[Pnews] The control unit at U.S. penitentiary max in Florence - Truth About Consequences

[Prisoner News]

  Voices from Solitary: Analyzing Isolation, Part I

April 21, 2014
*http://solitarywatch.com/2014/04/21/voices-from-solitary-solitary-takedown-part-i/* 


/This post is the next in a series of pieces 
<http://solitarywatch.com/tag/voices-from-solitary-a-day-in-the-life/> 
Solitary Watch is publishing as part of a project calling for people 
held in solitary confinement to write on various proposed themes. Our 
second suggested theme, "Analyzing Isolation," calls for writers to 
provide their analyses of solitary, discussing ways in which the 
practice is counterproductive. /

/The following comes from Robert W. Howe, who was serving his fourth 
year at federal supermax ADX  Florence in rural Colorado at the time 
this piece was written. According to his letter, he will have spent 
almost a decade at the /federal supermax upon his release to a lower 
security prison (so long as he receives no write-ups for rule 
violations). ///In his piece, /entitled "Thoughts from Inside the 
Control Unit: A Prisoner's Perspective," Howe describes the effects of 
"being physically confined in an extremely small cell for years on 
end/." /--Lisa Dawson//

*Truth About Consequences*

The control unit at U.S. penitentiary max in Florence, Colorado, is a 
23-hour a day lockdown facility, where I am currently serving a 95-month 
administrative sentence. I was given this sentence for taking a 
correctional officer hostage for two and half hours at USP Atwater in 
October 2007. I was given an additional life sentence for the hostage 
incident. The administrative 95-month sentence is the FBOP's way to seek 
some form of retribution for my actions. Now the BOP will say that I'm 
not being punished. By the end of this essay I would like for you, the 
reader, to determine where the truth lies. There's three sides to every 
story: their side, my side and then there's the truth...

Into my fourth year here at the federal supermax control unit, certain 
issues are becoming readily apparent. Psychological strains of anxiety 
and bouts of mild depression are beginning to surface in this stark 
encapsulated environment. I find myself constantly rearranging the small 
amount of property I'm allowed to keep. I do this in order to break up 
the samenesss of my cell and the "Groundhog Day" effect of repetitious 
occurrence.

The ever-present background noise of demented individuals who bang, 
broadcasting toothless -- or tooth-full -- threats, the sounds of the 
toilets, sinks, showers, sliding grill-gate bars, steel doors, fire 
alarms blaring, officers keys clanking, staff radio blare at full 
volume, and a myriad of other sounds that become nuisance noise 
constantly assault your senses.

The consequences of being physically confined in an extremely small cell 
for years on end have already begun to take a toll. Since my arrival 
here, I have suffered prolonged hypertension, necessitating blood 
pressure medication and chronic care visits. The optometrist gave me 
glasses and told me that individuals who are confined lose their vision 
at a higher rate due to the fact that we don't get to use our long 
distance vision. I have joint pain from the never-ending hard surfaces, 
vitamin deficiency from lack of natural sunlight and probably others 
that would take a professional to diagnose.

*Stark or Stark Raving*

While it is true that one doesn't need to worry about being in a 
physical altercation in the control unit (except with staff), the 
assault on your physical being and mental state is constant and 
unrelenting. When this facility opened, it was labeled as "one of the 
most psychologically debilitating places on earth" (/Newsweek/, July 13, 
1998).

I have been amazed at the physical conditions. The parts that I have 
been subjected to are antiseptically stark. When I arrived here, I was 
placed on A-Range in the Special Housing Unit (SHU), which always 
smelled of mace, feces, urine and the musk of unwashed bodies. That is 
where dysfunctional inmates who have severe mental and/or disciplinary 
issues were kept. The control unit has its own version of A-Range, 
albeit scaled down to a few glass houses, which are cells with Plexiglas 
on the bars. Even here in the control unit, where rigid protocols are 
claimed to be enforced, inmates with psychological issues are supposed 
to be screened out. Yet I find it fascinating that I continue to observe 
individuals who have degenerated into babbling, banging, crying and 
erratic behaviors, including successful suicide.

