Earlier this week, the
New York Civil Liberties Union announced sweeping changes to New
York State’s use of solitary confinement. Under the agreement,
the state is to take “immediate steps to remove youth,
pregnant inmates and developmentally disabled and intellectually
challenged prisoners from extreme isolation.”
Reason TV producer Todd Krainin detailed the damage of long-term
solitary confinement on minors in a documentary that was originally
released on September 26, 2013.
Original text from the video is below:
“Why lock somebody up while you’re locked up? You’re
trying to kill their spirit even more,” says Michael Kemp,
describing his six-month stay in solitary confinement at age
17.
Solitary confinement was once a punishment reserved for
the most-hardened, incorrigible criminals. Today, it
is standard
practice for tens of thousands of juveniles in prisons and
jails across America. Far from being limited to the most violent
offenders, solitary confinement is now used against perpetrators of
minor crimes and children who are forced to await their trials in
total isolation. Often, these stays are prolonged, lasting months
or even years at a time.
Widely condemned as cruel and unusual punishment,
long-term isolation for juveniles continues because it’s
effectively hidden from the public. Research efforts by the
American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Criminal Justice
Coalition have struggled to uncover even the most basic facts about
how the United States punishes its most vulnerable
inmates.
How can a practice be both widespread and hidden? State
and federal governments have two effective ways to prevent the
public from knowing how deep the problem goes.
The first has to do with the way prisons operate. Sealed off from
most public scrutiny, and steeped in an insular culture of
unaccountability, prisons are, by their very nature, excellent
places to keep secrets. Even more concealed are the
solitary-confinement cells, described by inmates as “prisons within
prisons.” With loose record-keeping and different standards used by
different states, it’s almost impossible to gather reliable
nation-wide statistics.
The second method is to give the old, horrific
punishment a new, unobjectionable name. Make the torture sound
friendly, with fewer syllables and pleasant language. This way,
even when abuse is discovered, it appears well-intentioned and
humane.
So American prisons rarely punish children
with prolonged solitary confinement. Instead, they
administer seclusion and protective custody. Prison
authorities don’t have to admit that “administrative segregation”
is used to discipline children. Just the opposite,
actually. It’s all being done “for their own
protection.”
Seclusion? Protecting children? Who could argue with
that?
For starters, there is Juan Mendez, the United Nations
special rapporteur on torture. Americans are accustomed to the U.N.
investigating incidents of prisoner abuse in other countries
– which Mendez has done in faraway places like Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan. But increasingly, his inquiries are focused on American
prisons.
Mendez spoke publicly about Bradley Manning’s
deplorable treatment in solitary confinement. Now he is calling on
the United States to
ban isolation for minors, which he considers, “cruel, unusual,
and degrading punishment.” It’s a recommendation he shares with the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent
Psychology.
The ACLU report, Growing Up
Locked Down, is one of the few detailed, comprehensive
examinations available. This devastating and detailed look at
solitary confinement for minors has led to this
online petition that will be presented to Attorney General
Eric Holder in October 2013.
Because the prison system is so opaque, reform has been
slow in coming. A congressional hearing on solitary confinement,
chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) last year, heard testimony
from mental health experts, questioned the director of federal
prisons, and brought a replica of a solitary confinement cell onto
the Senate floor. In recent years, seven states – Maine,
Connecticut, West Virginia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arizona, and
Alaska – have enacted laws to restrict the use of punitive
isolation on young people. As awareness of the magnitude of
the problem grows, more reforms are likely to follow.
If we believe that juveniles are inherently less responsible for
their actions than adults – and more susceptible to rehabilitation
– then it follows that their punishments should be less
severe.
Given the severity of the punishment, prohibiting
solitary confinement for young people is a first step. The greatest
challenge remains demanding greater transparency from a prison
system that wields total control over its most vulnerable
inmates.
Runs about 13:15 minutes.
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