Seven Days in Solitary [10/5/2014]
by Aviva Stahl
The
following roundup features noteworthy news, reports and opinions on
solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in
other Solitary Watch posts.
• Eighth Amendment attorney Martin Garbus published an Op-ed with the LA Times about cruel and unusual punishment in prisons and jails.
• About thirteen individuals incarcerated by the state of Vermont are being held in solitary confinement in an Arizona prison,
after they refused to enter their cells and destroyed prison property.
Vermont “outsources” prisoners to the Corrections Corporation of America
due to a lack of beds in-state; individuals sent out of state are
separated from the local prison population and face very restrictive
conditions of movement.
• The mental health manager at the Spokane County Jail filed a court declaration
in connection with an ongoing class action lawsuit, in which she was
sharply critical of conditions on the inside. She explains, “We have no
other place for [prisoners with mental illness]… unfortunately,
solitary confinement is not therapeutic and exacerbates their symptoms.”
• The Department of Justice (DOJ) has opened an investigation
into the death of Michael Anthony Kerr, a 54-year-old with a history of
mental illness who passed away from dehydration after being held in
solitary confinement in a North Carolina prison for 35 days.
• The DOJ also opened an investigation
into another case, in Harris County, in which a 24-year-old was
allegedly held in solitary confinement for as long as two months “amid
piles of excrement, rotting trash and swarms of insects.”
• Andrew Cohen published a response
to Graeme Wood’s recent, controversial article on how the problem of
gangs in California’s Pelican State Prison. Cohen focuses extensively
on how Wood covered the issue of solitary confinement in his piece.
• Writing in The New Yorker,
Jennifer Gonnerman explores the case of Kalief Browder, who spent about
three years at Rikers after being falsely accused of stealing a
backpack; of that time, about seventeen months were spent in solitary
confinement.
• An administrative judge has recommended the firing
of six New York City correctional officers for a 2012 beating on Rikers
Island. Robert Hinton, 27, was left with a broken nose, fractured back
and other injuries after he was assaulted by guards on a now-closed
solitary confinement unit for individuals with mental illness.
• A federal judge has found
that Maricopa County’s jails continue to provide inadequate medical and
mental health care to those incarcerated, and ordered that the jail
remain under federal oversight. According the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), individuals with mental illness held in the jail have been
placed in solitary confinement and routinely denied treatment.
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