some thoughts on "solitary confinement"

If you were stuck in a holding cell, by yourself, somewhere far from home, how long would it take before you considered yourself legally insane? Millions of prisoners in hundreds of maximum-security prisons have had to face those situations firsthand over the years. The question of whether or not solitary confinement causes mental health disorders has also occurred in various social experiments over the years. Those social experiments varied in severity, but the one effect they had in common was the inspiration for other social experiments loosely based upon their more (in)famous counterparts. No matter whether the experiments explored any psychological aspect, from solitary confinement, to waterboarding, to separation, or anything else, they were all inspired by real-life prison conditions at maximum-security prisons nationwide. The more (in)famous social experiments include the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Concord Prison Experiment, the Rosenhan Experiment, the Milgram Experiment, & the Rat Park Experiment, among others. Other social experiments, such as the Third Wave, have not quite been considered as repressive or oppressive as the aforementioned prison experiments, but their effectiveness in exposing overly conformist behavior in people or groups exposed, willingly or not, to charismatic influences by outside sources, such as other people or organizations created to influence everybody outside their initial influence. Despite prison officials’ continued insistence that solitary confinement is more effective than general imprisonment, data over the course of many months, years, and decades has shown more mental impairment from prisoners placed in solitary confinement than prisoners kept in the general prison population for the entirety of their stay in prison. The Constitution also makes a strong case against solitary confinement, banning “cruel & unusual punishment” & leading to many lawsuits by prisoners, the ACLU, and other groups generally stating that solitary confinement both leads to lifelong mental impairments in its prisoners, while also violating the Constitution’s 8^th Amendment at the exact same time.

        Despite the overwhelming use of the term “solitary confinement” in public, one state has used different terminology for the concept, as New York has differed by calling it “disciplinary segregation” instead of “solitary confinement”. The term for the actual buildings is also different, as most states refer to the buildings as “Special Housing Units”, others refer to them as “Special Management Units”, and California uniquely refers to them as “Security (instead of “Special”) Housing Units”.  No matter what the buildings have been called, the effects have almost always been the same. According to psychiatry professor Jeffrey L. Metzner, MD, & Human Rights Watch executive Jamie Fellner, Esq., the effects of solitary confinement have been the same for all solitary confinement prisoners, but the severity of the effects have varied: “Isolation can be psychologically harmful to any prisoner, with the nature and severity of the impact depending on the individual, the duration, and particular conditions (e.g., access to natural light, books, or radio). Psychological effects can include anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis.” (Metzner/Fellner, 2010, paragraph 3) They then go on to claim that the general public prefers that prisoners get punished instead of treated: “Despite significant improvements in correctional mental health services, often related to litigation and development of standards and guidelines by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and other professional organizations, in many prisons the services remain woefully inadequate. Relative to the number of prisoners needing help, there is an insufficient number of qualified staff, too few specialized facilities, and few programs. Mindful of budget constraints and scant public support for investments in the treatment (as opposed to punishment) of prisoners, elected officials have been reluctant to provide the funds and leadership needed to ensure that prisons have sufficient mental health resources. Twenty-two of 40 state correctional systems reported in a survey that they did not have an adequate mental health staff.” Metzner and Fellner’s opinions throughout the report state that prisoners should be treated, some mental health clinicians prefer seeing prisoners in solitary confinement, and that allowing prisoners to meet every so often for evaluations could prove to be more effective in the long run than keeping them locked down for extended lengths of time each day.

        Tracy Hresko has been a Pace University law professor for the past few years. In April 2006, Hresko published a detailed report on not only the effects of solitary confinement, but what Hresko believes is officials’ law-based justification for sticking prisoners in solitary confinement instead of rehabilitating them. In the aforementioned report, Hresko stated that there was a lack of options on prisoners’ part to challenge unfair placement by prison officials: “Despite the lack of official policy surrounding use of solitary confinement, common criteria for its imposition in both state and federal prisons include "gang activity and disruption of the orderly operation of a prison, both inclusive catchall criteria." Prison administrators are not required, moreover, to provide even minimal standards of due process protection to inmates sentenced to solitary confinement; inmates have no rights to written notice, to present witnesses or evidence, to be represented by an attorney or to undergo a formal hearing. In fact, the Supreme Court in Hewitt v. Helms held that prison administrators are only required to engage in an "informal, non-adversary review" of the information supporting an inmate's punishment of solitary confinement, including whatever statement an inmate wishes to submit after the start of their confinement.” Hresko mentions immediately afterward that it costs $50,000 per year to keep just one prisoner in solitary confinement, “compared with $20,000 per year for inmates kept in the general population.” (Hresko, page 14) In examining the conditions of typical prisons, Hresko then mentions that courts “typically examine only the physical conditions of the solitary confinement cell – “light, ventilation, bedding, and basic elements of hygiene” - and the extent to which the inmate’s most basic needs are met.” (Hresko, page 15) The Constitution’s 8^th Amendment is mentioned just below that statement, except in the context that psychological torture of any kind doesn’t constitute a violation of that amendment to most courts and judges. Another prison-related lawsuit, Newman v. State of Alabama, found that “the Constitution does not require that prisoners, as individuals or groups, be provided with any and every amenity which some person may think is needed to avoid mental, physical, and emotional destruction.” (Hresko, page 16)

