A community resource for monitoring, navigating, surviving, and dismantling the prison industrial complex in Arizona.
Retiring Arizona Prison Watch...
This site was originally started in July 2009 as an independent endeavor to monitor conditions in Arizona's criminal justice system, as well as offer some critical analysis of the prison industrial complex from a prison abolitionist/anarchist's perspective. It was begun in the aftermath of the death of Marcia Powell, a 48 year old AZ state prisoner who was left in an outdoor cage in the desert sun for over four hours while on a 10-minute suicide watch. That was at ASPC-Perryville, in Goodyear, AZ, in May 2009.
Marcia, a seriously mentally ill woman with a meth habit sentenced to the minimum mandatory 27 months in prison for prostitution was already deemed by society as disposable. She was therefore easily ignored by numerous prison officers as she pleaded for water and relief from the sun for four hours. She was ultimately found collapsed in her own feces, with second degree burns on her body, her organs failing, and her body exceeding the 108 degrees the thermometer would record. 16 officers and staff were disciplined for her death, but no one was ever prosecuted for her homicide. Her story is here.
Marcia's death and this blog compelled me to work for the next 5 1/2 years to document and challenge the prison industrial complex in AZ, most specifically as manifested in the Arizona Department of Corrections. I corresponded with over 1,000 prisoners in that time, as well as many of their loved ones, offering all what resources I could find for fighting the AZ DOC themselves - most regarding their health or matters of personal safety.
I also began to work with the survivors of prison violence, as I often heard from the loved ones of the dead, and learned their stories. During that time I memorialized the Ghosts of Jan Brewer - state prisoners under her regime who were lost to neglect, suicide or violence - across the city's sidewalks in large chalk murals. Some of that art is here.
In November 2014 I left Phoenix abruptly to care for my family. By early 2015 I was no longer keeping up this blog site, save occasional posts about a young prisoner in solitary confinement in Arpaio's jail. I'm deeply grateful to the prisoners who educated, confided in, and encouraged me throughout the years I did this work. My life has been made all the more rich and meaningful by their engagement.
I've linked to some posts about advocating for state prisoner health and safety to the right, as well as other resources for families and friends.
4StruggleMag is a classic prisoner rights zine put out by and for North American political prisoners and friends. One of the resources they link to is this greatLegal Solidarity Handbook. They also put out alerts about the abusive conditions of confinement being experienced by prisoners due to their political views, as in the case of anti-imperial prisoner Jaan Laaman.
Especially if you're in Arizona, please email the regional director, as noted below, and urge her not to punish Jaan further. The BOP needs to know there are people bearing witness to how they treat our elders - and really, those Communication Management Units need to be banned (that's where they'll dump me, too, no doubt, if they ever get the chance...).
to support prisoners in Arizona and fight the police state:
As of today, Monday, June 26, 2017,
Jaan K. Laaman, long-time anti-imperialist political prisoner, is still
locked down in segregation (minimum of 23 hours locked down in a 6×9’
cell). Jaan has been in “segregation” for three months simply for
issuing two statements, a clear violation of free speech and human
rights. He is being threatened with transfer to a Communication
Management Unit (CMU) or Special Management Unit; punishments that are
not appropriate for a prisoner of Jaan’s age, and would be a violation
for practicing free speech.
After a prison hearing on May 4, 2017, Jaan was found to not have
violated prison regulations regarding “misuse of mail,” but was found to
have violated prison regulations concerning “misuse of the telephone,”
for speaking on the phone to a friend and conveying his support of the
“Day Without a Woman Strike” (International Women’s Day, March 8, 2017),
and his feelings about the death of his friend, Attorney Lynne Stewart.
Jaan was sanctioned by losing 10 days good time credit and by loss of
the telephone for 6 months (in addition to the loss of email access
which was imposed without a hearing one year ago). Jaan is currently
appealing this ruling. Meanwhile, Jaan is still in “segregation,” and
still being threatened with transfer to a CMU.
CMUs are prison units designed to isolate and segregate prisoners.
People locked up in the CMUs are completely banned from any physical
contact with visiting family members and friends, and other types of
communication are also severely limited, including interactions with
non-CMU prisoners and phone calls with friends and family members. For
more info see: https://ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/tools-resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/cmus-federal-prison-system-s-experiment
How you can support Jaan:
Write/call/email the Bureau of Prisons Regional Director and ask her not to transfer Jaan to a Communication Management Unit.
Please remind her that Jaan is an elder prisoner, and you are
concerned about his health in segregation and you would be concerned
about his safety if he is moved to a Communication Management Unit.
– Send a message that includes his name and number: ‘Jaan Laaman #10372-016’
Please be polite but firm in your letters and send the responses you get to jaanlaaman@gmail.com
Write to Jaan and let him know he’s in our hearts and on our minds.
Jaan has no access to news and access to phone calls. It’s
important we send him some letters right now. Send him articles, so that
he gets some world news and messages of solidarity and support. Let the
jailers see that Jaan has support from the community and cannot just be
left in segregation or silenced.
Jaan Karl Laaman #10372-016
USP Tucson
P.O. Box 24550
Tucson, AZ 85734
Background Information
Jaan is imprisoned at United States
Penitentiary (USP) Tucson in Arizona, and is one of the last two
remaining Ohio-7 political prisoners still locked up. The Ohio-7 were
convicted in 1986 of direct actions to protest U.S. support for the
white-supremacist apartheid regime in South Africa, illegal U.S. attacks
on Nicaragua, and repression against advocates for Puerto Rican
self-determination.
