3 brief poems by prisoners always alone

In The Hole.
In the hole, where C.O.’s would love to see you hang yourself
And your only dream is to find the means to get out of this cell
Cause it seems like Hell when you can’t even tell whether It’s night or it’s day.
No razors to shave, no way to get paid, no place for the made
One must be brave and face each day, expecting the worst
You gotta prepare cause inside here, insanity lurks
so when it hurts and you’re feeling like you can’t go on
you stay strong cause that pain will not last long.

In the hole, where the C.O.’s would love to see you cut your throat,
And your only goal is to keep a hold of what’s left of your soul.
Cause they mess with your hopes and step on your toes trying to see if you’ll break,
It’s a game to be played, a fight too stay sane, a place for the crazed,
One must maintain and busy his brain, or all will be lost
If you don’t change but come out the same, then DAUG you the boss,
So when the cost seems like too much and tomorrow is hopeless,
You continue to cope push aside your sorrows and keep your focus.
anonymous

How Long

I’ve been buried alive in a stone tomb

I’m trying to find a ray of light seeking illumination from the moon

Every night I’m chipping at the walls, but only in my mind

I can’t sleep because I hear sounds echoing from past crimes

Nothing but distant images penetrate my eyes

Like Galileo with no telescope to see the stars in the sky

At times I just lay down with my head beneath the blanket

A frustrated way to escape because I hate it

My thoughts are of the world

but me it never mentions

All it does is spin and witnesses the tension

Every night when the sun hides from the beauty of the stars

I relax to meditate and my mind drifts through the bars

Every night I leave my cell and enter into the unknown

It’s a bit of a relief but it’s no place like home.

How long until I’m not alone?

WSPF Prisoner

Sometime I Cry
Sometimes when I'm alone, I cry because I'm on my own.

The tears I cry are bitter and warm, they flow with life but take no form.

I cry because my heart is torn, and I find it difficult to carry on.

If I had an ear to confide in,

I would cry among my treasured friends,

but who do you know that stops that long to help another carry on?

The world moves fast and would rather pass You by

than to stop and see what makes you cry.

It's painful and sad, and sometimes I cry

And no one cares about why!

fetal acohol syndrome

Criminal minds?
Some say justice system fails inmates with fetal alcohol disorders

Steven Elbow (madison.com)
May 12, 2008

Tyler Mills lost nearly 25 pounds over the course of three weeks, but his jailers didn't see anything alarming about that. It was his choice to stop eating, his choice to stop drinking, his choice to swallow the toothbrush that was lodged in his stomach.
Sauk County Jail officials deemed it a behavior issue, not a medical one. It could be handled with discipline -- solitary confinement, suspension of privileges, physical restraints.
On June 8, 2006, jail staff and human services personnel got the 28-year-old inmate to a Boscobel hospital on a psychological commitment, and medical staff immediately saw they had a medical emergency on their hands.
Even so, jail officials adamantly refused to pay for medical care, according to Mills' medical records. They also wouldn't provide security for medical treatment, leaving Mills to be guarded by a nurse while he was moved to a medical unit for badly needed fluids.
Eventually jail officials relented and accompanied Mills to University Hospital, where the toothbrush was surgically removed.
At the time, Mills was in jail in Sauk County for auto theft and related charges. He was also wanted on an outstanding warrant in Eau Claire County for going into an Internet chat room in 2004 and asking a 14-year-old girl, who turned out to be a 40-year-old cop, to "de-virginize" him.
During his 17 months in the Sauk County Jail and seven months in the Eau Claire County Jail, Mills has stretched the patience of jail officials to the limit, eating pencils and utensils, spreading feces on the wall, throwing tantrums, and demanding psychiatric treatment, which he never received.
Several experts contend that Mills' bizarre behavior stems from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or FASD -- brain damage from his mother's consumption of alcohol while he was in the womb.
He's among legions -- some say hundreds of thousands -- of inmates nationwide with fetal alcohol disorders, and jails and prisons are at a loss as to how to deal with their particular brand of misbehavior. Mills was hoping to be the first person in the nation to be found not guilty of a crime because of mental illness caused by fetal alcohol exposure.
But while an Eau Claire jury last week unanimously found that his fetal alcohol defects constituted a mental disease, it also ruled that his defect didn't lead him to commit his crime of child enticement.
But Mills did come close to getting a new trial. He needed 10 of 12 jurors to side with him for a not-guilty verdict, but only three for a hung jury. He got two.
It would have been a landmark case, said Natalie Novick Brown, a clinical psychologist at the University of Washington's Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit who testified at his trial and offered a written affidavit supporting Mills' claim of having a mental defect.
Now, instead of setting a precedent that would have helped change the way the justice system treats those afflicted with fetal alcohol disorder, Mills faces up to 25 years in prison at his sentencing next month. He would have faced up to 20 more, but the jury failed to make a decision on a charge of attempted sexual assault of a child.
"This would have been a wonderful precedent in terms of the court's awareness that FASD is a mental defect and that it does decrease someone's ability to control their behavior," Novick Brown said.
But she said the case, while tragic for Mills, is a small step getting the courts toward recognizing fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as a mitigating factor in criminal cases.
"We take the victories where we can find them, and in terms of the jury seeing the mental defect, that is a victory," she said. "At last two jury members heard the message this time, and hopefully next time more jurors will hear."

More cases expected
Advocates for people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder expect a growing number of court cases in coming years contesting the justice system's treatment of people with the disease, who they say often do not understand their legal right to refuse to talk to police without a lawyer or their right to refuse to consent to a search. They say people who suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder also often confess to crimes they didn't commit during police questioning and don't have access to lawyers who are knowledgeable about FASD.
And they see a coming wave of cases to force corrections officials to institute programs to deal with the unique needs of inmates afflicted with the disease.
"FASD is brain damage -- it's a disability," said Jonathan Rudin, who tracks legal issues as program director at Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto and is co-chair of FASD Stakeholders of Ontario. "It's not going to be possible, I don't think, for people who run corrections systems to ignore this for a long period of time. If they don't voluntarily start moving that way there's going to be more and more cases."
Advocates are pushing reforms that include shorter periods of incarceration and longer supervision, milder sanctions that take into account the behavior problems and mental limitations of those afflicted with FASD, and leniency for parole violations. The objective is to give offenders a structured life in a group home or other facility that helps them overcome their inability to meet day-to-day challenges.
Mills is a prime example of the problems inmates with fetal alcohol disorder pose to their jailers, and his jailers have been prime examples of how poorly corrections officials are responding to these issues.
During his stay at the Sauk County Jail, Mills ate pencils, razors, toothbrushes, even feces, according to medical records compiled by Mills' civil rights attorney and released to The Capital Times with Mills' permission.
He also acted out in other ways. He spread feces on the wall, bashed his head against the wall, overdosed on Tylenol and tried to hang himself.
Sauk County Jail officials responded with threats, restraints and a refusal to provide psychiatric care.
To Todd Winstrom, an advocacy attorney working to get Mills psychiatric care, the cause of Mills actions is unambiguous: "In Tyler's case it's very clear that his behavior is the result of his fetal alcohol disorder."
Mills' case in Sauk County was eventually resolved -- he pleaded no contest to possession of burglary tools, vehicle theft and two counts of identity theft and was sentenced to time he had already served -- and he was taken to Eau Claire County to face charges of attempted child enticement and attempted sexual assault of a child.

