Broken Bridges [Solitary Confinement]

Broken Bridges [Solitary Confinement]

Somewhere in the Sonora desert, out beyond the city lights

Are hundreds of souls burning by the fire every single night

There must be something better than the view they have in sight

Gazing at these solid grey walls each morning and again at the end of every night

Survival in prison is something you live from day to day

Surviving in a place where this no sorrow or pity is the ultimate test to say

When you live day to day you get down knowing this is where you stay

Makers of their own device, they must face the games they play

Many are born in a life that brought them nothing but pain and sorrow

Dreaming of being free is only a tomorrow

Staying here another night might be a killer for some

As their back are against the wall and having no compassion from anyone

For a moment there is a hole in the mind and freedom rings

Looking up to the sky and imagining millions of stars and a moon with a beautiful golden ring

A ring that tells you that solitary is just a state of mind

And that outside your world there are millions of people walking around as if they are blind

Facing anger and fighting for survival

You struggle to see the light

Staring at the clouds above you with fear and sorrow

You know there might not be a tomorrow

Knowing you are dying here in this awful place

Where there is no cool water but a river full of hate

Your mind has taught you how to run free again

But in reality, you know you will never reach the outer gate

Kill Orders ~ A Satire on a $ 50 millon dolar prison folly

“Kill Orders”

A Satire of a $50 million dollar Prison Folly

In the beginning of February, 2009, the Arizona Department of Corrections issued a new decree called the “Kill Decree” which directed that every incarcerated prisoner who had not been put to work should be on a hit list and handed over to selected staff to be treated with negligence, punished and confined with orders to isolate them and keep them at the most restrictive custody level available. 

This order was distributed via the quarterly warden’s meetings and memos originating in their regional offices. These targeted individuals were to be sent to the maximum custody units to isolate and control their behaviors.

In October 2009, detention units statewide were overcrowded with those prisoners targeted for this decree and efforts were made to house them at various special management units as they were being housed triple or four with two in the bunks and two on the floors. Double bunking became a priority and beds were installed inside small concrete boxes to accommodate the additional prisoners.

The main issues at hand were prisoners refusing to house because of political, racial or gang related problems covered under the protective segregation policy but ignored or delayed thus forcing them to house on yards with known enemies.

Their bodies infringed encumbered space provided for those on the bunks and conflicts would often arise regarding the invasion of privacy and disrespect of personal property or space. Violence increased and staff also became targets of this frustrated target group that knew they were headed for the isolation and control units per their destiny under the “Kill Decree”.

Soon the violence was out of control and staffs were ordered not to interfere with these serious and violent assaults. Additionally, administrators were informed that no one [prisoners] should be prosecuted for taking part in these assaults that sometimes resulted in serious injuries or death. The stage was set to create a most violent and predatory gladiator arena that would be uncontrolled yet sanctioned by those in power.

The treatment of prisoners began to be characterized by elements of a particular inhumanity. The death of so many of them was not merely because of the inaction of individual correctional officers but because of the “Kill Decree” and the cultural indifference it created towards the preservation of life and dignity for human beings. The value of a human life had been diminished into a number and not a face or being.

Through the systematic plans to kill, eliminate or reduce legitimate  inmate work programs, the inmate suicide prevention aide program and other incentive / capacity programs, the administration made sure that any reformative programs were killed or stopped so that those idle inmates would be targeted for the purpose designed under the “Kill Decree”.

Although there were organized plans to continue to fill  certain [but reduced] programs to capacity, the decree denied funding, staffing and time for such activities and killed any efforts to revive incentive based programs that would enhance the prisoner’s ability to provide better pay and enhanced privileges established as policy by fore the “Kill Decree”.

Incentive programs were systematically diminished as the criteria for qualifying for certain jobs and programs became more stringent and with less priority. These programs were essentially phased out due to lack of finding prisoners that did not qualify under the new guidelines as inmate employment rules were changed to reduce hours and wages worked for those employed.

In April of 2010, the food regulations changed and meals were altered for weekends and holidays. A brief strike by prisoners resulted in no concessions by the administration but rather more regulations were issued to control behavior and dissent of policies.

