such as improving the criteria for establishing gang status.
4. Limit disciplinary measures. The legislature could flat-out forbid collective punishment, especially when race based.
5. Make a decision about double-bunking. I confess this one trumps me as well. Being locked up alone in a cell versus sharing it, in very close quarters, with a roommate not of one's choosing? This could be what Keramet Reiter once referred to as "differently horrible."
6. Add human contact, such as work with others or joint yard time.
7. Increase contact with the outside, including letters and visits.
8. Increase access to books and educational opportunities.
9. Set up parameters for safe and effective health care.
10. Seriously examine the quality of food and consider guidelines and improvements.
11. Take on the quality of staff training.

We will have to wait and see how things shape up.

Stop Torture: The Continuing Fight Against Solitary Confinement. Guest Post by Ashley Toles and Courtney Oxsen

The following is a post by Ashley Toles and Courtney Oxsen, who organized the incredible event on solitary confinement at Hastings yesterday. Pictures are by Ashley Toles and Robert Hammill.

************


What an incredible evening we had at UC Hastings Tuesday night! Our wonderful panel titled “Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Resumes: The Continued Struggle to End Long-Term Solitary Confinement in California” was accompanied by a life-sized model of a solitary confinement cell found in California’s Secure Housing Units (SHU). Urszula Wislanka and Penny Schoner from the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition were extremely helpful in getting the model SHU prison cell set up for tours. The model SHU cell is a life-sized 8'x10’ windowless cell that the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition brings to various events in California. It is eye-opening for people to actually step inside and get a small glimpse of the tiny, cramped space that many prisoners held in solitary confinement have to live in for decades. On a table to the side of the model SHU, we had letters that people could send to Governor Jerry Brown, explaining how they felt when they stepped inside the cell. The Governor has been largely silent on the issue of solitary confinement in CA prisons, and we want to urge him to respond meaningfully to the torture that has been going on for far too long, since even before Pelican Bay State Prison SHU was constructed in 1989.

 

As we watched people enter and emerge from the model SHU, we were able to see the shock on their faces when they experienced how claustrophobic that small space made them feel, even for just a few moments. Many people said they were surprised by how small the cells are, how many hours prisoners are held in their cell per day, and how many years prisoners are kept in solitary confinement! This sense of shock is the reason we need to have as many events like this as we can; most people simply do not know that this torture is going on in their beloved State of California.

 


The panel was moderated by the lovely Hadar Aviram, who did a wonderful job introducing all the panelists and asking the right questions to get the discussion going. The first panelist to speak was Charles Carbone, a seasoned prisoner rights lawyer and counsel on the Ruiz v. Brown lawsuit filed by prisoners who have spent more than ten years in SHU, who is well-versed on the intricacies of CDCR's policies and rhetoric. He outlined a history of solitary confinement, explaining the 19th century puritan societal worldview that giving a person a Bible and sending them to do "penitence" in solitary confinement would reform them. Ultimately, that policy experiment was deemed a rehabilitative failure, but American government has embraced solitary confinement anew in recent decades. Carbone also challenged CDCR's "new" policies as being even worse than their former practices. Prisoners are still being held indefinitely in solitary confinement for their political and cultural tattoos, artwork, and written material that prison officials deem "gang activity,” without any evidence of violent or threatening behavior, and with no meaningful opportunity for release.

Steven Czifra and Jose "Danny" Murillo, UC Berkeley students who have both been incarcerated for years in the SHU, went on to describe their experience of long-term extreme isolation in the SHU. We were haunted by Steven’s analogy that the SHU is just like “a bunch of ghosts trying to cheer each other up." He repeatedly mentioned how kind and humane people in the SHU acted towards each other. "It only took one person who believed in me," said Stephen. Stephen is now studying English at UC Berkeley and has a wonderful family life. Danny said that growing up, he struggled with anger issues and was never the best student. During his time in the SHU, he was inspired by the help and encouragement of his fellow inmates who believed in him. He earned his GED and took some college classes through the educational programming CDCR has since eliminated from the SHUs. Danny is now an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley in the Ethnic Studies Department. And to think that these two were labeled the "worst of the worst!"

The next speaker Terry Kupers, is a clinical psychiatrist and expert on the mental health impacts of long-term solitary confinement. Terry testifies in a lot of litigation involving jail and prison conditions and how those conditions affect prisoners' mental health. He was right on the money with everything he said last night. Terry emphasized the important fact that locking people up in solitary confinement does not reduce the violence rate in prisons. In fact, research has proven the opposite. He also emphasized how the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual" punishment and "torture" were essentially the same; the only difference is that we don't like to talk about torture here in the United States. We like to think of torture as something that goes on in distant "less civilized" countries. We are uncomfortable with the idea that our government tortures its citizens, but until we acknowledge that this is happening, there will be no change. If the only way to escape solitary confinement is to "parole, debrief, or die," how is that anything but torture?

