July 29, 2021 • 30 mins
The practice of ‘solitary confinement’ goes by many names, including, disciplinary confinement, security housing, and restricted housing… All are euphemisms to soften the harsh and torturous reality of solitary… Jarvis shares how he was able to survive for 22 years locked away in a 9x4 cell 23-24 hours a day!
We’ll also hear from the co-founder of the California Families Against Solitary Confinement and the Community Outreach Director of the Bail Project, Dolores Canales.
Professor Haney’s groundbreaking book is, CRIMINALITY IN CONTEXT (THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM.)
If you’d like to support Jarvis Masters’s cause, please considering signing a petition on his behalf at www.freejarvis.org
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dear Governor is a production of I Heart Media and
three Months Media. If you are moved by Jarvis Masters
and his thirty years struggle on san Quentin's death row,
and you'd like to support his cause, please consider signing
a petition on his behalf. Visit free Jarvis dot org
slash podcast to sign your name to an open letter
(00:20):
to California Governor Gavin Newsom, Dear Governor Newsom, Dear Mr
Governor Newsom. This is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom.
Dear Governor Newsom. Public san Quentin calls it the Adjustment Center.
(00:44):
Orange County, California jails call it disciplinary housing. Pelican Bay
calls it the shoe or security housing unit. The practice
of solitary confinement goes by many names, including disciplinary confinement,
security housing, and restricted housing, all our euphemisms to soften
the harsh and tortuous reality of solitary confinement. A state
(01:08):
sanctioned system that forces citizens into cramped, windowless cells for
twenty three to twenty four hours a day, sometimes for
weeks at a time, months at a time, or, in
Jarvis Master's case, decades at a time. It's real small,
it's real small, and if you stand up, if you
five eleven or taller, you know, m can reach the ceiling.
(01:29):
You stand up in the middle of you sell both
sides the arms. You probably only need one arm to
test the other side. It's very small. There's a stink
of the toy in look back, and there's a little
vent like under the sink that host to suck in
the air with the son it does. They have lights.
They have sockets, two sockets for a TV. In the radio,
(01:53):
they have shells. Did you have a TV or radio
down down there? Yeah? Yeah, it. They were giving them
out black and white televison. Remember black and white television?
Do you remember those? I do? Do I remember my
first one? Okay, remedies had a little screwing up in
(02:20):
the middle of it. Yep. So yeah, I had. I
had a TV and I had a radio, and so
did everyone else. They basically didn't want you to study.
They didn't want you to think. They gave you a
TV and hope you watched it day in and down.
So you're more dangerous if you're educated. You know, they
(02:45):
didn't want you studying. There were times when I first
got here, there's there was a lot of books. If
they caught it in and they saw those books in yourself.
You go straight to the whole. So you couldn't even
have a book in yourself. There were certain books that
you couldn't have. Revolutionaries, whether you're talking about George Jacks
(03:10):
and a Phenan or cast Row or anything that was
with a socialist conscious, you couldn't have those books. Say so,
more often than not, those who are sentenced to solitary
are denied not only certain books, but phone calls, contact visits,
and recreational or educational training other than the exercise yard,
(03:33):
where other programs or classes or anything that you guys
were entitled to participate in. No classes, no anything. The
only thing you can probably do is sign up to
go to the law libry. The only let you go
to the law librries, because you had a constitutional life.
To go to the law librarian. You shall at three
(03:53):
times a week. You may order some books. People can
order books for you. You have Kelly's, you have radios.
You allow one package care pactage from from now side
every years. You know, the debate around it is how
do you define torture? But if if you define it
(04:15):
as the needless infliction of pain, then it is certainly
that Craig Haney, who was on the last episode, as
a social psychologist and a professor at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, who has done groundbreaking research on the psychological
impact of solitary confinement. Is pain which is often long lasting, irreversible,
(04:37):
and it is pain which sometimes can be fatal and
for most people, that's where torture is. The a c
l U has had its sites on the unjust nature
of solitary confinement for years. Long term isolation their website says,
costs too much, does nothing to rehabilitate prisoners, and exacerbates
mental illness or even causes it in prisoner is who
(05:00):
were healthy when they entered solitary Why do you think
the US still uses that practice? Is it just to
break spirits? Is just a punitive thing that the proponents
of solitary confinement? Why do they continue this practice? I
think I think there there are mixed motivations. I think
(05:20):
there are some people who do it out of a
failure of imagination. They can't think of any better way
to control prisoners who they think need to be controlled.