The behavior problems resurfaced.
Eau Claire County Assistant Jail Administrator Lt. Patti Salimas said that during his stay at the Eau Claire County Jail Mills has eaten razor blades and pencils. He's still in segregation. He's depressed and he's not getting medications.
"It's just complete isolation," Mills said in a recent phone conversation. "I'm going downhill. The frustration is getting overwhelming."
Winstrom works for Disability Rights Wisconsin, the state-appointed agency to advocate for the disabled, and has spent countless hours documenting Mills' experiences in jail and trying to get him psychiatric care.
Eau Claire County has allowed Mills one visit to a psychiatrist, but the drugs he received caused side effects. Jail staff canceled a subsequent appointment.
"It's a basic legal standard established by the courts that you've got to provide access to psychiatric care, and they just don't do it," Winstrom said.
Meanwhile, as was the case in Sauk County, Winstrom said, Eau Claire County is just warehousing Mills until they can get rid of him.
"Their continued response seems to be, 'We've got to solve this problem by getting this guy out of here -- get him sentenced, get him off to prison, solve the problem by making him someone else's problem.'"
'I end up getting in trouble somehow'
Mills, his supporters say, just doesn't fit in a correctional setting. Yet, because he can't conform to societal norms either, he keeps ending up back in the jail.
Whenever he finds himself on his own, he said, "I end up getting in trouble somehow."
He has been arrested in the states of Washington, Minnesota, Florida and Wisconsin, most often for peeking at women in public restrooms.
On May 9, 2006, he was arrested while stealing a wallet from a woman in a locker room on the UW-Baraboo campus. Caught at the scene, he handed the wallet to a police officer and asked to be let go, explaining that he had made a bad decision, according to a criminal complaint against him.
What he didn't tell police was that a 65-year-old accomplice -- who threatened Mills and his family with harm if he told police of his involvement -- had put him up to the crime. While Mills spoke to police, the accomplice made a quiet getaway on foot, leaving behind a stolen mini-van loaded with burglary tools.
The two had previously traveled to several northern Wisconsin counties, where the man showed Mills how to steal credit cards and draw cash from ATM machines, Mills says. In March and April of 2006, they committed enough petty financial crimes to rack up more than 100 years of potential prison time for Mills. Many of these cases are still pending.
While court documents don't confirm Mills' account, the accomplice, who met Mills at a Minnesota halfway house connected to the federal prison system, admitted during an interview with The Capital Times that he had come to Wisconsin with Mills for something "illegal." But he denied any specific allegations.
It was Mills' last taste of freedom in a life where freedom has been scarce. He and his brother, who also shows signs of fetal alcohol effects but has never been diagnosed, were adopted as babies by a foster mother and grew up in the Wausau area. While Mills' little brother has learning disabilities, he has managed to stay out of trouble. Mills has not been as lucky.
In conversation, Mills appears bright and articulate and has a remarkable memory for names and dates. But it's obvious that something isn't right.
"I've got the book smarts, but the social stupidity," he said.
Since the age of 6, he has lived mostly in institutions -- in mental hospitals as a boy, in jail or prison as an adult.
For years, Mills didn't understand why he kept getting into trouble. Then in 2002 an enlightened parole officer in Minnesota, where he had just served a year and a half in federal prison for writing threatening letters to public officials, noticed that Mills had, among his many psychological diagnoses, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
The officer had a doctor confirm the diagnosis, and a light went on in Mills' severely damaged brain.
"That's when I knew what it was," he said.

Documented damage to brain
An MRI of Mills' brain, analyzed by physicians at the fetal alcohol unit at the University of Minnesota, shows the unmistakable damage associated with alcohol exposure in the womb. His corpus callosum, the neural bridge between the two sides of his brain, is shrunken, limiting his ability to process information. He has little understanding of cause and effect. His brain's executive function, which allows for impulse control, is almost non-existent.
The fact that Mills' mother drank while she was pregnant with him has been documented. The brother he grew up with and two other brothers have developmental problems that also may have been caused by her drinking.
Mills has seen an array of specialists who have identified mental and physical evidence of FASD.
Novick Brown, the psychologist at the University of Washington's Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit, said that Mills was a prime candidate to get an acquittal on the basis of FASD. While he's not by any means a rarity in having the affliction, his case is unique because it's so well documented.
"Getting all that information is what's difficult," said Novick Brown. "In Tyler's case, we have everything we need."
Novick Brown met Mills in 2002, when, during one of Mills' rare periods of freedom, he showed up at the Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit after finding the group on the Internet. Founded in the 1970s, the unit has teams of psychiatric specialists, social workers and legal experts that do groundbreaking work on fetal alcohol issues.
The unit has developed ways to identify and help people suffering from fetal alcohol brain damage, who make up a large percentage of the nation's unemployable, homeless and drug-addicted populations. Its work has been cited extensively by the Centers for Disease Control, which in recent years has issued criteria for screening for FASD symptoms.
While fetal alcohol disorder affects people differently, there are some common traits.
About a quarter of those afflicted have tell-tale facial features -- small eye openings, a flat mid-face, a thin upper lip. Mills has some of these features. He also has a number of medical conditions and illnesses related to the disease: cerebral palsey, Marcus Gunn jaw wink syndrome, a drooping left eye, asthma and muscle rigidity that hampered the use of his legs.
Behavioral symptoms include a lack of impulse control, poor judgment, alcohol and drug problems, inability to understand verbal information, inappropriate sexual behavior, explosive episodes, and a tendency to be easily led. People with the disorder lack a capacity to understand cause and effect, and consequently sometimes fail to see the correlation between criminal acts and jail. The crimes they commit tend to lack any kind of planning, and often are ludicrously stupid.
More than half have run-ins with the law, according to the unit's studies, and 35 percent have spent time in jails and prisons.
According to studies done in Canada -- there have been no similar ones in the United States -- nearly 25 percent of that country's incarcerated population may have some form of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Once in prison, they often are victimized by fellow inmates, unable to follow rules, and placed in solitary confinement, either for punishment or for their own protection.
"I've seen them get reduced to despicable states by isolation," said Ann Streissguth, a clinical psychologist who 30 years ago founded the Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit. "You take away all their normal cues and they just go berserk."
The cost to society is great, says Kay Kelly, who provides legal and advocacy services at the Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit.
"Virtually all folks with this disability have real problems with judgment," she said. "We need to figure out how to deal with this disability so people can conform. That's the smartest thing to do from a taxpayer's point of view."
Legal aspects
The greatest challenge, experts say, is getting people to realize that fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is brain damage.
While a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder defense has not yet garnered a not-guilty verdict, a Seattle defense attorney has used it to soften up prosecutors.
The attorney, Jonathan Newcomb, said his client tried to commit "suicide by cop" and was facing life in prison because of a three-strikes-you're-out law. Prosecutors agreed to the use of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder as a contributing cause of the man's crime because they felt the sentence outweighed the crime.
Newcomb said images from a brain scan of his client that showed a dramatically withered corpus callosum were key.
"Anybody who has a brain deformity like that, you have to think there's something screwy upstairs, even if you don't know what it is," he said.
Mills says his attorney, state-appointed defense lawyer Peter Thompson, showed a scan of Mills' brain to jurors, but didn't ask one of his expert witnesses, Fred Bookstein of the University of Washington's fetal alcohol unit, to explain the difference between an image of Mills' brain and a normal brain. It was a missed opportunity. Bookstein is an expert in using brain scans to identify fetal alcohol brain damage.
Thompson didn't return a phone call seeking comment on the trial. (After publication Thompson said that Bookstein did explain the differences between Mills' brain and a normal brain.)
Winstrom says Mills' mental health care may be somewhat better in the state prison system than it was in jail because the state has more resources at its disposal than counties. He calls that a "sad commentary" on the jails, since the state system is under federal scrutiny for providing inadequate mental health care.
But, he added, "There's a high probability that because of behaviors associated with his mental illness, Tyler will spend great amounts of time in the hole."
Mills freely admits that he committed the crime that he was convicted of.
In fact, he says, he can't understand why the jury didn't convict him of the second charge, attempted sexual assault of a child.
"It doesn't make sense," he said. "I did it. They had me dead to rights."
It's a candor that's disquieting, delivered with a breezy tone of voice that seems to suggest little understanding of the conviction that would carry such profound implications for his future.
But in another instant his disappointment emerges.
Had he been found not guilty by reason of mental defect, he had hoped to eventually be released to the custody of Westbrook farms near Duluth, Minn., a fetal alcohol disorder treatment program where he was offered a chance to live with others who suffer from the same disorder.
Instead, even when he completes his prison sentence, the state will likely draw upon a long list of sex-related crimes to have him committed, possibly for the rest of his life, as a sexual predator. This is one concept Mills seems to have no problem grasping.
"I'll probably spend the rest of my life in prison."

