Buried Alive: Long-Term Isolation in California's Youth and Adult Prisons

Prisoners in supermax units often are confined alone in single cells; two prisoners are often held in 6' x 10' cells. (If there is anything worse, or perhaps more dangerous than isolation, it is isolation and idleness with a cellmate.) The cells contain only the most basic of accommodations, generally a double bunk bed, a toilet and sink, and possibly another protruding slab for a desk. Prisoners describe either an "eerie silence" in the units, stemming
from the cells being entirely soundproof, or the opposite: a din of constant noise—including yelling and screaming—twenty-four hours a day. Most cells have no windows and it is impossible for a prisoner to know whether it is night or day. Prisoners often complain of the lights being left on twenty-four hours per day, causing them to lose track of time entirely. Of course, without windows, confinement in the dark would be even worse.
Contact with other human beings is extremely limited. Prisoners eat alone in their cells and are permitted to exercise alone in a cage or concrete room for approximately 30 minutes a day. Most interaction with staff occurs through a slot in the steel door through which food and other items are passed to the prisoner. Cell "shakedowns" are common, and prisoners are routinely strip searched before leaving their cells for any reason and again upon their return. These searches frequently include body cavity searches. Educational or rehabilitative programming is rare. They are not permitted to hold prison jobs. Visits, telephone calls, and mail are severely restricted and reading material is censored. Access to prison "programs," such as classes, AA groups, or counseling is nonexistent.
A common practice in these units is "cell extraction." This is a procedure, used at the discretion of the prison administration, where prisoners are confronted with from four to six riot-clad officers, batons drawn, descending upon the prisoner, often hog tying him/her, and removing him/her from the cell. This could be precipitated by something the prisoner is alleged to have done, or by information the prison has gathered suggesting some kind of security breach that inspires maximum force. We name it here as a "condition," because it appears to be part of the landscape of this form of harsh punishment.
40 percent compared to 28 percent." In 2002, Human Rights Watch reported that over 20,000 prisoners, almost 2 percent of the U.S. prison population, were being held in long-term solitary confinement.Johnson, Kevin, "Inmate suicides linked to solitary," USA Today, December 27, 2006. Last year, Kevin Johnson reported in USA Today that 70,000 people were housed in isolation nationwide.
The advent of these highly secure facilities coincided with the huge prison building boom begun in the 1980s. The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. quintupled, nationally, in a 25-year period, "with no increase in resources devoted to corrections in general, or to programming and mental health services in particular" (Haney & Zimbardo, 1998). Indeed, rehabilitation as a goal of imprisonment was abandoned wholesale and security housing units became the emblem of the intensified punishment model. The fact that solitary confinement had been tried periodically from the invention of the penitentiary onward, and was abandoned on both effectiveness grounds and decency grounds, was completely ignored. Trop v. Dulles (1958), is one example of litigation underscoring the ineffectiveness and indecency of solitary.
California State Prison, Corcoran (Corcoran) was California's first state prison to isolate prisoners in a supermax unit. It began in 1988, and one year later, California opened its first prison specifically designed as a supermax: Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) in Crescent City. California is one of more than forty states with specially designed supermax facilities.5 As outlined above, the names of these units vary from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In California, the term Security Housing Unit or "SHU," is used. As the CDCR states on its website, "PBSP is designed to house California's most serious criminal offenders in a secure, safe, and disciplined institutional setting."6 Upon closer inspection, questions arise regarding the validity of this statement. Are SHUs actually housing the "most serious" criminal offenders?
Aside from Pelican Bay, there are four other SHUs in operation in the CDCR: California State Prison, Corcoran (COR); the California Correctional Institution (CCI), in Tehachapi; High Desert State Prison in Susanville (HDSP); and the Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW), in Chowchilla. Statistics from the CDCR reported in April 2008 showed Pelican Bay with 1,101 SHU prisoners, Corcoran with 1,318, CCI with 775, HDSP with 400, and VSPW with 72. In addition, on a given day, approximately 7,354 men and 119 women are held in Ad Seg. Another 256 people are in psychiatric lock down units and an estimated 1–2 percent of the total population is held in protective custody. 

