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<h2 class="post-title" style="margin: .4em 0 .3em; font-size: 1.8em;
font-size: 1.6em; color: #555; margin: 0; font-size: 20px;"><font
size="+3"><a
href="http://solitarywatch.com/2016/04/29/opening-the-door/"
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;
text-decoration: none !important;">Opening the Door</a></font></h2>
<br>
<span style="color: #888;">by <a
href="http://solitarywatch.com/?author=10834"
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2; color: #888
!important;">Jean Casella and Aviva Stahl - April 29, 2016</a><br>
<b><font size="-2"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://solitarywatch.com/2016/04/29/opening-the-door/">http://solitarywatch.com/2016/04/29/opening-the-door/</a></font></b><br>
<br>
</span>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">For 13 of his 22 years in
prison, Cero Smith spent 23 hours a day alone in a small concrete
cell. Three times a day, a corrections officer would pass his
meals through a slot in the solid steel cell door. A CO would also
take him to exercise alone for one hour in a small recreation room
at the end of the pod. Otherwise, he had no contact with other
human beings.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Through a Plexiglass window
in a visiting booth at the Colorado State Penitentiary (CSP) last
fall, Smith described his time in solitary. A tall African
American man with tattoos covering both arms, he wears a serious
expression that never cracks, and seems to choose his words
carefully.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">“People find activities to
drown it out,” he says of the loneliness and monotony of solitary
confinement. Now 38, Smith was 16 years old when he was sent to
adult prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in a
gang-related killing. Accused of assaulting a corrections officer,
he was branded a dangerous prisoner and placed in Administrative
Segregation, or Ad Seg.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">“The good thing is, I read a
lot, and I learned to write in there. The bad thing is that you
are stuck with yourself, with nothing to do but think. After a
while, you can’t even sleep.” The worst, he says, was not knowing
if and when it would end, since assignment to Ad Seg was
open-ended. The longest term on record in Colorado had been 24
years. Now, there’s supposed to be a one-year cap on how long
someone can spend in solitary confinement.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Smith officially left
solitary when he was chosen for a new “step-down” program,
instituted by the Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) in
2014 to move individuals out of Ad Seg. When we visited him at
CSP, Smith was is in the second “step,” a Close Custody Transition
Unit (CCTU), where he was allowed out of his cell for 6 hours a
day with the 15 other men in his “pod.” He has since rejoined
general population at a medium security facility in Buena Vista.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">But things don’t always go
this smoothly. Some men get into fights or other kinds of trouble,
and get stuck in the first “step,” called the Management Control
Unit (MCU). Others maintain good behavior, but are reluctant to
progress back to the chaos of General Population after years or
decades of forced isolation and de-socialization.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">When we met him, Smith said
he was “excited” to get into General Population, but also
anxious—worried about the constant need for interaction with
others, and the constant threat of confrontation. In GP, he says,
“Everybody else is always watching.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em; text-align:center;"><strong>«»</strong></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">FOR CLOSE TO thirty years,
the United States has been carrying out a massive experiment in
human isolation, unlike anything that had taken place before it
anywhere in the world. Its unwilling subjects have been drawn from
the millions of men, women, and children incarcerated in America’s
prisons and jails.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The growth of solitary
confinement tracks closely with the advent of mass incarceration,
beginning in the 1980s. It also reflects the abandonment of any
notion of rehabilitation in favor of piling punishment upon
punishment. Today, an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people languish
in solitary confinement in state and federal prisons on any given
day. The number who have served time in solitary over three
decades is impossible to calculate.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Thanks to the work of a
handful of clinicians, scholars, and advocates, the outcomes of
this experiment in isolation are at last being made known. <a
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="https://www.aclu.org/other/stop-solitary-resources-advocates-updated-november-2015">Prolonged
solitary causes psychological, physical, and neurological damage</a> that
is profound and, in many cases, permanent. Unsurprisingly, it also
appears to increase levels of both prison violence and recidivism.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Spurred by activists on both
sides of the prison walls, the damage wrought by solitary
confinement has begun to penetrate the consciousness of the press,
the public, and policymakers—not to mention the President and the
Pope. A growing number of states and localities, as well as the
federal government, have <a style="text-decoration: underline;
color: #2585B2;"
href="http://solitarywatch.com/resources/timelines/milestones/">announced
or instituted reforms</a>, most designed to “reduce” the
“overuse” of solitary.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Among prison systems held up
as models of reform, none is more prominent than Colorado’s. In
less than five years, the state says it has reduced the number of
people it holds in Administrative Segregation from a high of
1,500—7 percent of the prison population—to approximately 160 of
its just under 20,000 prisoners, which would give Colorado the
lowest rate of solitary confinement use in the nation.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Colorado has “reclassified”
hundreds of individuals out of solitary and into general
population, and placed hundreds more in its step-down program. It
has also removed from administrative segregation people diagnosed