Jaan was placed into solitary confinement because of two short messages: one in support of the “Day Without a Woman Strike” (International Women’s Day, March 8, 2017) which was printed in the NYC Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) update, and his “Farewell Thoughts to My Friend, Lynne Stewart”
which was broadcast on Prison Radio. Lynne Stewart, revolutionary
peoples’ lawyer passed away on March 8, 2017. When the NYC ABC magazine
arrived by mail to the prison, Jaan was promptly placed in solitary
confinement. Prison officials charged Jaan with “threatening the
security of the prison” because of these First Amendment protected
statements.
No one should be punished for exercising
their First Amendment Rights. The United States District Court in
Pennsylvania recently ruled in a case involving efforts to censure Mumia
Abu-Jamal:“A past criminal
offense does not extinguish a person’s constitutional right to free
expression. The First Amendment does not disappear at the prison gate.”
Pattern of Increasing Repression
Being placed in segregation is the
latest act of repression by the prison administration, following
increasing actions against Jaan. Over a year ago, the prison shut down Jaan’s
access to email, and they have been censoring him in various ways since
then, including withholding his mail and limiting access to his lawyer.
Jaan was placed in segregation on his birthday and has been there ever since. There
is a growing consensus as to the psychological harm caused by solitary
confinement. In 2011 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture
concluded that solitary confinement for more than 15 days constitutes
torture and can cause irreversible harmful psychological effects.
Jaan previously wrote about the increasing censorship he has been facing, here. Jaan
has been writing reflections about global events since he was first
captured in 1984, so this level of censorship is certainly something new
and different.
This update was written by friends of Jaan Laaman.
From the excellent blog, Solitary Watch. When it comes to the hell of solitary confinement (among other things), I assure you, the US Government lies. So does the AZ DOC...
Today, dozens of advocates will travel from around the country to
Washington, DC, to take part in what are called “Civil Society
Consultations” with representatives of the U.S. government on the
subject of the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).
As a signatory of CAT, the United States Government is required
prepare a “Periodic Report” to the UN’s Committee Against Torture about
its adherence to the Convention. In this report, the United States must
respond to questions, observations, and recommendations for change
issued by the Committee.
The U.S.’s latest Periodic Report,
prepared by the State Department and due to be presented in Geneva in
November, runs to more than 100 pages. The government addresses 55
separate items raised by the Committee Against Torture, on its conduct
in the “war on terror” and also on its civil justice system.
CAT forbids “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether
physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person” for the
purposes of intimidation, coercion, forced confession, or punishment,
“when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or
with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person
acting in an official capacity.”
Unsurprisingly, the United States asserts that it is in all cases in
alignment with CAT. It’s safe to say that most of the advocates
permitted to testify at the State Department today will differ, to some
degree, with that assertion. Some have even created “shadow reports” to
the U.S. Periodic Report.
In what is pretty clearly a pro forma review process, each of the 21
representatives of “civil society” will have three minutes to address
their concerns to members of the U.S. State, Justice, and Homeland
Security Departments, who will then have the opportunity to respond. The
entire session will take just two hours.
For advocates working on solitary confinement, the key item comes on
page 73 of the U.S. Periodic Report. Amid questions regarding the
treatment of immigrants, the death penalty, police brutality, and prison
rape, item 37 asks the U.S. government to do the following:
Please describe steps taken to improve the
extremely harsh regime imposed on detainees in “super-maximum security
prisons”, in particular the practice of prolonged isolation.
The assurances provided by the United States should be read in full,
but we are publishing a few choice sections here. For example, the U.S.
report insists that the U.S. Constitution, as interpreted by the courts,
offers sufficient protection against the ravages of solitary
confinement to all people in prison, and especially to children and
people with mental illness.
The U.S. Constitution, along with federal and state
laws, establishes standards of care to which all inmates are
entitled…U.S. courts have interpreted the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments of the U.S. Constitution as prohibiting the use of solitary
confinement under certain circumstances, especially with regard to
inmates with serious mental illness or for juvenile detainees.
(Specifically, under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel
and unusual punishments,” correctional facility administrators may not
subject inmates to solitary confinement with deliberate indifference to
the resulting serious harms, including suicides, suicide attempts, and
serious self-injury. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 843 (1970);
see also, e.g., Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F. Supp. 1146, 1265 (N.D. Cal.
1995) (using prolonged solitary confinement on prisoners with serious
mental illness can be “the mental equivalent of putting an asthmatic in a
place with little air to breathe”)…
People with mental, physical, and psychological disabilities are not
punished with solitary confinement, the U.S. reports asserts:
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and
the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act) restrict and
regulate the use of solitary confinement for persons with disabilities.
Title II of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. 12132, applies to state actors, while the
Rehabilitation Act applies to federal correctional facilities and
correctional facilities receiving funds from the federal government.
Both statutes prohibit the use of solitary confinement in a manner that
discriminates on the basis of disability instead of making reasonable
modifications to provide persons with disabilities access to services,
programs, and activities, including mental health services. See Pa.
Dep’t of Corr. v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206, 210 (1998).
Likewise, according to the report, children cannot be placed in solitary confinement (or at least, “only as a last resort”:
PREA [Prison Rape Elimination Act] restricts the use
of solitary confinement for juvenile inmates and inmates who are the
victims of sexual violence. Under implementing regulations, juveniles
“may be isolated from others only as a last resort when less restrictive
measures are inadequate to keep them and other residents safe, and then
only until an alternative means of keeping all residents safe can be
arranged.” 28 C.F.R. 115.342. The regulations also set time limits and
other limitations on the use of solitary confinement on juvenile
inmates. With regard to adult inmates at high risk for sexual
victimization, the regulations establish conditions on placement in
segregated housing and provide that if such inmates are placed in
segregated housing, they are to have access to programs, education, work
opportunities, and other services to the extent possible. 28 C.F.R.
115.43(a)-(b).
