[Ppnews] The Hidden History of Solitary Confinement in New Jersey’s Control Units
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Wed Mar 13 11:07:20 EDT 2013
The Hidden History of Solitary Confinement in New Jersey’s Control Units
March 13, 2013
http://solitarywatch.com/2013/03/13/the-hidden-history-of-solitary-confinement-in-new-jerseys-control-units/
Guest Post by Bonnie Kerness
/Editor’s Note:/ /As coordinator of the/ /American Friends Service
Committee’s Prison Watch Project/
<http://www.afsc.org/nymetro/ht/d/sp/i/68435/pid/68435>/, Bonnie Kerness
is a leading voice for humanitarian reform of U.S. prisons, jails, and
detention centers. Kerness is also a pioneer in raising awareness about
the use of prolonged solitary confinement, and in uncompromisingly
identifying the practice as a form of torture. Since the 1990s, she has
coordinated //AFSC’s STOPMAX Campaign/
<http://www.afsc.org/stopmax/ht/d/Home/pid/33392>/, which ”works to
eliminate the use of isolation and segregation in U.S. prisons” through
“research, grassroots organizing, public education and policy advocacy.”/
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Between the 1913 closing of Eastern State Penitentiary’s isolation cages
and the 1983 lockdown of the federal facility in Marion, Illinois
(recently recounted in Nancy Kurshan’s book /Out of Control/
<http://www.freedomarchives.org/Out_of_Control/index.html>) is a history
of struggle against the use of extended solitary confinement in New
Jersey, which is little known.
In 1975, after the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights Movement, the
Viet Nam War and the prisoners’ rights movement, Trenton State Prison
(now New Jersey State Prison) established an administrative isolation
unit for politically dissident prisoners. The warden and his staff
decided to use this technique, which was modeled after a unit in Soledad
Prison in California. The Management Control Unit housed those prisoners
who had not broken institutional rules, but who were, as a result of
their political convictions and expressions, seen to be a threat by
prison administrators. Thus, the New Jersey MCU pre-dated the advent of
the control unit in federal system.
Sundiata Acoli was one of the first people interred in this new unit.
Sundiata writes, the warden “began rounding up prisoners, 250 all told,
of which I was the first. The took me to a cell block, another guard
brought my property, stopped in front of a prisoner’s cell, took him
out, put me in his cell, and escorted him and his property to my old
cell. They switched prisoners all night like this so the next morning
they had rounded up, switched 250 prisoners to create an instant
Management Control Unit. In less than a month, they had released 200 of
the MCU prisoners back into population and kept the 50 prisoners in the
MCU for which the roundup was actually intended.”
In his book /Inside Out – Fifty Years Behind the Walls of New Jersey’s
Trenton State Prison/, former guard, Harry Camisa says, “The guys
singled out for the MCU were viewed as potential troublemakers or
political leaders who needed to be segregated to keep them from
influencing the rest of the population. This was a new and controversial
concept in New Jersey.” The unit isolated activists and leaders from the
prisons general population, as it attempted to psychologically reshape
their convictions by subjecting them to an extraordinary level of
physical control and sensory deprivation.
New Jersey was a key state in terms of people being involved in
political activities such as the Black Panther Party and the Black
Liberation Army. It is also corridor state and often members of other
political formations travelled through the state – many finding
themselves imprisoned at Trenton State Prison. On January 19, 1976, the
State of New Jersey alleged that Sundiata Acoli and John L. Clark played
key roles in the attempted escape from the Management Control Unit which
resulted in two guards being shot, John Clark killed, another prisoner
being wounded. Subsequently, Sundiata was transferred out of the MCU to
an isolation unit at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois.
Relevant to the continuing use of the MCU was Executive Order 88, signed
in 1984 by former Governor Thomas Kean, which mandated that “any persons
believed to be a member of a terrorist organization or other similar
groups committed to violence, murder or mayhem as a means to achieve
their purpose could be placed in the Management Control Unit pre-trial.”
This is exactly what happened to political prisoners Tom Manning and
Richard Williams, who were alleged to be members of the United Freedom
Front, and Sekou Tyehimba, who the state alleged to be a member of the
Black Liberation Army.
On February 4, 1986, Ojore Lutalo, a member of the Black Liberation
Army, and nine other prisoners were placed in the Management Control
Unit. Within 18 months, seven of the prisoners who were placed in the
MCU with Ojore were released back into the general population. Ojore
reached out to the American Friends Service Committee, asking us what a
control unit was, why he was there and how long he would have to remain
there. We began to monitor Ojore and 48 others, ultimately establishing
the New Jersey-based Control Unit Monitoring Project, which conducted
ongoing observation of the unit through visits, letters and telephone
calls. Students from many colleges and universities assisted in this
effort. Part of the collective efforts of MCU prisoner’s and outside
advocates resulted in the struggle to contest the cages built in the MCU
for “recreation.” This effort resulted in newspaper coverage from the
/New York Times/, in an August 1991 article by Peter Page
entitled “Modules or Cages? TSP Enclosures Stir Protest.”
