USE OF
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN U.S. PRISONS UNDER SCRUTINY
March 13, 2014 · in AUDIO, NEWS SEGMENT
The ADX federal prison in Colorado has a reputation for housing
the worst of the worst. It’s a super maximum lock down facility
and is notorious for the conditions in its solitary confinement
unit.
“ADX is the most secure prison in the Federal Bureau of Prisons
and houses roughly 425 prisoners whom the BOP has decided
require the highest level of control within the Bureau of
Prisons,” says Ed Aro of the Arnold and Porter law firm. “People
are locked in a solitary cell that’s about 90 square feet in
size for 22 hours a day most days, there’s 2 days a week they
spend 24 hours in their cell.”
Aro is one of several attorneys filing a class action lawsuit
against the Federal Bureau of Prisons, arguing its use of
solitary confinement and the treatment of prisoners violates the
8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Aro says
the living conditions at ADX are beyond heinous and that one of
the plaintiffs in the suit lost his mind after spending 6 months
in an isolation cell called the hole.
“Over a 6 month period, he lost 50 pounds because he wasn’t
being fed by the staff on a regular basis. He developed wild
delusions about having diamonds in his legs and began digging
holes in his legs as a result of which both of his legs became
racked with staph infection.” Aro says the inmate was
transferred to a prison hospital, “only after he was observed by
staff crawling naked on the floor of his cell with feces and
urine all over his cell, scooping up a ball of feces rolling it
in his hands and then eating it because he didn’t have anything
else to eat.”
Prisoners at ADX have a history of staging hunger strikes to
protest conditions there. The prison watch dog group, Solitary
Watch reported last month 8 to 9 inmates on a hunger strike at
ADX were force-fed. FSRN contacted the Federal Bureau of Prisons
to confirm the report, but a spokesperson declined to verify any
hunger strike, nor would he give information about force-feeding
since it’s a “medical practice” and they don’t disclose medical
information of inmates.
Federal Bureau of Prisons Executive Director Samuel Charles
spoke before a Senate hearing in February on the use of solitary
confinement. He says while the Bureau of Prisons has reduced
it’s use of solitary confinement by 25% since 2012, there’s
still a need for SuperMaximum facilities like ADX: “Out of 413
inmates at the ADX 47% have killed other individuals, and that
is a combination of murdering before coming into and have
murdered other inmates or staff while in system, those inmates
require other restrictive housing. However, I would never say we
are giving up on those individuals.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons plans to open another SuperMax
facility this year in Illinois. It’s the same facility the state
closed down and sold last year, in an effort to reduce its
solitary confinement numbers. Meanwhile, some states are taking
steps to limit the use of solitary confinement within their
facilities, like New York, which recently banned solitary
confinement of juveniles and pregnant inmates.
The state of Colorado is also reducing its use of solitary
confinement. Rick Raemsch, the newly appointed Executive
Director of Colorado’s Department of Corrections voluntarily
spent 20 hours in 10×7 foot solitary confinement cell and spoke
about it at the same Senate hearing. He questioned the ethics of
locking an inmate alone in a small room for 24 hours a day.
“How about 20 hours a day? How about 18 hours a day? Or they
start at 23 and work they’re way down to 10?” he asked while
stating it is a measure that would be implemented under his
watch. “As I sat in that cell for over 20 hours my response was
this is no way to treat an American. It’s not a way the state
should be treating someone and internationally it’s not a way to
be treating someone.”
The United Nations office of human rights says long term and
indefinite solitary confinement is torture and calls for a ban
of its use on juveniles and the mentally ill. A bill prohibiting
solitary confinement for the mentally ill is currently making
it’s way through the Colorado legislature.
The psychological impacts can be devastating even for the sound
of mind. Raemsch has also criticized the practice of releasing
prisoners directly from solitary. The prior head of corrections
in Colorado, Tom Clemens, was murdered by an inmate who served
time in solitary isolation and was then released straight into
the public.
“You sort of have two buckets,” says Ed Aro, the attorney
challenging the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ use of solitary
confinement at ADX. “One is the major mental illness-the
schizophrenia the other is what people have termed the SHU
Syndrome. Which is people in isolation becoming paranoid, very
anxious, disassociating- leaving their bodies and the mind
separating from their bodies.” He warns these inamates are of
particular concern because, “a vast majority of these people are
going to be released into the community at some point and are
going to carry with them into the community all of those
symptoms.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons estimates 95% of it’s inmates are
returned back into society. Aro says although they’re in
mediation with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, he’s preparing to
take their suit to a trial to reform the use of solitary
confinement and the treatment of mentally ill inmates at the
federal level. States continue to take action as well, a bill is
pending in California to limit solitary confinement sentences to
no more than three years.