And this is you know the old saying, if if
all you have is a hammer, and everything looks like
a nail. It's the only way you can think of
trying to shape prisoners behavior is to threats and intimidation
(05:46):
and ultimately punishment, And if that still doesn't work, then
you continue to escalate the punishment and do it more
and more, even though it would appear that it's counterproductive,
you can't think of anything else to do. Thankly, I
think in some instances it has been used, as you
described the moment ago, to break people's spirits. I think
(06:07):
for some correctional officials, the fact that it's painful and
perhaps for many prisoners, even damaging, perhaps even irreversibly damaging,
is an unintended consequence. Some of them, I think, wish
you didn't do that, But they use in any way
because they don't know what else to do. But then
(06:27):
I also think there are a category of officials who
do it because it's destructive. I don't think that characterizes
all of them, but I've encountered people who have put
people in solitary confinement because they wanted to break them
and won't let them out because they're not yet broken enough.
(06:48):
And yes, that's happened, you know. I've seen that happen.
I think there are mixed motivations for its continued use. Yeah,
what are some of the physical traumas the people endure
as a result of solitary confinement without the light, without
the human touch. Is there a physical destruction that happens?
(07:09):
You know what, we're beginning to understand that that it
is not just psychological and anything is profoundly psychologically damaging people.
But there's also a lot of research which has now
been done outside of prisons in jails. You know, it's
hard to do research in prisons and jail a hard
to get access to them, hard to get hard to
get even into the places, let alone to actually have
(07:30):
access to the people who are confined there. But we
know that isolation in the world at large as physical
as well as psychologically negative consequences on people. And so
there's been research that suggests that people who are exposed
to social isolation and loneliness are at medical risk in
(07:52):
a way that is equivalent to other kinds of medical
risks like smoking. That is to say, they get sick
at higher rates and their mortality is affected negatively. That's
how dangerous it is to people's physical well being. And
then The psychological dangers are many and varied, and they
run the gamut. They run the gamut from depression, which
(08:15):
is perhaps the most common reaction that people have to
it to a kind of anxiety which people can't control.
They find themselves nervous and anxious and unable to sleep,
to psychosis, I mean where people lose their really lose
their bearings, They lose the sense of who they are
so much of who we are. It's interesting this has
become much more of an issue for the population at
(08:37):
large now that we're all in isolation essentially. You know,
you hear people talking about not knowing who they are,
being disoriented, losing touch with themselves, losing touch not just
with their families that they can't see, but losing touch
with themselves, not being able to do the things that
they ordinarily do or get joy from. Much has been
written about how social distancing and isolation has been hard
(08:59):
on the psyche of Americans. The CDC reported at the
end of last year that the prevalence of anxiety tripled
from March to June, and depression has risen four times
in that time period. Multiply that times a thousand, and
that's what solitary confinement as to people, because people in
solitary confinement don't have the options we have to distract ourselves.
(09:22):
They don't have access to to various kinds of things
that are still interesting even though they don't involve people
solitary confinement of deprived prisoners of most of those things
as well. And we all know that our own isolation
is being done for a medical purpose. It's medically necessary
and it won't last forever, even though it's certainly gone
(09:45):
on most as it would. But you know, prisoners in
solitary confinement on an indefinite basis, they're not there for
anything good. From their perspective, it's not as though it's
a that the pain that they're experiencing is for so noble,
ultimately good end. And they also many times don't know
when it's going to end. They don't have any any
(10:07):
end date that they can look forward to or any
progress that they can see. So the Unlock the Box
campaign they are a group they're about abolishing solitary and
they said that there's been a five increase in the
use of solitary during the days of COVID. Does this
resonate truth to you? And well, I know it's true.