In fact, there is “no systematic use of solitary confinement in the
United States” at all! Not even at the notorious federal supermax, ADX.
As stated in a letter of November 30, 2011,
responding to a request from the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, “[t]here is no
systematic use of solitary confinement in the United States.” Noting
that the Special Rapporteur had cited the U.S. Penitentiary,
Administrative Maximum (ADX) facility as an example of a facility that
places inmates in solitary confinement, the letter provided information
including the following: Security requirements at the ADX mandate restrictive procedures
for movement of inmates and physical interaction with staff. For
security reasons, inmates in General Population spend most of their day
in individual cells. They are not deprived, however, of human
interaction. Inmates can speak with (but not touch) one another in the
recreation yards, and can communicate with the inmates housed on either
side of their cells. The Warden, Associate Wardens, Captain, and
Department Heads perform weekly rounds so they can visit with each
inmate. Correctional Officers perform regular rounds throughout all
three shifts on a daily basis. A member of an inmate’s Unit Team visits
him every day, Monday through Friday, except on holidays. Inmates
receive regular visits from medical staff, education staff, religious
services staff, and mental health staff, and upon request if needed. In
addition, General Population inmates are permitted five non-contact
social visits per month and two fifteen-minute phone calls. Inmates in
less restrictive housing units are permitted even more social visits and
phone calls. Inmates can also send and receive personal correspondence.
Virtually everything we have published in the last five years on
Solitary Watch refutes these assurances. So do the lives of the
thousands of men, women, and children who have been driven to despair,
to madness, to self-harm, or to suicide–all by a practice which,
according to their government, is neither cruel, inhumane, degrading, or
torturous.
This first press release is just in from the ACLU of Arizona. I think the DOC is getting off easy without having a public trial, but it saves money and time to do this instead. They were definitely going to lose...
The second press release is from the head of the AZ DOC, Charles Ryan, the guy who was named in the suit. Sounds like he won the lawsuit or something. These are vastly different accounts of the settlement. My bet is that the AZ DOC put the most spin on their version, but it concerns me that they say the following: " “This
is positive news,” said ADC Director Charles Ryan. “On the eve of
trial, the plaintiffs in this case have essentially agreed that the
department’s current policies and practices, along with recent
enhancements to programming opportunities, adequately addresses the
plaintiffs’ concerns relating to constitutional healthcare and
conditions of confinement for maximum custody and mentally ill inmates. " AND: " ADC
will monitor its own compliance, thus avoiding costly court oversight,
and the Plaintiffs’ attorneys, through record review and on-site tours
will confirm compliance, as well."
Say what??? No way!!! I'm going to have to read the settlement docs myself and get back to you all with another analysis..
----------
Arizona Agrees to Major Improvements in Prison Health Care, Crucial Limits on Solitary Confinement in Landmark Settlement
PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arizona, the Prison Law Office, and co-counsel today filed a settlement agreement
in their class-action suit on behalf of more than 33,000 prisoners in
Arizona’s state prisons. Under the settlement, the Arizona Department of
Corrections must fix a broken health care system plagued by long-term
and systemic problems that caused numerous deaths and preventable
injuries. The settlement will also allow prisoners in solitary
confinement who have serious mental illnesses to have more mental health
treatment and time outside their cells, and will make other critical
reforms in prison conditions.
“The Arizona Department of Corrections worked with us on a settlement
that shows a commitment to protecting prisoners’ physical and mental
health,” said David Fathi, the Director of the ACLU’s National Prison
Project. “We hope other states will now find ways to provide adequate
medical, mental health, and dental care to their prisoners.”
“The Arizona Department of Corrections has agreed to changes that will
save lives,” said Don Specter, Director of the Prison Law Office. “This
settlement will bring more humane treatment for prisoners with serious
health care needs, and the potential for their conditions to improve
rather than worsen.”
The settlement in Parsons v. Ryan requires the Arizona
Department of Corrections (ADC) to meet more than 100 health care
performance measures, covering issues such as monitoring of prisoners
with diabetes, hypertension, and other chronic conditions; care for
pregnant prisoners; and dental care.
The settlement also requires ADC to overhaul the rules for prisoners
with serious mental illnesses in solitary confinement. Instead of
spending all but six hours a week in their cells, such prisoners will
now have a minimum of 19 hours a week outside the cell, and this time
must include mental health treatment and other programming. ADC must
also restrict guards’ use of pepper spray on these prisoners, using it
only as a last resort when necessary to prevent serious injury or
escape.
The settlement provides for ongoing monitoring and oversight by the
prisoners’ lawyers to make sure the state is complying with its terms.
The groups filed the federal lawsuit in 2012, challenging years of
inattention to the health needs of state prisoners and improper and
excessive use of solitary confinement, resulting in serious harm and
unnecessary deaths. Judge Neil V. Wake of the U.S. District Court in
Phoenix certified the case as a class action in March 2013, and the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed that ruling in June
2014. Last month, the groups filed reports by nationally recognized
experts in corrections and in medical, mental health, and dental care,
showing system-wide problems with the prisons’ health care and excessive
use of solitary confinement.
In addition to the ACLU and the Prison Law Office, other attorneys on
the case are Perkins Coie, Jones Day, and the Arizona Center for
Disability Law, which is also a plaintiff in the case.
PHOENIX (Tuesday, October 14, 2014) – The Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) has reached a settlement agreement in collaboration with the ACLU, Prison Law Office and ACDL prior to the pending trial.
The parties have agreed to approximately 100 performance measures applicable to medical, mental health, dental and conditions of confinement.
“This is positive news,” said ADC Director Charles Ryan. “On the eve of trial, the plaintiffs in this case have essentially agreed that the department’s current policies and practices, along with recent enhancements to programming opportunities, adequately addresses the plaintiffs’ concerns relating to constitutional healthcare and conditions of confinement for maximum custody and mentally ill inmates.
