Confinement From Social Death to Collective Resistance What is solitary confinement How many people are held in solitary confinement in the United States today Charles Samuels Federal Bureau of Prisons Director ID: 580942
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Slide1
Solitary Confinement
From Social Death to Collective Resistance
Slide2
What is solitary confinement?Slide3Slide4Slide5Slide6Slide7
How many people are held in solitary confinement in the United States today?Slide8
Charles Samuels, Federal Bureau of Prisons Director:
'We do
not practice solitary
confinement.’
Federal
Supermax
Prison, ADX Florence (410 solitary confinement units)
Tommy Silverstein, in solitary confinement since 1983 (33 years)Slide9
Approximately 80,000 people are in some form of “restrictive housing” in the US today
Euphemisms for solitary confinement
Disciplinary
segregation
Administrative segregation
Protective custody
Security
Housing Units
or Special
Housing Units (SHU)
Intensive Management Units (IMU)
Restricted Housing Units (RHU)
Communication Management Units (CMU
)Slide10
Who is most likely to end up in solitary?Slide11
Racial Disparities in the SHU
I
n
the New York City jail
system (2011-13), African Americans were
2.52 times more likely
than whites to be put in
solitary
.
Hispanics were
1.65 times more
likely
.
In 2011,
85%
of the prisoners in
California’s Pelican
Bay SHU were Latino, compared to only 41% of prisoners in the general prison
population. In Washington, D.C. (2014), 97% of men in administrative segregation — one type of solitary confinement — were black.Mental illness and cognitive impairment is more more likely to be interpreted as “bad” or “manipulative” behavior in black and brown prisoners. See, for example, Jonathan
Metzl’s research on race and mental illness (
The Protest Psychosis
).Slide12Slide13
What are the typical effects of solitary confinement?Slide14
SHU Syndrome
Stuart
Grassian
and Craig Haney
A
ffective
disorders such as anxiety, paranoia, uncontrollable rage, and
depression
C
ognitive
disorders such as confusion, inability to focus, oversensitivity to stimuli, obsessive
rumination, and memory loss
Perceptual disorders such as visual and acoustic hallucinations
P
hysical
disorders such as headaches, lethargy, insomnia, digestive problems, heart palpitations, fainting spells, and bodily aches and
pains
I
n
extreme cases, psychotic breakdown, self-mutilation, and suicide Slide15
Five Omar
Mualimm-ak
“After only a short time in solitary, I felt all of my senses begin to diminish. There was nothing to see but gray walls
…
“There was nothing to hear except empty, echoing voices from other parts of the prison. I was so lonely that I hallucinated words coming out of the wind. They sounded like whispers.
“Sometimes
, I smelled the paint on the wall, but more often, I just smelled myself, revolted by my own scent.
“There
was no touch
…
“Even
time had no meaning in the SHU.
The lights were kept on for 24 hours. I often found myself wondering if an event I was recollecting had happened that morning or days before. I talked to myself. I began to get scared that the guards would come in and kill me and leave me hanging in the cell. Who would know if something happened to me? Just as I was invisible, so was the space I inhabited.
“The
very essence of life
, I came to learn during those seemingly endless days,
is human contact,
and the affirmation of existence that comes with it. Losing that contact, you lose your sense of identity. You become nothing
.”
-
The Guardian
,
Oct. 30, 2013Slide16
Robert King
“When
I walked out of Angola, I didn't
realize
how permanently the experience of solitary would mark me. Even now my sight is impaired. I find it very difficult to judge long distances – a result of living in such a small space. Emotionally, too, I've found it hard to move on. I talk about my 29 years in solitary as if it was the past, but the truth is it never leaves you. In some ways I am still there
.”
-
The Guardian
,
A
ug. 27, 2010Slide17
Testimony from the SHU at Valley State Prison for Women
Interviews by Cassandra
Shaylor
, 1998
52 women in
the SHU
at VSPW in
1998
40
% Black, 21% Hispanic/Mexican, 5.9% “Other”
Angela Tucker: “It’s like living in a black hole.”
Yvonne Smith, on routine strip searches in the SHU:
“They don’t do this because of
the ‘safety
and security of the institution
,’
they do it for humiliation. Some of them really like it. There is nothing we can do between our cells and the shower, no way we can pick anything up. They’re with us, watching us the whole time. They are just
tryin
’ to break us
down.”