Can You Hear Me Now?

Can You Hear Me Now?”
by William Tony Julian #110970; Sussex I State Prison; Waverly, Virginia

Many of you have watched the wireless phone commercial. You know the one I’m speaking of. Every few steps the actor stops. Asks into his wireless phone, “ Can you hear me now?” He smiles at the instant response. Then walks on, only to start his scene over again. Every time I see this marvelous invention, I am in awe. Not so much by the wireless phone, but rather man’s ingenuity. If it will make the world more convenient, a better place to live, work and play, then someone will give us another technological breakthrough in the form of a gadget. With each new devise we walk around in circles, mumbling to ourselves, “ how did we ever get along without this gadget?” Coupled with this great ingenuity to make the world more convenient for living, working, playing and staying awhile, is the utopian utilities of false prophets.

Visit with me yet another of man’s inventions- Prison! Another gadget for convenience. In the late sixties, politicians began preaching the grand “deinstitutionalization” scheme, to rid the nation of our dark, dank and outdated mental hospitals . We were pitched the idea that a more cost effective way to treat the mentally ill was to establish community based mental health programs. The idea of this altruistic, cost effective scheme delighted all of us at the time. We were headed into a new era of mental health care.

However, the concept never became a reality. As soon as the mental health hospitals were emptied, the politicians were on a new soapbox. This time preaching a drug war. “Punitive anti –crime “ was born. This epidemical attitude by politicians sparked media frenzy. Citizens became worried sick that loved ones would step out the front door, only to return a few minutes later confirmed drug addicts.

This would change too, as our attention was diverted to yet another direction. The rising taxes! Rather than stem the influx of drugs across the borders into the US, it was geared toward the recreational user.

Results were immediate. The rising cost of this drug war was causing the rising voice of discontent to rise. Sweeping raids were showing needed results. Positive attrition was accomplished . But the recreational users were, along with the mentally ill, being rounded up. As quickly as they were arrested, they were run through the judicial system-. then to jails or prisons.

Citizens seeing these drugs arrests on television, began to feel confident in their communities. This is why no one was prepared for the consequences that were about to explode upon us- these thousands and thousands of arrests, flowing through the judicial system, filling up prisons across the nation.

Once more, politicians rose atop their soapboxes to preach the urgent , immediate need for more prisons. In 2004, the prison domination still continues. Only now, it’s privatized by corporations who deem crime as the new billion dollar business. All with the same rehabilitative void.


The conservative estimate of the number of people with mental disorders in US prisons is three hundred thousand. Their psychological disorders range from schizophrenia, depression, major depression, bi polar disorder, serious impulse control, paranoia, psychosthemia, serious suicidal tendencies.

“ A well disciplined institution facilitates correctional objectives, permits prisoners to live safely with one another. It allows them to concentrate on self- improvement rather than self- protection. This is the fundamental requirement for institutional order.” With this directive in mind, realize that our prisons and prison directors have exceeded this pre-preventive directive. As in constitutional violations. Especially toward the mentally ill.

The mentally ill prisoners are subjected to “chemical restraints,” chemical cocktails of psychotropics. This chemical cocktail restraint usually consists of an anti psychotic drug called “haldol”. So powerful to the nervous system, it can cause lethal reactions, mild strokes, heart attacks, convulsions and temporary blindness. To counter the above dangers with “haldol”, a pill is given three times daily. It is called “ Cogentin”. The drug is given to control the nervous system and helps to control muscle spasms and other Parkinsons-like symptoms. Daily side effects to haldol are muscle aches (sometimes severe), deadened motor skills, clouded interpretational abilities, severe lack of ability to concentrate, a dead pan facial stare, no attention span and memory loss.

In 2000, the Bureau of Justice statistics reported that in Virginia there were 2,540 prisoners on “chemical restraints”- psychotropic drugs. Then a confidential report was released in California on the widespread use of Psychotropics. They were being used to control the mentally ill in the state’s eleven youth institutions. The report was released in conjunction with an investigation brought about by a class-action lawsuit. The report’s disclosure came one week after two more teenage boys had hung themselves.

In February 2004, State Senator Gloria Ramera, who sits on the corrections oversight committee stated , “widespread use of so called “chemical restraints” is intolerable! This is not the 1930’s. Even in mental hospitals, I thought we had gotten rid of these practices long ago. We have a serious problem, and before another teenager commits suicide, the California Youth Authority has got to get it’s act together.”

“Intolerable” is too soft to use for this inhumane treatment. “Damnable” is more appropriate as well as “cruel and inhumane”.

Added to this is the placement of the mentally ill in supermax prisons. It is well established that prisoners with no mental illness have extreme difficulties coping with the stress, frustration, elevated harshness, negativity, idleness and boredom.

Prisoners with mental disorders tend to have, in addition, extreme depth perception disorders, despair, anguish, confusion and a frightening loneliness. For years now, prisoners have been trying to reach out to the world to explain these over the edge, harsh and inhumane treatments directed at them. But most of their pleas for help are drowned out by the politicians who preach that “they are bad guys just looking for sympathy.”

Now though, it is realized through class action lawsuit investigations that the conditions described by many inmates are a terrible reality that can no longer be drowned out by politicians with evil to hide.

The only “gadget” to right these wrongs has been in existence since every human was born-conscience. It is time for this nation to take a real stand for democracy.

Stop the fraudulent treatment of our own! Accountability! Then other nations will recognize that we say what me mean and do what we say on our own soil. I was inspired to write this article by Andrew Skeeter #234061. A mentally ill prisoner at Sussex 1 State Prison, a maximum security prison. Andrew will talk to you and then ask, “ can you hear me now ?.” It should be noted that Andrew was diagnosed with mental illness prior to his conviction. He receives Psychotropics.

