Solitary confinement “is inhumane and by its design it is driving men insane,” a former inmate who spent 18 years in prison in Texas, a decade of that time in isolation on death row before being exonerated, told a Senate panel in a hearing on Tuesday.See a related Times editorial which praises Graves' "moving" testimony. For more, see Anthony Graves and Jim Ridgeway, who runs the blog Solitary Watch, interviewed about solitary confinement on Democracy Now:
“I lived behind a steel door that had two small slits in it, the space replaced with iron and wire, which was dirty and filthy,” said Anthony Graves, whose conviction for involvement in multiple murders was overturned in 2006. “I had no television, no telephone and most importantly, I had no physical contact with another human being.”
The hearing, held before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, represents the first time lawmakers on Capitol Hill have taken up the issue of solitary confinement, a form of imprisonment that many human rights advocates believe violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment” and that has drawn increasing scrutiny in recent months in the United States and internationally.
See Graves' written statement to the committee, LA Times' coverage of the hearing, and a good summary of the event from The Dissenter. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette editorialized after the hearing that "It's time to view solitary confinement as torture."
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15 comments:
Anthony is a class act. His insight is invaluable for folks who want to know the truth about how we imprison people.
Come on really people, turn on the news every night and listen to the crimes these people commit and listen to the pain they have cause their victims and their families. People want these offenders off the street so as not to harm anyone else. Our system isn't the best system i'm the world for convicts and i'm glad it isn't. These offenders go to prison and their illegal activities continue while their in there. Murder continues, rapes continue, drug use continues and extortion is ramped with our system, so who's to blame for that? When offenders are separated from the general population because of there actions, the system is accused of curel and unusual punishment.
Why don't you invite Anthony Graves over for dinner some night and tell him that, 2:17? I'd love to be a fly on the wall listening in.
It wouldn't matter who said what, the only thing these people are concerned with are votes. They know the decisions they make today will effect their political career in the future. They want the convicts families on their side because there's more potential votes there.
So glad to see this topic getting publicity. About six years ago, my son, 12 at the time, wound up in juvenile detention over a custody issue in which the probation officer became involved.
To my shock, it was a blanket solitary confinement facility. TJPC surprised them with an audit and it seems they were doing this for staffing/budgetary reasons. The staff ratio requirement was much lower when everyone was in the cells, so they kept them all in solitary most of the days up to 23 hours. They had school 3 or 4 days a week for 2 or 3 hours, but no other programming. No talking at the 15 minute group meal times, either.
Thank goodness his stay was only 14 days. Some of those kids had been there for months! I agree with Anthony that we have a false pride when it comes to touting how humane and just our system is in many cases.
6:37 pm again:
And, no books allowed. Not even a textbook or a Bible. How's that for hours and hours of nothingness?
Staffing issues should be a concern of everyone. Offenders can be locked down when there isn't enough staff and or when they are a menace to the general population. There are many problems and issues in TDCJ. For example region three has most of it's units staffed by Nigerian officers. I have dealt with them for years and have yet to completely understand what they are saying, they don't fully comprehend the English language, they don't understand what common sense is. I have seen them run from fights and staff assaults. TDCJ doesn't care who is manning the towers as long as they have someone to blame. I've said it before our system isn't the best, but its all we got for now. Get those politicians out of office who are only concerned with their political future rather then our prison system.
I have difficulty understanding this particular issue but that is because (to those of you who know me), my mind is wired significantly different. Hours of peace and silence of no human beings sounds like paradise to me. I know I would not last 5 mins in the general population.
After seeing how humans treat one another I easily understand the tempation not to live among them.
How do you do a background check on someone from Nigeria? That's the country where all those email scams come from. They are basically hiring people they know nothing about. They probably can't even be sure they are getting their real names.
I foresee significant problems resulting from this that we can't even imagine at this point.
6/25/2012 09:45:00 AM
That's how you hire workers when damn near everyone in your state who might be eligible to work as a CO is a felon.
"Hours of peace and silence of no human beings"
Not the case, Lee. From what I understand the noise is pretty constant. (Prisons and jails generally are loud places.) Isolation from human touch and companionship is not synonymous with "silence."
Grits, being in solitary sounds much safer and more peaceful than being in general population.
For the most part the only real human companionship these offenders get is when they are getting beat by their home boys to show their loyalty to the gang or when they are getting beat for not paying for protection or when they are being raped or when staff members have to go hands on for one reason or another and of course if and when their family members come to visit them. Prisons do have a lot of noise, but it's when you hear nothing that's when you know something is about to happen. I know a lot of offenders who enjoy being housed separate from most offenders.
And regarding the Nigerian officers I understand what your saying. Now try and tell TDCJ that. I feel if they hire anymore of them there wouldn't be anymore left in Nigeria.
The culture of madness is thoroughly explored and public apathy to that madness equally so when one researches the events that spawned the Santa Fe Prison riot and minimal changes to the system made thereafter. Countless dehumanization tactics were used at this facility....sensory deprivation being one of them. The young man who was decapitated by a shovel by fellow inmates was forced to wear a "snitch" jacket on a system created to turn inmate on inmate. This man also had a mental capacity of a 10-12 year old. We as a society have created a system that claps people away in cages and then we expect them to come back into society functioning. So as a society who could have learned from the very real American horror such as the one in Santa Fe....we have learned not a damn thing. The culture of madness is the same as it was in 1980, possibly worse.
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