Marie Levin spoke about how solitary confinement hurts other people besides just the prisoners in solitary; in particular, their family members and the communities they have been removed from. Marie is the sister of Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, who has been in the SHU at Pelican Bay since 1990. She has not hugged her brother in over two decades and has only been able to see him 10 times since he's been at Pelican Bay. She told the heartbreaking story of their sister Carol's death in 2010. Carol had kidney failure in 2001 and after discovering this, Sitawa wanted to donate a kidney to save his sister's life. The prison would not allow him to make the donation, and after years of fighting this, Carol died in a puddle of blood after a dialysis treatment. This is just one of the many horrifying stories brought to you by California’s solitary confinement regime. Ashley, co-author of this article, had the privilege of meeting Sitawa last week on our visit to Pelican Bay, and when he told this same story, she had to fight back tears.

Azadeh Zohrabi, a Soros Justice Fellow, Hastings alum, and the brilliant woman who is spearheading the Stop the Torture campaign to end solitary confinement in California spoke next. She focused her comments on the 2011 hunger strikes and how the prisoners' demands are still not being met by CDCR, despite their promises of reform that ended the strike. Although they have new regulations, they do not meet the prisoner's very reasonable demands, and the prisoners have announced that the strike is set to resume July 8th of this year. She spoke about the importance of the Stop the Torture campaign and raising awareness around this issue. She remarked that perhaps the dangerous and painful hunger strike could be avoided if this issue gets enough attention before July 8th. She said that people don't just go on hunger strike for fun. Lives were lost during the last hunger strikes and people lost a lot of weight and had significant medical complications resulting from the strike. The fact that prisoners would risk their lives to bring attention to the conditions of their confinement is a testament to how dire the situation is. During our visits to Pelican Bay last week, many men indicated their commitment to see this strike through if the results they were already promised are not reached. One inmate, in describing why he would risk his life in a hunger strike, said, “It’s no life in here.”

In total, approximately sixty guests attended the event and we are hoping a lot of them will trickle in to the State Building over the next couple days for the "California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform" symposium! There will be ample opportunity at the symposium to delve deeper into the issues California faces in its multi-faceted correctional crisis. To stay plugged into this issue, visit Stop Torture CA and follow us on Twitter @StopTortureCA. 

TODAY! Join us to reignite struggle against solitary confinement!

Today's panel will feature people who have done time in the SHU, family members of current SHU inmates, doctors, lawyers, activists... a real opportunity to hear insiders' accounts of the experience and the struggle.

When: Tours of life-sized model of a SHU cell from 1:30pm; panel at 6:00pm.

Where: Louis B. Mayer Lounge, UC Hastings, 198 McAllister Street (cross street Hyde), San Francisco.

Hope to see you with us!

And, of course, please plan to join us later this week for California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform.

Solitary Confinement Punishes Families, Too

The Huff Post published a beautiful piece by Marie Levin, whose brother Ronnie (Sitawa) has been held in solitary confinement for the last twenty-three years.

Marie's piece is a reminder that solitary confinement is punishment not only for the segregated party, but for his/her family as well.

I have only seen my brother ten times since he has been at Pelican Bay. The drive is almost eight hours, I don't own a car, and travel and lodging are very expensive. There is so much time between visits that each time I see him, Ronnie looks much older. We're not allowed any contact at all during visits, and the prison only allows us visits of one-to-two hours.

But this is hardly the worst our family has suffered while Ronnie has been in the SHU. In 2001, our sister Carol suffered kidney failure. Ronnie was a compatible kidney donor, but the prison would not allow him to make the donation. For years, Ronnie fought for permission to save his sister. Carol died in 2010, in a puddle of blood, bleeding out after a dialysis treatment.

Now, our mother is seriously ill. She has had several strokes, is paralyzed on her right side, has trouble speaking, and suffers from cognitive difficulties. She longs to see her only son, but she is no longer able to make the long, difficult trip. I am faced with the heartbreaking realization that she may never see her son again solely because of his writing and reading material - his unjust imprisonment in the SHU that has kept him from being paroled for almost two decades.

This is an extreme example of the multiple ways in which mass incarceration destroys families and communities, invading and harming countless lives beyond those behind bars.

Marie will be one of our speakers at tomorrow's panel on solitary confinement. The event is at 6pm, at UC Hastings, 198 McAllister Street. We will have a life-sized model of a SHU cell and hear from people formerly incarcerated in the SHU, family members, doctors, lawyers, and activists. Please join us for all-day tours of the SHU and for the evening panel.