        The 8^th Amendment to the Constitution states that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Despite those rights protections, prisons everywhere have continually committed human rights violations similar to those of typical dictatorial regimes. Even the most decorated of Americans have spoken on the effects of either their solitary confinement, or that of somebody else, as 2008 presidential nominee and current Arizona-based Senator John McCain wrote in one of his Vietnam War memoirs: “It’s an awful thing, solitary; it crushes your spirit and weakens your (mental) resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” (Gawande, 3/30/09, paragraph 19) The innate fear of solitary confinement isn’t just limited to prisoners of war, however; a lawsuit by 12 prisoners at the Florence Administrative Maximum Facility back in May 2012 alleges brutal Constitutional and human rights violations. Andrew Cohen of The Atlantic mentions the following: “The lawsuit seeks no money damages, but instead aims to require federal officials to treat mentally ill inmates in accordance with existing law. The case demands a measure of accountability from a sprawling bureaucracy that seems to answer to no one.” (Cohen, 6/20/12, paragraph 2) The “bureaucracy” mentioned there doesn’t just exist at the modern-day ADX; it existed at Alcatraz, and it exists at all other maximum-security prisons nationwide.

Adding to the aforementioned “bureaucracy” are various harsh laws designed in their very nature to restrict prisoners from the moment they step into the courtroom to the moment they either leave prison or die. The most draconian of those laws is the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, which Congress and President Clinton had the absurdity to pass and sign into law. The act states that the law “…shall not grant or approve any prospective relief unless the court finds that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right.” On the other hand, however, it also states “No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted.” (Phillips, 6/1/13, paragraph 2) That provision effectively forces prisoners through every level of the legal system before they can file a lawsuit against their correctional facility.

Despite prison officials’ continued insistence that solitary confinement is key to successfully deterring prisoners from committing future crimes, data from inside reports suggests that prisoners actually end up more dangerous upon exiting prison than upon committing their initial crime(s). Some prison officials have been absolute believers in the “solitary confinement is beneficial” mindset, only to change their minds completely upon either getting information from “insiders” or actually visiting prisons to see the harsh conditions for themselves. One of the most notable opinion changes by a local, state, or federal correction official is Mississippi’s corrections commissioner, who fought a September 2007 ACLU lawsuit (unrelated to the aforementioned Florence ADX lawsuit) a few years ago that hoped to force a few solitary confinement-based prisoners completely out of their prisons. Early on in the litigation process, Epps stated that “(Solitary confinement) was the culture, and I was part of it.” (Goode, paragraph 14) After the lawsuit against Mississippi by the ACLU was settled, Epps’ opinion had been changed so completely that he was suddenly against solitary confinement, after being for it just days earlier: “If you treat people like animals, that’s exactly the way they’ll behave,” Epps proclaimed upon the lawsuit’s conclusion. (Goode, paragraph 16)

In the midst of that lawsuit, both sides made their cases for and against solitary confinement. James F. Austin was a prison consultant tasked with questioning Mississippi Department of Corrections officials. A court had ordered the state to improve conditions in its notorious “Unit 32”, and the state hoped to improve conditions to the point where prisoners didn’t feel trapped, but also to the point where they didn’t feel comfortable, either. Emmitt L. Sparkman, state deputy corrections commissioner, claimed that Dr. Austin told the state officials who hired him to suggest changes to their highest-security prison that “‘You tell me what kind of person needs to be locked up,’” and “There was an incredible explosion in the prison population coupled with a big infusion of gangs, riots were occurring. Prison officials were literally losing control.” (Goode, paragraph 19/21) The year before the ACLU v. State of Mississippi lawsuit, Florida State University criminology professor Dr. Dan Mears surveyed hundreds of prison officials in dozens of prisons nationwide, and upon the conclusion of his surveys, stated that the main reasons why officials were placing more and more prisoners in solitary confinement were “increasing safety, order and control throughout prison systems and incapacitating violent or disruptive inmates.” (Goode, paragraph 25) Asked to “dig deeper” into his findings, Dr. Mears proclaimed maximum-security prisons in general “a big, very costly experiment,” and he also asked the rhetorical question “Who were the worst of the worst?” (Goode, paragraph 25/26)

Over the course of many decades, solitary confinement has proven to be one of the most truly “cruel and unusual punishments” inflicted upon humans by other humans. Its Constitution-violating principles have led to numerous lawsuits, as well as an equal number of laws attempting to stop such suits. The number of federal prisons has dropped drastically over the years, but the ones that remain, such as Leavenworth, the ADX, Tamms, and others keep classic maximum-security prison tactics going to the present day, which if allowed to continue, could set a disturbing precedent for many future maximum security prisons if the prison population remains anywhere near its levels from recent decades.

