Quaker Organization Denounces Use of Solitary Confinement
Use of Solitary Confinement is Tantamount to Torture, American Friends Service Committee Maintains
Philadelphia — The recent sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui brings to light the horrors that still exist within our modern criminal justice system, particularly the inhuman use of solitary confinement for prison inmates.
“Solitary confinement amounts to torture,” states Tonya McClary, director of the American Friends Service Committee Criminal Justice program. “The United States continues to ignore the minimum standards of treatment of prisoners set by international convention.”
Across the country more than 20,000 women, men and children are confined to the same or similar conditions as those which pervade the Florence, Colorado prison where Moussaoui will serve his sentence. Virtually unknown 20 years ago, these prisons now exist in almost every state in the U.S. The conditions include little or no daily human contact, one hour a day or less of exercise, usually in extremely confined spaces; limited access to physical or mental health care, little or no access to rehabilitative programs, verbal and physical harassment, and related forms of torture such as electric stun belts, restraint chairs and beatings.
Prison and court officials say “supermax” or solitary confinement prisons are reserved for the worst of the worst. However, solitary confinement prisoners range from people who organize for better prison conditions, members of “security threat groups” or gangs (often defined by race or ethnicity alone), or the mentally ill, who may be incapable of conforming to prison rules. At times people have requested solitary confinement because they have reason to believe the alternative would result in more torturous acts or even death by guards or fellow prisoners.
The consequences of solitary confinement are profound. Studies by mental health experts including Stuart Grassian and Terry Kupers show that it causes irreparable emotional damage, extreme mental anguish, and in some cases, a risk of death by suicide. The sensory deprivation associated with solitary confinement often induces psychosis, especially in the many prisoners who have histories of mental illness. Among symptoms that prisoners report are hallucinations, acute confusion, partial amnesia, delusions, paranoia and violent outbursts of self mutilation
“This unconscionable treatment of prisoners represents a profound spiritual crisis in that it legitimizes torture, total isolation of human beings, sensory deprivation and physical and sexual abuse of power,” states control unit expert Bonnie Kerness, coordinator of the Prison Watch Program of American Friends Service Committee. Solitary confinement violates national laws and international laws to which the United States is committed – including the United Nations Convention against Torture and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, as well as the U.N. Rights of the Child which every country except the United States has signed.
The American Friends Service Committee Criminal Justice program works nationwide to eliminate the use of prisons, jails, and executions as a “solution” to crime and violence. The group challenges the morality and effectiveness of the “get-tough-on-crime” mentality and believes taking the life of another human being is never justified. A main focus of the work has been through the Religious Organizing Against the Death Penalty Project (http://www.deathpenalty%20religious.org/), which has galvanized and organized the religious community to be vocal and visible in the struggle for abolition.