“In regards to those issues, the settlement notwithstanding, it’s unfortunate that the plaintiffs continue to use rhetoric such as ‘solitary confinement’ to describe housing for some inmates. No such confinement exists in our institutions. The Department of Corrections has always followed nationally-accredited standards for housing single-cell inmates that include requirements for natural daylight and contact with others, and out-of-cell time.
“Additionally, it should be noted that Arizona’s inmate mortality rates, including incidents of suicide, are within the national average for corrections departments. In 2012, the most recent year for which statistics are available, Arizona reported 215 deaths per 100,000 inmates, compared to the national average of 254 per 100,000. Additionally, Arizona averaged 17 inmate suicides per 100,000, which is in line with the national average of 16 per 100,000.
“By avoiding a costly trial, the Department saves significant resources that can be further directed towards continuing to provide constitutional healthcare and structured programming to support successful community reintegration. This is especially relevant in light of the fact that despite the state of California spending nearly $18,000 per inmate for health care costs due to two decades of litigation by the same plaintiffs in the Parsons case, California is still under court supervision and the inmate mortality rate there exceeds that of Arizona.
By contrast, Arizona spends nearly $3,800 per inmate in health care costs.
ADC will monitor its own compliance, thus avoiding costly court oversight, and the Plaintiffs’ attorneys, through record review and on-site tours will confirm compliance, as well. ADC, through its contracted vendor, must meet specific compliance thresholds at its facilities. Within two years, monitoring of performance measures automatically terminates when those performance measures meet agreed-upon thresholds. ADC can petition the court to terminate the entire settlement agreement after four years.
I heard some time ago that supervision of the MCSOs health and mental health care services for prisoners was going to be winding down due to their increasing compliance, though I kept hearing horror stories coming out of Joe's jails - like the young woman who lost her unborn child due to food poisoning last winter, soon before the men and women alike tried to launch a hunger strike to protest being fed garbage unfit for human consumption (Arpaio made it sound like they were just upset about going vegetarian - like they really wanted that green bologna and mystery meat back).
The MCSO is also holding mentally ill children in solitary confinement - which has been shown to be devastating to such prisoners' mental health. I'd love to see the ACLU and Judge Wake take that one on next. Then again, maybe this current suit would cover solitary for those kids, if I can get evidence to the court that it's damaging already-compromised, mentally ill youth, and that their ultra-isolation isn't serving any penological interest. Hmm...
Also, check this link out in re the racial profiling lawsuit against Sheriff Joe and the MCSO, now under orders to reform by US District Judge Murray Snow:
"The ACLU of Arizona has launched a website, ChangingMCSO.org (in English)/CambiandoMCSO.org (in Spanish), so that the public can keep up with the court-ordered reforms of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office."
PHOENIX – More than four years after a federal judge put the Maricopa
County jails operated by Sheriff Joseph Arpaio under court order for
neglect of detainees, that same judge, Neil Wake, has ruled that the
jails must remain under the order. Judge Wake found that the jails
continue to provide detainees with inadequate medical and mental health
care. The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona showed
during an evidentiary hearing that concluded in March that the scarcity
and poor quality of the jails' medical and mental health care caused
unnecessary suffering.
"Those in charge of Maricopa County's jails can no longer skirt their
constitutional responsibility for detainees' health," said Eric Balaban,
staff attorney for the ACLU's National Prison Project. "Judge Wake
found severe problems with the jails' medical care, from intake to
treatment. Detainees have had serious illnesses that the jails' staff
missed or ignored, causing permanent injuries and even deaths. With
today’s decision, every detainee at Maricopa County should have access
to adequate medical and mental health care. At last."
In August 2013, Maricopa County commissioners and the Sheriff asked the
court to lift the order placed on it in 2008 – an order which itself
resulted from the jails' failure to provide constitutionally adequate
health care and abide by the terms of a 1995 federal court order
requiring improvements in health services.
As Balaban explained, "Last year, the Maricopa County jails requested an
end to the 2008 court order, claiming that they'd done what was
necessary for the detainees' mental and physical health. We said, 'Not
so fast.' We investigated, bringing medical and mental health experts to
the jail, and what we found showed Judge Wake that the jails have a
long way to go before his order can be lifted."
In addition to the ACLU and the ACLU of Arizona, Osborne Maledon, P.A., has assisted on the case.
ICE Retaliates Against Transgender Woman Raped in Eloy Detention
Center by Placing Her in Solitary Confinement Against Her Will; Family
and Supporters Continue to Call for Marichuy’s Immediate Release as Her
Mental Health Worsens Marichuy Leal Gamino, a transgender woman raped in
the privately-run Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, was placed in
solitary confinement for two days by Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officers. Marichuy (legal name: Jesus Leal Gamino, A# 047-283-870) was placed in segregation against her will
and as calls for her release escalated with support from over 60 LGBT
and immigrant rights organizations nationwide and solidarity actions in
Los Angeles and New York.
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, using confinement to protect a threatened population is a punitive measure.
Solitary confinement is known to cause severe psychological symptoms,
including depression, insomnia, racing thoughts, and hallucinations. For
Marichuy, these symptoms were compounded by post-traumatic stress due
to her recent assault. On August 4, after two weeks of living in the
same detention facility where she was assaulted, she reported feeling
suicidal.
Karolina Lopez, a transgender woman formerly detained in Eloy,
explains, “What’s happening to Marichuy is not so different from what I
went through, or what I saw other trans women in Eloy experience. I was
harassed by two men, then placed in solitary confinement. Officials said
it was for my own security, but they treated me like I had done
something wrong. I almost went crazy, I still have fear of small spaces,
and of officials. If ICE actually cares about Marichuy’s security, they
should let her go.”