WORKS CITED:

Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics

Jeffrey L. Metzner/Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch; The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, vol. 38, #1, 2010

In the Cellars of the Hollow Men: Use of Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons & its Implications Under International Laws against Torture Tracy Hresko, Pace University International Law Review, 4/1/06

“Is Long-Term Solitary Confinement Torture?” Atul Gawande, The New Yorker, 3/30/09

“Supermax: The Constitution and Mentally Ill Prisoners” Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic, 6/20/12

“Prisons Rethink Isolation, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity” Erica Goode, The New York Times, 3/10/12

by John Pilger: "The Reckless Lies of War Mongers; Why the Rise of Fascism is Again an Issue"

by JOHN PILGER

http://tinyurl.com/n2cp4d7

(an excerpt)
In the 1990s, as former Soviet republics, eastern Europe and the Balkans became military outposts of Nato, the heirs to a Nazi movement in Ukraine were given their opportunity. Responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews, Poles and Russians during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian fascism was rehabilitated and its “new wave” hailed by the enforcer as “nationalists”.

This reached its apogee in 2014 when the Obama administration splashed out $5 billion on a coup against the elected government. The shock troops were neo-Nazis known as the Right Sector and Svoboda. Their leaders include Oleh Tyahnybok, who has called for a purge of the “Moscow-Jewish mafia” and “other scum”, including gays, feminists and those on the political left.

These fascists are now integrated into the Kiev coup government. The first deputy speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, Andriy Parubiy, a leader of the governing party, is co-founder of Svoboda. On February 14, Parubiy announced he was flying to Washington get “the USA to give us highly precise modern weaponry”. If he succeeds, it will be seen as an act of war by Russia.

No western leader has spoken up about the revival of fascism in the heart of Europe — with the exception of Vladimir Putin, whose people lost 22 million to a Nazi invasion that came through the borderland of Ukraine. At the recent Munich Security Conference, Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, ranted abuse about European leaders for opposing the US arming of the Kiev regime. She referred to the German Defence Minister as “the minister for defeatism”. It was Nuland who masterminded the coup in Kiev. The wife of Robert D. Kagan, a leading “neo-con” luminary and co-founder of the extreme right wing Project for a New American Century, she was foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney.

Nuland’s coup did not go to plan. Nato was prevented from seizing Russia’s historic, legitimate, warm-water naval base in Crimea. The mostly Russian population of Crimea — illegally annexed to Ukraine by Nikita Krushchev in 1954 — voted overwhelmingly to return to Russia, as they had done in the 1990s. The referendum was voluntary, popular and internationally observed. There was no invasion.

At the same time, the Kiev regime turned on the ethnic Russian population in the east with the ferocity of ethnic cleaning. Deploying neo-Nazi militias in the manner of the Waffen-SS, they bombed and laid to siege cities and towns. They used mass starvation as a weapon, cutting off electricity, freezing bank accounts, stopping social security and pensions. More than a million refugees fled across the border into Russia. In the western media, they became unpeople escaping “the violence” caused by the “Russian invasion”. The Nato commander, General Breedlove — whose name and actions might have been inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove — announced that 40,000 Russian troops were “massing”. In the age of forensic satellite evidence, he offered none.

These Russian-speaking and bilingual people of Ukraine – a third of the population – have long sought a federation that reflects the country’s ethnic diversity and is both autonomous and independent of Moscow. Most are not “separatists” but citizens who want to live securely in their homeland and oppose the power grab in Kiev. Their revolt and establishment of autonomous “states” are a reaction to Kiev’s attacks on them. Little of this has been explained to western audiences.

On May 2, 2014, in Odessa, 41 ethnic Russians were burned alive in the trade union headquarters with police standing by. The Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh hailed the massacre as “another bright day in our national history”. In the American and British media, this was reported as a “murky tragedy” resulting from “clashes” between “nationalists” (neo-Nazis) and “separatists” (people collecting signatures for a referendum on a federal Ukraine).

