Does Oregon Torture?
Jeff Alworth
In last week's issue of the New Yorker, Atul Gawande tells a disturbing story about the effect of solitary confinement on the human mind.
EEG studies going back to the nineteen-sixties have shown diffuse slowing of brain waves in prisoners after a week or more of solitary confinement. In 1992, fifty-seven prisoners of war, released after an average of six months in detention camps in the former Yugoslavia, were examined using EEG-like tests. The recordings revealed brain abnormalities months afterward; the most severe were found in prisoners who had endured either head trauma sufficient to render them unconscious or, yes, solitary confinement. Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic injury.
He details the effect in both broader, scientific terms (a study on "supermax" prisons from 2003), as well as through the personal experiences of those who have experienced it. The latter are the most unsettling. Here's the effect on Bobby Dellelo, a prisoner from Massachusetts:
After a few months without regular social contact, however, his experience proved no different from that of the P.O.W.s or hostages, or the majority of isolated prisoners whom researchers have studied: he started to lose his mind. He talked to himself. He paced back and forth compulsively, shuffling along the same six-foot path for hours on end. Soon, he was having panic attacks, screaming for help. He hallucinated that the colors on the walls were changing. He became enraged by routine noises—the sound of doors opening as the guards made their hourly checks, the sounds of inmates in nearby cells. After a year or so, he was hearing voices on the television talking directly to him. He put the television under his bed, and rarely took it out again.
The use of solitary confinement, surprisingly, is a relatively recent development in prisons--dating back just 25 years, according to Gawande. In fact, when the Supreme Court considered isolation more than a hundred years ago, in 1890, they found it repugnant, nearly declaring it unconstitutional: 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 suffcient mental activity to be of any
subsequent service to the community.
Of course, you know where I'm headed with this. In our recent bizarre mania to exact vengeance on prisoners, we've adopted habits that seem inconsistent with a free society. As I was reading the story, my mind kept turning to Oregon. Surely this is a practice confined to Texas and Florida, right? The answer, apparently, is no. We are a proud member of the solitary club.
Here's a story on states' use of solitary confinement from almost three years ago, on NPR:
Cabana is not the only one with second thoughts. Brian Belleque, the warden of the Oregon State Pennitentiary in Salem, has them, too.
"We realize that 95 to 98 percent of these inmates here are going to be your neighbor in the community," Belleque says. "They are going to get out."
In 1991, Oregon built something it calls the Intensive Management Unit, or the IMU. Inmates are locked in their cells all day long, for years. It's dark. There are no windows inside.
On a recent visit, many inmates were pacing back and forth in their cells, talking to themselves or hollering at inmates down the hall.
On the Oregon State Penitentiary home page, it describes the use of "disciplinary segregation" this way: "the 196-bed, self-contained Intensive Management Unit provides housing
and control for those death row and male inmates who disrupt or pose a
substantial threat to the general population in all department
facilities." I'm just a blogger, but it looks to me like we still use the practice.
Gawande concludes his article by identifying the use of isolation as torture, a practice that "horrified our highest court a century ago." He details the ways in which European countries handle their worst offenders--most of whom, like ours, are returned to our streets--successfully, without the use of solitary confinement. American prison officials understand that it's not effective, and many acknowledge its barbarism. Yet it persists because citizens want it. A prison official told him that "it is pointless for commissioners to act unilaterally ... without a change in public opinion."
The way to end this practice is for citizens to demand it. Our taxes pay for it, and we are morally culpable for it. Oregonians are better than this--we need to pressure our legislators to end this practice. Join me in calling for an end to the use of solitary confinement.
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Apr 7, '09
Jeff, what exactly is your alternative to solitary confinement? You have to do something with the prisoners who either break the rules or a threat to their fellow inmates. What exactly do you do with prisoners who are so dangerous to their fellow inmates and the prison staff? At the least they need to be segregated from the general population.
5:41 p.m.