Since Marichuy was first detained in Eloy over a year ago, ICE has
failed to provide even a minimum level of safety and dignity. Now, in
response to the pressure of public attention, ICE has threatened
to send Marichuy to yet another detention facility, further from her
family and community in Arizona, instead of using its discretion to
release her from detention.
Around the nation, LGBTQ and immigrant communities are calling for
Marichuy’s immediate release. A petition to the national ICE
headquarters has more than 3,500 signatures, calling on Director Andrew
Lorenzen-Strait to free Marichuy as ICE has demonstrated they cannot
keep her safe. Over 60 organizations around the country, including the
Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Detention
Watch Network, have publicly called for Marichuy’s release back to her
family and community, where she can begin to heal from the rape that
took place under ICE’s watch.
REMINDER: There is a Mothers Against Solitary Confinement Rallytoday at the AZ Capitol (1700 W. Washington St, PHX) at 5pm - please
come early if you can but come late if you have to - just come so you can organize with other family members affected by the
prison industrial complex.
-----------------
From Jane Doe to Connecticut Governor Malloy (May 08, 2014)
(who announced the following day that Jane will be moved to a more appropriate setting ASAP.)
Dear Governor Malloy, I am writing you to let you know that today is my anniversary. I have been sitting in this prison for a
month now and there is no plan to get me out. I am suffering in here.
I’m having trouble sleeping and I’m not eating much. I cry in bed every
night.
I can’t be myself in this place.
I feel forgotten
and thrown away. As you probably know, these feeling are not new for me.
This is the way my life has been going since I was a little kid. My
lawyer says that Commissioner Katz is the only one who can fix this but
when I wrote her a letter it didn’t help. She has given up on me. If you’re her boss you can do something,
right? Everyone says I need to be somewhere where I can get help and
Katz keeps telling everyone that she is working to get me out of here but
I don’t believe her. I think this is just another one of her stories
that isn’t true. I want to call her a liar but people tell me that I
shouldn’t say that about someone important like her. All I know is that
she has said a lot of things about me that aren’t true. She was on TV
telling people I blinded someone and broke their jaw. That was a lie.
She said that she never asked that I go to Manson. That was a lie. She
told everyone that I should be going to that new girls program at
Riverview. That was a lie. Now she is telling people she is trying to
get me out of here but nothing is happening. I hear people talking and they are saying that I am going to be here till I’m 18. I
am done with DCF. They just want to make up stuff about me so that
everyone thinks I am some kind of wild animal. Is it Ok for them to do
this? To just lie about me and throw me in prison and forget about me?
If
I was in charge I wouldn’t let this happen. If you’re the Governor then
you are in charge of everyone who works for the state. DCF is supposed
to be helping me, right? If this is helping me then I’m all set with
being helped. I would be a lot better off being on my own. It seems like
you’re my last chance to get out of here.
Don’t forget about me. I can’t take another month of this.
There
is a 16-year-old transgender girl in an adult prison in Connecticut
right now. She isn't there to serve a sentence. There are no charges
against her. Still, she has been there for more than six weeks, with no
indication of when she might be released.
Until last week, the girl, whom I'll call Jane Doe because she is a
juvenile, was in solitary confinement in the mental health unit where,
according to a letter she wrote, she cried in bed every night. She heard
adult inmates crying, screaming, and banging on the walls. A guard
observed her day and night, even when she showered or used the toilet.
When other inmates caught sight of her, they yelled and made fun of her.
"I feel forgotten and thrown away," she wrote to the governor of
Connecticut from her solitary cell. "As you probably know, these feeling
are not new for me. This is the way my life has been going since I was a
little kid."
The state became involved in Jane Doe's life when she was five,
according to her affidavit, because her father was incarcerated and her
mom was using crack and heroin. She was born a boy; after she was placed
in the care of her extended family, she said, one relative caught her
playing with dolls and bashed her head into the wall. She said another
relative raped her at age eight, as did others as she grew older. Doe
would only allow herself to look like a girl in secret. Around age 11, a
relative caught her in the bathroom wearing her dress and lipstick and
slapped her, shouting, "You are a boy! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I feel forgotten and thrown away. As you
probably know, these feelings are not new for me. This is the way my
life has been going since I was a little kid."
At 12, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF)
became her legal guardian. While in group homes, she says she was
sexually assaulted by staffers, and at 15, she became a sex worker and
was once locked up for weeks and forced to have sex with "customers"
until she escaped. "I wanted to be a little kid again in my mother's
arms and all I wanted was someone to tell me they loved me, that
everything would be alright, and that I will never have to live the way I
was again."
Here is how Jane Doe ended up in prison. On January 28, while living
at a juvenile facility in Massachusetts—where she was serving a sentence
for assault—she allegedly attacked a staff member, biting her, pulling
her hair and kicking her in the head. This kind of behavior wasn't new
for Doe. The director of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a
correctional facility for boys, later testified in court that, since Doe
was nine, police have been called 11 times while she was in state
facilities. He said she sometimes smeared feces on herself. Another
supervisor claimed Doe regularly "exhibited assaultive behaviors,"
targeting female staff and other juveniles.
According to Jane Doe's lawyer, Aaron Romano, the most recent
incident was sparked when a male staffer at the Massachusetts facility
put Doe in a bear hug restraint from behind. "This is a girl who has
been sexually abused," Romano says. "She is inclined to interpret
actions with that view." DCF declined to comment on the incident, but
the female staff member Doe allegedly attacked did not press charges.
The male staffer has since been dismissed.
In order to move Doe to an adult prison, DCF cited an obscure statute
that allows doing so when it is in the "best interest" of the child.
