SILENT INJUSTICE: SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN VIRGINIA Acknowledgement The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia is a private, non-profit organization that promotes civil liberties and civil rights for everyone in the Commonwealth through public education, litigation and advocacy with the goal of securing freedom and equality for all. In addition to the litigation for which the ACLU has been known, we also educate the public, inform the media, lobby legislators, organize grassroots activists, and disseminate information about our constitutional freedoms through our membership and volunteer chapters. This report was researched and written by Hope Amezquita, staff attorney at the ACLU of Virginia. Mateo Gasparotto, investigator for the ACLU of Virginia; Leslie Mehta, former legal director for the ACLU of Virginia, Madeline Allen and Christina Brow, legal interns, and Amanda Hales, public policy intern, provided invaluable assistance. The report was reviewed and edited by the ACLU’s National Prison Project Deputy Director Amy Fettig and National Campaign Strategist Jessica Sandoval; as well as the ACLU of Virginia Development Associate Erin Kreischer, Director of Strategic Communications Bill Farrar, and Executive Director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga. It was designed by ACLU of Virginia Communications Associate Phuong Tran. The ACLU of Virginia would like to recognize and thank members of the Virginia Coalition on Solitary Confinement for their on- going support and advocacy. These include: Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR) Virginia, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Virginia, Social Action Linking Together (SALT), Virginia Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE), and the Virginia Council of Churches. 2 ACLU of Virginia: Solitary Report SILENT INJUSTICE: SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN VIRGINIA PHOTO : RED ONOIN STATE PRISON, COURTESY OF SOLITARY WATCH SOLITARY OF COURTESY PRISON, STATE ONOIN RED : PHOTO Copyright© 2018 by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Virginia Inc. All rights reserved. Information from this publication may be used freely so long as proper attribution is made. ACLU of Virginia 701 E. Franklin Street Suite 1412 Richmond, VA 23219 (804) 644-8022 [email protected] www.acluva.org Acknowledgement 3 Executive Summary This report describes observed and reported conditions in the This report Virginia prison system. The intention of this report is to highlight discusses the and clarify issues to be considered by state legislators and policy makers, the Vera Institute of Justice and others reviewing the negative impacts Virginia prison system. This report discusses the negative impacts of solitary of solitary confinement as practiced in Virginia, the systemic confinement difficulties prisoners have in escaping it and returning to the in Virginia, general population, and the State’s failure to exclude individuals with serious mental health problems from solitary confinement the systemic despite the existing law and science establishing the especially difficulties damaging impacts of isolation on this vulnerable group of people. prisoners face escaping it, Moreover, this report explains that there may be solitary conditions of which we are simply unaware. There are no laws governing the and the State’s way solitary confinement is used in the Virginia prison system, failure to exclude nor any laws that require correctional officials to collect and people with report data on how it is used. Without such requirements, it is serious mental difficult to gather information and accurately assess the status of solitary confinement in the state. We hope that this report sheds health problems light on this broken system, and that it will motivate the Virginia from solitary Department of Corrections (VDOC), political leaders and the confinement. public to demand and provide better conditions for incarcerated people currently serving time in solitary. Solitary confinement1 is the isolation of a person in a cell for approximately 22 to 24 hours a day with little human contact 1 The Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) does not use the term solitary confinement, pre- ferring terms like disciplinary segregation, administrative segregation, special housing, and disciplinary housing. Regardless of the terms used by prison officials, however, this report uses solitary confinement to refer to the practice of isolating a prisoner from the general population with limited or no human interaction. 