In May of 1992, the AFSC Control Unit Monitoring Project held a Town
Meeting and Silent Vigil outside the prison protesting the political use
of isolation and conditions of confinement in the control unit.
Prisoners in the MCU were/are denied all the collective activities of
normal prison life, facing surveillance by guards and cameras which
record daily activities, regularly search cells and their persons, and
suffer the physical abuse of strip searches by guards in riot-gear which
accompany all recreation and visits. Although confinement in the MCU is
not defined as punitive, the severe limitations placed on visits and
telephone contact with family members, recreation, the denial of work,
education, law library access, collective religious practice and the
fellowship of other prisoners can hardly be seen any other way.
Correspondence and reading material are carefully scrutinized and many
political publications, specifically those with Afro-centric content,
are excluded. These conditions are indefinite, although they are
reviewed every 90 days, and are imposed without judicial supervision or
benefit of counsel.
The AFSC contacted multiple media outlets to draw attention to the
political use and condition in the MCU. Initially, the reporters were
hesitant to believe that people were being detained in the MCU for
political purposes or entertaining political thoughts that the
administration didn’t approve of. They responded to AFSC’s initial
outreach by saying such things did not happen in the United States. The
reporters contacted the Department of Corrections which confirmed that
Ojore and others in the MCU broke no prison rules and that their
placement wasn’t punitive. This resulted in two newspaper articles. On
June 11, 1992, /The Record/ published an article “NJ Political Prisoners
Do Hard in Solitary”, and on June 18th the /New Jersey Tribune/
published “Beliefs Made Them Prisoners in Prison – Political Radicals
Locked in Solitary.”
In 1994, Channel 9 news filmed Ojore Lutalo, Daud Tulam and Clifford
Roberts (three MCU prisoners) for a special piece on the 6 o’clock news.
Their research led them to contacting the NJ Department of Corrections
who informed them that these particular prisoners were not in the
control unit for violating any prison rules. The news program, called
“Prison Politics,” played widely at the time and is still being used to
illustrate the political use of isolation.
The Department of Corrections itself confirms this political use as
evidenced in two Notices of Management Control Unit Classification
Decisions: the first dated in 1989, informs that, “The Committee notes
that inmate Lutalo needs to improve his social profile, and insight into
his oppositional stance prior to release consideration from the Control
Unit.” In the late 1990s litigation concerning the Control Unit was
filed resulting in a Special Master being appointed to review each
person in the Control Unit. With the exception of four people, by 2002,
Ojore and others were released back into general population based on the
decision of this Special Master.
In 2005, the AFSC stopped hearing from Ojore for an unusual amount of
time. Bonnie called the Department of Corrections and was told that
Ojore had been placed back in the control unit at “the request of
Homeland Security.” Ojore later reported that he had been “disappeared”
from general population and placed in the prison’s mental health unit
incommunicado for six days. Ojore’s second Classification notice dated
2008 notes that, “The MCURC notes your concern regarding your feelings
of persecution and discrimination based on your political affiliation.
The Committee continues to show concern with your admitted affiliation
with the Black Liberation Army, and the Anarchist Black Cross
foundation. Your radical views and ability to influence others pose a
threat to the orderly operation of this institution.”
In 2008, New Jersey attorney Bruce Afran filed a brief challenging
Ojore’s MCU detention not on the basis of any charged offenses but
because of his political beliefs and affiliations. After 22 years of
political isolation in the MCU, Ojore was released from prison by way of
court order on August 26, 2009.
The definition of “no touch” torture is a set of practices used to
inflict pain or suffering without resorting to direct physical violence:
sleep deprivation, sensory disorientation, solitary confinement,
humiliation, extreme cold or heat, extreme light or dark. Intentional
placement situations. A systematic attack on all human stimuli. A
November 2010 New Jersey Network program called “Due Process – Solitary:
Who and Why” featured myself and Ojore, and other advocates and lawyers
talking about the history of activism to close the MCU.
The history of the opposition to the New Jersey Management Control Unit
includes advocates from the 1994-1998 National Campaign to Stop Control
Unit Prisons, of which the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown was a
founding member. It also includes the publication of a /Survivor’s
Manual – written by and for people living in isolation/ inspired by Ojore.
The political use of isolation in ensuing years has morphed into entire
isolation prisons being built for the mentally ill. The political use of
this form of torture continues with the development of Security Threat
Group Management Units (for purported gang members), and Communications
Management Units (for Muslims in the federal system). Imam Jamil Al-Amin
has been held in such conditions for years. For those of us monitoring
US prisons over decades, the targeting of radicalization feels eerily
familiar. The Department of Corrections is more than an institution, it
is a state of mind. That state of mind has led to the use of “no touch”
and other devices of torture both here and overseas.
We owe thanks to all of those inside and out who have spoken out: Eddie
Griffin, Jr, who had the courage to write “Breaking Men’s Minds” while
he was held in the Marion Control Unit; the Marion Brothers who were
part of the ongoing resistance to the control unit repression; and to
the hundreds of prisoners who had the mettle to contribute their
testimony and art to AFSC ‘s 2012 /Torture in US Prisons/, and to Jean
Ross and the many lawyers who have been there for all of us, inside and out.
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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