US PRISON TORTURE AND YOU
{Brought to you by POLITICS OF PRISONS in collaboration with FAMILIES OF PRISONERS CIVIL RIGHTS FOUNDATION and DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS EMPLOYEES FOR SAFE AND HUMANE PRISONS.}
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The article below on Departments of Corrections' SOLITARY CONFINEMENT TORTURE is one of many articles we will be presenting on this website, in order to bring attention to the unprecedentedly brutal and counterproductive prison policies of US governments at all levels: federal, state and local.
We will be exposing a few of the numerous US prison atrocities, naming the perpetrators whenever possible, and searching for ways to reverse the present trend toward the fascist INCARCERATION STATE.
On our LIKELY LINKS PAGE at the conclusion of this Politics of Prisons website, you will find a variety of progressive spiritual and psychological articles and resource links which prisoners and nonprisoners alike may find useful.
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LONG TERM SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
The Resultant Effects and Its Threat to Society
Solitary confinement is the absolute isolation of a human being or an animal in a cell alone --- solitary confinement has been proven to cause sensory deprivation --- and sensory deprivation causes serious psychological damages, resulting in a variety of mental disorders. ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS HAVE GOTTEN LAWS PASSED TO BAN THIS CRUEL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS --- but the government is still allowed to inflict it on humans. Consider that!
Sensory deprivation is like starvation. The longer your senses are starved the more damage it does, the more deterioration takes place internally. This has been well studied and documented world-wide, from such wide-ranging fields as: the NAZI and Korean experiments on prisoners (during World War II and the Korean War respectively); Amnesty International's top psychologists; world renowned criminologists and penologists; ex-wardens and administrators of solitary units.
The Department of Correction's own psychiatrists and psychologists; the Clinical Director of Psychiatry at the esteemed Harvard University; and even the United States Federal Courts have acknowledged and ruled that solitary confinement causes sensory deprivation, which in turn causes "substantial psychological damage." This is not a theory ---it is a fact. The resultant symptoms of sensory deprivatioon are many and varied in degree. It affects everyone in different ways, but it does affect everyone. The following are examples of the common effects and degrees of Isolation/Sensory Deprivation:
PARANOIA ... This afflicts a large number of people in varying degrees --- and intensifies with time. The individual begins believing staff is intentionally targeting him for a variety of harassments. He might think his food is being poisoned or medicated. That the staff is listening in on his cell. That other prisoners, on the tier, are talking about him, usually in a negative way. He might hear his name when no one has said it.
ANXIETY ... Sensory deprivation attacks the nervous system in a large number of people. It causes stress, anxiety attacks, stress related medical problems like: skin disorders, ulcers, chronic headaches, sleep disorders. (One paces his cage for hours on end.) This is often coupled with paranoia, both feeding off of the other.
DEPRESSION ... This is a symptom in a large number of people. It can become overwhelming --- resulting in lethargy, lack of exercise, weight gain, suicidal ideations --- and has resulted in suicide attempts and actual suicides in a disproportionate number in solitary confinement, as compared to any other part of prison.
AGGRESSION ... some individuals --- especially in a prison setting, become aggressive when isolated. The sensory deprivation attacks the senses, causing emotional turmoil. A significant number of prisoners are dysfunctional to begin with, many with chemical imbalances, addictive personalities, attention deficit disorders, etc.
When they find themselves in isolation their normal emotional state gets thrown into turmoil and they do not know how to handle it. Aggression results, as it is physical and tangible. It is something that is understood and smothers thoughts, and feelings. It reduces one to basic instinct and it allows one to escape the turmoil. This does not happen consciously. The person does not understand the process ---he simply reacts to the disorder.
PSYCHOSIS ... Some prisoners become schizophrenic, or psychotic in all of its forms. Delusional, hearing voices, talking to invisible people, rubbing feces on themselves and their walls. These people end up on large doses of medication and often lifetimes of treatment --- a real threat and a great expense to society.
The experts will confirm that SOLITARY CONFINEMENT/ISOLATION causes the above disorders. What I give you is a personal description of the symptoms of these disorders, that is based on personal experience and twenty-one years of direct observation. I hope to articulate to you, as best I can, what takes place in the Solitary Units and what happens to its victims. Most importantly, I hope to convince you how vitally necessary it is that we stop its continued use.
In the eighteen and early nineteen hundreds prisons warehoused prisoners in dirty, stark, solitary confinement cells and a large number of them never left, or left with serious mental disorders. A delegation, from Europe, came to America and, with the well-known author Charles Dickes, toured the United States Prison System. Upon completion of the tour there was a very negative report. But something Charles Dickens wrote played an integral part in waking up society to the inhumanity of solitary confinement.:
"I believe that few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts. There is a depth of terrible endurance in it which none but the sufferers can fathom. I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface ---therefore the more I denounce it as a secret punishment which a slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay."
CHARLES DICKENS
This commentary, by Dickens, caused the United States Supreme Court to review the use of solitary confinement, and they concluded that it did indeed cause mental disorders, and was therefore a violation of the Eighth Amendment Right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. New guidelines were established, nationwide, banning the use of solitary for more than fifteen (15) days consecutive. This saved thousands of prisoners, and millions of tax dollars. And protected society from the release of damaged, often psychotic men and women.
In 1952 an administraor at the New Jersey State Prison figured a way around the ban. At the time he truly believed in what he was doing. He changed the name from "Solitary Confinement," and renamed it "Administrative Segregation," and classified it as "Treatment."