4 ACLU of Virginia: Solitary Report or interaction; reduced or no natural light; restriction or denial Solitary Confinement of reading material, television, radios or other property; severe Solitary confinement is the constraints on visitation; and the inability to participate in group isolation of a person in a cell activities, including eating with others. Despite the vast growing for approximately 22 to 24 body of medical, social, legal, and scientific research showing the hours a day with little human contact or interaction; reduced immense damage that solitary confinement inflicts on humans, or no natural light; restriction this practice is routinely used by federal and state prison systems, or denial of reading material, television, radios or other including the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC). property; severe constraints on visitation; and the inability to participate in group activities, Prisoners are often unnecessarily and falsely determined to be including eating with others. at-risk or a danger. But, solitary confinement permits prison officials to isolate these individuals. Prisoners may be placed in disciplinary or punitive solitary confinement as punishment for violating minor rules, filing grievances or lawsuits, or annoying correctional officers. In most of these instances, prisoners in disciplinary segregation do not pose such an extreme management challenge to warrant solitary confinement. In other instances, prisoners may be placed in solitary confinement for their “protection” indefinitely by default if the prisoner is perceived as vulnerable. Placing individuals perceived as vulnerable in solitary confinement only further stigmatizes them and decreases the chances that adequate services, treatment, and programming will be provided. Regardless of the label used by prison officials, the conditions and harms of solitary confinement Photo: A still of Red Onion State Prison from the documentary “Solitary” (HBO) Executive Summary 5 generally remain the same. Moreover, people in solitary confinement are more likely to be subjected to excessive force and abuses of power. 2 The fact that solitary confinement prisons and cells are isolated from the general population prisoners makes it more difficult to detect abuse.3 Additionally, because prison administrators often believe that only “the worst of the worst” are placed in solitary confinement, they are more likely to turn a blind eye to abuses.4 In 2011, the Washington Post reported that 1 in 20 prisoners in Virginia were being held in solitary confinement.5 The alarming statistic included 500 out of 750 prisoners at Supermax Red Onion State Prison. Individual cases ranged from two weeks to almost seven years of solitary confinement, with an average length of isolation of 2.7 years.6 In the same year, the Virginia Department of Corrections implemented reform efforts aimed at reducing the number of prisoners held in “administrative segregation” at Red Onion State Prison (ROSP) and Wallens Ridge State Prison (WRSP).7 The VDOC developed and implemented an incentive-based step down program that provides prisoners with opportunities to essentially behave their way out of solitary confinement. As of July 2016, 242 prisoners were still held in solitary confinement at ROSP and WRSP.8 Though any reform efforts are commendable, questions remain about the effectiveness of the step down program, inadequate treatment for prisoners suffering from mental illness in solitary confinement, and the 2 Leena Kurki & Norval Morris, The Purposes, Practices, and Problems of Supermax Prisons, 28 CRIME AND JUST. 385, 409 (2001). 3 See, e.g., Thomas v. Bryant, 614 F.3d 1288 (11th Cir. 2010) (affirming a judgment for plaintiffs in an action alleging, among other violations, that the overuse of chemical agents on prisoners with mental illness constituted a violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution); Coleman v. Brown, No. 2:90-cv-00520-LKK-DAD, Doc. 5131 (E.D. Cal. 2014) (in a case involving extensive video evidence of corrections officers using pepper spray on prisoners with mental illness who had com- mitted minor rule violations such as refusing to come to their cell doors, ordering state officials to continue reforming the ways force is used on California prisoners); see also CAROLINE ISAACS & MATTHEW LOWEN, BURIED ALIVE: SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN ARIZONA’S PRISONS AND JAILS 14 (Am. Friends Serv. Comm. 2007). 4 Isaacs & Lowen, supra note 3 at 16; see also Maureen L. O’Keefe, Administrative Segregation From Within: A Corrections Perspective, 88 THE PRISON J. 123, 126 (2008). 5 Anita Kumar, Virginia Prisons’ Use of Solitary Confinement is Scrutinized, WASH. POST, Jan. 7, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/va-prisons-use-of-solitary-confinement-is-scruti- nized/2011/11/28/gIQAkKHuhP_story.html?utm_term=.27aec938857b 6 Anita Kumar, Washington Post, Virginia Prisons’ Use of Solitary Confinement is Scrutinized, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/va-prisons-use-of-solitary-confine- ment-is-scrutinized/2011/11/28/gIQAkKHuhP_story.html?utm_term=.27aec938857b