On Psychological Death Row

On Psychological Death Row Green Bay, WI. -

Technically, Wisconsin doesn't have the death penalty. However, it does have a penal system with a prison mortality rate exceeding the execution rates of any state in the U.S. Only here it is the conditions of confinement that has led to suicide as the form of exacting that ultimate punishment.

A January 2005 report by Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) mental health director Kevin Kallas and psychology director Don Hands has revealed that suicides are committed within WI. prisons at a rate nearly twice the national average. The nation averages 14 suicides per 100,000 prisoners, while WI. averages about 25 per 100,000. From 2001-2005 there were 28 suicides at the state's prisons, averaging 7 suicides per year. The latest death is that of prisoner John Virgin, a striving Brother of the incarcerated Islamic Ummah and a personal friend. We spoke and saw each other regularly; that is, until he was taken to the segregation unit of Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI), and placed in "the box" (the box-car cells of the unit). John, just 25 years old, with only 15 months remaining on a 2 years sentence, reportedly hung himself on April 7, 2006. In the box prisoners are isolated from the general population and subject to much harsher conditions: 23-24 hour cell confinement, limited communication, sleep deprivation (cells illuminated 24 hrs. a day), loss of property (t.v., radio, books, etc.), no-contact visits, denial of food, clothing and running water, among other similarly atypical hardships.

In July 2000, while confined to WI.'s Supermax Prison, I and co-plaintiff Emir Siddigl(f.k.a. Micha-El Johnson) filed a class action law suit which resulted in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of WI. finding that such conditions as those described in the box violates the 8th amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment when prisoners experiencing psychological problems, or With a history of them, are housed there. See Jones-El V. Berge, 164 F.Supp.2d 1096 (W.D. WI. 2001). In spite of the Jones-El decision, nearly 5 years later Kallas and Hands's report show a steady incline from 2001-2005 of mentally ill prisoners being subject to the conditions of "the box". In fact, officials report that they are placing prisoners with mental illnesses in these type of "segregated settings" at a rate twice that of other prisoners. Quoting Kallas, "We recognize that being in a segregated setting can lead to more mental health issues." There is clearly no lack of awareness of the debilitating and lethal effects segregation units, and especially at GBCI. In July 2001 mentally ill and epileptic prisoner Kelvin Brooks was placed in GBCI's box and accused of violating the rules. As a result, he was placed on a food restriction known as "seg. loaf" (a medley of congealed food particles) which caused him to vomit, making it impossible to keep down his anti-seizure medication. On July 12, 2001, disturbing videotapes show Brooks buck-naked in the cell (on "clothing restriction") and having full-blown seizures repeatedly, which GBCI staff claimed he was faking to get his clothes back. He was already in rigor mortis when medical personnel did respond. On November 1, 2004, his family settled a wrongful death suit against the DOC for $600,000 dollars in the case of Brooks V. Bertrand, #01-0-1017. Just last year GBCI's notorious "box" claimed the life of prisoner Jae Sumners on October 17, 2005, reportedly a suicide.Method of death? Hanging. Who says WI. doesn't have the death penalty? While WI.'s seg. units make up only 10% of its 22,000 person prison system/ more than 50% of its suicides occur there. Most of these occur at the state's 6 maximum security prisons ,where more than half of the state's seg. units are, in some cases making up 20%-25% of the prison. GBCI is one such prison with approximately 20% of its available bed space comprised of seg. cells. It's operating capacity is for a population of 749 prisoners, but it houses 1088 at this writing. The cry of prison over-crowding and the need for more building and thus more jobs, is echoed throughout the state by proponent of the prison industrial complex.

However, instead of building more general population units, the DOC has chosen to build more and more high-tech, expensive and draconian control seg. units and are using them in place of general population units. Once built, these units, as a matter of necessity, must be filled. Since WI. state prisons are not known for frequent homicides, rapes and riots as are some more notorious prisons, these units are being filled up mostly with prisoners who have committed only minor offennses (shoes untied, pants sagging, talking too loud etc.), and the mentally ill. These are offenses a prisoner would hardly be placed in seg. for in most prisons. Moreover, prisoners in WI. are doing more time in seg. for minor offenses. WI. prisoners once housed out-of-state (MN, TX, TN, MS, OK, Federal prisons) invariably report to no more than 30-90 days in seg. for the type of offenses (fighting, use or possession of intoxicants, soliciting staff etc.) that prisoners here often find themselves doing years in seg. for. Thus, it is no strange wonder that WI. is leading in prison suicides. It's basic mathematics. If most suicides occur in seg. units and by the mentally ill and WI. is keeping its mentally ill prisoner there at twice the rate of other prisoners for minor offenses and for longer periods of time, you're gonna predictably have more suicides here. So why was our brother John Virgin placed in "the box"? For having a pair of state issued pants that didn't have his name and prison on them, and it cost him his life. You would think that with these type of offenses being the DOC's usual worries, as opposed to more serious offenses, the prison population would be rewarded with more privileges, better prison jobs and wages, a greater good-time program/ etc.

Instead the reward in WI. state prisons has been new control seg. units, a ban on cassettes tapes, on smoking, on most hip-hop magazines, a 30% and the building of an unjustifiable Super-max prison at a cost of over 44 million dollars, which now has to be made into a general population — what it should have been in the first place. ConsideR, prior to November 1999, when Supermax Correctional Institution (SMCI — now called Wisconsin Secure Program Facility) opened there was only an average of about 30 WI. prisoners on administrative confinement (as security threats)out of 20/000. Less than a year of SMCI being opened that number increased to over 300, a 1000 % increase. impossible,but true. There were no unprecedented violent incidents in the prison system, so what was the justification? There was and is none. It was simply a part of the prison industry's evolution into a self-serving machine and placing its profit interest over the state's penological interests and prisoner's well-being. A case of "We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us." (Winston Churchill,addressing the House of Commons/ Oct. 28, 1943).

Punishment for crime is supposed to be loss of liberty, not humanity, and not a person's sanity. It is clear that this problem with WI.'s prisons has grown lethal- making it impossible for some prisoners to survive within the system and obviously not capable of surviving outside it.
However. "The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.?" — Dune .

For the proponents of the death penalty the message should be clear: Before worrying about instituting a new death penalty, try fixing the one you already have.
By Wisconsin Prisoner

Brian Locke's story- diagnosis illegally changed

link to Isthmus article online

Supermax: Psychiatrist alleges Dept. of Corrections retaliation
Narinder K. Saini says refusal to change inmate's diagnosis cost him his job
Bill Lueders on Thursday 05/22/2008 ,


A veteran state psychiatrist testified in court last year that he was asked to change the diagnosis of a state prison inmate and fired because he refused.

Narinder K. Saini, a state employee since 1990, dropped this bombshell in a Dodge County courtroom last July at the sentencing hearing of former Lodi resident Brian Locke. He stated that in mid-2004, he was asked by his boss, Dr. Kevin Kallas, to agree that Locke did not have a bipolar disorder, a serious mental illness, "so he could be sent successfully to Boscobel."
At the time, Saini was in his 10th year of employment with the state Department of Corrections, then under a court order not to use the supermaximum security prison at Boscobel for patients with serious mental illness.

"[Kallas] asked me to change the diagnosis because they knew if I will not change the diagnosis, [Locke] cannot go to Supermax," Saini testified. "I refused to do that."

