Untitled @prisonreformer-blog - Tumblr Blog

Jacob has spent a great deal of his teenage years incarcerated. As a self-mutilator, his case both perplexes and disturbs those who care for his rehabilitation. He reveals for the first time a childhood filled with abuse, attempted murder and total abandonment.His case study highlights the prison staff’s strategies and procedures for handling a case such as Jacob's, and reveals a more sensitive aspect to the rehabilitation of troubled youths.

(via Videos Show Brutal Treatment of Prisoners with Mental Illness)

Letters thrown in a urinal. Standing in the cold at 5 AM. Locked in solitary confinement for days. These are some of the disciplinary methods James Anderson remembers correctional officers using at Camp Scobee, a secure juvenile facility in Los Angeles County. “A lot of this was simple tactics to try and control entire units,” said James, now 22 years old. “I’m sure a lot of it was a lack of training for how to deal with situations.”But a new California bill (SB 124) introduced by California Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) in January 2015, and co-sponsored by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, seeks to forbid the use of solitary confinement as punishment in juvenile facilities. The bill also prohibits putting young people suffering from mental health disorders in solitary confinement, and limits the use of solitary confinement to the amount of time necessary to address any imminent risk a child might pose, but not to exceed four hours.As a former gang member growing up in Los Angeles who describes himself as being an extremely violent kid, James experienced the disciplinary methods used in juvenile facilities on and off for five years.“The entire camp runs off of fear or respect…We are taught from birth as soon as we get into this type of lifestyle that when you’re tested, you should stand up for yourself,” he said.After a fight with another boy at Camp Scobee, James was locked up in the security housing unit (S.H.U.), otherwise known as solitary confinement, for several consecutive days.“It doesn’t sound that bad to me, like I think about it and I hear about people being on lock down for six, seven months…I’ve talked to guys who have been in the SHU for three years.”However, according to many studies, including a policy brief published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in August 2014, negative psychological effects and decreased levels of brain function were detected in individuals after only seven days in solitary confinement.“It does something to your psyche,” James said. “There’s such a feeling of frustration and such an intense feeling of not having control of your life.”Not only has isolation proven to have damaging effects on mental health, but James remembers that release from solitary confinement did not necessarily merit follow-up counseling or therapy treatment by staff at Camp Scobee.“Currently there’s no requirement for [juvenile facilities] to keep any data on when and how often they use solitary confinement,” said Jennifer Kim, policy director of the Ella Baker Center, co-sponsor of Leno’s bill. “So our bill is trying to make the requirement that they start tracking how often they’re using it so that we can get a sense of one, how often these facilities one are using it and two, making it available to the public.”James now works for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), a juvenile justice advocacy organization comprised of formerly incarcerated youth. Through ARC, he has spoken across America about criminal justice issues, and in telling his story always points to the experience of having someone care about him as the reason he decided to improve his life, not the fear of isolation or other disciplinary methods used in juvenile facilities. When he was facing a possible 30-year sentence at age 17, James was able to find value in his life through his friendship with a woman he met at his mother’s church.“When I was 18 and I got in my last altercation, she said, ‘What are you doing with yourself?’ It was such a simple thing, but it changed my life. And realizing she actually loved me for who I was, and realizing that she wasn’t trying to use me because I had nothing left to be used.”James sees this bill as a good step forward.“But,” he said, “I believe there’s still a lot of work to be done because solitary confinement in all circumstances should never be used. I say that because there are other facilities and other models that don’t have solitary confinement. They have fights, but they deal with it in a different way. There are alternatives.”

North Carolina corrections chief David Guice wants more than $20 million to improve the treatment of people with mental illness in the state’s prisons. His request comes on the heels of two recent reports showing neglect and abuse of prisoners with psychiatric disabilities in North Carolina, and the death in custody of one such individual, Michael Anthony Kerr. According to autopsy report findings released in September, Kerr died last March of dehydration after being held in solitary confinement for 35 days. ...