with serious mental illness, who traditionally make up a
disproportionate number of those in solitary, and placed them in
Residential Treatment Programs in separate prisons or units.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Much of the credit for this
change goes to Rick Raemisch, who since July 2013 has served as
executive director of the CDOC. In an interview with Solitary
Watch late last year, Raemisch said that he did not seek to merely
“reduce” prolonged solitary confinement, but eventually to
eliminate it altogether—something that sets him apart even from
other reformers in the corrections community. Shortly afterwards,
when he and his deputy director published a report about the
changes in Colorado, they titled it <em>Open the Door</em>, a
phrase Raemisch also uses frequently in public speeches.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The CDOC is clearly proud of
the changes it made, and unusually open in allowing the press
inside its facilities to see them firsthand. During a series of
prison visits by Solitary Watch, Raemisch and other prison
officials and staff showed us the new types of housing that have
replaced supermax prisons and solitary confinement units for those
prisoners traditionally deemed dangerous or disruptive.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">But the rollback of solitary
confinement in Colorado is more complex, and less complete, than
might appear at first glance. Interviews with advocates, reviews
of public records, and letters from incarcerated men reveal a
reform effort that has encountered plenty of problems and
pitfalls. Some say these problems are being glossed over in
pursuit of the narrative of Colorado’s singular progress toward
eliminating solitary.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Colorado’s reforms clearly
remain a work-in-progress. The task of doing away with prolonged
solitary confinement involves breaking down policies and practices
that have prevailed for three decades—along with the prison
culture they have created, and the damage they have done to the
men and women who endured them.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In his interview, Raemisch
acknowledged that much work still remained, but pointed out that
Colorado’s prisons are attempting to do something that has never
been done before. “When we started this,” he says, “not only was
there no roadmap--there was no road.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em; text-align:center;"><strong>«»</strong></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">RICK RAEMISCH’S tenure at the
Colorado Department of Corrections—and his mandate to reform
solitary confinement—are predicated upon the terrible events of
March 19, 2013. At 8:30 that evening, Tom Clements, just into his
third year as CDOC executive director, was shot to death after
answering the door of his family home in Monument, not far from
the CDOC’s offices in Colorado Springs.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The presumed killer, Evan
Ebel, died two days later after a high-speed car chase and
shootout with police in Texas. He had been released on parole that
January after spending seven years in solitary in Colorado’s
prisons, and had also murdered a Denver man who delivered pizzas
in order to steal his uniform, which Ebel was wearing when he
showed up on Clements’s doorstep.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">As reported by the <a
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.coloradoindependent.com/127520/ebel-friend-suicide-note-shows-parolee-ruined-by-solitary-bent-on-revenge"><em>Colorado
Independent</em></a>, testimony from other prisoners who had
served time with Ebel, as well as letters and texts and prison
grievances written by Ebel himself, revealed that he was “unhinged
by his abrupt release from solitary confinement and seeking
revenge for years of humiliation and torture behind bars.” In <a
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.coloradoindependent.com/127596/clements-murder-suspect-ebel-was-anxious-about-walking-free-documents-show">one
grievance</a>, Ebel had written: “Do you have an obligation to
the public to reacclimate me, the dangerous inmate, to being
around other human beings prior to being released and, if not,
why?”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The tragic irony of
Clements’s murder was that in the two years prior to his death,
the DOC head had become deeply concerned with precisely the same
question. He often cited the fact that nearly half of all
individuals housed in solitary confinement were being released
directly to the streets, some after years of extreme isolation and
sensory deprivation. In 2011, <a style="text-decoration:
underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.coloradoindependent.com/128438/co-prison-officials-acknowledge-chiefs-murder-tied-to-solitary-confinement-policies">he
told the <em>Independent</em></a>: “Forty-seven percent of these
guys are walking right out of ad-seg into our communities...That’s
the number that keeps me awake at night.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In fact, under Clements the
use of Administrative Segregation in Colorado was reduced by more
than 40 percent. Bolstered by the <a style="text-decoration:
underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.safealternativestosegregation.org/resources/view/colorado-sb-11-176">2011
passage of a bill</a> in the Colorado legislature that
encouraged alternatives to solitary, the CDOC reviewed and
“reclassified” about 700 men, women, and children from Ad Seg back
into the general population prior to Clements’s death.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Rick Raemisch arrived in
Colorado in July 2013 after a nearly 40-year career in law
enforcement and corrections in Wisconsin, which culminated in
leadership of that state’s department of corrections. He was
immediately supplied with a bodyguard.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Raemisch has pale eyes behind
frameless glasses and serious, square-jawed face that is
transformed by his rare smiles. Interviewed in his Colorado
Springs office on a sunny fall day, he speaks with a strong
Midwestern accent, and the quiet fervor of a true believer.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">After Clements’s
assassination, Raemisch said, “It would have been easy to say we
should have been tougher. But we decided instead to be smarter.”
