[Regardless of the name, the reality is that people spend nearly
24 hours locked in their cell each day with little to no human
contact. ] [[link removed]]

THEY SURVIVED SOLITARY CONFINEMENT. NOW THEY’RE FIGHTING TO END IT.
 
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Victoria Law
August 12, 2019
Truthout
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_ Regardless of the name, the reality is that people spend nearly 24
hours locked in their cell each day with little to no human contact. _


A person looks out from a solitary confinement cell at the Val Verde
Correctional Facility in Del Rio, Texas, on May 8, 2008., Tom
Pennington/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT via Getty Images

 

For nine and a half months, Lydia Thornton was locked into her cell
nearly 24 hours a day. All of her meals were slid through a slot in
the cell’s steel door. She was allowed outside to shower three times
each week. Through cinderblock walls, she could hear women in
adjoining cells screaming for hours on end. Sometimes they threatened
to kill themselves, a threat often followed by an eerie silence.

This was administrative segregation, or “ad seg,” in New
Jersey’s prison system. Ad seg is one of the many official terms for
solitary confinement; other systems call it punitive segregation,
special housing units and keeplock. Regardless of the name, the
reality is that people spend nearly 24 hours locked in their cell each
day with little to no human contact.

Thornton has been out of prison since 2015. Since then, she’s been
fighting to ensure that others don’t go through that same
experience.

In June 2019, six years after Thornton’s experience in solitary
confinement, New Jersey lawmakers passed the Isolated Confinement
Restriction Act [[link removed]], limiting
solitary to 20 consecutive days or 30 days’ total during a 60-day
period. The law also prevents certain “vulnerable populations,”
such as people under age 21, those over age 65, pregnant people,
people with mental or physical disabilities, and LGBTQ people, from
being placed in isolation at all. In addition, under the law, prison
staff can only place someone in solitary if they are determined to be
a threat to themselves or others, not simply for violating prison
rules. The New Jersey Department of Corrections will be required to
provide documentation and data about its use of solitary.

More than 80,000 people are locked in solitary confinement in the
U.S., and the practice is finally garnering more public attention and
outrage. Meanwhile, activists, including formerly incarcerated people
who have experienced isolation themselves, are pushing for laws that
limit the amount of time in solitary both as a way to immediately stop
ongoing torture and as a stepping stone to larger criminal legal
reforms. Their efforts have also pushed the issue into becoming a
talking point among (some) Democratic presidential candidates, with
Elizabeth Warren
[[link removed]],
Joe Biden [[link removed]], Cory Booker
[[link removed]], Pete
Buttigieg
[[link removed]],
John Hickenlooper [[link removed]] and
Beto O’Rourke [[link removed]]publicly
denouncing it as torture and calling for limits to time spent in
isolation.

Primarily, however, reforms are being advocated at the state level.
Some clear victories have already emerged. For example, New Jersey’s
Isolated Confinement Restriction Act was originally introduced and
passed by the legislature in 2016. Then-Gov. Chris Christie vetoed the
bill, calling it an “ill-informed, politically motivated press
release.”
[[link removed]] The bill
was reintroduced and signed into law after Gov. Phil Murray — who
campaigned on criminal legal reforms
[[link removed]] including bail
reform, marijuana legalization and a reexamination of mandatory
minimum sentencing — took office.

New York’s “HALT Solitary” Legislation Quietly Dies

In New York, a similar bill did not fare as well. New York prisons
currently have 2,540 people in dedicated solitary units (called
Special Housing Units or SHUs) and an estimated 1,000 in keeplock
[[link removed]],
or 23-hour lockdown in their own cells.

After six years of organizing, advocates held high hopes for the
passage of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act
[[link removed]],
which would limit stints in isolation to 15 consecutive days or 20
days in a given 60-day period. It would also create alternative units
for people who, according to authorities, needed to be separated from
others for a longer period of time. These alternative units, or
Residential Rehabilitation Units (RRUs) would separate people from
general population, but would allow them six hours each day for
out-of-cell programming and another hour of recreation. HALT would
have applied to state prisons as well as local jails. Jails that hold
less than 500 people would be exempt from having to create RRUs.