Claudia Johnson,
on
strip search and forced cell extraction: “It is about humiliation and total loss of dignity, and I don’t care what they call it. I call it
rape
.
” Slide18
Average Length of Time in Solitary in California Prisons:
6.8
Years
Over
1,000 people have been isolated for over 10 years in
California
78
people have been isolated for over 20 yearsSlide19
Social Death and Natal AlienationSlide20
Why do we do this to people?Slide21
Walnut Street Jail: The World’s First Penitentiary (1776-1835)Slide22
Eastern State Penitentiary (1829-1971)Slide23Slide24Slide25Slide26
Benjamin Rush, “Enquiry into the Effects of Public Punishment” (1787)
“I am so perfectly satisfied of the truth of this opinion that methinks I already hear the inhabitants of our villages and townships counting the years that shall complete the reformation of one of their citizens. I behold them running to meet him on the day of his deliverance.—His friends and family bathe his cheeks with tears of joy; and the universal shout of the
neighbourhood
is, ‘
This our brother was lost and is found—was dead, and is alive
.’”Slide27
Charles Dickens,
American Notes (1842)
“Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house, a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes forth, until his whole term of imprisonment has
expired...
He is a man buried alive
; to be dug out in the slow round of years; and in the meantime
dead to everything but torturing anxieties and horrible
despair.
” Slide28Slide29
Cold War Sensory Deprivation Research
After 6 days of sensory
deprivation in Donald Hebb’s lab, 1956:
“The whole room is undulating,
swirling
…
The
wall is waving all over the place -- a horrifying sight, as a matter of fact... The
centre
of that curtain over
there—it
just swirls downward, undulates and waves inside... I find it difficult to keep my eyes open for any length of time, the visual field is in such a state of chaos... Everything will settle down for a moment, then it will start to go all over the place.” Slide30
Conference:
The Power to Change Behavior
(
1961)
James V. Bennett, director of the federal Bureau of Prisons from 1937 to 1964:
“[
W]e have a tremendous opportunity here to carry on some of the experimenting to which the various panelists have
alluded
…
[W]e
here in Washington are anxious to have you undertake some of these things. Do things perhaps on your
own—undertake
a little experiment of what you can do with the
Muslims—undertake
a little experiment with what you can do with some of the sociopath
individuals
…
[Y]
ou
are thoughtful people with lots of opportunity to experiment--there’s lots of research to do--do it as individuals, do it as groups, and let us know the results.”Slide31
Birth of the
Supermax
Prison
United States Penitentiary Marion was built in 1963 to replace
Alcatraz
.
The
prison implemented experimental programs such as CARE (Control and Rehabilitation Effort) and
Asklepieion
, based on Cold War research on sensory deprivation and behavior modification.
Politically active prisoners from across the US were relocated to Marion, including Leonard
Peltier of
AIM,
Sekou
Odinga
of the Black Liberation Army,
and
Puerto Rican nationalist
Oscar
Lopez
Rivera.
In 1973, the first Control Units were built at Marion
..
In the words of former warden,
Ralph
Arons
:
“The purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to
control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in the society at large.
”
In 1983, the entire prison was locked down in response to the murder of two prison guards. The lockdown remained in effect for 23 years, making Marion the first de facto
supermax
prison.Slide32
There are now at least 57 prisons across the US with
supermax
facilitiesSlide33
How can we end the practice of extreme isolation? Slide34
Madrid v Gomez (1995)
Judge
Thelton
Henderson: “Conditions
in the SHU may well
hover on the edge of what is humanly tolerable
for those with normal resilience, particularly when endured for extended periods of time.
They do not, however, violate exacting Eighth Amendment standards
, except for the specific population subgroups identified in this opinion
.”
(at 1280)
"
Segregated detention is not cruel and unusual punishment
per se
, as long as the conditions of confinement are not foul, inhuman or totally without
penological
justification
" (cited
at
1262).Slide35
California Prison Hunger Strikes
2011, 2013
Over 30,000 prisoners across California launched in the strike action in 2013. This is the largest hunger strike in state history.Slide36
Pelican Bay-SHU Short Corridor Collective
Five Core Demands
to end group punishment for individual rule
violations
t
o reform gang
validation
policies
to
comply with the recommendations of a
national commission
on long-term solitary
confinement
to
provide
adequate and healthy food
to
expand rehabilitation and recreation
programsSlide37Slide38Slide39Slide40Slide41