(Sullivan, Laura, "Life in Solitary Confinement." National Public Radio, July 26, 2006.
"Pelican Bay State Prison—Mission Statement,"
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Visitors/Facilities/PBSP.html )

Added to those numbers are the 80–100 men in the Adjustment Center (AC) of California's death row.
For a prisoner to be transferred out of the AC, prison officials must determine that the prisoner has no recent violence, no gang affiliation, and is not an escape risk. People found to have any of these characteristics can be kept in AC indefinitely. They are allowed only nine hours a week out of their cells, no phone access, one package a year (compared to quarterly packages available to most prisoners) and a more limited canteen draw. At present it appears that the largest indeterminate AC population on death row is alleged to have ties to the Mexican Mafia. The second largest category that we have been able to determine anecdotally is people seen to have connections to the Aryan Brotherhood. The AC also includes condemned mentally ill prisoners who have been "acting out." The AC cells are 7' x 6' compared to 4½' x 11' in a regular death row cell.
Assuming these calculations are correct, the total number of people in long-term lock down in California on a given day exceeds 14,600. (Human Rights Watch, 2001.)
According to a volunteer at San Quentin State Prison (SQSP), the oldest state prison in California, "The despair I have seen at the reception center at San Quentin outweighs that felt on death row . . .For the men locked inside all day and night, it is excruciatingly stressful."
None of our calculations takes into consideration the fact that whole institutions are "locked down" in California for months at a time. In these instances, prisoners are confined to their cells and recreation, classroom instruction, and visits are drastically curtailed.
Some SHU prisoners are serving fixed sentences and are released directly from solitary confinement. The danger to the public of such practices is self evident: people going from extreme sensory deprivation, with little human contact over a long period, have an extremely
difficult time transitioning to life outside.
The Mentaltal Ill ness FactFact or
"Living behind these walls is a nightmare that never goes away. Many prisoners behind these walls are going crazy in record numbers, and are becoming more violent than they have ever been in their lives." (California SHU Prisoner)
It is a well-established fact that long-term isolation is detrimental to mental health. "Empirical research on solitary and supermax-like confinement has consistently .
and unequivocally documented the harmful consequences of living in these kinds of environments." Studies undertaken over four decades corroborate such an assertion.12
As noted in a briefing paper by Human Rights Watch (HRW), "Prisoners subjected to prolonged isolation may experience depression, despair, anxiety, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations, problems with impulse control, and an impaired ability to think, concentrate, or remember" (HRW,2000)
Solitary confinement can cause a specific kind of psychiatric syndrome, which in its worst stages can lead to agitation, hallucinations, and a confused psychotic state. Symptoms can include random violence, self-mutilation, and suicidal behavior (Kerness 1996, p. 3).
(Haney, Craig, "Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and Supermax' Confinement," in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 49, No. 1, January 2003, pp. 124-156.

One of the most effective ways of challenging conditions inside prisons is to bring a civil suit. In California, the Prison Law Office and others have won repeatedly in the courts when they have challenged medical care, mental health care, excessive force, and conditions in juvenile facilities. The following cases have directly challenged conditions in solitary confinement:

( Coleman v. Wilson — The court found that the entire mental health system operated by the California Department of Corrections (now CDCR) was unconstitutional and that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to the needs of mentally ill inmates. All 33 institutions in the CDCR are presently being monitored by a court-appointed special master to evaluate the CDCR's compliance with the court's order.)

( Madrid v. Gomez — Conditions at California's "super-maximum" Pelican Bay State Prison have been subject to injunctions aimed at eliminating excessive force, improving health care and removing prisoners with mental illness from the Security Housing Unit. As a result of this case, Pelican Bay is currently being monitored by a court-appointed special master.)
( Farrell v. Hickman — In January 2005, California officials and the Prison Law Office reached an agreement on a schedule for reforming the juvenile justice system and creating a system that is rehabilitative and provides a therapeutic environment for juvenile offenders. Under pressure from the Prison Law Office, California correctional officials agreed to bring in national experts to help design a new state rehabilitative juvenile justice system. The agreement is set forth in a "stipulation" filed on December 1, 2005.17 )

RESOURCES> "Stipulation Regarding California Youth Authority
Remedial Efforts," www.prisonlaw.com/pdfs/CYASTIP.pdf.
"Safety and Welfare Plan: Implementing Reform in
California," www.prisonlaw.com/pdfs/DJJSafetyPlan.pdf.
For further information on these and other cases, see www.prisonlaw.com 
----------------------------------------------------------
"The conditions and practices that the imprisoned testify to are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. U.S. prison practices also violate dozens of other international treaties and fit the United Nations definition of genocide.
Article 1 of the UN Convention Against Torture prohibits policies and practices that constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.' The history of international attention to these issues is compelling. In 1995, the UN Human Rights Committee stated that conditions in certain U.S. maximum security prisons were incompatible with international standards. In 1996, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture reported on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in U.S. supermax prisons. 
(Kerness, Bonnie, presentation at Emory University, February 2008, on behalf of AFSC. )
----------------------------------------------------------
http://afsc.org/sites/afsc.civicactions.net/files/documents/Buried%20Alive%20%20PMRO%20May08%20.pdf