The orders consisted of zero tolerance for violence resulted in more prisoners being locked up for detention as resistance was broken as an energetic action plan was devised to increase beds at the maximum custody units for all these ruthless, violent and insubordinate prisoners that were locked down when any of them demonstrated even the slightest indication of resisting or protesting living conditions due to the double bunking and decrease in staffing to provide a safe and secure living or work environment.

Labeled gangsters, extremists, fanatics or problematic in nature, they continued to be transferred to higher custody levels for isolation and control. Employees were encouraged to use every tool on the use of force continuum to control prisoner’s behaviors. In addition, the disciplinary process for prisoners were modified to give the administration more control and more discretion on summaries and findings. The inconsistencies in this order created confusion for anyone carrying out this order not to use their weapons or force with insufficient energy or effort thus making it punishable for anyone to disregard this decree and subject to administrative disciplinary as well as other sanctions.

Finally, as a result of this kill order, prisoners were left without due process for disciplinary or classification processes. Their rights were being rationalized into channels that provided no genuine appeal or re-consideration in those matters at hand. They were also left without suitable medical care, sufficient personal uniform clothing, nutritional supplements and mental health care, and in some cases, left to die.

The mission to entrap and declare these prisoners to be housed at a higher custody level was intensified as efforts through politically motivated investigations at all complexes resulted in the use of persons convicted of crimes to serve as confidential informants on other prisoners and staff. These snitches were common among gang Debriefers and others willing to serve this role.

Further, the wardens were encouraged to seek out among the prisoner elements those who appear reliable and advised to use them for intelligence gathering inside each prison and use them as informers by using all existing possibilities to isolate and control those targeted under the “Kill Decree”.

By the use of these informers more prisoners were targeted and the beds at the maximum custody units began to swell with the need to add more beds in the immediate future. These beds would suffice to house those revolutionaries or leading personalities that have expressed resistance or defiance of the “Kill Decree” and found to be agitators or disruptive groups by the administration.

Ironically, the Arizona Department of Corrections has asked and received $ 50 million dollars for the expansion of maximum custody beds that was created by this parody or sketch outlining what may be actual events along with inferences based on anecdotal results found today inside the Arizona prison system.

This folly was created by a self-fulfilling prophecy that was in reality legitimately designed by the German Army many decades ago in World War II and used on prisoners of war.

The only exception to this parody is the fact there were actual cases where prisoners of war were mistreated as human beings. They were executed for no reasons other than taking up space inside their prison camps and not being able bodied to work or do anything productive for the German regime in power at the time and occupying foreign countries taking millions of people prisoner and incarcerate them under terrible war camp conditions.

One Year Anniversary of Hunger Strike in Pelican Bay

One Year After Historic Hunger Strike, Isolated California Prisoners Report Little Change

August 6, 2012

tags: California, hunger strike, Pelican Bay State Prison, Security Housing Unit, solitary confinement