The jaded attitudes of staff and inmates alike seem to incubate a 
culture of pervasiveness and apathy. My observations these past few 
years have detected unconcern, psychological degradation and outright 
alienation of the mentally ill. The psychology department's attitude 
towards control unit inmates is dismissive at best and unscrupulous at 
worst...

*Control's Silent Tool*

Most control unit inmates were at one point social creatures similar to 
regular individuals with the exception that they've been forced to 
inhabit an unnaturally sterile microcosm in an environment that 
restricts social means not just with other inmates, but also with family 
and friends. When the administration only allows someone one 15-minute 
phone call per month, and restricts the amount of mail they can send out 
by providing stamped, addressed envelopes under the guise of a "security 
issue," instead of selling them on commissary, that is an administrative 
penal effort to staunch social interaction. When you go to team 
hearings, they request that you have good familial ties, and if you 
don't, points can be added to you security score, which of course they 
control. The average inmate in the bureau supposedly gets 300 minutes 
each month of phone time and "unlimited" mailing privileges. It's almost 
Kafkaesque, the treatment disparity we incur. Even Senator John McCain 
said of extended solitary confinement, "It's an awful thing, solitary... 
It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than 
any other form of torture or mistreatment."

...If I am able to remain incident free, I will not be eligible to leave 
ADX until I have almost a decade ensconced in this environment. What 
amount of resilience am I going to need to stay sane, much less remain 
socially acceptable to my peers? I feel like Sisyphus, forever sentenced 
to roll my boulder up the hill, only to find myself at the bottom with 
no end in sight.

*Unspirited Letter of Law*

Control unit confinement is a beast unto itself. Federal courts have 
given prison administrators carte-blanche to run their operations with 
little to no oversight. With the emphasis here on "control," control 
implies being controlled by someone or something. The question begs 
then, with the body controlled, what price does the mind suffer? The 
influence of physical control on the body has serious significance on 
one's mental state. There is no human being that can tell me this 
environment is conducive to even fair mental health; even those who work 
and study this environment lead compartmentalized lives.

Only total immersion can give one a clarified truth. Control units are 
allegedly subjected to human rights standards... The conditions of 
control unit confinement are both physically and mentally severe. They 
are disproportionate to legitimate security needs and inmate management 
objectives. They disregard the very real need for significant human 
contact, which shows a stunning disregard for us as human beings.

There are a couple of old sayings: "familiarity breeds contempt" and 
"absolute power corrupts absolutely." Together they form the spirit of 
supermaximum ideology. Unfortunately there is no measurement taken for 
misery and suffering... The absence of normal social interactions, 
exposure to non-natural environments, and any semblance or perceived 
normalcy all are detrimental to the physical, mental and spiritual self. 
I know beyond a doubt that prisoners who are exposed to years or decades 
of hostile control unit environments experience rage, depression, 
despair, anxiety and a plethora of other issues.

The provisions that are made for control unit inmates are almost 
non-existent. More often than not, the psychological staff 
representative at team hearings, which occur monthly, are silent, asking 
no questions. Yet they base their reports on those two to five-minute 
interludes... They do not make rounds in the unit. They come to your 
cell if you request any form of treatment, with your outer door open so 
that all four of them can get in your sally port. Now everyone on the 
tier can hear your innermost thoughts...

*Forced Transference*

Inmates who have diagnosed yet untreated serious mental illnesses should 
not be housed alongside inmates who are trying to maintain their fragile 
grips on sanity in a control unit environment. It is not fair to the 
mentally ill inmate, and it creates an unnecessary burden on those 
inmates who are forced to deal with seriously mentally ill inmates who 
would not be in this environment if the administration would follow 
their own protocol... One could surmise that forced transference may be 
a precursor to perfectly normal inmates acquiring symptoms and issues of 
their own. This breakdown by the psychology department at ADX, as well 
as administrators, shows a dereliction of duty to the degree of 
deliberate indifference.

In closing, unless a true and meaningful effort is made to address this 
extremely serious problem, it will only continue to get worse, leaving a 
blemishing stain on the conscience of a society that claims even 
prisoners deserve to be free of physical and mental torture (as stated 
in the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution).

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