Apr 7, '09
I read the New Yorker article, so let me join you. Let us end the use of solitary confinement in Oregon!
Apr 7, '09
I think it was established during the death penalty discussion, that vengeance, and hence torture, are a significant component of society's motivation. That's what I would like to see different, if people accepted Ghandi's adage that "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind".
Anyway, it's an answer to why we do it.
7:20 p.m.
Apr 7, '09
That's what I would like to see different, if people accepted Ghandi's adage that "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind".
Hmmm... I don't believe that pacifism is appropriate in this context. It seems to me that it's less a question of punish/don't punish than it is what the point of the larger (inprisonment) exercise is.
I was struck by the last line in the 1890 SCOTUS quote Jeff used:
Subsequent service to the community. These were pragmatists. Where we as a society have gone horribly off the rails in discarding rehabilitation and the resulting subsequent service to the community in favor of "lock 'em up and throw away the key" vengence. And this despite the utter lack of evidence that vengence actually serves society rather than contributes to it's degradation.
It's not a question of weak-kneed passivity, as conservatives would have us believe. It's a question of effectiveness.
Apr 7, '09
In Tibetan Buddhism advanced practitioners undergo a three year, three month, three day solitary meditation retreat. During that time all social contact is removed. The purpose of the retreat is to deepen meditation towards the attainment of enlightenment. My conjecture is that the solitude is not at all intrinsically damaging. It is deliberately sought out by monks and hermits, and spiritual seekers of all types throughout the world. What can be psychologically damaging is the reaction of the individual to solitude. Calling solitude torture is an abuse of language.
Apr 7, '09
Here are a few other things that can be torture - 1. Standing 2. Sitting 3. Eating 4. Drinking 5. Heat 6. Cold 7. Noise 8. Lack of sound 9. Light 10. Darkness etc, etc, etc. The point is that almost anything can be torture if misused. Mr. Alworth is certainly entitled to question whether or not solitary confinement, but perhaps he should have, oh, I don't know, talked to some people at DOC to see what kind of guidelines they have about solitary?
Apr 7, '09
Sorry, should have been ...solitary confinement is used effectively and humanely...
Apr 7, '09
Jeff, what exactly is your alternative to solitary confinement? You have to do something with the prisoners who either break the rules or a threat to their fellow inmates. What exactly do you do with prisoners who are so dangerous to their fellow inmates and the prison staff?
I get the understanding that one purpose of Jeff's commendable piece is to initiate a dialog to find an alternative. If we look back on the history of crime and punishment we will find people justifying barbaric practices and disproportionate punishment because they lacked the intelligence and humanity to find an alternative. If the planet doesn't come to an end first, I suspect a generation or two from now people will look back on this present American society and conclude it was almost as monstrous as the time of the Salem witch trials. Maybe more so.
Many of the convicts transported to Australia from England were there because they stole food, and the reason they stole food was they were hungry. There was no lack of commentators then justifying this inhumane practice.
To solitary confinement as torture we might appropriately add supermax prisons.
Apr 7, '09
Hand cuffs are certainly torture. As is jail and prison.
This all just demonstrates that there are no constraints to where the left will try and take us.
Apr 7, '09
Richard, I am so glad you are here to keep us in line. And if you promise not to spill our deep, dark secrets to Glenn Beck, I will never, ever complain again about all the links you provide to Free Republic. never.
Apr 7, '09
Isn't there some way we can blame Republicans for this?
9:32 p.m.
Apr 7, '09
On alternatives to solitary. If you follow the link to the article, you'll find a discussion of how Britain and other European countries handle problem inmates. It's persuasive. Moreover, there is a growing consensus among prison administrators that solitary is ineffective and grossly expensive. They agree that it damages those prisoners who return to the general population--making them a greater threat. Studies support this. I would turn the question around: supporters, defend the need to do this on pragmatic and moral grounds.