Buried Alive: Long-Term Isolation in California's Youth and Adult Prisons

Prisoners in supermax units often are confined alone in single cells; two prisoners are often held in 6' x 10' cells. (If there is anything worse, or perhaps more dangerous than isolation, it is isolation and idleness with a cellmate.) The cells contain only the most basic of accommodations, generally a double bunk bed, a toilet and sink, and possibly another protruding slab for a desk. Prisoners describe either an "eerie silence" in the units, stemming
from the cells being entirely soundproof, or the opposite: a din of constant noise—including yelling and screaming—twenty-four hours a day. Most cells have no windows and it is impossible for a prisoner to know whether it is night or day. Prisoners often complain of the lights being left on twenty-four hours per day, causing them to lose track of time entirely. Of course, without windows, confinement in the dark would be even worse.
Contact with other human beings is extremely limited. Prisoners eat alone in their cells and are permitted to exercise alone in a cage or concrete room for approximately 30 minutes a day. Most interaction with staff occurs through a slot in the steel door through which food and other items are passed to the prisoner. Cell "shakedowns" are common, and prisoners are routinely strip searched before leaving their cells for any reason and again upon their return. These searches frequently include body cavity searches. Educational or rehabilitative programming is rare. They are not permitted to hold prison jobs. Visits, telephone calls, and mail are severely restricted and reading material is censored. Access to prison "programs," such as classes, AA groups, or counseling is nonexistent.
A common practice in these units is "cell extraction." This is a procedure, used at the discretion of the prison administration, where prisoners are confronted with from four to six riot-clad officers, batons drawn, descending upon the prisoner, often hog tying him/her, and removing him/her from the cell. This could be precipitated by something the prisoner is alleged to have done, or by information the prison has gathered suggesting some kind of security breach that inspires maximum force. We name it here as a "condition," because it appears to be part of the landscape of this form of harsh punishment.
40 percent compared to 28 percent." In 2002, Human Rights Watch reported that over 20,000 prisoners, almost 2 percent of the U.S. prison population, were being held in long-term solitary confinement.Johnson, Kevin, "Inmate suicides linked to solitary," USA Today, December 27, 2006. Last year, Kevin Johnson reported in USA Today that 70,000 people were housed in isolation nationwide.
The advent of these highly secure facilities coincided with the huge prison building boom begun in the 1980s. The number of people incarcerated in the U.S. quintupled, nationally, in a 25-year period, "with no increase in resources devoted to corrections in general, or to programming and mental health services in particular" (Haney & Zimbardo, 1998). Indeed, rehabilitation as a goal of imprisonment was abandoned wholesale and security housing units became the emblem of the intensified punishment model. The fact that solitary confinement had been tried periodically from the invention of the penitentiary onward, and was abandoned on both effectiveness grounds and decency grounds, was completely ignored. Trop v. Dulles (1958), is one example of litigation underscoring the ineffectiveness and indecency of solitary.
California State Prison, Corcoran (Corcoran) was California's first state prison to isolate prisoners in a supermax unit. It began in 1988, and one year later, California opened its first prison specifically designed as a supermax: Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) in Crescent City. California is one of more than forty states with specially designed supermax facilities.5 As outlined above, the names of these units vary from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In California, the term Security Housing Unit or "SHU," is used. As the CDCR states on its website, "PBSP is designed to house California's most serious criminal offenders in a secure, safe, and disciplined institutional setting."6 Upon closer inspection, questions arise regarding the validity of this statement. Are SHUs actually housing the "most serious" criminal offenders?
Aside from Pelican Bay, there are four other SHUs in operation in the CDCR: California State Prison, Corcoran (COR); the California Correctional Institution (CCI), in Tehachapi; High Desert State Prison in Susanville (HDSP); and the Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW), in Chowchilla. Statistics from the CDCR reported in April 2008 showed Pelican Bay with 1,101 SHU prisoners, Corcoran with 1,318, CCI with 775, HDSP with 400, and VSPW with 72. In addition, on a given day, approximately 7,354 men and 119 women are held in Ad Seg. Another 256 people are in psychiatric lock down units and an estimated 1–2 percent of the total population is held in protective custody. 