by Sal Rodriguez

At this time one year ago, a three week hunger strike across California prisons had been concluded, and the California Assembly had begun planning a hearing on the use of solitary confinement in California’s prisons. The conditions of the California Security Housing Units, where over 3,000 inmates are held in isolation, many for decades, had come to the public’s attention. In the time since August 2011, there would be another round of three week hunger strikes, a smaller series of hunger strikes at the Corcoran Administrative Segregation Unit, a new “Step Down Program” announced in California, a federal lawsuit filed by Pelican Bay SHU inmates, and a US Senate hearing on solitary confinement.
Even so, the situation in the SHUs and ASUs remains much as it did one year ago. A few concessions by prison officials, such as issuing sweatpants and allowing family photos, did nothing to change the problem of long-term isolation and non-existent due process.
It should be reiterated that in California, the majority of SHU inmates are not necessarily there for conduct, but for gang membership.
In a letter to California activists, Pelican Bay hunger strike leader Alfred Sandoval reports feeling like “just banging my head against the wall because nothing ever changes around here. Right now the Department of Corruption and the current administration have been attempting to pacify prisoners with items…ie. sweats, watch caps, and various food items from canteen–in hopes of distracting us …”
He continues, “the sad fact is that some have been complacent and accepted the physical and psychological abuses as normal because it has been implemented in small increments over decades, year after year so it has become the norm.”
Isolated inmates throughout California continue to report desolate conditions and more-of-the-same.
According to one inmate in the Corcoran State Prison SHU, “The reality is there is a significant number of us for whom death holds no real fear, in fact, in some ways—as an alternative to another few decades of this—it holds some appeal. If it becomes necessary to take up peaceful protest again—and it’s unfortunately looking that way—you may be writing a lot more Christian Gomez articles…Most here only want to, after so very long, hold their children, kiss their wives, speak to their families, and have access to some meaningful program that will give them some hope of parole, higher education, and marketable job skills. But all of this is indicative of a sick society, of values and mores that have never been seriously and confronted and corrected in the history of U.S. social, political, and economic development.”
Christian Gomez was an inmate in Corcoran State Prison’s ASU who died while participating in a January-Feburary hunger strike protesting the conditions of the ASU.
One of the leaders of the Corcoran ASU strike, Juan Jaimes, was transfered during the strike to Kern Valley State Prison’s ASU unit as a means of limiting the strike. Jaimes recently reported to the San Francisco Bay View that he has received poor medical care for a broken back.
Another Corcoran inmate who has been in the SHU for over 20 years also reports doubts about the Step Down Program, and thinks that there will be no changes. He also offers his opinion on the validity of the SHU in the first place, echoing the sentiments of many SHU inmates that any use of isolation should be based on conduct rather than gang affiliation.
“I don’t think anyone should be housed in isolation for more than a few weeks, if at all, and without meaningful program. SHU should consist of a system that includes earning meaningful privileges, and a dignified manner in being released. The SHU should be used for exactly the purpose that it is supposed to be used for: to house those prisoners who conduct threatens the safety and security of the prison,” he writes.
An inmate at North Kern State Prison’s Administrative Segregation Unit reports that himself and several inmates have waited over a year to be transferred to one of the SHU’s. “The waiting list can take up to three years, I’ve been here 15 months due to the overcrowding by the I.G.I. (Institutional Gang Investigators) validating everybody as prison gang members,” he writes, “a lot of us New Afrikans, Latin Amerikans, poor whites and indiegenous people have been labeled for reading our culture and history…I’ve witnessed men lose their minds behind these walls, cut their wrists to kill themselves in order to escape this mental torture, spread feces on themselves and the walls, yell out and scream, some are on psychotropic medication that causes them to turn into human zombies where they don’t even know who they are anymore.”
Solitary Watch will continue to report on the situation in California as information becomes available

Memo by BOP Chief to Solitary Confinement Prisoners ~~

Bureau of Prisons Chief Sends Memo to Federal Inmates, Urging Them Not to Kill Themselves

August 4, 2012

tags: ADX Florence, mental illness, solitary confinement, supermax prisons

by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

The Atlantic‘s Andrew Cohen, who has been reporting extensively on a lawsuit challenging solitary confinement and mental health care at the ADX Florence, the federal super-supermax in Colorado, has obtained a copy of a memo sent to all federal prisoners last month. Cohen’s own commentary on the memo is trenchant, so we are republishing excerpts from his article, which includes quotation from the memo. The full memo can be read here on the Atlantic‘s website.

Faced with two new federal lawsuits alleging prisoner mistreatment and abuse, one of which chronicles in grim detail the 2010 suicide of an inmate at the Supermax facility in Colorado, the Federal Bureau of Prisons last month sent an extraordinary “Suicide Prevention” memo to “all Bureau Inmates.” Charles E. Samuels, Jr., director of the BOP, urged prisoners “unable to think of solutions other than suicide” not to “lose hope” and urged them to “be willing to request help from those around you.”…
[The memo] is dated July 20, 2012, one month after a class-action lawsuit was filed against federal officials alleging that they have violated the constitutional rights of prisoners by refusing or failing to provide even the most basic treatment for mentally ill prisoners at the Colorado facility. This lawsuit came one month after prison officials were sued over the suicide of an ADX Florence inmate, Jose Martin Vega, who had hanged himself in his cell after allegedly failing to get proper mental health treatment.

The memo concludes with a quotation from Albert Einstein: “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.” This would seem a cruel joke when directed at men whose past, present, and future consist of absolute isolation a bare concrete cell. (Read, for example, Thomas Silverstein’s description of his 10,000+ days in extreme solitary confinement–a condition that he has little to no prospect of ever changing.)