Bill, that's a practice of the Kagyu lineage. For the past four years, I was the president of Kagyu Changchub Chuling, a Kagyu center in town. We are currently trying to build facilities near Goldendale, WA where those retreats would happen. I think you're wrong on two counts, but maybe onto something, too.
Those retreats are not solitary--they're done in groups of up to 20 (generally) monastic practioners. Furthermore, they are, as you note, advanced meditators, unlike the men who end up in prison. I believe these Buddhists, because of their experience examining the contents of mind, might see this as torture. (I don't speak from experience.)
But Tibet does have a long history of solitary meditators like the famous saint Milarepa. These people have spent years alone. My wife and I speculated that, in addition to their advanced training, perhaps the freedom the had to leave at any time made the difference.
Apr 7, '09
Calling solitude torture is an abuse of language.
He didn't. He called solitary confinement torture. Solitude is voluntary. You may end it if you wish.
Being locked in a tiny room with no human contact for weeks or months at a stretch is a good way to drive someone insane.
Do you genuinely NOT understand the difference between voluntary solitude and enforced confinement?
But if you think it isn't torture, let's give it a try. Have someone nail your bathroom door shut with you inside. They'll also need to board over the window to keep you from leaving that way. They can slide some energy bars and lunch meat and maybe some sliced vegetables under the door a couple of times a day. And nobody will talk to you or respond to you, and they won't let you out even if you beg them to, for a hundred and eighty days.
Sound like fun?
Apr 7, '09
I'm familiar with the Goldendale facility.(The fundraiser for it is a personal friend.) It does not necessarily emulate what is done throughout the Himalayas in Northern India or Tibet.
My former brother-in-law, as a young man and vowed monk underwent a solitary three year, three month, three day retreat, during which time the only persons he saw were his teacher and the person who came once a day to bring him some provisions. I have seen pictures of his hut and it was in utter isolation in the mountains. The Goldendale retreat facility is not representative of how such retreats are necessarily always done.
That said, there are plenty of examples worldwide where monks and hermits deliberately choose isolation and seclusion for purposes of purification and growth. St. Benedict lived in a cave for many years by himself before he founded the monastic order that spread across Europe. I continue to believe that seclusion is not torture, and to definite it so really undermines the whole case against real torture.
Apr 7, '09
Just to add to the case for seclusion and solitude as a therapeutic rather than punitive intervention. Across Europe in the Middle ages was a movement of saints and mystics who deliberately walled themselves in a cottage or dwelling taking a vow to remain their in permanent solitude in prayer and meditation. They were called anchorites. One of the more famous anchorites was St. Julian of Norwich, a renowned mystic of the Middle Ages.
And in the earliest centuries of Christianity was a powerful movement of desert hermits who lived in caves or small huts spending their entire day in meditation and simple manual labor. They were part of a tradition of spirituality in the deserts of Africa and the Middle East that even predates Christianity.
Just to drive the point home a little further, one of the more famous sayings of the desert Mothers and Fathers of this tradition says this: " A monk travels to see Abba Moses and poses this question. 'Abba, what must I do to attain holiness?' Abba Moses replies, 'Sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.' "
Doesn't sound like torture to me. Sounds like enlightenment. Then again, some would say, sitting in solitude in your cell is the path to freedom and spiritual awakening. Others would say, like you, it's torture, and I would disagree.
Apr 7, '09
The Constitution of the United States defines torture:
Look it up.
10:39 p.m.
Apr 7, '09
BOHICA states: The Constitution of the United States defines torture
But of course it doesn't. The quoted passage may be in a treaty that has been ratified by the Senate and, if so, is the supreme law of the land. Also, if so, it is a lovely piece of work except for the loophole at the end. You could fit George W. Bush through that loophole sideways.
10:56 p.m.
Apr 7, '09
I had never given solitary confinement a critical thought until I read the New Yorker article. It has haunted me for days.
For those of you who are still thinking that prolonged solitary confinement can be justified or even therapeutic, please read the article and let me know if it has changed your mind. I'm genuinely curious.
