<html>
<body>
<h1><font size=4><b>Voices from Solitary: Colorado Department of
Corrections in Need of Correction</b></font></h1><font size=3>April 30,
2011<br>
<a href="http://solitarywatch.com/2011/04/30/voices-from-solitary-colorado-department-of-corrections-in-need-of-correction/" eudora="autourl">
http://solitarywatch.com/2011/04/30/voices-from-solitary-colorado-department-of-corrections-in-need-of-correction/<br>
<br>
</a>by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway<br><br>
For seven years, <b>Clair L. Beazer</b> has been an inmate in the
supermax Colorado State Penitentiary in
<a href="http://solitarywatch.com/2010/10/11/the-colorado-files-leaving-canon-city/">
Cañon City</a>–which, as we’ve written before, qualifies as the
<a href="http://solitarywatch.com/about/fortresses-of-solitude-part-2/">
solitary confinement capital </a>of the Western World. In this essay,
Beazer describes the effects of years of solitary confinement, pointing
out that while it is particularly torturous for inmates already suffering
from mental illness, this “interminable, indefinite” isolation also
causes lasting psychological and physical damage to all prisoners
who endure it.<br><br>
Beazer notes that “at long last,” some hope is offered by the bill
introduced in the Colorado state legislature to limit the use of solitary
confinement. In an instance of grim irony, we received his essay, written
last month, just a day before
<a href="http://solitarywatch.com/2011/04/28/colorado-lawmakers-present-weakened-version-of-solitary-confinement-bill/">
lawmakers chose </a>to back away from most meaningful portions of the
bill. <br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>In most instances the law is a simple matter of doing what you should
rather than what you want. One consequence of continuing to do what you
want regardless is that a conscientious legislator someplace may find it
necessary to propose a law to compel you to do what you should
do.<br><br>
<dd>Just such a circumstance has come about in the state of Colorado’s
Department of Corrections (C.D.O.C.), of whom some are known to say the
reason they’re called the “Department of Corrections” is because they’re
always getting it wrong.<br><br>
<dd>The C.D.O.C’s execrable practice of warehousing the mentally ill in
lockdown 24/7 is unconscionable. To sentence men without due process to a
solitary existence in a lonely cell with only the company of their
psychoses and personal demons for interminable, indefinite periods,
some lasting decades would and does appear on the surface alone
indefensible. To further exacerbate their evil usage by holding them thus
until their mandatory release date only serves to discharge infinitely
more dangerous parolees into the public.<br><br>
<dd>Enduring this type of incarceration has many debilitating effects,
the most common being depression with accompanying apathy and lethargy.
The minimal activity and lack of meaningful exercise can atrophy their
legs and some can barely walk after years of inactivity, and you can bet
that there is little market for ex-cons who can’t even walk a quarter
mile after release.<br><br>
<dd>Then there’s the other end of the spectrum, motivated, active, angry
inmates that compulsively work out 2, 4, 8 hours a day in the fashion of
the hardened vengeful convict portrayed by Robert DeNiro in the movie
“Cape Fear.” For months, then years, then decades, driven by their
isolation, not even allowed IN PRISON to walk out of a cell without a two
or three-man escort. In restrains, handcuffs, shackles, bellychains,
lock-boxes. Surrounded by thick concrete walls, high fences, barbed wire,
razor wire, armed tower and perimeter guards, electrified kill
fences.<br><br>
<dd>Ominously and inevitably their long-awaited day arrives, and when it
does the C.D.O.C. dutifully, imprisoned in full restraints, escorts them
to the prison gates, where and when they unleash them upon the public.
Not surprisingly, their recidivism rate is exponentially and in some
cases horrifyingly higher, as is their toll on society…you know, the
public the C.D.O.C. ostensibly exists to defend.<br><br>
<dd>The public may want to consider if perhaps the Prison Industrial
Complex (of which the C.D.O.C. is definitely a part with its
Incarceration Capitol of the World designation and proud title) finds it
more profitable to release their home-made monsters. After all, we all
know that high-profile horrific crimes can and often do drive news
cycles, and have for years. Surely after all these years of high-profile
horrific crimes that lead the news cycles somebody, anybody, everybody
must have noticed that they drive incarceration rates.<br><br>
<dd>Even so, no one is surprised that the C.D.O.C. has come out in fierce
opposition to the Senate Bill 176 (introduced by Sen. Morgan Carroll, if
passed the C.D.O.C would need to limit the solitary confinement of
mentally ill prisoners –Denver Post</i>, March 14, 2011) , as they claim
it is because they say there is no indication officials are abusing the
use of solitary confinement. Please allow me, from my true insider
perspective, to disabuse you of that notion because for those of us
actually in solitary confinement, we say they are abusing</i> the
over-use of solitary confinement.<br><br>
<dd>They also make the preposterous claim that the average stay is 18
months. Let me tell you that those numbers are about as an off the books
as C.D.O. (Collateralized Debt Obligation) at AIG. I personally have been
in Ad Seg for 7 years. Let me to a survey, to my immediate right 7 years,
to my left 8 years, next to him 4 years and under me 10 years. In my 7
years, I’ve only witnessed 2 men get of Ad Seg. 2!<br><br>
<dd>The C.D.O.C. is in need of correction and the honorable Sen. Morgan
Carroll and Rep. Claire Levy are the conscientious lawmakers trying to
write another C.D.O.C. with Senate Bill 176, which is a start, a good
start, at least, at long last.<br><br>
<dd>I (we) don’t have much hope up here in the shameless incarceration
capital of the world, and maybe, just maybe these venerable legislators
can compel the C.D.O.C to stop doing what it wants and force it to begin
doing what it should.<br><br>
</dl>You can read an earlier essay by Clair Beazer
<a href="http://solitarywatch.com/2010/08/01/voices-from-solitary-supermaxed-out-in-colorado/">
here</a>, and write to him at the following address: Mr. Clair L. Beazer,
CSP #49801, C.C.F., Box Number 600, Canon City, CO 81215-0600.<br><br>
<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>