(Sullivan, Laura, "Life in Solitary Confinement." National Public Radio, July 26, 2006.
"Pelican Bay State Prison—Mission Statement,"
http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/Visitors/Facilities/PBSP.html )

Added to those numbers are the 80–100 men in the Adjustment Center (AC) of California's death row.
For a prisoner to be transferred out of the AC, prison officials must determine that the prisoner has no recent violence, no gang affiliation, and is not an escape risk. People found to have any of these characteristics can be kept in AC indefinitely. They are allowed only nine hours a week out of their cells, no phone access, one package a year (compared to quarterly packages available to most prisoners) and a more limited canteen draw. At present it appears that the largest indeterminate AC population on death row is alleged to have ties to the Mexican Mafia. The second largest category that we have been able to determine anecdotally is people seen to have connections to the Aryan Brotherhood. The AC also includes condemned mentally ill prisoners who have been "acting out." The AC cells are 7' x 6' compared to 4½' x 11' in a regular death row cell.
Assuming these calculations are correct, the total number of people in long-term lock down in California on a given day exceeds 14,600. (Human Rights Watch, 2001.)
According to a volunteer at San Quentin State Prison (SQSP), the oldest state prison in California, "The despair I have seen at the reception center at San Quentin outweighs that felt on death row . . .For the men locked inside all day and night, it is excruciatingly stressful."
None of our calculations takes into consideration the fact that whole institutions are "locked down" in California for months at a time. In these instances, prisoners are confined to their cells and recreation, classroom instruction, and visits are drastically curtailed.
Some SHU prisoners are serving fixed sentences and are released directly from solitary confinement. The danger to the public of such practices is self evident: people going from extreme sensory deprivation, with little human contact over a long period, have an extremely
difficult time transitioning to life outside.
The Mentaltal Ill ness FactFact or
"Living behind these walls is a nightmare that never goes away. Many prisoners behind these walls are going crazy in record numbers, and are becoming more violent than they have ever been in their lives." (California SHU Prisoner)
It is a well-established fact that long-term isolation is detrimental to mental health. "Empirical research on solitary and supermax-like confinement has consistently .
and unequivocally documented the harmful consequences of living in these kinds of environments." Studies undertaken over four decades corroborate such an assertion.12
As noted in a briefing paper by Human Rights Watch (HRW), "Prisoners subjected to prolonged isolation may experience depression, despair, anxiety, rage, claustrophobia, hallucinations, problems with impulse control, and an impaired ability to think, concentrate, or remember" (HRW,2000)
Solitary confinement can cause a specific kind of psychiatric syndrome, which in its worst stages can lead to agitation, hallucinations, and a confused psychotic state. Symptoms can include random violence, self-mutilation, and suicidal behavior (Kerness 1996, p. 3).
(Haney, Craig, "Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and Supermax' Confinement," in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 49, No. 1, January 2003, pp. 124-156.

One of the most effective ways of challenging conditions inside prisons is to bring a civil suit. In California, the Prison Law Office and others have won repeatedly in the courts when they have challenged medical care, mental health care, excessive force, and conditions in juvenile facilities. The following cases have directly challenged conditions in solitary confinement:

( Coleman v. Wilson — The court found that the entire mental health system operated by the California Department of Corrections (now CDCR) was unconstitutional and that prison officials were deliberately indifferent to the needs of mentally ill inmates. All 33 institutions in the CDCR are presently being monitored by a court-appointed special master to evaluate the CDCR's compliance with the court's order.)

( Madrid v. Gomez — Conditions at California's "super-maximum" Pelican Bay State Prison have been subject to injunctions aimed at eliminating excessive force, improving health care and removing prisoners with mental illness from the Security Housing Unit. As a result of this case, Pelican Bay is currently being monitored by a court-appointed special master.)
( Farrell v. Hickman — In January 2005, California officials and the Prison Law Office reached an agreement on a schedule for reforming the juvenile justice system and creating a system that is rehabilitative and provides a therapeutic environment for juvenile offenders. Under pressure from the Prison Law Office, California correctional officials agreed to bring in national experts to help design a new state rehabilitative juvenile justice system. The agreement is set forth in a "stipulation" filed on December 1, 2005.17 )

RESOURCES> "Stipulation Regarding California Youth Authority
Remedial Efforts," www.prisonlaw.com/pdfs/CYASTIP.pdf.
"Safety and Welfare Plan: Implementing Reform in
California," www.prisonlaw.com/pdfs/DJJSafetyPlan.pdf.
For further information on these and other cases, see www.prisonlaw.com 
----------------------------------------------------------
"The conditions and practices that the imprisoned testify to are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. U.S. prison practices also violate dozens of other international treaties and fit the United Nations definition of genocide.
Article 1 of the UN Convention Against Torture prohibits policies and practices that constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment.' The history of international attention to these issues is compelling. In 1995, the UN Human Rights Committee stated that conditions in certain U.S. maximum security prisons were incompatible with international standards. In 1996, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture reported on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in U.S. supermax prisons. 
(Kerness, Bonnie, presentation at Emory University, February 2008, on behalf of AFSC. )
----------------------------------------------------------
http://afsc.org/sites/afsc.civicactions.net/files/documents/Buried%20Alive%20%20PMRO%20May08%20.pdf