There are plently of unsavory people in prisons for whom I have no sympathy, but to me, this article is very compelling on why we need to care about the expanded use of this punishment.
Apr 8, '09
Joel,
What are you talking about? I am not trying to "keep you in line", your mushrooming agenda is far from "dark secrets" and you need to reduce your intake of Keith Olberman.
10:15 a.m.
Apr 8, '09
I'm sorry, but this is a classic case of twisting rhetoric to the point of watering it down.
Is solitary confinement torture? The simple answer to this simple question is easy: NO.
The Bush administration has been using real torture, horrific to the point where they criminally destroyed the tapes of what they did. Please don't damage our credibility on this topic.
10:57 a.m.
Apr 8, '09
It does not necessarily emulate what is done throughout the Himalayas in Northern India or Tibet.
Bill, I know no one cares about this, but I have to post a correction to this. Actually, the three-year retreat is almost exclusively a monastic practice. (I say exclusively because I can't speak to every variant of it run over the past 200 years its been a feature of the Kagyu school.) It is closely modeled on the retreat centers of Asia, and we received extensive input from them. The big difference is that ours has two wings for women and men--not usual in a monastic setting.
As far as the difference between solitude and solitary confinement, I think Douglas is correct to point out the distinction. I would add, since you brought Buddhism into the equation, that I can't imagine any Buddhist of our tradition either equating these two things or supporting solitary confinement. If you are going to argue that the two things are the same, I'd like you to cite some folks from the tradition who support this kind of thing. (There's an additional ironic resonance in bringing in Tibetan Buddhism--a religion practiced by a group now regularly imprisoned by an occupying country--but perhaps that's the topic for another post.)
11:02 a.m.
Apr 8, '09
I'm sorry, but this is a classic case of twisting rhetoric to the point of watering it down.
Steve, if the effects on the mind and body are as profound as Gawande describes, how could you call them anything but torture. Here's John McCain, quoted in the story, discussing it:
I'm not trying to be polemical here: it looks to be very much a form of torture, as reasonably and undramatically defined.
Apr 8, '09
Why do liberals always have to re-define everything.
How about we just call solitary confinement discomforting or really a bumber and leave torture for the traditional meaning.
I mean with your approach I could almost call my occassional visit here, torture.
You people :)
Apr 8, '09
Richard said -- in reference to torture --
Why do liberals always have to re-define everything.
I imagine the irony went right over his head.
2:44 p.m.
Apr 8, '09
Seriously, people who are dismissing the idea that solitary confinement is torture seem not to have read the article. Before I read it, I wouldn't have called it torture, either. After I read it, I was convinced. Has ANYONE read this article from start to finish and ended up with an unchanged opinion?
Apr 8, '09
I await a proposed solution that pro6tects the lives and safety of other inmates and staff if Solitary confinement is outlawed? People have a right to exist under safe conditions. Some folks have ear=ned their confinment from society by their behavior.
3:58 p.m.
Apr 8, '09
I'm not trying to be polemical here: it looks to be very much a form of torture, as reasonably and undramatically defined.
OK, so what exactly is the point where we stop defining things down? Certainly prison isn't a pleasant experience. By making people go through it, can this be construed as torture? Not liking it is emotional pain, after all.
While I read the article, I think you need to read a book: Torture and Democracy. It is a truly eye-opening catalog of so-called "clean" (non-maiming) torture techniques used in the world today, and who uses them. After you read it, we can talk about the relative uses of the term.
I'm more than willing to oppose solitary confinement on the basis that it isn't helpful for prisoners who are already emotionally maladjusted and/or mentally unstable, without stretching it under the polemic of "torture". And frankly, if you consider how the public reacts to the people who are placed in solitary, you'd realize that not engaging in such rhetoric is likely the best way to get the political support to end the practice.
4:16 p.m.
