Hell is a very small place

“You wouldn’t do that even to a dog,” the mother of a mentally ill man in the state prison told a committee of the state Senate last month.

Do what? Put him in a tiny room, alone, for weeks or months on end; slide his food through a hole in the door; let him out one hour a day to pace around a bigger room; send a vet in to look him over once a month. Give him no contact with other living creatures.

This practice, known as solitary confinement and many alternate euphemisms, occurs in prisons across the country, including in Rhode Island

On March 31, the RI Senate judiciary committee heard comment on a bill that would place time and other limits on the use of solitary confinement in the state prison system. A similar bill has been filed in the state House. They are S2318 and H7481.

The state department of corrections (DOC) doesn’t like the word “solitary,” preferring to say “disciplinary” or “administrative” confinement. Prison officials don’t want the rest of us visualizing scenes from “Shawshank Redemption.” As if we couldn’t imagine on our own what complete social isolation can do to people already weakened by youth, mental illness, fear, and shame.

Corrections Director A.T. Wall is a man of kind heart, high morals, and professional ethics. He was at the hearing with the warden of high security, a staff doctor, and the president of the correctional officers union, a group of burly and righteous people whose priorities clearly are job and internal security.

Wall and his group said isolation is used sparingly – no more than a 365-day stretch – and is necessary for extreme cases. It is used sometimes to protect prisoners.

Lots of people in the audience – former prisoners and families – disagreed. People who have lived it say isolated confinement is meted out for weeks, months, and years on end. It is dark, terrifying, and degrading. People feel hopeless and abandoned. Psychiatric problems intensify. After they get out of isolation – into the general population or back home – they are afraid of bright lights, crowds, and noises. Their minds are grievously damaged. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has called for strict limits on use of solitary confinement.

More than one person said Wall might be stating the official policy on the use of segregation, but when he goes home in the evening, leaving inmates with unsupervised staff, things can change inside.

One of the most important speakers of the night was Roberta Richman, who retired in 2012 after 33 years in the department, ending as assistant director of rehabilitative services. Richmond is a woman of sterling character. People who knew Richman when they were in prison said they were falling down a well of shame, sadness, and hopelessness when Richman reached down and pulled them out.

Richmond told the senators that isolation is cruel, destructive, and – this is important – not necessary to maintain order. “Inmates come out of isolation angrier and more violent than before,” Richman said. Long-term isolation, she said, causes “serious mental health damage” and “irreparable harm.”

Richman worked with Wall, the director, and she admires him deeply. When she speaks against his policy, she is making a powerful statement from a conscience that worked inside the machine.

One man remembered a stretch in solitary (in federal prison), when he listened to a man in the next cell lose his mind, scream for hours, and bang his head against the walls. The speaker, Timothy de Christopher, said that he was so terrified for his own sake that he mentally blocked off what was happening beyond his cell.

That’s a horrifying thing about solitary, deChristopher said. It shuts down the ability to feel empathy. We have people getting out of Rhode Island prisons with all the usual barriers – fines, homelessness – and walking around with broken souls and shattered capacity for empathy.

“You don’t have to do anything terribly wrong” to be put into segregation,” said John Prince, a former inmate. “When you are in seg, you are like a piece of garbage.”

Several speakers agreed. They testified that the United States is one of the few developed nations that still puts prisoners in isolation. Other states have put limits on use of solitary; a notable one is changes at Pelican Bay, one of the roughest prisons in California.

Click on the radio or TV and you will hear hair-raising stories of atrocious cruelty all over the world. Do we want our own institutions to destroy peoples’ minds? As the website solitarywatch.com declares, “Hell is a very small place.”

You wouldn’t do that even to a dog.

Find your senator or representative to discuss these bills at https://sos.ri.gov.vic.