Tag: solitary confinement

Oracle, Optimist, Ostrich, or Obfuscator? Part 3.

Posted on by kathiemm
Dragging Guantanamo captive. Image by Shane T. McCoy and is in the public domain.
Dragging Guantanamo captive.
Image by Shane T. McCoy and is in the public domain.

Among the types of violence that Steven Pinker designates as “rare to non-existent in the west” is that chilling form  of inhumanity, torture. Yet the  western nation in which he lives and writes, the United States, seems up to its eyeballs in the perpetration of the dirty deeds.

Anyone remember what members of the U.S. military did in Abu Ghraib?

And how about Guantanamo Bay? Have you seen the Senate Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program that chillingly confirmed horrendous acts of torture at Guantanamo and various “black sites”?

Torture, including prolonged solitary confinement, is also flourishing in  penal institutions across the fifty states.

Immigrant children are physically and sexually abused while being held in detention until their fates can be resolved.

Both men’s and women’s prisons are hotbeds for rape and other forms of torture.

Sexual abuse is on the rise in juvenile correctional facilities;  according to one report, the majority of the abusers are women.

And who will deny that police torture people in the streets, in paddy wagons, and in their stations?

According to Pinker,  “The 18th century saw the widespread abolition of judicial torture, including the famous prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment” in the eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution (emphasis added).” He praises our enlightened society for recognizing that torture is wrong. But really, should we smugly pat ourselves on our backs if today’s judicial system no longer makes explicit recommendations of torture as a punishment for people they decide are guilty of something (e.g., being the “wrong” color), when its decisions often spawn it?

Pinker’s reassurances do not leave me hopeful for the imminent demise of torture in our institutions.  The genuine optimists,  like Nancy Arvold, Maria Rotella, Stephen Soldz, Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility, work tirelessly to end torture, but resistance to reforms persist.  

Underplaying the problem as Pinker does seems itself to be cruel but not unusual, although we should celebrate the genuine good news when it comes.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

 

Today’s Assignment: Human Rights 365

Posted on by kathiemm

 

Wednesday December 10 is Human Rights Day, a commemoration day for the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The theme this year is Human Rights 365—that is, a reminder that every day should be a human rights day.

Brothers and sisters, we have a long way to go.

 

 

  •  Racism violates human rights.
  • Slavery violates human rights.
  • Torture violates human rights.
  • Murder violates human rights.
  • Prolonged solitary confinement violates human rights.
  • Even severe poverty is a human rights violation.

Racism, slavery, torture, murder, prolonged solitary confinement, and severe poverty are not things people choose or desire. Nor, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, do people deserve such abominations, even if those people are different, annoying, foreign, other, scary.

The US government is fond of pointing the finger at human rights violations in selected other nations (not, generally, their allies), but such finger pointing is just another example of “Do as I say, not as I do.” All those human rights violations take place in the US today, every day, and all too many people are quick to find “justifications” concerning why racism , slavery, torture , murder, etc., are not human rights violations if done in or by the United States.

On Human Rights Day, 365 days a year, try to listen to a different drummer.  Fight racism, fight slavery, fight torture. Raise your voice against murder, solitary confinement, poverty, forced feeding, unequal opportunity, and all the social injustices that infect our society and damage us all. Make the world a better place. Right here at home. Do what you can.  365.

California’s unprecedented prisoner hunger strike

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Dr. Nancy Arvold

Thirty thousand prisoners across California began a hunger strike on July 8, 2013. This desperate, life-threatening measure was led by a multiracial coalition of prisoners in solitary confinement who have been fighting for prison reform for decades. (Organizations such as Amnesty International, the United Nations, and Center for Constitutional Rights have declared that solitary confinement is torture.)

The California Department of Corrections (CDC) had failed to respond in good faith after two hunger strikes in 2011. In fact, the “pilot program” they proposed would have resulted in more men receiving indefinite sentences in SHU (Secure Housing Units).

The prisoners called on lawyers and activists to support their demands. The Prisoner Hunger Strike Support Coalition was formed and currently focuses on media support and coverage, regular protests and rallies, pressuring the CDC and Governor Jerry Brown, and providing public education.

The unquestionably reasonable demands are paraphrased below:

  • End group punishment and administrative abuse (used as an alternative to punishing individuals for violence and other crimes).
  • Provide adequate and nutritious food (reports of meals are disgusting).
  • Expand and provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU-status inmates (Currently prisoners are not allowed, e.g., to take college courses, get phone calls or have face-to-face visits).
  • Abolish/modify the criteria for gang membership for indefinite sentences to the SHU (decades in many cases). “Gang membership” is often determined by unverified reports from confidential “informants” and ethnic art seen as “gang insignia.”
  • Have CA prisons comply with 2006 recommendations by the U.S. Commission on Safety and Abuse to end long-term solitary confinement (beyond 15 days).

The strike has stopped and the prisoners’ grievances are being considered, as shown in the video at the beginning of this post. Read more about the strike and California prison reform, and consider what you can do to help this country move away from its violation of international antitorture laws and the use of our prisons as torture chambers.

Nancy Arvold, Ph.D., MFT, is a marriage and family counselor who is concerned with issues of social justice, including prison justice, the “occupy” movement, immigration, and detainees.

Hell holes in the U.S.

Posted on by kathiemm

Guantanamo may be the most well-known symbol of government-sponsored torture of prisoners, but the horrors of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib take place right in your back yard—conveniently hidden in high-walled prisons.

Prison
Image in public domain.

In today’s post we provide some of the facts about torture in the U.S. prison system, along with links to articles and videos that document the torture and its horrendous effects.

 Facts

  • “The US incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, sometimes imposing very long sentences marred by racial disparities.” Human Rights Watch
  • Thousands of American prisoners are kept in solitary confinement, a state of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation, which is itself an extremely destructive form of torture.
  • Like the prisoners in Guantanamo, some prisoners are driven by desperation to stage hunger strikes to try to bring attention to their inhumane treatment.
  • A substantial number of the tortured prisoners, including the ones in solitary confinement, are youth under the age of 18.
  • Some of these children are girls
  • Their stories are heartbreaking—from child abuse by their families to child abuse in detention facilities.
  • Many of the prisoners are mentally ill. Instead of getting treatment, they get tortured. N.B. This video is very graphic and disturbing

Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and Amnesty International work tirelessly to end torture, including in U.S. prisons. They deserve our thanks and support.

To learn more about torture in U.S. prisons, see Torture in Your Backyard, a powerful video from the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

And read this report (opens in pdf) from the American Friends Service Committee.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology