Some of our elected officials in the land of the free and the home of the brave have been criticizing China for its human rights violation without coming to terms with our own. Yes, even in democracies we can see some frightening violations of human rights. Some of them are in our prisons, disguised with the name special housing units (SHUs).
Nearly 24,400 inmates across the U.S. are housed in these units, with New York State alone housing nearly 6,000. These prisoners are locked down for 23 hours a day for months, some for years - in New York 150 prisoners have been confined like this more than five years and a handful have spent more than 15 years in these units.
Life in SHUs is like nothing most of us can imagine. The cells, which measure 14 feet by 8 1/2 feet for two prisoners (New York is the only state which double bunks SHU prisoners,) contain two beds, a desk, a shoer, a sink and a toilet. Prisoners eat, sleep, shower and go to the bathroom in the cell, also called The Box. For one hour each morning the inmate is allowed to go onto a 9 by 7 foot balcony at the back of each cell for "recreation." There are no programs for prisoners in The Box. Telephone calls are not allowed to SHU prisoners, but they are allowed to write letters, if they have money in their inmate account for postage. Only if they get visitors, who may come once a week, do they leave their cell. Food trays are slid through an opening in the cell door by guards, who allow their prisoners about 15 minutes to eat.
Prison officials will tell you that SHUs were created to contain dangerous prisoners or to punish prisoners who needed a "brief attitude adjustment." But now in New York the administration of Gov. George Pataki the number of SHU prisoners has more than doubled and one so-called super-max prison was built for the purpose of holding 23-hour lockdown prisoners. In this prison-industrial complex nation more than 40 such super-max prisons have been built in the last decade.
Indeed, the newest versions of these prisons have the latest technologies which means that prisoners never see such another human being except their cell mate, that guards control how long lights are turned on, that video cameras and microphones monitor their every move and every conversation.
Being sent to The Box is totally at the discretion of prison guards and officials. There is no appeal and once a prisoner is assigned there he loses all chance of early parole for a good time. Any minor infraction of the multitude of rules in The Box means your time there is extended
Despite the fact that state and federal courts have so far upheld the constitutionality of such prison units, Amnesty International and others are calling such units cruel and unusual punishment. Says Angela Wright, and Amnesty official, "this falls under the international standard of torture." Even some former prison officials, like Chase Riveland, former secretary of the Washington State Department of Corrections agree. Said Riveland, "Once they put these young men, who are mostly black and hispanic into solitary, any rehabilitation is hopeless."
One of the former chaplains of New York State's prison system agrees. Said Rev. Joe Romano, there was a defining moment when those youthful prisoners in isolation regressed into something less than human, adding "The light went out in their eyes." Romano explained that the SHUs are only about punishment, not about rehabilitation or forgiveness.
Many others agree with him. Jim Murphy, head of a New York religious group protesting the super-max prison boom says, "The conditions...are driving prisoners nuts. They're regressing into subhuman monsters without any human contact, and then we're turning them out into the streets." Paris Carriger agrees. A former death row inmate for 21 years, he spent 14 of them in solitary confinement. When he was released after a trial found him innocent, he left prison in a wheelchair because his muscle tone hsa been lost. But, he said, "I gradually lost my ability to manufacture hope." He wasn't touched for 21 years unless someone was attacking him or putting on or taking off handcuffs. "I ended up losing my human instinct for touch," he said.
It is this pyschological impact of SHUs that worries many psychologists. Long term solitary confinement was tried in prisons in the 19th century and abandoned as inhuman and when it was shown that such prisoners were more apt to die early or to suffer serious mental and physical illness or to commit suicide. Says one of the nation's leading experts on the psychological impact of such solitary confinement today, the states are "systematically denying the psychiatric problems and refuse to press or access or public scrutiny of these units." He added that seriously mentally ill patients continue to be housed in such units and often deteriorate while in them.
The building of super-max prisons continues at a frightenly fast rate. These modern-day torture chambers are, indeed, a human rights violation for which our elected officials and our corrections officials must be held accountable.