Apr 8, '09
Steve, just wondering--did you actually read the article? You can react however you like to my language--each human reserves that right. But just saying that you don't agree with it is hardly persuasive. Here's the language from the UN Convention Against Torture:
There are many kinds of torture. Some are more viscerally abhorrent than others. So what? Tell me how solitary fails to meet the criteria.
11:36 a.m.
Apr 9, '09
Of course I read the article, Jeff. It was about a prisoner with extremely poor impulse control, having stopped up toilets and flung feces at guards, was put in a cell with automated shut-off valves to prevent him from doing that in a SuperMax. Eventually he got tired of acting poorly, and when another opportunity to reach out was presented to him by a lawyer, he decided to take it.
Again, if you want to believe this is "severe" suffering, that's your right. But I'm telling you that comparisons with deprivation of comfort to human and chimp babies, being held incommunicado in Lebanon with a gun literally held to your head by religious thugs, and the kind of sensory deprivation techniques applied to Jose Padilla, are strained at best. And, while I bless your forgiving heart, the vast majority of the public simply doesn't agree with you.
Now again, I'll be happy to advocate for ending the practice of solitary confinement for long stretches of time, simply because its counterproductive. But if you define a term down, past the point where much of the public agrees with you, that term will lose its meaning and political efficacy.
And this has happened before. Dworkin, and other radical feminists in the 1980s, defined down "rape" by saying such things as: "Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine." Do that enough, and pretty soon you get a hit group like Nirvana singing a song called "Rape Me".
Apr 9, '09
Posted by: Kevin | Apr 7, 2009 7:20:18 PM
That's what I would like to see different, if people accepted Ghandi's adage that "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind".
Hmmm... I don't believe that pacifism is appropriate in this context.
Man, when you say "Preemptive Karma", you mean it!
Bill, I won't quote the whole thing, but you must be early 50ish, because when I encountered your lot, in the late 60s, I was horrified. I was a young Franciscan, and thought poverty of spirit was the be-all-end-all. But I encountered middle-class youths, working social projects in ghettos areas, that would say to people there, "you are so lucky you are poor".
It was one of the enduring horrors of my youth. To this day I shout, "How can people confuse voluntary poverty with involuntary poverty"? Well? I can't believe it still happens, but isn't that exactly what you have said?
At the very least, you don't know Buddhism. The Buddha, when approached by a wealthy, young man that wanted to pursue enlightenment, found that the Buddha was reluctant. He sat with him, by a stream, trying at length to convince him that it was not what he wanted. Finally, when he was not paying attention, the Buddha grabbed the back of his neck and thrust his head beneath the water. He held him there until he nearly drowned, then pulled him back. When the young man finally regained his breath, he asked the Buddha, "Why did you do that to me"? The Buddha said, "Unless you want the path you have professed more than you wanted that breath, you should return home". People in need of basic wants, want a breath. That is totally different than pursuing enlightenment. The Buddha took pains that we know that.
That, and how many times have you sat 8 hours on an intercontinental flight, felt like a tortured prisoner, then got to the hotel room and sat 8 hours on the bed, perfectly satisfied, deciding where to eat? You can't confuse involuntary and voluntary.
Apr 9, '09
The Friends Service Committee has a campaign around this:
http://www.afsc.org/stopmax/ht/d/ContentDetails/i/33476
Apr 11, '09
I believe that Kip Kinkle, obviously very ill and also a minor when he committed his murders, has been in solitary confinement ever since apprehended.
"Solitary Confinement" is not a Buddhist discipline, because monastic solitude is voluntary, something sought by the student, not a punishment imposed by society.
Apr 12, '09
On the Oregon State Penitentiary home page, it describes the use of "disciplinary segregation" this way: "the 196-bed, self-contained Intensive Management Unit provides housing and control for those death row and male inmates who disrupt or pose a substantial threat to the general population in all department facilities." I'm just a blogger, but it looks to me like we still use the practice.