Initially, the state sought to place Doe in a men's prison, but her
lawyers objected and she was sent to a women's facility. There, she was
placed in solitary confinement because under federal law, juveniles
cannot be detained "in any institution in which they have contact with
adult inmates."
State
officials have been well aware of Doe's situation: In February, DCF
commissioner Joette Katz cited her case—incorrectly claiming that she
had broken a staff member's jaw—when she asked the Connecticut
legislature for funds to open a new girls' prison. She said it showed
why high-security facility for juveniles was needed. The legislature
appropriated $2.6 million, and the facility has since been opened. But
Doe, officials say, is too dangerous to be placed in that facility.
Abby Anderson, executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice
Alliance, says Doe's incarceration is the result of a broken system of
juvenile care. "We don't have a good sense of where our system has its
strengths and weaknesses," she says. One problem, she says, is a lack of
adequate mental health care: Government data shows that 52 percent of
girls in DCF custody or on parole have trauma disorders, and 89 percent
had more than one diagnosed psychological disorder. Anderson says the
state also doesn't have enough mechanisms for detecting and preventing
sexual abuse. "We need to make sure this system is shored up so this
never happens again…If you have a 16 year old, you need to make her feel
safe and put her in a place where she can trust people."
DCF declined to comment on the record about the case, but in a press
release, the agency said, "There is no identified foster home that can
reasonably be expected to safely care for this youth." Romano says
people licensed to take foster children in Connecticut and elsewhere
have contacted him, offering to take Doe in. He says he passed the
information on to DCF, but they have refused the offers.
One month into her confinement, Doe wrote a letter to governor Dannel
Malloy. "Is it Ok for them to do this?" she wrote. "If I was in charge I
wouldn't let this happen. If you're the Governor then you are in
charge of everyone who works for the state…Don’t forget about me. I
can’t take another month of this."
Days after writing the letter, she was transferred out of the
prison's mental health unit to another building on prison grounds with
access to private recreational space and educational services. But she
is still on her own, with no contact with other inmates, and there is
still no date for her release.
Shane Bauer is a reporter in Mother Jones' San Francisco bureau, covering criminal justice, social justice, and human rights. His work has also appeared in the Guardian, The Nation, Salon, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications. He is the co-author of A Sliver of Light,
a memoir he wrote with his fellow hostages (one of whom is now his
wife) about their two years as prisoners in Iran. Follow him on Twitter here. RSS | Twitter
The
New York prisons system agrees to stop putting minors, pregnant women,
and the mentally ill in solitary, and other states are stepping up to
curb the practice.
ACTION: This week in Phoenix, at the State Capitol on Friday, MAY 23 at 5pm, Mothers Against Solitary Confinement will be rallying - please join them if you can. The action is also supported by Puente, Prisoners Are People, Arizona Prison Watch, and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC-Tucson).
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As some folks are aware, the US Attorney General came out publicly last week condemning the abuse of solitary confinement to manage mentally ill juvenile prisoners in particular, and calling for an end to it. His remarks couldn't have been more timely, as I find myself increasingly involved with two mentally ill teens currently being charged as adults for serious crimes, being held in isolation/protective custody in the MCSO jails. Thus, my own focus on juvenile justice of late has been addressing the abuse of solitary confinement of youth in jails, prisons and detention centers.
The following article is one of the more useful I've come across in terms of compiling the most current and relevant links to documents dealing with solitary and youth. Then there's the cool video at the end - check it out and share it, please.
As a 17-year-old, Michael Kemp says, he felt like a caged animal.
For six months, his world was reduced to the size of a Washington, D.C., jail cell measuring maybe 8 feet by 10 feet.
During much of his time in solitary confinement, he spent 23 hours a day alone in the cell.
“You just like, ‘Man, I feel like an animal in here. I
don’t even feel real … where I’m not even a human being,’" Kemp told
JJIE. "You don’t feel like a human being."
Kemp, now 24, who was convicted of armed robbery and says
he ended up in solitary because he was caught with a makeshift knife,
slept on a mat atop a steel bed in the cinder block cell and had little
contact with others except by yelling through a crisscross of bars to
other inmates.
“In
there by yourself, you can go stir crazy because you ain’t got that
interaction,” Kemp said. “You supposed to be growing as an individual,
but you ain’t growing. You have no human connection with nobody else.
You just in a room by yourself.”
Even now, seven years after his stint in solitary as
a juvenile, Kemp says psychic scars remain, and he still tends to
isolate himself in his home.
“I might go in the bathroom or be sitting in the living
room and I be in there for hours, man, just looking in the mirror or
just in a room, just like I don’t know why I won’t be active. I just
find myself always isolating myself for some reason, man,” said Kemp, a
boyish-looking, slim young man who wears his hair in long braids.
“It’s like if you put a grasshopper in a cup and then you
place a top on it and it keeps on jumping and it keeps on jumping and it
keep on hitting the top, keep on hitting the top, so when you take the
top off, the grasshopper not going to jump out the top of the cup
because it’s going to be so used to hitting the top of the cup, and it’s
like that’s how it is. Sometimes it feels like I’m in jail when I’m not
in jail.”
When you think of solitary confinement, perhaps you think
of North Vietnamese POW camps like the one where John McCain spent more
than five years in captivity or Alcatraz, where the “Birdman” Robert
Stroud made solitary famous, or today’s Supermax prisons that house
hardened adult criminals.
But in fact, thousands of juveniles also endure solitary
confinement each year in the United States, often in tiny cells for 22
to 24 hours a day with little human contact, even though a growing
number of experts say the practice causes irreparable psychological and
developmental harm to youths.
