[Pnews] UN Investigator Says Long-Term Solitary Confinement in New York State Prisons Is Torture

[Prisoner News]

  UN Investigator Says Long-Term Solitary Confinement in New York State
  Prisons Is Torture

April 14, 2014 By Aviva Stahl <http://solitarywatch.com/author/aviva-stahl/>
*http://solitarywatch.com/2014/04/14/un-investigator-says-new-york-state-prisoners-tortured-long-term-solitary-confinement/* 



<http://solitarywatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/nys-doccs.jpg>

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Méndez has concluded 
that the state of New York violated the rights of three incarcerated men 
"to be free from torture" by locking them up them in long-term solitary 
confinement. The findings 
<http://antitorture.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Report_Observations_Govt_Communications_Replies_2014.pdf>, 
which were submitted to the UN Human Rights Council last month, were 
published alongside similar "observations" on the human rights practices 
of nearly 70 other countries. The Special Rapporteur is appointed by the 
Human Rights Council to serve as the UN's chief expert and investigator 
on nations' use of "torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading 
treatment or punishment."

The three individuals named in the report are William "Billy" Blake, 
Stephan Poole, and Kenneth Wright. According to Méndez:

    Mr. William Blake has been incarcerated in a SHU, held in a barren
    concrete cell with no furnishings other than a steel bed frame for
    25 consecutive years. Mr. Stephan Poole received a sentence of 36
    months in the SHU for allegedly planning an escape. In the eight
    years and nine months prior, he had allegedly received no reports of
    misbehavior. Mr. Poole has reportedly accumulated additional lengthy
    SHU sentences for non-violent prison infractions, including refusing
    to return a food tray. He has allegedly developed insomnia and
    paranoia and has become increasingly anti-social as a result of
    his confinement. Mr. Kenneth Wright has been repeatedly confined to
    SHU as punishment for using marijuana, despite proactively seeking
    treatment from the Department of Corrections health service.
    Allegedly, after Mr. Wright's latest infraction, authorities
    subjected him to six additional months in SHU and failed to take
    steps to assess his medical condition and provide necessary
    treatment. It is reported that Mr. Wright has struggled with
    depression, hopelessness and thoughts of suicide during his time in
    SHU. In addition, isolation in the SHU changed his behavior: he
    became more aggressive and started talking to himself.

In a separate subsection of the document, the Special Rapporteur 
specifically examines the case of Blake, who is believed to have been 
held in solitary longer than anyone else in New York State. Méndez cites 
an earlier communication regarding Blake--to which he has yet received 
no reply from the U.S. government:

    Mr. William Blake, 50 year old, [is] incarcerated at the Elmira
    Correctional Facility...It is alleged that he has at least 48 years
    remaining on his sentence, and does not know whether he will ever be
    released from Special housing units (SHU) because administrative
    segregation is indefinite in nature; New York state allegedly places
    no upper limit on the length of administrative segregation. It is
    reported that recreation consists of one hour in an empty
    space surrounded by concrete walls on three sides. DOCCS provides no
    exercise equipment. Furthermore, it is alleged that despite Mr.
    Blake's repeated requests, DOCCS has not provided an anticipated
    date of release from administrative segregation. DOCCS has also
    refused to tell Mr. Blake how or if he can earn release from the
    SHU. In a 2009 review of Mr. Blake's status, DOCCS included such
    statements in its reasoning: "His long sentence would be an
    incentive for him to attempt another escape, as his only reasonable
    means of gaining freedom." But in a 2002 review, DOCCS recognized
    that neither Mr. Blake's disciplinary history nor his history while
    in DOCCS custody, standing alone, justified his continued status in
    administrative segregation. Mr. Blake reported that he struggles
    daily to cope with the intense emotions and the depression that
    bears down on him as he reflects on his quarter-century in extreme
    isolation."

In 2013, /Solitary Watch/ published his essay about life in isolation, 
"A Sentence Worse Than Death 
<http://solitarywatch.com/2013/03/11/voices-from-solitary-a-sentence-worse-than-death/>." 
In summing up, he wrote:

    Had I known in 1987 that I would spend the next quarter-century in
    solitary confinement, I would have certainly killed myself. If I
    took a month to die and spent every minute of it in severe pain, it
    seems to me that on a balance that fate would still be far easier to
    endure than the last twenty-five years have been. If I try to
    imagine what kind of death, even a slow one, would be worse than
    twenty-five years in the box---and I have tried to imagine it---I
    can come up with nothing. Set me afire, pummel and bludgeon me, cut
    me to bits, stab me, shoot me, do what you will in the worst of
    ways, but none of it could come close to making me feel things as
    cumulatively horrifying as what I've experienced through my years in
    solitary. Dying couldn't take but a short time if you or the State
    were to kill me; in SHU I have died a thousand internal deaths.

According to Méndez's report, about 4,500 individuals are incarcerated 
in Special Housing Units (SHUs) across New York state, where they are 
"deprived of all meaningful human contact, including phone calls, 
recreational activities, or rehabilitation programs." His findings 
constitute just the latest critique to be levied against the New York 
Department of Corrections and Community Services (DOCCS) for what is 
broadly seen as its excessive reliance on solitary and other forms of 
extreme isolation. The last two years have witnessed the release of 
several articles and reports have highlighted the problem, and the 
formation of a broad-based coalition, the New York Campaign for 
Alternatives to Isolated Confinement <http://nycaic.org/> to oppose 
solitary in New York. In January, New York lawmakers introduced the 
Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act 
<http://nycaic.org/legislation/>, and in February, the New York Civil 
Liberties Union reached an agreement 
<http://www.nyclu.org/news/nyclu-lawsuit-secures-historic-reforms-solitary-confinement> in 
a lawsuit against DOCCS that protects youth, pregnant women and other 
vulnerable populations from being placed in "the box," and calls for 
further study of the practice.

The Special Rapporteur closes the subsection on NY DOCCS by calling on 
state and federal officials "to undertake a prompt and independent 
investigation of the allegations of prolonged solitary confinement, 
leading to its immediate termination, and to provide full redress to the 
victims."

Other American prison-related issues addressed in the report include 
conditions at ADX Florence and in California's SHUs, the prolonged 
isolation of the "Angola 3" and alleged terrorist Ahmed Abu Ali, and the 
denial of medical treatment to now-released political prisoner Lynne 
Stewart.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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