By the last week of the state’s legislative session, both the
Assembly and Senate versions had enough votes to pass. In addition to
rallies and press conferences, advocates with the Campaign for
Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC) launched an eight–day
hunger strike
[[link removed]]
to press legislative leaders to bring the bill to a vote. Meanwhile,
Gov. Andrew Cuomo publicly voiced his opposition to the bill, stating
that it would require spending $300 million to build new prison cells
[[link removed]]. It
was an assertion that advocates contested, noting that the
governor’s original budget proposal
[[link removed]]
contained $69 million in capital costs and $10 million in operating
expenses for his own solitary reform proposal.

Instead, legislative leaders Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Carl E.
Heastie reached a compromise with Governor Cuomo
[[link removed]].
Under the compromise, Governor Cuomo will issue regulations
prohibiting adolescents, pregnant people, and people with disabilities
from being placed in solitary. In addition, placement in a specially
designated solitary unit, such as the SHU, will be capped at 30 days.

The regulations only extend to state prisons, not local jails. This
means that people like Layleen Polanco, who died nine days into a
20-day solitary sentence
[[link removed]]
at Rikers Island, New York’s island-jail complex, or Kalief Browder,
who died by suicide after spending two of his three years at Rikers
Island in solitary, would not be protected by the governor’s
regulations. In 2015, the Board of Correction, New York City’s penal
oversight board, passed a rule limiting solitary to 30 consecutive
days
[[link removed]]
or 60 days total during any six-month period. But people in other
jails have no time limits on their stay in isolation.

Cuomo has not yet publicly released his solitary regulations. The
state budget that ultimately passed
[[link removed]]
contained $14.2 million in operating costs, largely for 153 full-time
staff of solitary units and another $70 million for projects related
to solitary confinement reform. But news of the legislative compromise
has already spread throughout the state’s prison system. The
campaign has received letters from people currently in solitary
confinement as well as calls from their outside family members.
“Everybody is heartbroken and disappointed,” Victor Pate,
statewide organizer for the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated
Confinement, told _Truthout_.

“We want people out of their cells the same way that the United
Nations has said that more than 15 days in solitary
[[link removed]]
is torture,” said Roger Clark, a member of CAIC and advocacy group
VOCAL-NY, referencing the 2015 Mandela rules
[[link removed]]. Clark spent five years
at the Southport Correctional Facility, a dedicated 23-hour lockdown
prison. Both he and Pate see the fight to limit solitary confinement
as one of the many ways to end mass incarceration.

But thanks to organizers’ efforts, at least one electoral hopeful
has also made solitary his talking point. Janos Marton, a former
advocate with the #CloseRikers campaign and now campaign manager for
the ACLU’s Smart Justice Campaign, is running for Manhattan district
attorney. Among his campaign pledges is a promise to drastically limit
solitary for all people awaiting trial in Manhattan. (As of 2019,
one-third of the people in New York City’s jails
[[link removed]]
are from Manhattan.)

“As Manhattan DA, I would have a policy that anytime a defendant is
being held in non-compliance with the Mandela rules, or whatever
version of HALT is passed, I would drop bail [requirements] against
that defendant, so hopefully they could be removed from the jail
system,” Marton told _Truthout_. If dropping bail requirements is
not possible, Marton says he would dismiss the criminal charges.
“That might seem controversial to some people, but I feel that
it’s a moral imperative to not torture people in solitary,” he
said.

Marton recalls touring Rikers Island and seeing the segregation units
for himself. “I wouldn’t last two days in those cells.”

Speaking Out About Trauma

Pate noted that the devastation caused by solitary doesn’t disappear
once a person is released. “I’ve been home 23 years,” he pointed
out. “I’m not completely healed yet.” Speaking about his
experiences and organizing to end these policies have been
instrumental in his healing process. “if you don’t talk about it,
you don’t get better,” Pate counsels people who are currently
incarcerated or nearing release.

But not every person is ready to do that. Many bury their trauma.
Thornton recalls a woman in her mid-twenties confined two cells down
from her in New Jersey’s isolation unit. The woman, Thornton told
_Truthout_, had mental health issues and had already been in ad seg
for a year before Thornton arrived. The woman often punched or banged
her head against the walls. One day, as she passed Thornton’s door
for her thrice-weekly shower, she put her hand through the food slot.
It was swollen from continually hitting the cinderblock walls.