Consider:
In April 2012, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry issued a statement
concluding that solitary confinement of juveniles could lead to
depression, anxiety and even psychosis and called for an end to the
practice. “Due to their developmental vulnerability, juvenile offenders
are at particular risk of such adverse reactions,” the AACAP statement
said. “Furthermore, the majority of suicides in juvenile correctional
facilities occur when the individual is isolated or in solitary
confinement.”
The National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence, commissioned by U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., concluded in its final report
in December 2012, “Nowhere is the damaging impact of incarceration on
vulnerable children more obvious than when it involves solitary
confinement.” The task force recommended the practice be forbidden. (The
task force was co-chaired by Robert L. Listenbee Jr., who is now the
administrator of the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention. Listenbee did not respond to requests for comment.)
In his role as OJJDP administrator, Listenbee stated in a July 5, 2013, letter to an American Civil Liberties Union
official that “isolation of children is dangerous and inconsistent with
best practices and that excessive isolation can constitute cruel and
unusual punishment,” which is banned under the Eighth Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution.
Experts say adolescents are particularly vulnerable to
psychological harm caused by solitary – sometimes known as room
restriction, restricted engagement, segregation, isolation, lockdown or
seclusion – because their brains are still developing.
Laura Markle Downton, director of the U.S. prisons policy and program for the National Religious Campaign Against Torture,
which represents 320 religious organizations, said the campaign opposes
solitary confinement of juveniles and views it as a form of torture.
“It’s really a moral question first and foremost,” Downton
told JJIE. “When you think about if a parent were to lock a child in a
closet, let’s say, for an extended amount of time, we would call that
child abuse. And yet that’s essentially what we’re doing within our
justice system.
“What we know is that isolation does not lead to
rehabilitation. It leads to destruction and annihilation, and we believe
very firmly as people of faith that this is immoral and that it’s
wrong.”
Critics note that solitary – which youths have been
subjected to in U.S. juvenile facilities for more than a century – often
denies children access to education, mental health treatment, physical
activity, and reading and writing material.
Despite widespread concerns about juvenile isolation,
however, some correctional officers’ unions and corrections
administrators call the practice a necessary option to maintain
discipline and ensure the safety and security of facilities.
A November ACLU report
calling for a ban on solitary confinement in juvenile detention
facilities cited four reasons generally given to justify it: to punish
children when they break facility rules; to protect a child from other
children; to deal with children deemed too disruptive or out of control;
and to isolate a child for medical reasons, including having a
contagious disease or having expressed a desire to commit suicide.
Speaking of solitary confinement, Craig Brown, chief lobbyist for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association,
which represents correctional officers in the state system, said: “Our
feeling was, why ever deprive yourself of a tool? … Corrections is about
tradeoffs, and one of the tradeoffs is if you don’t use a tool like
this, you disrupt the program for everybody else.”
If the system did not rely on solitary, Brown said: “If you
have somebody who is messing things up so other wards who are trying to
participate and deal with their issues can’t do it, then what you’ve
done is you’ve said, ‘Well, we’re not going to isolate this ward. In
exchange we’re going to let him mess up the program for 10 or 15 other
guys.’”
Referring to solitary, Brown said, “It’s necessary for
programming, it’s necessary for staff safety, it’s for the safety of the
other wards – at times.”
California state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco/San Mateo, a child psychologist, expresses a decidedly different view.
Yee has proposed a bill that would sharply restrict
solitary confinement of youths in state and county juvenile correctional
facilities.
Yee, who has treated youngsters in prisons, jails and
health systems, told JJIE solitary makes youths more dangerous, more
antisocial, more likely to reoffend, more likely to commit suicide and
more likely to suffer a lifetime mental illness.
In solitary, Yee said: “Kids become depressed, they become
disassociated, they begin to sometimes decompose psychologically. So
there’s nothing good that comes out of solitary confinement for the
youngster. It’s all bad, and it seems to me that if the [state
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] would just simply pick up a
book on psychology and read it, they would understand that this is not a
good thing for youngsters and not good for our society in general….
Torture doesn’t help anybody at all.”
Under Yee’s bill, solitary confinement could be used only
when a juvenile posed an “immediate and substantial risk of harm to
others or to the security of the facility, and all other
less-restrictive options have been exhausted.” The bill also specifies
that a juvenile be held in solitary only for the minimum time necessary
to reduce the risk.
Bill Sessa, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation,
which oversees the Division of Juvenile Justice, said state law allows
youths to be held up to 23 hours a day in a room in a “behavior
treatment unit.” But Sessa said youths have been allowed to leave the
rooms an average of six hours a day most of the past year and that
youths held in the rooms receive education and counseling.
Of Yee’s measure, Sessa said, “This bill is a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Yee said the department opposed a bill that failed last
year that would have restricted solitary confinement of youths in
juvenile facilities.
“If [corrections officials] had their way, they’d probably still have torture chambers in the state of California,” Yee said.
New Jersey also has become a focal point in the debate over solitary confinement of juveniles.
The New Jersey ACLU and other organizations petitioned the state Juvenile Justice Commission, in July to ban punitive solitary confinement of youths in juvenile facilities.
In a letter to Kevin Brown, the executive director of the
JJC, the petitioners stated, “Solitary confinement is an extreme and
inhumane form of punishment that is not evidenced-based, wastes taxpayer
money, and jeopardizes public safety; this is especially so when the
people being subjected to the punishment are children.”
The JJC, the state agency that oversees juvenile justice in
New Jersey, rejected the petition to ban punitive solitary confinement
of youths in mid-February.
Sharon Lauchaire, the public information officer for the
commission, part of the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, said the
JJC would continue discussions with the ACLU about what is known in the
state as “room restriction.”