That meant continuing—and dramatically expanding—the solitary
reforms he had inherited.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In February 2014, Raemisch
literally made headlines when he volunteered to spend 20 hours in
an isolation cell, and wrote about it in a <em>New York Times</em> op-ed
entitled “<a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/opinion/my-night-in-solitary.html">My
Night in Solitary</a>.” Raemisch described the “drone of garbled
noise” and the constant bright lights, which he said left him
feeling “twitchy and paranoid.” By the next morning, he wrote, “I
felt as if I’d been there for days. I sat with my mind. How long
would it take before Ad Seg chipped that away? I don’t know, but
I’m confident that it would be a battle I would lose.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In our interview, Raemisch
asserted that the explosion in the use of solitary reflects an
essential error in judgement on the part of corrections
departments. Prolonged isolation is “used—and overused—to run a
more efficient institution,” he said. “You shut the door on
someone who’s creating a problem—end of problem. Or at least that
was the thinking at the time. But it didn’t solve the problem. At
best it suspended it, and it probably multiplied it.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">He continued, “Running an
efficient institution is a noble goal, but we’ve lost sight of our
mission. Our mission is community safety—period. And to do that
we’ve got to ensure that we’re not putting people out worse than
they were when they came in.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">To achieve that goal,
Raemisch said, he and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper agreed
to focus on three areas: first, “to look at every Administrative
Segregation case” with eye toward transitioning isolated prisoners
back into general population; second, to “look at trying to get
the mentally ill out of segregation”; and finally, to “stop the
process of putting people directly back into the community from
segregation.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Since 2014, no one has been
released directly to the streets from what is now officially
considered solitary confinement. In the other two areas, a road
has clearly been carved out—but it is not without its bumps and
detours.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em; text-align:center;"><strong>«»</strong></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">AT THE HEART of the CDOC’s
solitary reforms is the work being done at Colorado State
Penitentiary (CSP), which sits just below the foothills of the
Rocky Mountains, 120 miles south of Denver. It is one of 14 state
and federal prisons in and around the high desert town of <a
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://solitarywatch.com/2010/10/11/the-colorado-files-leaving-canon-city/">Cañon
City</a>, which also boasts a Museum of Colorado Prisons housing
an actual disused gas chamber, as well as balls and chains, cattle
prods, and a kind of whipping horse that was known as the “Old
Gray Mare.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Opened in 1993 at the height
of the supermax boom, CSP became known for a more modern form of
cruel and unusual punishment. Its 756 cells were built expressly
for the extreme isolation of Administrative Segregation.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">For twenty years, the men who
lived at CSP spent 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in 7 x
13-foot cells, with one hour out to exercise alone in a slightly
larger cell on the tier. The average term in Ad Seg when Raemisch
arrived in Colorado was nearly two years. In a 2012 ruling in a
suit brought by a man who had spent years in solitary, a <a
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.westword.com/news/troy-anderson-lawsuit-supermax-must-provide-outdoor-rec-judge-rules-5858765">federal
court</a> called CSP’s failure to provide outdoor recreation,
fresh air, and sunlight “a paradigm of inhumane treatment,” and
ordered the CDOC to provide him with outdoor exercise areas.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Today, outdoor areas are
under construction, but not much else has changed in terms of the
physical plant of the prison. As with all purpose-built
supermaxes, CSP was originally constructed without any large
congregate spaces—no prison yards, no mess halls, and no day
rooms. And as with all supermaxes, the physical construction of
CSP itself presents a daunting challenge to anyone who seeks to
“open the door” to its isolation cells.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">But at CSP, the doors have in
fact begun to open—within a strict set of limits. Our tour of the
facility last November, in the company of Warden Travis Trani and
Associate Warden Sean Foster, provided a glimpse of how Colorado
is easing people out of solitary confinement.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Colorado now limits
Disciplinary Segregation for routine rule violations—which in some
states can run to months or years—to no more than 30 days.