(10:27):
I know it's true because I've been I mean, they've
been involved in in um lighting declarations. Trying to reverse
that trend, prison systems have resorted to imposing forms of
solitary confinement, but labeling and medical quarantine or medical isolation
(10:48):
or lockdowns that are designed to impose social distancing by
simply keeping people separating their cells um And you know,
while on the one man, I understand the motivation to
keep people medically healthy, what they're not taking into account
is how psychologically unhealthy environment they're creating, which, you know,
(11:11):
if you harken back to what we were talking about
earlier about isolation actually having medical physical consequences on people
in the long run, we actually may be making people
less resilient in the face of COVID nineteen. I mean,
because people deteriorate physically as well as mentally when they're
(11:32):
kept in isolation. So the notion that you can make
everything great just by locking everybody in their cell first
of all, is probably medically naive. That's not going to
work because clearly people have contact with staff members who
are coming in and going every day, so that's not
an impermeable safeguard against them closure to COVID nineteen, And
(11:55):
it also doesn't take into account the negative psychological consequences
are keeping form isolation and none of which is being
taken into account in many correctional facilities prior to COVID.
(12:20):
As late as the summer of twenty nineteen, approximately sixty
thou imprisoned men and women in the US were held
in isolation for an average of twenty two hours a
day for fifteen days, and a significant percentage of those
restricted to solitary confinement had serious mental illness. My name
is Dolores Canalis. I am co founder of California Families
(12:43):
Against Solitary Confinement. We organize with family members to expose
the use of solitary confinement and to eventually hopefully end
the use of solitary confinement and the draconian conditions. Now,
you have an interesting personal story, and that's really kind
of what drew you to this work. Well, yes, absolutely,
I began getting incarcerated at eighteen years old. And when
(13:06):
I first got incarcerated, I did have a drug addiction
and then I kept going back. It was through recidivism.
So I do have an extensive arrest history. But It
was all behind a drug addiction. You know. Now I
do have nineteen years sobriety. The very first time I
ever did get arrested, there was a juvenile, as is
a juvenile, but I was let out immediately. I only
stayed twenty four hours. But the first thing, you know,
(13:29):
I noticed, of course, besides being stripped naked, was being
thrown in a cell all by myself. So that was
actually my first experience with solitary confinement. They won't refer
to it as solitary confinement, but at that time, it
was just these individual single cells. What did they call it,
adjustment center or they just called it like the housing unit.
(13:49):
And and this is one thing that I always attempt
to convey to people, is we know about the solitary
confinement that we refer to as the shoe, the security
housing unit. We know about admit strait of segregation which
is also solitary confinement, and different types of units that
they referred to, but oftentimes these cells are built so
(14:11):
that you are in a form of isolation, and this
is throughout incarceration. I just remember the absolute feeling of
despair and hopelessness when I was put in there as
a youth. There was absolutely nothing in that room. There
wasn't a book or a TV or anything to occupy
my thoughts in my mind. Jarvis, So he was in
(14:33):
the adjustment center or solitary for twenty two years straight.
And he said, and I believe this to be true.
The only thing that really kept him saying, because he
is a genuinely joyful individual, and the only thing that
had really kept him saying was his meditation practice. So
when you were in for prolonged periods of time, what
(14:54):
did you think, what did you do? Where did you
go in your mind? How did you survive? It is
definitely having the support of people on the outside and
that communication. And then I would get weekly visits, even
though my visits were only fourty minutes behind glass. My
mom used to drive out there, and then you know,
also several of my friends. I used to drive out
(15:14):
there just to get me out of myself, because you
would get out of your son and then you had
to be put in a van and driven to where
the visiting room was. So it was like a little
out here, you know. So so that was one of
I think one of the main things that connection with
family and then reading and then the other women in
solitary along with me. You know, we used to yell
(15:36):
at our doors or when we go to yard time,
and we'd be able to talk through the chain link fence.