A few caveats before I start… yes, Jeff, I read the article – and enjoyed it despite the fact that I believe it relied more on anecdotal meanderings than on accurate research. Moreover, I read the entire NPR article you mention (and quote) concerning OSP’s Intensive Management Unit. I personally have a hard time accepting solitary as a tool, but Oregon is one of the few states that actually go above and beyond most other states by using it as effectively and humanely as possible. It’s worth an extended quote from the NPR article you mention that speaks directly to the OSP Intensive Management Unit:
Rethinking Isolation
The IMU looks like a standard isolation unit. But these days, there are some big differences, including therapy for many of the prisoners.
One prisoner named Gregory says that therapy has really helped him.
"Some changes took," Gregory said recently while having a session with the psychiatrist. "I was just a mess. I was a straight mess. I was an animal, and I acted that way."
Oregon has also adopted a system that allows inmates like Gregory to earn their way out of isolation. The longest an inmate can stay in isolation is three years. And the decision of who is and isn't sent to isolation is no longer in the warden's hands. A three-person panel outside the prison system decides.
Mitch Morrow, the deputy director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, instituted many of the changes.
"This department, for as long as I have been here, has always believed that inmates are people," Morrow says. 'You Need to Change the Inmate'
But changing the system wasn't an easy sell. It took years. Morrow says even now, there are state officials who cling to the idea of long-term isolation.
"It feels good today to lock them up, and for that given moment, you feel safer," Morrow says. "But if that's where you stop the conversation, then you are doing your state a serious injustice. Because you need to change the inmate. You need to provide the inmate the opportunity to change. And if you don't, if you just feel good about locking somebody up, it's a failed model."
Oregon no longer releases inmates directly from segregation to the streets. Now they send them first to classes, and then to prison jobs in the general population, so they can get used to being around people again. Jeff's NPR Article
In addition, no prison staff is allowed to serve for more than two years in the IMU environment. This protects the mental health of the prison staff, and just as important, the health and welfare of the inmates. A little more reading and a few phone calls would have provided this information.
Finally, considering the current economic straights we are in, many of the successful programs now being used by Oregon DOC are in danger of being cut in their entirety. With that in mind, suggesting that we build smaller group management units on the British model is just a little disingenuous – because contrary to what you might think, these units are virtually as expensive as the IMU operations.
I agree that we need prison reform in the United States, but come on, Oregon Bloggers are better than this (wink wink)!
Cheers, Steven
Apr 12, '09
My appologies for not getting the italics right to identify the quotes, but I hope they are clear enough without the italics to identify them.
Cheers.
Apr 12, '09
Sheesh, I am a little new to this, but it seems like the italics ARE there now. I'll stop, I promise ;-)
Apr 13, '09
Jeff, I've read your story. I myself, was segregated and locked away in the IMU Intensive Management Unit Program in Oregon, from the winter of 2004 to the summer of 2006. I agree whole-heartedly with your message. The subjection to solitary confinement, I have observed, really dims an individual's overall sanity.
Apr 13, '09
Answer: Yes. The UO student who was brutally Tasered faces a trial here in Eugene tommorro.
Apr 26, '09
Odd that people want to be protected from criminals then they think it's unreasonable for staff to isolate those who continue to be a threat inside prisons. Suggest all folks who think that's inhumane to work in a prison for awhile,
Apr 30, '09
Hello all, I am from the state of PA. I have recently begun a journey to learn all I can about the practice of solitary confinement. What I have learned has horrified me. I have joined the Human Rights Coalition and last week we lobbied the state legistlature to make changes in the practice of solitary confinement. I believe wholeheartedly that it is torture. The United Nations has condemned it as such as have Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU. I am willing to partner with anyone to get this practice changed. There are programs out there that work and public sentiment towards the 'lock em up and throw away the key' attitude is changing. If those who see this practice as torture are willing to talk about it, no matter how unpopularly they think they might be viewed, and call and write their representatives on a consistent basis, we CAN make a change! The job of corrections is to do exactly that and the rising prison population along with the high recidivism rates show that the status quo is NOT WORKING!