Individuals who commit more serious acts or are deemed a threat to
safety and security can be sent to Restricted Housing Maximum (RH
Max), which has replaced Administrative Segregation, for up to one
year. For several hundred men who are deemed to need
re-socialization—some after years of solitary under the old
system—there is the step-down program at CSP.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The first step takes places
in Management Control Units (MCUs), which on the day of our visit
held 261 men. In each of the cell “pods” in the MCUs, eight men at
a time are supposed to be released from their cells for four hours
a day—two hours each morning, and two hours each afternoon.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">For most of that time, they
don’t go very far. Each 16-cell pod on the unit is walled off from
the central guard station by reinforced glass. It is within these
glass-walled areas that the prison has created makeshift “day
rooms” where unshackled men are allowed to congregate.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Within each pod’s day room,
small groups of men talked or played cards on tables and benches
bolted to the floor. A large clock on the wall allowed them the
rare opportunity to keep track of time, and the space held some
stationary exercise equipment. New electrical wiring was being put
in place in the day rooms, Warden Trani explained, to allow
installation of televisions and microwaves. Some programming now
takes place within the MCUs, including literacy, GED, and some
academic classes, anger management, gang awareness, and customer
service.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">With the exception of
occasional loudspeaker announcements, the unit was fairly quiet,
with none of the screaming or door-banging that characterizes most
supermax prisons and solitary confinement units. “Pod groups” were
carefully chosen to minimize conflict, Trani said, but fights were
far from unknown. When that happened, corrections officer remained
safely behind the glass walls until a team could be assembled to
intervene.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In the pods around the unit,
some of the men seemed engaged in what they were doing, while
others appeared somewhat bored. What they were not was alone.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The next step “down” from Ad
Seg takes place in Close Custody Transition Units (CCTUs), which
held 156 men on the day of our visit. In the CCTU pods, all 16 men
come out of their cells simultaneously for a total of six hours
each day. Staff here enter and leave the day rooms and interact
more freely with prisoners. And the men leave their pods for GED
and other educational classes, as well as for programming aimed at
improving their behavior and reducing risk when they are returned
to general population. The CCTU step is designed to last for up to
six months.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The primary program used in
Colorado is <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="https://www.crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=242">Thinking
for a Change</a> (T4C), a course designed by the federally
funded National Institute of Corrections and described as “a
cognitive–behavioral curriculum…that concentrates on changing the
criminogenic thinking of offenders…[It] includes cognitive
restructuring, social skills development, and the development of
problem-solving skills.” The program’s cycle of 25 lessons have
titles like “Thinking Controls Our Behavior,” “Recognize Risk,”
“Understanding the Feelings of Others,” and “Responding to Anger.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Other programs include <a
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.moral-reconation-therapy.com/">Moral Reconation
Therapy</a> (MRT) and a CDOC-created Conflict Resolution program
aimed at members of gangs. They are taught to groups of eight at a
time. Both T4C and MRT claim studies show that they improve prison
behavior and reduce post-prison recidivism. But it is too early to
say precisely what impact they will have in Colorado.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">One problem, Trani says, is
that “we have handful of guys who do not want to progress…they
want to stay here because its single-celled. If they progress they
have to go into a double-celled situation, they have to deal with
more offenders.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Prison staff and leadership,
he says are developing strategies for how to deal with these men.
