Torture: The Use of Solitary Confinement in U.S.
Prisons
May 31, 2012
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*Updated May 2015*
What is Solitary Confinement?
In the
early nineteenth century, the U.S. led the world in a new practice of
imprisoning people in solitary cells, without access to any human contact or
stimulation, as a method of rehabilitation. The results were disastrous, as
prisoners suffered severe psychological harm. The practice was all but abandoned.
Over a century later, it has made an unfortunate comeback. Instead of torturing
prisoners with solitary confinement in dark and dirty underground holes,
prisoners are now subjected to solitary confinement in well-lit, sterile boxes.
The psychological repercussions are similar.
Today,
tens of thousands of individuals across the country are detained inside
cramped, concrete, windowless cells in a state of near-total solitude for
between 22 and 24 hours a day. The cells have a toilet and a shower, and a slot
in the door large enough for a guard to slip a food tray through.
Prisoners in solitary confinement are frequently deprived of telephone calls
and contact visits. “Recreation” involves being taken, often in handcuffs and
shackles, to another solitary cell where prisoners can pace alone for an hour
before being returned to their cell.
Ever since solitary confinement came into existence, it has been used as a tool
of repression. While it is justified by corrections officials as necessary to
protect prisoners and guards from violent prisoners, all too often it is
imposed on individuals, particularly prisoners of color, who threaten prison
administrations in an altogether different way. Consistently, jailhouse lawyers
and jailhouse doctors, who administer to the needs of their fellow prisoners
behind bars, are placed in solitary confinement. They are joined by
political prisoners from various civil rights and independence movements.
CCR’s Challenges to
Solitary Confinement
In May 2012, the Center for
Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a lawsuit against the state of California for
its use of prolonged solitary confinement in the infamous Pelican Bay prison.
Ashker, et al. v. Governor, et al., is a federal class action challenging
prolonged solitary confinement and deprivation of due process, based on the
rights guaranteed under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, at Pelican Bay. The
case challenges inhumane, unconstitutional conditions under which thousands of
prisoners live. The case argues that ten years or more of solitary confinement
cannot be imposed on any prisoner, regardless of his mental health status, and
that prisoners must have meaningful notice of the reason for their placement in
solitary, and frequent reviews of that status. While California has
implemented major changes to its process for placing and retaining prisoners in
solitary confinement in response to prisoner hunger strikes and the litigation,
grave rights violations remain at Pelican Bay and other prisons, and the case
is set to go to trial in December 2015.
CCR’s
case against solitary confinement at Pelican Bay is the latest in a long
history of challenges to the use of isolation in prisons. In Wilkinson v. Austin, the U.S.
Supreme Court unanimously ruled in support of CCR’s claims that prison
officials cannot confine prisoners in long-term solitary confinement in a super
maximum prison without first giving them the opportunity to challenge their
placement. CCR has engaged in solidarity efforts alongside hunger striking
prisoners, as well as engaged in advocacy against the use of isolation in
prisons.
Solitary Confinement is Torture
The
devastating psychological and physical effects of prolonged solitary
confinement are well documented by social scientists: prolonged solitary confinement
causes prisoners significant mental harm and places them at grave risk of even
more devastating future psychological harm and at times, these harms were found
to be permanent or persist even after one was released from solitary.
Researchers have demonstrated that
prolonged solitary confinement causes a persistent and heightened state of
anxiety and nervousness, headaches, insomnia, lethargy or chronic tiredness,
nightmares, heart palpitations, fear of impending nervous breakdowns and higher
rates of hypertension and early morbidity. Other documented effects include
obsessive ruminations, confused thought processes, an oversensitivity to
stimuli, irrational anger, social withdrawal, hallucinations, violent
fantasies, emotional flatness, mood swings, chronic depression, feelings of
overall deterioration, as well as suicidal ideation.
Exposure to such life-shattering
conditions clearly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment – in violation of
the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Further, the brutal use of
solitary has been condemned as torture by the international community.
A Growing Human Rights Movement against the Use of Solitary
Confinement
Across
the United States and the world, there is an emerging movement calling for the
end of solitary confinement.
In the
U.S., prisoner-led movements have attracted media attention and public scrutiny
to harsh conditions of confinement, including overcrowding, the use of
isolation, deplorable health conditions, substandard medical care, and the discriminatory
and careless treatment of people with mental illnesses. Several prisoner-led
hunger strikes have drawn attention to these harsh conditions, including
efforts in Georgia, Ohio and California.
International human rights experts and bodies have also condemned indefinite or
prolonged solitary confinement, recommended that the practice be abolished
entirely and argued that solitary confinement is a human rights abuse that can
amount to torture. In August 2011, Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, concluded that even 15
days in solitary confinement constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment or punishment, and 15 days is the limit after which irreversible
harmful psychological effects can occur. Other independent human rights
bodies at the UN have also expressed concern about Pelican Bay prison and the
overall use of solitary in U.S. prisons. However, many prisoners in the United
States have been isolated for far longer than just 15 days.
Solitary Confinement at the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit
Opened
on December 1, 1989, Pelican Bay State Prison is the most restrictive prison in
California and one of the harshest “super-maximum” prisons in the country. The
prison was specifically designed to foster maximum isolation. It is one of four
Security Housing Units (SHU) operated by the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
Prior to the hunger strikes, more than 500 of Pelican Bay’s SHU prisoners have
been held in solitary confinement in the SHU for over 10 years. Over 78
prisoners have languished in solitary for more than 20 years. Prisoners are
detained inside windowless cells, are not allowed to call home and are served
substandard or rotten food.
Prisoners are frequently assigned to the SHU without any significant
disciplinary record; instead they are designated for indefinite solitary
confinement based on their alleged gang affiliation. They can be labeled
“gang members” for waiving hello to another prisoner who has already been
so-designated, or for possession of artwork, or even the subject of their
tattoos.
Until recently, the only real way out of the SHU was to “debrief,” to inform on
other prisoners, thus condemning other prisoners to the same torture, and
risking retaliation. In response to the prisoner’s organizing, California
has now created a “step down program” which allows prisoners placed in solitary
for gang affiliation to earn release to general population after spending 3-4
years in solitary without any gang-related activity, so long as they take part
in mandatory journaling and other programming. While many states have
implemented step down programs, California’s requires longer in solitary than
any other state, and is being imposed upon prisoners who have already spent a
decade in solitary, misconduct free.
The California Hunger Strikes
In 2011
and again in 2013, prisoners across California organized coordinated hunger
strikes in protest of inhuman and degrading conditions of confinement and
outlined five core demands: (1) end group punishment; (2) abolish the use of
debriefing; (3) end long-term solitary confinement and alleviate conditions in
segregation, including the provision of regular and meaningful social contact,
adequate healthcare and access to sunlight; (4) provide adequate food; and (5)
expand programming and privileges.
Though CDCR convinced the prisoners to suspend the strike by promising change,
the resulting reforms have not gone far enough, and CDCR has punished the
hunger strike leaders with prison discipline and other retaliation.
TAKE ACTION AND GET INVOLVED:
Pelican
Bay SHU prisoners have organized to combat cruel conditions of confinement, and
have launched hunger strikes in order to raise attention to their demands. The
CDCR must honor the Pelican Bay SHU Prisoners’ Demands.
Attachments
Last modified
June 1, 2015
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