Saini knew Locke from previous contacts and felt he had been correctly diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He said Kallas was "not happy with my clinical diagnosis" and overruled him, sending Locke to Boscobel, but that another doctor who also knew Locke's medical history ordered his return. Shortly thereafter, "I was terminated by the DOC...for mishandling the case, not cooperating with them."

The DOC, Saini added, cut Locke off medications that had proved effective in the past. Why would it do this? he was asked. "Save money," he replied.
Saini said he tried restoring these medications but "was not allowed to."

The DOC wanted to send Locke to Boscobel because he had assaulted a guard, the incident for which he was being sentenced. At the hearing, Saini suggested the assault owed at least in part to Locke being taken off his medication.

Dodge County Judge Andrew Bissonette, in sentencing Locke to an additional five years in prison, noted that he had, prior to this incident, been "complaining to staff that he was being deprived of the meds he needed." The judge called Saini's testimony "kind of damning to the DOC," adding that the agency "has a responsibility to provide care to all of its inmates so we don't have incidents like this where staff are injured."

DOC spokesman John Dipko calls Saini's testimony "inaccurate on nearly every count. The Department of Corrections does not withhold necessary medication from inmates because of cost, and the department does not fabricate documentation to send inmates to [Boscobel]."
Brian Locke, now 50 and incarcerated at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, could be a poster boy for the dangers of using prisons to deal with people with serious mental illness.
His attack on the guard after his medications were yanked was his first felony conviction. His prior convictions were all misdemeanors, although he did draw a multi-year sentence in 2002 on multiple misdemeanor counts.

In a letter to Isthmus, Locke says this incident — an attack on medical personnel transporting him to a hospital — owed to a mix-up involving medications: "I was still responsible for my actions, but not the intent."

Locke later sued his Madison defense attorney, David Stokes, for malpractice; the case was dismissed last fall but is now being appealed. Armed with records he obtained through discovery, Locke has also alleged that Stokes defrauded the State Public Defender's Office through overbilling. He initiated a John Doe proceeding against Stokes in Dane County court.
Sounds nuts, right? But this February, around the time when the Legislature nearly passed a bill to bar inmates from bringing such actions, Dane County Judge Sarah O'Brien found probable cause that Stokes repeatedly submitted "false and fraudulent" records. David Feiss, an assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County, has been named special prosecutor. He says no charges have yet been filed and Stokes is presumed innocent.

In 2000, inmates at the Boscobel prison filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that conditions there constituted cruel and unusual punishment. A settlement agreement reached in 2002 mandated some policy changes and prohibited the DOC from using the prison for mentally ill inmates.
Carlos Pabellon, an attorney with the office of Ed Garvey, which represented the inmates, came to suspect the DOC was "manipulating" diagnoses to sidestep this ban.

"What we discovered," says Pabellon, "is that a number of these inmates had on one day an MH-2 classification" [meaning they could not be sent to Boscobel] and after the next visit an MH-1 classification [meaning they could be and were]." He believes the DOC was under pressure to "fill the empty beds at Boscobel, and, unfortunately, it appeared to us that they were doing it at the expense of the mental health of these inmates."

Federal Judge Barbara Crabb tapped a Medical College psychiatrist to monitor whether seriously mentally ill inmates were going to Boscobel. This appointment ended earlier this month, as did the court order against using Boscobel for seriously mentally ill inmates.
DOC spokesman Dipko says "the screening process" that was developed in response to the lawsuit remains in place. But others say the Locke case underscores that the DOC cannot be trusted.

"They're still putting mentally ill prisoners into [Boscobel]," says Frank Vanden Bosch, an inmate rights activist who lives near the prison. "They're really not concerned with the prisoners. They're concerned about keeping the prison full. It makes a mockery of what the courts have decided."

Dr. Kallas, in a recent interview with Wisconsin Public Radio, admitted he sometimes overrules diagnoses made by colleagues. But he claimed it is on the other end of the spectrum.
"While the psychologist may be technically correct in saying there's not serious mental illness, I err on the side of caution and say, 'Let's not send this person,'" Kallas maintained. "I've just taken a more conservative stance and in many cases have decided that I don't want certain inmates there even though they may technically under the court criteria qualify."

The transcript of the July 2007 hearing was not completed until late October. In January of this year, Locke filed a complaint against Dr. Kallas with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing, arguing that he committed "medical malpractice" and violated Judge Crabb's order. That complaint is pending.

Locke has also asked the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene, saying, "It is time to put the DOC in check and punish them for this behavior." This is also pending.

Dr. Saini himself briefly agitated against his termination. His Madison attorney, Richard Bolton, sent a letter dated Dec. 30, 2004, to Matthew Frank, then DOC secretary. It says Saini worked at the agency for 10 years "without serious criticism of his performance" and occasional commendations, only to be fired in August 2004, shortly after "failing to cooperate" with the DOC's attempt to "manipulate" Locke's diagnosis so he could be sent to Boscobel.

Saini, who is now working at the Mendota Mental Health Institute, declined opportunities to comment. Bolton says the DOC denied there was any connection between Saini's termination and the Locke matter. Saini did not pursue legal action.

Read court transcript and see other posts about Brian

Wisconsin's Myth of Rehabilitation

Wisconsin’s Myth of Rehabilitation
By: Wisconsin Prisoner

In recent years there has been more than ever calls for longer sentences to combat the growing fear and rise of crime or criminal elements within our neighborhoods and communities. Not only has aspiring, but veteran politicians used the tougher sentencing scheme as a platform to ignite their political careers and to perpetuate this fear and outcry from everyday citizens which cut across all ethnic lines, whose lives has been touched directly or indirectly by crime, which has resulted in the overcrowding of jails and orisons all around the state of Wisconsin.

With a significance primarily focused on the predominantly larger Black or Hispanic or minority areas, and while more and more young Black and Brown males are being incarcerated for demonstrating antisocial behaviors such as drug addictions, robberies, homicides, sexual crimes, etc., many of these poor underprivileged and under-represented class of people suffer from some form of mental affliction ranging from severe to mild mental diseases and defects.

It is these outcasted members of society who can't afford to hire competent attorney's for representation to defend them or help them get into drug rehabilitation clinics or mental health institutions to combat the poisonous chemical they have become dependent upon in an attempt to escape the realities of their living condition of impoverished and depressing neighborhoods.

The rich rarely serve time in any prison for any kind of crime, as they can buy their way out with hiring a good high profile attorney and receive real justice. America and Wisconsin has a longstanding history of incarcerating the uneducated, untrained and oftentimes mentally handicapped minority who are ignorant of the laws and intricacies of the criminal justice system, so they are provided quarter defenses' if that, by state paid overworked, burnt out, underpaid State Public Defenders whose main objective is not to fight and mount any kind of real defense but to get the measly few thousand dollars the state is paying him/her and dispose of the case quickly, which oftentimes more than not are settled through plea agreements.

Such a quagmire are realities for minorities who has the unfortunate luck to get caught-up within the American System of Justice. It's also unfortunate that so many has come to believe in the political rhetoric and media propaganda that's locking up citizens and warehousing them in these industrialized institutions now called "Correctional Institutions," rather than what they are ("Prisons") will solve the problem of crime.

This misrepresentation and manipulative power of circumstances as well environment are in my belief the root behind thousands of minorities arrested daily within Wisconsin's ghetto's for serious and petty crimes, in an attempt to feed their addictions from drugs to materialism, placing them in processes of legal and judicial entanglement.

I, like so many Blacks in the ghetto's of America was also duped into criminal activities for whatever reason and has served as a conduit for the accumulation of political power and grandstanding by those politicians and aspiring political figures who complain about repeat criminal offenders (primarily blacks). While these hypocrites secretly make millions from the criminal elements of the streets. What realistic opportunity does an unskilled, undereducated ex-con have for success when you have a governmental body that has passed laws which says companies and corporations doesn't have to hire ex-offenders, Housing and Urban Development can deny you housing, school grants can be denied you simply because you're an felon, and there is no governmental assistance programs to act as a safety net for ex-offenders.

The answer, of course is self-evident— he has no options, he must do more crime in order to survive or revocate himself. Wisconsin like the Country has taken on the title "Correctional Institutions," from the root word [Correct] meaning to remove the errors or fault. This very play of words are design to manipulate and hoodwink the masses of society by the power structure and government into believing prisoners are not just being imprisoned as punishment, but are being rehabilitated.


The reality is that many prisoners rehabilitate themselves and yet, even though many are eligible for parole, in Wisconsin's penal system we remain imprisoned as society is methodically manipulated by politicians and Prison Unions who utilizes pernicious, insidious schemes to exploit and sensationalize with the help of the media those circumstances where an ex-offender gets out and re-offend.

This type of cunning and intellectual racism is superb. America and States like Wisconsin has a proud history of thwarting minority progress; It is not enough that most incarcerated prisoners are disadvantaged, but must be kept in a system of disenfranchisement and slavery for as long as humanly possible.

This is how rural "White America," and its dying farm industry has been revitalized, and how "white," underprivileged Americans become middle or the working class, as Wisconsin's Prison system is predominately 65% or better of Black and or African-American, while 95% of those hired to guard and administrate these places are White.

It doesn't take Einstein to see the system is designed to make profit off black bodies as it has done since America and Western Europe invaded Africa in 1618.

And no accident that the Parole Board and Parole Chairman has been denying eligible prisoners parole, instead opting to give lengthy defferals such as 48 months, 60 months and longer as Parole Board Chairman Alonzo Graham, an ex police approve these questionable and undoubtedly racially motivated deferrals.

No program of rehabilitation and consequent social, economic regeneration can be effectively achieved, unless these depraved and racist tactics to keep incarcerated eligible prisoners incarcerated are addressed by the people of this state and its Governor. This kind of dissipation must be destroyed and removed from the penal system. So long as this practice and program continues to operate as presently allowed, there can be no real chance for regeneration of minorities members back into society as productive citizens. Wisconsin Parole system needs to undergo serious changes in its policies and practices.

In most states the Parole Board consist of two or more members to fairly and accurately reflect a panel that's impartial in body and thought, however, in Wisconsin there's only one person sitting as decision maker, determining whether or not parole should be granted. This policy and practice is merely perfunctory, a sham process whose primary goal is to do nothing, but make society believe its affording prisoners a fair and accurate hearing for chances at parole. Through the genius of trickonolledgy politicians and the Wisconsin's DOC Parole Board has reinstituted a situation that's identical to institutionalized slavery because there are no grassroot support or outcries against the practices being promulgated in Wisconsin.

No public outcry of the rampant inmate abuses and fraudulent misbehavior reports orchestrated and designed to keep prisoners incarcerated as former governor Tommy Thompson advocated, and although other states that employ loss of good time, the prisoner is allowed or afforded the chance to re-earn their loss time through good behavior, not so in Wisconsin penal system. This time is taken and never returned. This is much like the slave who could not effectively stand up and challenge his/her slave master. This was true because the slave had no ally to help alter the balance of power in his /her favor.

Timeline of Solitary Confinement

NPR.org July 2006

Timeline: Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisonsby Laura Sullivan


The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where the first American experiment in solitary confinement took place. Library of Congress

NPR.org July 2006




Pentonville is a prison built in 1842 in North London. Its design was influenced by the "separate system" developed at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Stapleton Collection/CORBIS © 1862





The "Birdman of Alcatraz," Robert Stroud, is one of the prison's most famous D Block residents. Stroud got his nickname from a previous prison stay in Leavenworth, Calif., where he raised canaries. Bettmann/CORBIS





Thirteen years ago, Pelican Bay State Prison was cut out of a dense forest near Crescent City, Calif. The highlight of the Supermax prison was the Security Housing Unit (SHU), where 1,300 of the state's most hardened criminals are kept in near isolation. San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers Association






Guards at the Pelican Bay State Prison SHU put handcuffs on an inmate through a small hole in the door. Adam Tanner/Reuters/Corbis




In 1995, a federal judge rule that conditions at the Pelican Bay facility "may well hover on the edge of what is humanly tolerable." Adam Tanner/Reuters/Corbis

The ADX (administrative maximum) Supermax Prison in Florence, Colo., is a state-of-the-art isolation prison for repeat and high-profile felony offenders. Corbis


NPR.org, July 26, 2006 •

An overview of key moments in the history of solitary confinement.
1829 - The first experiment in solitary confinement in the United States begins at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It is based on a Quaker belief that prisoners isolated in stone cells with only a Bible would use the time to repent, pray and find introspection. But many of the inmates go insane, commit suicide, or are no longer able to function in society, and the practice is slowly abandoned during the following decades.

1890 - In an opinion concerning the effects of solitary confinement on inmates housed in Philadelphia (Re: Medley, 134 U.S. 160), U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Freeman Miller finds, "A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community."

1934 - The federal government opens Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay to house the nation's worst criminals. Most inmates spend many hours outside in the yard and on required work details. But a few dozen are kept in "D Block," the prison’s solitary-confinement hallway. One cell in particular is called "The Hole" -- a room of bare concrete except for a hole in the floor. There is no light, inmates are kept naked, and bread and water is shoved through a small hole in the door. Although most inmates only spend a few days in the hole, some spend years on D Block. Conditions are better than in The Hole -- inmates have clothes and food -- but they are not permitted contact with other inmates and are rarely let out of their cells. The most famous inmate on D Block is Robert Stroud, known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz,” who spends six years there. A 1962 movie about Stroud -- and subsequent media reports on the conditions on D Block -- made solitary confinement a fixture of the American imagination for the first time.

1983 - Two correctional officers at a Marion, Ill., prison are murdered by inmates in two separate incidents on the same day. The warden at the time puts the prison in what he calls "permanent lockdown." It is the first prison in the country to adopt 23-hour-a-day cell isolation and no communal yard time for all inmates. Inmates are no longer allowed to work, attend educational programs, or eat in a cafeteria. Within a few years, several other states also adopt permanent lockdown at existing facilities.

1989 - California builds Pelican Bay, a new prison built solely to house inmates in isolation. By most accounts, it is the first Supermax facility in the country. There is no need to build a yard, cafeteria, classrooms or shops. Inmates spend 22 1/2 hours a day inside an 8-by-10-foot cell. The other 1 1/2 hours are spent alone in a small concrete exercise pen.

1990s - The building boom of Supermax or control-unit prisons begins. Oregon, Mississippi, Indiana, Virginia, Ohio, Wisconsin and a dozen other states all build new, free-standing, isolation units.