But the dilemma points to an inconvenient truth for any solitary
opponent: The goal of most reforms is to return individuals to
General Population, which in most American prisons is in itself a
nasty, dangerous, and inhumane environment.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Some advocacy groups have
pointed to other problems with Colorado’s step-down units,
particularly the MCU. In a 14-page letter sent to Rick Raemisch in
January, the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado outlined
what it perceived as the CDOC’s successes and shortcomings in
reducing the use and severity of isolation. Solitary Watch
obtained the letter, and Raemisch’s response, through a Colorado
Open Records Act (CORA) request.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">According to the letter, “on
average, prisoners in at least some MCUs are getting much less
than four hours of out-of-cell time per day,” in part a result of
frequent lockdowns reported on the units. (When we visited, a
three-week lockdown had recently followed the loss of a handcuff
key.) In addition, the letter stated, people were spending too
much time in the MCU; as of September 2015 over eighty men had
spent more than a year there. The ACLU acquired the data cited in
the letter through records requests to the CDOC.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Several letters to Solitary
Watch from men currently or formerly housed in the MCUs also said
they were frustrated at how little programming was offered on the
units, and echoed concerns that people on the units were sometimes
placed in 24-hour lockdown after violent incidents, even if they
weren’t suspected of being involved.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Based on its findings, the
ACLU wrote, “we are concerned that the current policy and practice
in the MCUs create a risk that the units will devolve into
‘administrative segregation’ by another name.” The group
recommended “implementation of stricter limits on the use of MCUs
and greater oversight and accountability for the out-of-cell time
on these units” in order to “prevent such an unwanted outcome.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In a February letter of
response, Raemisch contested the ACLU’s characterization of the
MCUs, and asserted that the CDOC was already closely monitoring
lockdowns and had instituted 90-day reviews to determine when
those held in MCUs were ready to move on. He rejected the
suggestion of a strict six-month cap on time in the MCUs.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The ACLU letter had deeper
concerns about the 160-odd individuals who remain in solitary
confinement in what is now called Restrictive Housing Maximum, at
Sterling Correctional Facility (which we did not visit).
Individuals held in RH Max spend at least 22 hours a day in their
cells. They have extremely limited access to televisions, books,
phone calls and visits, and are not allowed to purchase food off
the canteen. According to a letter received from one man who is
currently incarcerated at Sterling, RH Max is “ten times worse
than ad-seg used to be,” a perspective echoed by several others
who wrote to us.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Raemisch responded in his
letter that the initial 90 days in RH Max were meant to
“demonstrate an austere environment,” and that thereafter, the
individuals had opportunities, through good behavior, to earn
privileges like televisions. Under the old model, he wrote,
offenders had “no incentives to motivate them to progress to
general population environments.” He also pointed out that
“Colorado is the only State that has set maximum length of stays
in extended restricted housing, which do not exceed 12 months,”
and that year-long sentences are only handed out for the most
serious, violent offenses in prison.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Yet by any measure, a year in
solitary confinement is a long time, and more than sufficient to
cause the kind of psychological damage Raemisch himself is
concerned about. Additionally, some individuals have been returned
back to the isolation unit from the MCUs, suggesting that in the
aggregate, people could end up spending more than a year in RH
Max. And the overall number of men held in RH Max has not dropped
in the past year. (There are no longer any women in long-term
solitary.)</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">These 160 men clearly stand
between current practice and Raemisch’s pledge to eventually
eliminate prolonged solitary confinement from the Colorado prison
system. He is aware that what happens to them, and others like
them, in the next few years will put that pledge to the test.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em; text-align:center;"><strong>«»</strong></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">IN JUNE 2014, the Colorado
legislature passed a bill banning the placement of people with
“major mental illness” in solitary confinement. In this case, law
actually lagged behind policy, since the CDOC had instituted the
same ban nearly six months earlier.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">“We basically adopted the
philosophy that you can’t take someone with a mental illness, put
them in a 7 x 13-foot cell, and let them stay in there 23 hours a
day letting the demons chase them around,” Raemisch said in his
interview.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">According to Raemisch, about
34 to 36 percent of Colorado’s prison system has “some type of
mental health problem,” while 10 to 12 percent of those
individuals are “what we would term seriously mentally
ill”—generally meaning they have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,
or major depressive disorder.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The numbers are fairly
typical. In the United States today, according to a <a
style="text-decoration: underline; color: #2585B2;"
href="http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/storage/documents/catalysts/tacatalyst%20fall%2014.pdf">2014
study</a> by the Treatment Advocacy Center, there are 35,000