Cohen first parses “What’s in the Memo”:

You can decide for yourself what you think of the tone of the memo. Some of you likely will find it a cruel and patronizing attempt by federal bureaucrats and lawyers to try to cover their asses in anticipation of litigation to come. For example:

“Every institution is staffed with psychologists who provide counseling and other supportive mental health services. Anytime you want to speak with a psychologist, let staff know and they will contact Psychology Services to make the necessary arrangements.”

Others may find its touchy-feely language particularly odd given the memo’s audience. This memo was sent to hundreds of thousands of federal prisoners, including some of the most deadly and violent America currently has in custody. For example:

“If you are unable to think of solutions other than suicide, it is not because solutions do not exist; it is because you are currently unable to see them. Do not lose hope. Solutions can be found, feelings change, unanticipated positive events occur. Look for meaning and purpose in educational and treatment programs, faith, work, family and friends.”

And then there is this passage, which makes Tom Hanks’ “The Green Mile” guard Paul Edgecomb seem like Cool Hand Luke’s jailer. Remember, Director Samuels here is speaking to men who live in such detention and isolation — often as punishment for past conduct in prison — that they have gone clinically mad from the conditions of their confinement:

“You may be reading this message while in a Special Housing Unit or Special Management Unit cell, thinking your life is moving in the wrong direction. But wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, my commitment to you is the same. I want you to succeed.”

Cohen then comments on “What’s Not in the Memo”:

[No one can read the memo] and reasonably conclude that the Bureau of Prisons is planning to help solve the problem by hiring more doctors and psychiatrists. The June civil rights complaint, in the case now styled Bacote v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, alleges that there are only two mental health professionals responsible for the care of 450 prisoners at Supermax. With such a ratio, it’s ridiculous to think that even those inmates who want to accept Director Samuels’ kind invitation are going to be successful in doing so.
Nor can anyone read the July 20 memo and reasonably conclude that the Bureau of Prisons intends to modify its rules, which prohibit the use of psychotropic drugs in its “Control Units,” the most secure detention portions of its prisons. That’s the essence of the complaints in both pending cases: The Constitution requires adequate medical treatment, including mental health treatment, but often the inmates who need medicine the most are the ones who cannot by policy and practice get it.
Nor, finally, can anyone read Director Samuels’ memo as indicative of a shift in prison policy that will encourage the reporting of staff abuse of mentally ill prisoners.The Bacote complaint alleges that, at ADX Florence, the prison “watchdog” official responsible for investigating allegations of official misconduct is married to the prison official who is responsible for “all correctional functions” at the facility. How could an inmate take Samuels up on his invitation and expect much of a growl from the watchdog?

It’s essential to read the rest of the piece, in which Cohen describes some of the prisoners at ADX Florence who presumably received this memo. They include one man who “has cut off his scrotum, and a testicle, and has amputated some of his fingers,” another who “allegedly crawls around ADX Florence on one leg because prison officials have refused to replace his prosthetic,” and another who “tried to commit suicide in 2008, [and] was promptly returned to the cell in which he had made the attempt, a cell which was still covered in his own blood.” One prisoner who sought help, as the BOP director suggests, “was given a “tele-psychiatry” session whereby he spoke via video conference with an off-site doctor. [He] alleges that, during the session, he was handcuffed from behind with shackles on his legs and surrounded by corrections officers.”
Cohen concludes that the memo is really directed not toward any prisoners who might actually take Samuels up on his offer, but toward the lawsuits the BOP now faces. The response to those suits, Cohen asserts, can be found at the end of the memo:

“I want your life to go forward in a positive direction — a direction personally fulfilling to you, but also a direction which ensures the safety of the staff and inmates who interact with you each day.”

That’s the argument — that, even if the allegations are true, the deprivation of medicine and care, the emptiness of reporting safeguards, and even the occasional abuse are necessary to ensure the safety of the prison, its staff, and its inmates. The sub-argument is that, even if reasonable people disagree about how to treat the mentally ill in our nation’s prisons, the final call ought to be made by prison officials as “experts” in the field. Read’s Samuels’ statement to that effect, made in June during a Senate subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill.

In fact, this is the same argument that is made time and again, in prisons and jails across the country, to justify solitary confinement and all manner of abuses. Matters of “safety and security”–which are defined by prison staff, and no one else–trump all other concerns, including the possible torture of people in prison.

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