1994 - The U.S. Bureau of Prisons builds ADX Florence, the federal government's first and only Supermax facility, in Florence, Colo. It's known popularly as the "Alcatraz of the Rockies." It currently houses 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, Unibomber Ted Kaczynski, former FBI agent and convicted spy Robert Hanssen, Olympic Park and abortion-clinic bomber Eric Rudolph, and many others.

1995 - A federal judge finds conditions at Pelican Bay in California "may well hover on the edge of what is humanly tolerable" (Madrid v. Gomez). But he rules that there is no constitutional basis for the courts to shut down the unit or to alter it substantially. He says the court must defer to the states about how best to incarcerate offenders.

1999 - A report by the Department of Justice finds that more than 30 states are operating a Supermax-type facility with 23-hours-a-day lockdown and long-term isolation. The study finds that some states put 0.5 percent of their total inmates in this kind of facility, while other states lock up more than 20 percent of their inmates this way.

2005 - Daniel P. Mears, an associate professor at Florida State University, conducts a nationwide study and finds there are now 40 states operating Supermax or control-unit prisons, which collectively hold more than 25,000 U.S. prisoners.

Making It on the outside after decades of Isolation

All Things Considered, July 28, 2006 •
Daud Tulam likes to sit on the porch of his mother's house in Salem, N.J., and watch traffic whiz by.
"I spent most of the whole summer out here, daytime and night," he says. "After being confined for that long period of time, you really do have an appreciation for the outside."
That "long period" was the past 25 years, which Tulam spent inside the New Jersey State Prison. For most of that time, Tulam was held in isolation. He spent 23 hours a day alone in a cell no bigger than a bathroom and one hour in a concrete exercise yard.
Tulam is one of more than 25,000 inmates who serve their sentences this way in the United States. It's not what these prisoners did on the outside that sends them to isolation: It's how they behave on the inside. And once in isolation, there is often no way out.

Two Decades in Solitude
In Tulam's case, he was sent to prison for trying to rob a gun store. He was sent to isolation after prison officials say they caught him planning to assault officers. He stayed in isolation for 18 years.
New Jersey prison officials say he never participated in any programs that could have gotten him out. Tulam says he tried to participate, but they never let him out, so he gave up.
Now, on the outside, Tulam has trouble making small talk. Even after all those years alone, when faced with people looking for a conversation, Tulam doesn't engage.
Tulam is taking a class on welding at a local community college. During one recent session, he hid in the back of the classroom.
When the teacher comes over to check his work, Tulam only looks at the floor. At one point, the instructor asks Tulam if he understands a welding technique. Tulam does not look up -- or answer. Eventually, the instructor gives up and moves on.
'I Lost My Social Skills'
In many ways, Tulam's days are still filled with this kind of silence. But there is one place where Tulam suddenly has a lot to say: behind the wheel of his car, when his eyes -- and yours -- are on the road.
"I'm certain that I lost my social skills to a certain extent," Tulam says as he drives through the rundown streets of Salem. "Not that I'm unable to socialize. Just that trivial conversation for conversation's sake, I don't have no tolerance for."
Tulam's 6-foot-frame seems too big for the 15-year-old Taurus he's driving. He's wearing what he wears everyday: old jeans and a sweatshirt. He passes boarded-up buildings and liquor stores. Much has changed about this town, but he says even more has changed about him.
Tulam's luckier that most ex-convicts. He has a family, a place to stay and even some occasional construction work. But he finds much about society difficult. He doesn't like grocery stores, busy sidewalks or going to the movies. And he doesn't like parties.
That came as a shock to his family. Tulam's mother, Charlotte Fletcher, says Tulam used to love to socialize.
"He always had a few friends. But as far as I was concerned, it wasn't the right kind," Fletcher says.
Early on, she says, it was hard to keep her son away from kids who wanted to party.
"He was a young kid when he first got in trouble -- last year of high school," Fletcher says. "He was around with these guys. They been doing a lot of drinking and other things, so I guess he did some wild things."
Looking for 'Some Kind of Relief'
On the day Tulam was released from prison, his family threw him a party in the backyard. He spent the whole time sitting alone in a folding chair in the corner, while his nieces and nephews played. That's the other thing Tulam doesn't like anymore.
"You know, in prison there are no children," Tulam says. "The trivial kind of things kids do, the nonsensical things kids do, you don't have a tolerance for that. I'm still trying to really adapt."
Tulam says he struggled to make the days he spent in solitary pass. He began dividing his time into little increments: Make the bed. Write a letter. Do push ups.
"Even if I would have to go to sleep early, just to look for the next day to bring some kind of relief," Tulam says.
He still does that now. He schedules his day into activities: Take a shower. Eat breakfast. Sit outside. Go for a drive.
"I never use alarm clocks," Tulam says. "I've done it for so long, it's almost like second nature."
'You Become Your Best Company'New Jersey has one of the least restrictive isolation units in the country. Prisoners in solitary are allowed visits with relatives, though Tulam's family could rarely afford the trip. They are also allowed televisions. Tulam says he kept his TV set on every day, morning until night, for 18 years.
"Up until that time, I never owned a TV, never had much interest in TV," he says. "But when I got into solitary, it was so quiet in there, I genuinely had to get me a TV, just to hear some noise."
Now he can't stand television. But he doesn't want to hang out with people, either. He doesn't talk much with his family. He hasn't joined any groups. He doesn't talk about having any friends.
"Having been in isolation, with hardly anybody to talk to, anyway, you just acquire a knack of just being able to -- like with me, you become your best company," Tulam says.
The Odds Against Making ItThere are few statistics about how inmates who spend time in isolation adjust on the outside. Only two studies have been conducted; one looked at former inmates in Washington state, the other at those in Texas. The results weren't good.
In both studies, the rate of recidivism for inmates released from isolation was higher than for those released from the general prison population. And in Washington, researchers found these ex-inmates were more likely to commit violent crimes than their general population counterparts.
In that sense, Tulam is doing better than expected. Having a place to live and a mother to make him food has made a big difference. But at 51 years old, he's spent almost half his life in prison, most of it alone.
"I do have some regrets," he says, pausing for a moment before getting out of the car. "But ask me if I would ever want anybody else's life? Nah. I'm comfortable with the life that I've been given. You know, like saying that I'm a realist. I genuinely believe that every individual struggles in this life, anyway."
So after 18 years of isolation, Daud Tulam's greatest struggle may be finding a way not to live an isolated life.

Working the Isolation Unit: A Prison Officer's Tale

NPR.org
July 28 2006

For 25 years, Sgt. Gary Harkins was a correctional officer at the Oregon State Penitentiary. He retired in February. For part of that time, Harkins worked in the prison's isolation unit.
"It's only when you leave it that you really truly understand how much stress you were under," he says of his time in the solitary ward.

Isolation in Oregon and most other states in the country means 23 hours a day locked in a cell the size of a bathroom. One hour alone in a small exercise yard. No contact with anyone. No television. No windows.

These conditions can be difficult for inmates who spend years -- and in some cases, decades -- in them. But, as Harkins found, they are also difficult on the officers.
"I kept thinking about it. I couldn't get away from the job," he says. "I'd be dreaming about what happened the day before at night. Or I'd be sitting at home, watching [a TV] show, and something would trigger something that happened at work. You know, the times when people would act out. So you would relive some sort of cell extraction or some sort of altercation -- you would relive it."