individuals in the nation’s psychiatric hospitals, and 350,000 in
its prisons and jails.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">“Myself and my peers, we all
say the same thing,” Raemisch said. “That our corrections
department is the largest mental health institution in the
state…There’s that fallacy that we de-institutionalized the
mentally ill years ago, but we didn’t really. They just moved over
from state mental hospitals over to the prison system, and that’s
where they sit right now.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">To deal with these
individuals, Raemisch determined that he would further develop and
greatly expand the Residential Treatment Program (RTP) model first
utilized under Tom Clements. The CDOC soon had two large RTPs for
men: one at Centennial Correctional Facility in Cañon City, with
beds for 240 of the “chronically mentally ill,” and one comprising
all of San Carlos Correctional Facility in Pueblo, has beds for
255 of the “most acutely mentally ill” as well as some men with
developmental disabilities. A smaller RTP at Denver Women’s
Correctional Facility has a capacity of 48.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Some of these men and women
have been sent to the RTPs from the Denver Reception and
Diagnostic Center following admission to the prison system. Others
are moved there after what CDOC calls "a comprehensive process of
identifying offenders in General Population for mental health
needs and refer[ring] them for treatment." Some are there because
they have violated prison rules. “What we do is we look at the
individual to see if mental illness might have had something to do
with that violation,” Raemisch said. “If we find that it has, we
take that person out of the disciplinary process and place them,
if needed, in an RTP.” The RTPs are meant to prevent anyone with a
serious mental illness from being sent into RH Max.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Raemisch accompanied us last
November when we visited San Carlos Correctional Facility, along
with clinical and security staff. The low, red-brick building in
Pueblo is divided into units where men are placed based on their
conditions and their behavior. We did not see “2 West,” where, we
were told, the “most violent offenders” with mental illness were
housed.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">On the fourth floor, units
hold a mix of individuals diagnosed with a major mental illness,
all of whom are supposed to be diverted to the RTP. In addition,
said San Carlos’s Mental Health Supervisor, Joann O’Neil, those
with lower range diagnoses, such as personality disorders, could
be placed in an RTP “when symptoms rise to a level interfering
with their well-being,” such as self-harm or aggressive or
destructive behavior, or anyone whose mental health needs require
an immediate intervention.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Major Sean Pruitt, the
top-level uniformed staff person at San Carlos, spoke gently about
the suffering endured by the men in his custody, and echoed
Raemisch’s assertion that if any bad behavior they exhibited
had resulted from their mental illness, it should be responded to
with treatment, not punishment.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The units were clean and
quiet, with minimal activity taking in common areas. Most of the
men were inside their cells, and mental health staff were working
in their offices, which are within the units. Corrections officers
walked the corridors, serving as a reminder that this was not, in
fact, a secure mental hospital, but a prison.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">O’Neil stopped to ask a thin,
quiet man whether we could view his cell. A narrow slit window
filtered in a bit of light, revealing a television and radio, and
a few pictures and other personal items. During a moment alone in
the cell with its occupant, we asked how he felt about the staff
at San Carlos. “I like them,” he said tentatively—and then, after
a pause, “I love them.” We learned later that this man had not
spoken during his first year in the RTP. He now works as a
janitor.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In one treatment room, a
clinician and four men were seated around a table, talking. The
tables are specially designed with holes through which prisoners’
shackles can be threaded, if need be, allowing groups of men to be
in close proximity without being able to attack one another or
staff.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The RTP program is designed
to operate on a “10 and 10” schedule, meaning, according to the
CDOC, "ten hours of structured therapeutic out-of-cell
opportunities and ten hours of non-therapeutic out-of-cell
opportunities per week." The therapeutic hours are supposed to
include individual therapy as well as groups for various cognitive
behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy, anger
management, medication and self-care, drug and alcohol treatment,
and something called the Wellness Recovery Action Plans (WRAP),
which are individualized plans developed by staff and prisoners.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The goal of all the
programming, Raemisch said, was to “solve the mental illness
problem and get them back into general population. Some of them
unfortunately are so severely mentally disabled that they will do
their time in the Residential Treatment Program. That’s the safest
place for them.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In his interview, Raemisch
volunteered that the RTPs had experienced significant numbers of
prisoners who refused to come out of their cells for either
therapy or recreation, especially in the units’ early years. They
had the right to refuse and were never forced, he said, but staff
worked hard to find ways to engage people and “entice them out of
their cells,” including art and other activities tailored to their
interests, and the use of therapy dogs.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">This high refusal rate,
however, has become the focus of criticism leveled by advocates.