Instinctively, Thornton stroked her hand in sympathy. When she saw the
woman’s eyes well with tears, she apologized, assuming that her
touch had caused more pain. When the woman returned from the shower,
Thornton was waiting by her cell door to apologize again. As the woman
slowly walked past Thornton’s cell, she replied, “That’s the
first time anyone has touched me except in violence in two years.”
The woman was still in segregation nine and a half months later when
Thornton was moved to general population.

The woman is now out of prison. Thornton has occasionally seen her on
the streets, but says that the woman refuses to talk about her time in
isolation.

That’s not unusual, says Brian Nelson, prisoners’ rights
coordinator at Chicago’s Uptown People’s Law Center. Nelson spent
23 years in solitary
[[link removed]];
12 were at the infamous (and now-closed) Tamms supermax prison. Now he
shares his story to push Illinois lawmakers to pass the Isolated
Confinement Restriction Act
[[link removed]]
to limit isolation to no more than 10 consecutive days during any
180-day period continues.

In Illinois, people can be sent to segregation for a variety of
reasons
[[link removed]].
In 2011, over 500 people were sent to segregation for damage or misuse
of property. Another 300 were isolated for “intimidation or
threats” and another 150 for drug or drug paraphernalia possession.
But even pettier acts can result in extreme isolation: That same year,
1,500 segregation sentences were imposed for unauthorized movement,
1,300 for insolence and 800 for non-dangerous contraband.

Nelson knows dozens of people who have spent time in solitary. They
all support the Illinois bill, he told _Truthout_, but virtually no
one wants to relive the trauma by telling their stories publicly.
He’s one of the few who will, but every time he does, he spends the
rest of the day wrestling with suicidal feelings. That’s not the
only after-effect of solitary. Nelson has a hard time being around
other people, sequestering himself in an office upstairs at the
15-person Uptown People’s Law Office. He hasn’t gone to his
family’s house for holidays in over three years. He can’t ride
public transportation. And he remains devastated knowing that so many
other people are still held under similar conditions.

Nelson and Gregory Koger, who spent six consecutive years in solitary
starting at age 17, have started the Prison Liberation Collective
[[link removed]] to not only organize
against solitary and mass incarceration, but to help survivors of
solitary address the trauma of long-term isolation.

Challenging Solitary in Court

In 2016, six people currently in solitary have filed a federal lawsuit
challenging Illinois’s use of solitary as a violation of the Eighth
Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and 14th
Amendment right to due process.

The six men have spent between six months and 17 years in extreme
isolation. (Since the suit has been filed, one person has been
released from isolation, though he remains in prison.) Now, they are
demanding that the Illinois Department of Corrections implement
policies based on the American Bar Association’s Criminal Justice
Standards, which restrict solitary only for reasons pertaining to
discipline, security, ongoing investigation of misconduct or crime,
and protection from harm, and then only for the briefest period of
time.

In March 2017, a federal court ruled
[[link removed]]
that the six Illinois prisoners had stated a claim for
unconstitutional conditions of confinement and that the hearings held
by the prison were violations of their constitutional right to due
process. Since then, the Uptown People’s Law Center has had experts
tour six of the state’s prisons; their reports will be submitted as
part of their September motion to have the lawsuit certified as a
class-action suit.

Alan Mills, director of the Uptown People’s Law Center and
co-counsel on the suit, says the fight to end solitary plays a dual
role: It is both a chance to reduce harm for people behind bars and
also part of a larger fight to rethink the criminal legal system.
“Just like society hides many of its problems by putting people in
prison, prisons hide many problems by putting people in solitary,”
he told _Truthout_.

For example, Mills noted that the criminalization of people with
serious mental illness frequently results in their incarceration
rather than genuine efforts at mental health treatment. Similarly,
prisons often place people with serious mental illness in solitary
confinement rather than offering them treatment. In challenging
solitary confinement, Mills and other advocates say they are
challenging the logic on which the larger system of punishment is
built.

“What we’re really doing is rethinking ways that we deal with
prisons and punishment as a whole,” Mills said.

 
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Reprinted with permission.

 

_Victoria Law [[link removed]] is a freelance journalist who
focuses on the intersections of incarceration, gender and resistance.
Her first book, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated
Women, examines organizing in women’s jails and prisons across the
country. She writes regularly for Truthout and is a contributor to the
anthology Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Her next book,
co-written with Maya Schenwar, critically examines proposed
“alternatives” to incarceration and explores creative and
far-reaching solutions to truly end mass incarceration. She is also
the proud parent of a New York City high school student._

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