Dark Days
While working in the giant, windowless, gray prison building, Harkins says months went by where he'd never see the sun: "You're down there for 12 hours a day. You walk in at six in the morning just as the sun is coming up. In the wintertime, you're going in when it's dark and coming out when it's dark. Sometimes, you can never see the sun."

Every day, the routine was the same. Deliver food on plastic trays. Take inmates to the shower. Walk the tiers for hours, in front of hundreds of inmates who are often angry, frustrated and abusive.

"When people are driving on you, telling you you're bad, you suck -- all day, eight hours a day -- you gotta have 16 hours a day where you get all the positive."
But, he says, a lot of officers he knows don't have that.

"Some of them go to the bar. Some of them go home and kick the cat," he says. "I mean, various people would have different ways of trying to get rid of the tension. And some people didn't do a very good job at doing that."

In general population, Harkins says, he could spent half his day talking with inmates about sports or the news. But in isolation, the inmates don't talk to the officers, and the officers don't talk to the inmates: "An us-versus-them attitude quickly takes over."

Cold Interactions

Harkins says there were inmates in the general population with whom he was on great terms. But when they got sent to segregation, they would no longer even look at him.
"When he gets down to segregation, to IMU, to Intensive Management, something changes," he says. "They become hostile. They become withdrawn a bit. They won't talk to you."

Any interaction is short and businesslike: "Instead of saying, 'Please pick the papers up off the floor,' you walk in and say, 'Pick the papers up.'"
And he says the relationship would get even more tense, because in isolation, the inmates can't do or get anything for themselves.

"It's kind of a weird situation in that you're their servant," Harkin says. "Whatever need they want, you're supposed to take care of their needs."
'We're Not Doing Society Any Good'

As each day passed on the dim and noisy tiers, Harkins says he began to feel trapped like his prisoners; he asked for a transfer back to general population, where he worked until he retired. That wasn't uncommon. Even now, Oregon, like most states, is having a hard time getting officers to work in segregation units.

Harkins doesn't have any sympathy for the inmates there -- especially those who aren't trying to work their way out. But when he thinks about solitary now, from outside the prison's walls, he says he finds himself worried as much about the unit's effect on prisoners as he is about its effect on officers.

"Those people are going to be your neighbors some day," Harkins says. "And if our system is maintaining people in a negative, antisocial way, we're not doing ourselves any good. We're not doing society any good."

Many officials in Oregon seem to agree. The state has put a number of changes in place in recent years. Prison officials have limited the amount of time inmates can stay in isolation, and they've also started providing therapy. The results so far have been good. Prison officials say they've seen the violence rates in their isolation unit, and in the overall prison population, decrease.

Wisconsin Prisoner tells of his experience in segregation

I am writing in support of those who are seeking positive change in Wisconsin prisons; specifically, those who seek change in the segregation/isolation buildings within the prison system. I have personally been in some of the seg. buildings as punishment during the years of my incarceration so that I am aware of much of the waste and unnecessary suffering that takes place inside them.

It is a sad fact-among many concerning corrections issues- that segregation units are a necessary "prison within a prison" which are needed to deter rule violations and keep the relative peace. Though many inmates are too "macho" to admit it, the great majority of us wont a peaceful environment in which to work, study and live so that I believe many staff as well as inmates would be in agreement that order does need to be maintained within the prison system.

However, one of the questions concerning this issue of segregation is, to what degree is it necessary to punish prisoners in order to achieve the sought after objective of changing inmate unacceptable behavior? And at what point does punishment without incentive toward good behavior become only an additional contributor to problem behavior?

My introduction-to the neo-seg units--a new building constructed to hold more inmates than the old a seg unit, began in August of 2000 at Fox lake Correctional Institution(FLCl). Approximately four months later I was transferred to the Wisconsin Secure Prison Facility-then known as the "Supermax" prison-in Boscobel Wisconsin.

In both facilities I experienced sweltering heat during summer months as one of the problems is that there are no windows which can be opened because of the physical construction of the buildings. Winter months were equally physically taxing as the cells became very cold, even though I was fully dressed and covered with blankets.

At FLCI I was permitted personal books as was the case at Supermax. My personal collection in seg. Consisted of English Grammar/ Spanish text books and math books. Supermax also had a library containing educational material. The point is-and not enough emphasis can be added here-is that educational material is a positive which I used to offset or negate the almost entirely negative conditions in which I found myself.

In the WCI seg building no such opportunity for educational material exists. Men there are permitted two (2) paper-back books (mostly western's and novels) per week from the so-called segregation prison library. Many of them are missing pages and lack any educational value outside of the practice gained form reading a written language. I am told that the GBCI is more restrictive and that neither seg facility permits personal books.

I believe that the jury has long-since been in on the question of education pertaining to prisoners i.e. more education equals less recidivism. I entered prison functionally illiterate. Education is a never-ending process and I have a long way to go, but I am pleased to say that I have earned my HSED certificates in vocational education and others along the way, and I am currently seeking higher educational opportunities.

So my question and statement is this: Who does it serve when educational material is denied to prisoners? Believe me, I still wanted to get out of segregation even though I was permitted my books and access to a reasonably good library while in Supermax. Segregation really is psychologically and physically brutal with or without educational material. Denying educational material does not help to bring the initiate in line with institution rules. If all an inmate has to do while in seg. is holler-out it certainly does not serve the inmate hollering or other inmates and staff who are subjected to it.

The denial of educational material to inmates anywhere, for any reason except in the most necessary circumstances, for example, if an inmate began destroying material, does not serve anyone, including the public whose taxes are wasted by such segregation rules which deny access to materials to seg. inmates, thereby contributing to their ignorance, contrary to education and rehabilitation.

I am aware that-statistically-less than one percent of all funding for state and federal prisons in the united states goes towards education, including segregation and general prison populations, and many people are convinced that a better job can be done educationally in these places than is currently being done. Inmates in segregation should at least be permitted to have materials that they or their family purchase for them since, ultimately, everyone benefits.

Also noteworthy is that many inmates are being held In segregation in administrative confinement. As to how long they should be held in seg.in this status, is another issue, but while they are in this status there are rules within the Wisconsin State Administrative Code which provide that administrative confinement is not a punitive status and that personal property which an inmate may possess in general population status which cannot be considered harmful to staff or inmates in seg. should be provided to the innate there. This is not being done.

One final issue that I would like to bring up here is the matter of the cost of postage for those in seg. who are in debt to the state for legal loans and other fees for which the state takes 100% of funds received by the inmate from whatever source until the debt(s) are paid in full.

Outside of the legal loan-money which can only be used by the inmate for legal matters-inmates in debt are permitted one 42 cent embossed envelope per week to use to write to family, loved-ones and friends.

During the 2006 gubernatorial debates Governor Doyle stated that Wisconsin inmates were brought back from out-of -state prisons so they could be closer to family-strengthening fatally ties, so that allowing prisoners to correspond with family more regularly (allowing family to send money into prison for postage-payment for prisoners) can only further this goal and does not seem like an unreasonable request.

I believe that the best way to find out if the soup is fit to eat is to try some yourself. That is, when deciding what is just for others, the decision-maker(s) should at least try to imagine themselves in these places and circumstances under the rules as they are being implemented.

It is clear that, when asked for an opinion, many members of society want their pound of flesh as payment for crimes. The question is, what is reasonable. And how high is the cost to society when the result is counter productive.