According to the ACLU, prisoners on the RTPs have reported that
many groups “are run so poorly run and of so little utility that
many prisoners avoid them.” Average refusal rates have actually
been worsening over time, exceeding 75 percent between February
and April 2015 at San Carlos. According the ACLU letter, “on any
given week, about eighty prisoners [at SCCF] went without any
therapeutic out-of-cell time at all.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Staff at Disability Rights
Colorado, a public interest organization that specializes in civil
rights and discrimination issues, said access to individual
therapy on the RTPs is extremely limited, even though it is the
most effective form of treatment, especially since being honest
and vulnerable in group therapy can be difficult—or even
dangerous—in prison settings.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Understaffing at the RTPs
remains acute, with the CDOC struggling to compete with the
private sector for skilled clinicians, and convince them to live
in often remote prison towns. The programs had a nearly 30 percent
vacancy rate among mental health staff as of November 2015,
according to the ACLU letter. DRC also expressed concern that
some corrections officers were not adequately trained or screened
for dealing with people with mental illness, even though many
officers had volunteered to work in the RTPs, and first received
training in "first aid, trauma informed care, and working with
offenders with self-injurious behavior."</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">The ACLU letter also notes
that in the early days of the RTPs—most of them before Raemisch’s
time—data showed “a major decrease in the number and percent of
prisoners perceived as having serious mental illness at the
precise moment when CDOC was considering expanding services to
those prisoners and excluding them from solitary confinement”—a 7
percent drop between February and August 2013. (Similar trends
have been identified in other states that have banned the mentally
ill from solitary, notably New York State.)</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In his response to the ACLU
letter, Raemisch cited statistics (which he acknowledged were
based on “raw data”) from the previous year, showing that at San
Carlos, “use of special controls” such as restraints was down 93
percent; forced cell entries were down 77 percent; and prisoner on
staff assaults were down 46 percent.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In his letter, Raemisch also
rejected the idea that high refusal rates reflected poor quality
group programming; prisoners were simply afraid to come out of
their cells, he said, and every effort was being made to address
the problem. He declined the ACLU’s suggestion of bringing in an
independent team of experts to study the refusal problem and other
shortcomings in the RTPs. A subsequent statement from the CDOC
said: "Refusal is driven by mental illness and anti-social
behaviors. Offenders with mental illness need to feel safe and
until their mental illness is stabilized, they cannot be forced to
come out. "</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In his response to the ACLU,
Raemisch also enclosed a letter from the CDOC’s chief of
psychiatry, acknowledging that the state had moved to a different
system of diagnosis in mid-2013, and defending the empirical basis
of that shift. In a statement, the CDOC said it "had thoroughly
explained the refined definitions of SMI [serious mental illness]
in DSM-V" and had "identified and treated more offenders than in
previous years."</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In an earlier round of
criticism, the CDOC’s former director of planning and analysis,
Maureen O’Keefe, alleged she had been placed on administrative
leave after claiming the department was manipulating data to
exaggerate the extent of the solitary reforms for the mentally
ill. In December, the CDOC—which has characterized O’Keefe as a
“dismal” manager--agreed to pay $280,000 to settle a whistleblower
suit. CDOC states that it "stands behind our numbers and always
have."</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">When asked in our interview
about the criticisms of the RTP, Raemisch said, “These are all the
things that come up when you’re involved in change.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">“There are always things that
we can be criticized for,” he continued, “but the fact of the
matter is, there are so many things that we’re the only one in the
United States doing it right now. And I would say to those critics
that we haven’t stood up and declared success. What we’ve stood up
and declared is that we’ve made tremendous progress and we’re
going to keep making that progress.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em; text-align:center;"><strong>«»</strong></p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">ALTHOUGH HE positions himself
as a pragmatist (“I just want to do what works,”), Rick Raemisch
comes off as a reformer at heart, whose critique of the U.S.