“We have reviewed our use of room restriction in the past
and will continue to do so,” Lauchaire told JJIE. “We will be soliciting
feedback from the ACLU and other parties on room restriction.”
The denial of the petition came after a $400,000 settlement
in a lawsuit over two boys who had been held in solitary in New Jersey
for extended periods – one of them, for about six months.
Policies on solitary confinement of juveniles vary widely across the country.
Even critics of juvenile solitary acknowledge youths who
are out of control or a threat to themselves or others may need some
time alone but say this should be for minutes or hours, not days – and
with close adult supervision.
Some states – including Alaska, Connecticut, Maine,
Oklahoma and West Virginia – have banned or restricted punitive solitary
confinement of juveniles. And New York State just banned solitary
confinement of juveniles held in state adult facilities.
It’s impossible to say how often U.S. juvenile detention
facilities use solitary confinement, as neither states nor the federal
government publishes such data and almost no detention facilities make
the data available to the public.
Amy Fettig, senior staff counsel with the ACLU's National Prison Project,
estimated that about 70,000 young people are being held at any given
time in juvenile facilities nationwide and that in many facilities
solitary confinement is “routine.”
In an October letter,
the ACLU and numerous other organizations urged Attorney General Holder
and OJJDP’s Listenbee to prohibit solitary confinement of youths in
federal custody. In addition, more than 40,000 people have signed a
petition calling on Holder to ban solitary confinement of juveniles in
federal custody.
And on Feb. 28, U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas, D-California, proposed a measure that would ban solitary confinement of youth in federal juvenile facilities.
“Solitary confinement is something that is purely punitive, and it has nothing to do with rehabilitation,” Cárdenas told JJIE.
But despite concerns about the dangers of juvenile solitary
expressed by the National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence
and by Listenbee, the U.S. government still has not banned the practice
in federal detention facilities.
“There’s no prohibition,” Fettig told JJIE. “It’s sort of like, ‘Put your money where your mouth is.’”
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin,
an Illinois Democrat who chaired a Feb. 25 Senate Judiciary
subcommittee hearing on solitary confinement, called on all state and
federal facilities to end solitary confinement of juveniles, pregnant
women and people with “serious and persistent” mental illness “except
under the rarest circumstances.” (Durbin’s office did not respond to
requests to clarify what would constitute those “rarest circumstances.”)
“When it comes to solitary confinement, we know children
are particularly vulnerable,” Durbin said. “The mental health effects of
even short periods of isolation, including depression and risk of
suicide, are heightened among youths.”
Supporters of a ban on solitary in juvenile facilities
point out that many youths enter the facilities with mental illness and
that solitary aggravates it.
“When you subject [juveniles] to extreme isolation and then
you expect their behavior to change, well, that’s living in a fantasy
world because you’re actually exacerbating whatever pre-existing problem
that kid had,” Fettig said. “Subjecting them to solitary confinement
isn’t going to turn them into well-socialized adults. It’s going to
inflict more harm on them. So it’s actually completely counterproductive
to what the system should be doing, and child abuse should not be
mandated by the state.
“You literally are locking a child down with nothing to do,
with no interaction, for 23, 22, 24 hours a day. In some ways, it’s
common sense to look at the denial of education, the denial of drug
treatment, the denial of adequate mental health care that exists in
solitary confinement, and think to yourself, ‘Well, what’s going be the
result for that kid? How could anything positive ever come from such
treatment?’ And the answer is, it doesn’t.”
Bart Lubow, director of the Juvenile Justice Strategy Group at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, said solitary flies in the face of the rehabilitative goal of the juvenile justice system.
“All the evidence about the effects of isolation are that
it is counterproductive to the goals of rehabilitation,” Lubow said, “so
I don’t know how you can be doing rehabilitation based on that kind of
extreme punishment.”
Fettig points out that the U.S. Supreme Court
has cited research on adolescent brain development in ruling against
extreme punishment for juveniles, including the death penalty and
mandatory sentences of life without parole. The high court has based
these rulings in part on research showing that juveniles’ brains are
not fully developed, and youths are more susceptible than adults to peer
pressure, more impulsive, more likely to take risks, less likely to
consider long-term consequences and more amenable to rehabilitation.
The Supreme Court should also ban solitary confinement of juveniles as “extreme punishment,” Fettig suggested.
“That mission in juvenile justice, which is rehabilitation,
becomes even more critical in light of the science as well as in light
of the top law, the Supreme Court jurisprudence in this country, that
has looked at the science and looked at the law and our Constitution,”
she said.
“We believe that those theories, that same science and
judicial ruling can easily be applied to the most extreme forms of
punishment that we see in the juvenile justice system … and that is the
use of solitary confinement.”
A ban on solitary is long overdue, in the view of Tanisha Denard.
As a 17-year-old, she spent 2 ½ weeks in solitary at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall outside Los Angeles.
Denard, now 19, told JJIE she ended up at Los Padrinos for a
month because she failed to appear for court dates for truancy tickets
she received for being late for school and was put in solitary after
refusing to socialize or eat. (She graduated from high school in 2011
and now works as a youth organizer for the Youth Justice Coalition, which fights race, gender and class inequality in Los Angeles County’s and California’s juvenile justice systems.)
While in solitary, Denard came out of her cell only to use
the bathroom and to shower and had little contact with others and no
reading or writing materials.
If she weren’t in solitary, Denard said, she could have
been doing homework or something productive that would have helped
rehabilitate her instead of languishing in her cell.
Of solitary, Denard said: “It was dehumanizing. It felt
like I wasn’t even a person in society. Nobody could see me. I couldn’t
see nobody. So it feels like you not even there.”
Thus, like thousands of other children in the United States
each year, Tanisha Denard became all but invisible – in the largely
hidden world of juvenile solitary confinement.
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