A list of 22 active petitions fighting solitary confinement

fuckyeahmarxismleninism

Rally to Support the California Prisoners’ Hunger Strike - July 13

thepeoplesrecord

Solitary confinement torture by the numbers:

81,622: Number of prisoners in solitary confinement across the United States in 2005, the last year for which the federal government released data

11,730: Number of inmates held in isolation in California prisons today

7: Percentage of California inmates who are in isolation

39: Percentage of inmate suicides that happen in isolation units

78: Percentage of Security Housing Unit (SHU) inmates not classified as gang “leaders” or “members”

$12,317: Extra annual cost to taxpayers for each prisoner in the Pelican Bay SHU

11’7” x 7’7”: Dimensions of a SHU cell at Pelican Bay

6’ x 8’: Dimensions of the average American home’s walk-in closet

51: Percentage of Pelican Bay SHU inmates who have spent at least five years in isolation

89: Number who have been in solitary for at least 20 years

1: Number who have been there for 42 years

flawedjustice

"In a state buckling under the social and financial weight of a gargantuan prison system that prioritizes incarceration, this could be good news: a chance to transform the way the state defines and promotes justice."

transcriptsblog

California prisons sterilized female inmates without permission

News presenter: And now in California where a bombshell report from the Center of Investigative Reporting shows that doctors in the states prison system were sterilizing prisoners as recently as 2010 without the necessary state approvals. From 2006 to 2010, 148 women received a procedure called tubal ligation which prevents a woman from having any more children. All of these occurred at two California prisons, the California Institution for Women in Corona, and the Valley State Prison for Women in Chowchilla. This was a di-, indirect violation of prison rules. Many of the women who underwent the procedure did so after having a child in prison. Now the doctors in that prison system defended their use of the procedure, but former prisoners and advocacy groups are calling the steril-, sterilization coercive and reminiscent of eugenics. On to discuss this, I’m joined now by Courtney Hooks, she’s a Communication Directer for “Justice Now”, an advocacy group that’s called attention to these sterilizations. Courtney, thank you so much for joining me. Now it seems like uh, the inmates gave their consent for the sterilizations, so first of all can you explain why you consider these coercive?

rtamerica-blog

California prison system agrees to end racial segregation

An agreement reached this week in California will see that prison officials are no longer allowed to segregate inmates by race in the event of lockdowns at facilities across the state.

The Los Angeles Times on Wednesday published a stipulated settlement reached between the state’s prison system and a group of inmates that should once and for all resolve a long-standing class action suit filed High Desert State Prison inmate Robert Mitchell in 2008.

Now on Common Dreams and Huffington Post's blog -- brilliant and heartbreaking piece by Billy Blake, now in his 27th years of #solitaryconfinement in NY State

(via Voices from Solitary: A Day in the Life, Part VII)

The ACLU has released a series of 26 reports alleging extensive problems with the Arizona Department of Corrections’ healthcare program and its use of #solitaryconfinement.

Across the United States, even prisoners who have not been placed in solitary confinement or any form of “segregation” can be subjected to a “lockdown” in which they may be held in solitary-like conditions, confined to their cells nearly round-the-clock. Brief lockdowns are a common occurrence, and lockdowns lasting months or more are not unusual. Individuals subjected to lockdown are generally denied even the pro-forma review processes afforded to most others placed in solitary confinement. In the “Close Custody” unit–a single celled, high-security unit–at North Carolina’s Scotland Correctional Institution, nearly 800 men have been on indefinite lockdown since December 28, 2013. Individuals subjected to the lockdown have been confined to their cells for 22 to 23 hours a day for eight months and counting. When asked by Solitary Watch about the status of Scotland, North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NC DPS) spokesperson Keith Acree stated that he was unaware that the prison was on lockdown. Read the rest of the story at http://solitarywatch.com/2014/09/11/from-one-north-carolina-prison-reports-of-an-eight-month-lockdown/.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Untitled