And of course, if you have not already done so, please plan to join us Thursday and Friday for California Correctional Crisis: Realignment and Reform.

Assemblyman Ammiano Arrives in Pelican Bay

Image courtesy www.examiner.com.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, whose efforts to reform the criminal justice system are well known to frequent readers of this blog, is paying a visit to Pelican Bay. The Examiner reports:

After more than two months delay, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-SF), Chair of the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, arrives today at one of California’s Maximum Security correctional facilities to see for himself the progress the State’s prison system is making to address concerns of judges and reform advocates for the care of incarcerated Californians.

Earlier this year Ammiano likened California’s 33 prisons to “Gladiator Academies,” where Californians incarcerated for homelessness, victimless crimes like drug possession and those with mental illness must choose between “being victimized or victimizing others.”

. . . 

Perhaps surprisingly, Ammiano’s visit is welcomed by CDCR. “When I heard about his plans my first thought was, ‘What took him so long,’” CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton told California Progress Report. “I wish more legislators would visit our prison system.” 

Thornton admits the prison system has made mistakes, many of which were thrust upon it as the legislature cut from its budget money earmarked for re-entry programs like education, vocation-training, drug rehabilitation and counseling and mental health services – cuts that have led to California’s notoriously high recidivism rate. 

“Look, if you’re going to cut social services, education and healthcare for senior citizens – even my own salary was cut, as were the salaries of most state employees, and that really hurt, believe me – why wouldn’t the CDCR experience cuts to [programs geared toward the successful return of parolees to society], asked Thornton. “But things have turned around, funding has been restored, and our recidivism rate is down.”

-----------------
Props to Caitlin Henry for the link.

U.S. Bureau of Prisons to Review Solitary Confinement

Good news via Reuters:

A spokesman from the bureau confirmed that the National Institute of Corrections plans to retain an independent auditor "in the weeks ahead" to examine the use of solitary confinement, which is also known as restrictive housing.

"We are confident that the audit will yield valuable information to improve our operations, and we thank Senator Durbin for his continued interest in this very important topic," spokesman Chris Burke said in a statement. 

Prisoners in isolation are often confined to small cells without windows for up to 23 hours a day. Durbin's office said the practice can have a severe psychological impact on inmates and that more than half of all suicides committed in prisons occur in solitary confinement. 

In Durbin's state of Illinois, 56 percent of inmates have spent some time in segregated housing. 

"The United States holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other democratic nation in the world, and the dramatic expansion of solitary confinement is a human rights issue we can't ignore," said Durbin, who chaired a Senate hearing on the use of solitary confinement last year. "We can no longer slam the cell door and turn our backs on the impact our policies have on the mental state of the incarcerated and ultimately on the safety of our nation."

The Vera Institute's Segregation Reduction Project, in which they partner with states and help them reduce the population under solitary confinement, has yielded, to my surprise, impressive monetary savings and no decrease in prison security.

Yesterday, at the Western Society of Criminology, I heard something interesting. Ashley Rubin, who is joining the criminology faculty at Florida State University next year, presented a fascinating paper based on her archival study of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia (which we visited a few years ago.) In the 19th century, Eastern State advocated an incarceration model based on total isolation of inmates. Auburn prison, in New York State, did not isolate its prisoners, though it did require them to work in silence; Auburn model supporters critiqued Philadelphia for the inhumanity and wastefulness of solitary confinement. Officially, Philadelphia supporters rejected the critiques. But privately, they double-celled inmates. The warden's journal reveals the motivation behind this practice: Concern about the inmates' sanity and their need for company. They also allowed inmates to work out of the cell, when they needed to do so to reduce prison costs through inmate labor.

Apparently, there is nothing new under the sun. Keramet Reiter from UC Irvine has been studying the modern supermax and solitary confinement, and has found the exact same practice going on today: Double-celling in solitary cells in the supermax. Apparently, a second bunk had been thrown into solitary cells in supermaxes as an afterthought, and it's being used. Read this for more information. Whether CDCR does so to alleviate overcrowding, save money, or alleviate inmates' mental anguish, it raises the question whether being housed with another person for 23 hours a day in close proximity and tight quarters is better or worse than doing time alone. I suppose the answer depends greatly on the circumstances, the person, the mental state of both inmates, and the extent to which staff monitor the possibility of violence in the cell.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons' willingness to examine solitary confinement is welcome news. I hope its findings, as well as the Vera Institute's important activity, will yield some thoughts on the state and local level about reducing the usage of solitary confinement.