Four years later that administrator, Professor Richard R.Korn, realized he was mistaken and that solitary, in whatever disguise, could not be treatment. That it did indeed cause serious psychological damage. He stood up and protested it, but the system had once again embraced it as a tool of control, and the consequences to the prisoners and society be damned.
You should not make any mistake either. You can change thir names, and paint them pretty colors --- but it's still solitary confinement, and it breeds monsters.
What's important to understand here is that the Courts and the Departments of Prisons have ruled and acknowledged, under irrefutable evidence, that administrative segregation and solitary are indeed one and the same, and still are causing mental disorders.
The difference is that they now understand that society does not care, because society has been grossly deceived. For years satellite TV showed us crimes being committed live all over the world --- twenty-four hours a day. Politicians told you crime was out of control and your very lives were in danger. Everything became anti-crime, anti-prisoners rights --- "The hell with coddling them - Let them rot."
We now know, of course, that the crime statistics were manipulated by politicians: crime had been for many years, and still is, on the decline. The most important thing we must acknowledge, and the government already knows, is that 90% of all prisoners DO get paroled --- and they parole to society to live around wives, children, and neighbors. YOUR wives, your husbands, your children! The system does not care what kind of person moves back into your neighborhood --- whether it's a reformed man or a psychotic beast. But you need to care!
The federal and the state prison systems know they are breeding monsters, more violent offenders and mentally ill. Yet they release them directly into general populations, without transitional steps. They must be held accountable for this reckless indifference, just as anybody else is held responsible for their conduct.
If you have a dog and you abuse that dog to the point of making it vicious, then let it loose in public to bite people, then you, the dog's owner, is held responsible and pays the consequences for his acts. Society demanded such laws, and rightly so.
Why then does society allow its State Officials to put humans in torture chambers, and keep them there for years, until they are driven mean --- then release them directly into the public? Then when they hurt or kill someone those same officials act offended, and the prosecutors bring the victim up on new charges and ask society to pay for it. They stand before a jury and talk about what an animal this is --- what a threat, and how you should punish him. Then they put him back in solitary, for long periods, as punishment --- until they unleash him on society again!
They do this --- are allowed to do this, because our society is once again slumbering. It's time to wake up! A responsible citizen, or a trier of fact, must in good conscience hold the State responsible by saying "no" to these prosecutions and demanding change through our State and federal Senators and Representatives.
IMAGINE THIS
You're a young man or woman placed in prison. You find yourself in this position because most likely you come from a dysfunctional background, and you are dysfuntional as a person. You don't make the same choices others do; maybe you're hyperactive --- have attention deficit disorder, or a chemical imbalance, or are drug/alcohol dependant.
Like your father, and his father before him, maybe you were molested, or beaten, or raised by the State in "reformatories" or "youth authorities" or foster families, etc. Whatever the cause, you make the wrong choices and here you are in an ugly and violent environment, where the strong are allowed to dominate and the young are vulnerable.
Let's say you get in a fight to defend yourself, or you've made a knife to protect yourself in case of attack. Both are obviously a violation of the rules --- but a realistic part of a prison environment, where some people are doing life for murder and do not care about rules.
For your minor rule violation you are locked up in what is called "The Hole" --- which is solitary confinement for short terms as disciplinary sanctions. You are stripped naked, searched, given coveralls and placed on a tier of "side by side" solitary confinement cells.
You are placed in a tiny, bare cell smaller than the average bathroom. The first thing you notice is the rancid stench of feces --- then you see it caked on the walls and the floor, along with a variety of foods and liquids. You are assaulted by the noise of a dozen or more people yelling, cussing and banging on their doors, walls and toilets. You are immediately disoriented and your senses put into turmoil.
Next thing you know there are a dozen guards, in full riot gear, in front of the cell next to yours yelling for the prisoner to back up to his door and cuff up. Then your lungs begin to burn and you start choking --- your skin is on fire, your eyes and your nose runs freely as the gas they spray at him comes into your cell and attacks you.
They open his cell and rush in, beating him to the floor. They then cut his coveralls off of him, take his mattress and blankets and place him back in the cold, bare cell naked. He's now screaming and banging twice as loud. The rest of the tier is pumped up by the indignities done to a fellow prisoner, and at having to breath the gas. The riot squad comes on the tier and takes others out --- gassing ---stripping ---the whole trip.
Next thing you know, people are lighting fires --- everyone is screaming. Some start throwing feces. The banging on the stainless steel toilets and steel doors reverberates throughout the entire place --- a cacophony of sounds so intense that it is itself an assault. Your anxiety takes over and your adrenaline pumps and you find yourself standing at your door screaming at the top of your lungs, caught in the madness. You find yourself in a war zone with all rationality gone.
As the days and weeks drag on, you learn you were infracted for "rioting," while all alone in your cell. Not only do you have to go to long term solitary confinement due to this incident on the tier, but you're told you lost good time, which means that your time in prison has been extended. Your anxiety turns to anger.
The lights in your cell are on twenty-four hours a day. The walls are stark white,and it becomes a steady, mind-numbing white that doesn't even shut off in your sleep. The noise is constant, the senses in chaos and your emotional state is out of whack. You begin resenting, then hating your captors, because you know that there is no possible way that these conditions are not intentional. Rage turns your stomach sour, and clouds your reason.
That is the first stage!
Unfortunately, because of the inner turmoil you incur multiple infractions, all while you're alone in a bare cell. You've lost a lot of good time, and have received a sentence (a "program," in therapeutic newspeak) of indeterminate length in the "Intensive Management Unit," i.e.: long term solitary confinement. You're also given multiple sentences of isolation for punishment, which means you don't even get your one hour of exercise five times a week
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