criminal justice system at times reaches beyond solitary
confinement to the punishment paradigm in general.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Last year, he was one of only
two corrections leaders to be part of the US Delegation to
meetings in Cape Town and Vienna to re-write the UN Minimum
Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners, known as the Mandela
Rules. Among other things, the Mandela Rules denounce the use of
solitary confinement beyond 15 days. Raemisch also serves as a
founding member of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Law
Enforcement Leadership Group Think Tank, which aims to reduce both
crime and incarceration.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Outside of the state of
Colorado, Raemisch is widely and deeply admired by anti-solitary
activists, and by prison administrators and policymakers who seek
to reduce the use of solitary confinement in their own systems. He
is in high demand at conferences and symposiums across the country
and as far away as Australia, where he outlines the dramatic
changes in Colorado, and encourages other prison systems to “open
the door.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Raemisch’s CDOC has also been
unusually open and transparent, both in providing data to
advocates and in allowing the press to view its work around
solitary confinement. The department provided rare access to
Solitary Watch, undoubtedly knowing that we have often been
sharply critical of prison conditions around the country. “If we
had anything to hide,” Raemisch said in our interview, “you
wouldn’t be here.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">It is surprising, then, that
his relationship with prisoner advocates in his home state is so
much more complicated, and less sanguine. Most of the advocates we
interviewed remembered the days when Colorado held more than 1,500
people in torturous isolation, and all acknowledged the
significant strides the CDOC has taken under both Clements’s and
Raemisch’s leadership. But most were also frustrated by what they
saw as Raemisch’s defensiveness about what they considered
constructive criticism, and his rejection of opportunities to work
together toward what they believed were common goals.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">"Colorado is doing many, many
things right—which I think is clear in our letter," said Rebecca
Wallace, Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Colorado. "It's been
disappointing to see that the administration has been closed to
what I think are well-intentioned and well-grounded criticisms
that are intended to help move the administration to the next
phase."</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Part of the disconnect may
lie in the fact that, despite his protestations that he has not
yet declared success, Raemisch is often perceived as having done
exactly that—and prematurely. In all deep institutional change,
the devil is in the details. And the details of solitary reform in
Colorado present a more complex picture—and represent a more
complex challenge—than the presentations Raemisch gives at
conferences, and the admiring media profiles of him, would
suggest.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">“There’s been change, and
it’s been substantial—but it’s not enough,” said a staff member at
Disability Rights Colorado. “If Raemisch has these rose-colored
glasses on about his programs, even if he’s this great guy and he
wants to fix it, he doesn’t think there’s anything to fix. It’s
just frustrating.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">In fact, it is hardly
surprising that the reforms remain a work-in-progress, less than
five years after they were begun. Prison systems are vast
bureaucracies, with complex hierarchical structures and entrenched
ways of conducting their daily business. And for nearly three
decades, solitary confinement has been prisons’ primary method of
controlling the individuals in their custody.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">While Colorado’s corrections
officers’ union has not come out against the efforts to reduce
solitary in their state (as have the powerful guards’ unions in
California, Illinois, and New York), rank-and-file officers are
generally reluctant to give up such instruments of power.
Relinquishing the use of solitary requires a sea change in the way
prison staff think and operate.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">Raemisch praises his staff at
all levels for largely embracing this change. But a few years is a
very short time to bring about such a profound cultural shift. And
letters from incarcerated people, as well as comments by advocates
and former prison staff, suggest this shift is yet to be fully
achieved.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">So, too, is the shift taking
place for the hundreds of incarcerated individuals being released
from solitary into new environments. Many are deeply damaged by
their experience of extreme isolation. Others—including many of
those who wrote to us—are confused by the changes around them, and
frustrated by problems in the newly opened alternative units.
After complaining about frequent lockdowns in the CCTUs, Cero
Smith wrote: “Just because you preach change, doesn’t mean change
is coming.”</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">But after spending a week in
the state, we do believe that meaningful change has come to
Colorado’s prisons, and that more will come in the future. We also
believe that listening to all voices—including those of advocates
and the incarcerated—will only hasten and deepen that process. By
mustering all forces for change, Colorado may be indeed be the
first state to truly eliminate long-term solitary confinement from
its prisons.</p>
<p style="direction: ltr; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em;
color: #444; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica,
Arial, sans-serif; margin: 0 0 1em;">It is still too soon to say
how much more time and how much more work it will take to reach
that goal. But for all its difficulties, what Colorado has set out
to do is well worth striving for, and well worth watching. “Come
back in a year,” Raemisch said to us as we left, “and see what
we’ve done.”</p>
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