The New York Times buried the story, having dismissed as Russian propaganda warnings about the fascist and anti-Semitic policies of Washington’s new clients. The Wall Street Journal damned the victims – “Deadly Ukraine Fire Likely Sparked by Rebels, Government Says”. Obama congratulated the junta for its “restraint”.

If Putin can be provoked into coming to their aid, his pre-ordained “pariah” role in the West will justify the lie that Russia is invading Ukraine. On January 29, Ukraine’s top military commander, General Viktor Muzhemko, almost inadvertently dismissed the very basis for US and EU sanctions on Russia when he told a news conference emphatically: “The Ukrainian army is not fighting with the regular units of the Russian Army”. There were “individual citizens” who were members of “illegal armed groups”, but there was no Russian invasion. This was not news. Vadym Prystaiko, Kiev’s Deputy Foreign Minister, has called for “full scale war” with nuclear-armed Russia.

On February 21, US Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, introduced a bill that would authorise American arms for the Kiev regime. In his Senate presentation, Inhofe used photographs he claimed were of Russian troops crossing into Ukraine, which have long been exposed as fakes. It was reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s fake pictures of a Soviet installation in Nicaragua, and Colin Powell’s fake evidence to the UN of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The intensity of the smear campaign against Russia and the portrayal of its president as a pantomime villain is unlike anything I have known as a reporter. Robert Parry, one of America’s most distinguished investigative journalists, who revealed the Iran-Contra scandal, wrote recently, “No European government, since Adolf Hitler’s Germany, has seen fit to dispatch Nazi storm troopers to wage war on a domestic population, but the Kiev regime has and has done so knowingly. Yet across the West’s media/political spectrum, there has been a studious effort to cover up this reality even to the point of ignoring facts that have been well established ….If you wonder how the world could stumble into world war three – much as it did into world war one a century ago – all you need to do is look at the madness over Ukraine that has proved impervious to facts or reason.”

In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor said of the German media: “The use made by Nazi conspirators of psychological warfare is well known. Before each major aggression, with some few exceptions based on expediency, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the attack …. In the propaganda system of the Hitler State it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.”

In the Guardian on February 2, Timothy Garton-Ash called, in effect, for a world war. “Putin must be stopped,” said the headline. “And sometimes only guns can stop guns.” He conceded that the threat of war might “nourish a Russian paranoia of encirclement”; but that was fine. He name-checked the military equipment needed for the job and advised his readers that “America has the best kit”.

In 2003, Garton-Ash, an Oxford professor, repeated the propaganda that led to the slaughter in Iraq. Saddam Hussein, he wrote, “has, as [Colin] Powell documented, stockpiled large quantities of horrifying chemical and biological weapons, and is hiding what remains of them. He is still trying to get nuclear ones.” He lauded Blair as a “Gladstonian, Christian liberal interventionist”. In 2006, he wrote, “Now we face the next big test of the West after Iraq: Iran.”

The outbursts — or as Garton-Ash prefers, his “tortured liberal ambivalence” — are not untypical of those in the transatlantic liberal elite who have struck a Faustian deal. The war criminal Blair is their lost leader. The Guardian, in which Garton-Ash’s piece appeared, published a full-page advertisement for an American Stealth bomber. On a menacing image of the Lockheed Martin monster were the words: “The F-35. GREAT For Britain”. This American “kit” will cost British taxpayers £1.3 billion, its F-model predecessors having slaughtered across the world. In tune with its advertiser, a Guardian editorial has demanded an increase in military spending.

Once again, there is serious purpose. The rulers of the world want Ukraine not only as a missile base; they want its economy. Kiev’s new Finance Minister, Nataliwe Jaresko, is a former senior US State Department official in charge of US overseas “investment”. She was hurriedly given Ukrainian citizenship.

They want Ukraine for its abundant gas; Vice President Joe Biden’s son is on the board of Ukraine’s biggest oil, gas and fracking company. The manufacturers of GM seeds, companies such as the infamous Monsanto, want Ukraine’s rich farming soil.

Above all, they want Ukraine’s mighty neighbour, Russia. They want to Balkanise or dismember Russia and exploit the greatest source of natural gas on earth. As the Arctic ice melts, they want control of the Arctic Ocean and its energy riches, and Russia’s long Arctic land border. Their man in Moscow used to be Boris Yeltsin, a drunk, who handed his country’s economy to the West. His successor, Putin, has re-established Russia as a sovereign nation; that is his crime.

The responsibility of the rest of us is clear. It is to identify and expose the reckless lies of warmongers and never to collude with them. It is to re-awaken the great popular movements that brought a fragile civilisation to modern imperial states. Most important, it is to prevent the conquest of ourselves: our minds, our humanity, our self respect. If we remain silent, victory over us is assured, and a holocaust beckons.