We'd have those few moments of being able to talk
to the chain link fence. And I think definitely, you know,
the meditation, the books that I read at the time,
I would read a lot on recovery, on you know, meditation.
I read Sermon on the Mountain. They're you know, the
(15:58):
big book of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know,
just trying to read a lot of things like that.
So a typical day was I always used to get
up in the morning. You know, we get our breakfast trays,
get up in the morning, take a bird bath. You
have to use your sink right there, you know, comb
my hair, get dressed, get ready. Did you have a
(16:19):
mirror to see yourself. Yeah, it's one of those mirrors
that it's not a real mirror metal. It's like, yeah,
you look real blurry. It's one of those, you know,
so it kind of gives you the illusion of you're
looking in a mirror. And uh so, you know, I'd
get up, get dressed, get ready, Uh, there were times
and we'd have conversations in the event. We'd be able
(16:40):
to talk through the events and y'all through the vents
and have conversations in our events, maybe share about letters
that we got, things like that. Even for dinner sometimes
I used to literally like just get ready for dinner.
One time, I even, like, you know, put a sheet
around me like it was a dress, and you know,
just getting ready and pretending like I'm have like make Alaska's.
(17:01):
And then while many are irreversibly broken by the prolonged
isolation of solitary, some like Jarvis, have been successful. It's
staving off those effects. I asked Professor Haney, what qualities
and practices help these individuals to cope and come out
on the other side undamaged. The prisoners that I see
who were most successful at warding off the worst of
(17:24):
these experiences, the worst consequences of these experiences. And it's
a it's a three part it's a three part program.
The forest is to take it seriously. I mean, the
people who worry me are the people who say, this
isn't bothering me, it's it's nothing, it's and the people
vary in terms of the degree in which they are
harmed by it. That's certainly true. But people who don't
(17:46):
take it seriously are at risk of being affected by
it in ways that they don't recognize or notice. So
people who are successful at we're standing or resisting it,
take it seriously, understand that they are there's surviving in
the face of what is a psychological assault on who
they are, and that they have to figure out ways
to resist it psychologically. So it's it's acknowledge it. Then
(18:12):
impose a structure on what is otherwise the emptiness of
the time that you're serving. I mean, one of the
things that prisoners tell you in these places is there's
no day or night. I mean, even though you can technically,
you know, you might be able to see the sunlight
or whatever, in some places you can't even do that,
but there's no real routine. There's no Every day is
(18:33):
like the day before and the day after, and you
have there's very little that you can do that you
have to do, and so you have to create a
structure for yourself. And some, you know, very successful prisoners,
successful in surviving this environment, create a very rigid structure
for themselves that they insist on imposing on themselves. You
(18:57):
get up at a certain time, you clean yourself at
a certain time, you read for a certain number of hours,
you you write letters at a certain period of time,
You exercise a certain you know, you have an exercise
routine that you scrupulously follow, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. To impose
order on disorder, to impose structure and otherwise a kind
(19:20):
of empty, chaotic experience that you can get lost in.
And then the third thing that successful people do, again
successful in surviving this environment reasonably intact, is to overcome
the acep reality of it in whatever way they can
write letters, have visits, reach out, create as much of
(19:45):
a social world as you can, despite the prison systems
imposing on you as much of an a social world
as as it can, so you circumvent that and in
whatever way you can. You know, I know with clients
of mine who who were in isolation, when they're reaching
(20:06):
a crisis stage is when they cut off visits, when
they when they want to see people anymore. That's a
sign to me that this their their ability to relate
to other people's atrophy. And people are now becoming they're
now coming to represent and a versus stimulus if you will, uh,
(20:27):
And that's problematic and you have to do what you
can to to reverse that. We talked to Dolores Kenalis.
She's the co founder of the California Families Against Solitary Confinement.
She says that she knows of you and your work
and and obviously they are a big advocate for abolishing
solitary Do you think that's something that's going to happen
nationally in our lifetime? I do, you know, And I
(20:51):
have friends who think on naive for saying that I do,
because I think there has been in the last ten
to fifteen years enough science around not just the harmfulness
of solitary confinement per se, but the harmfulness of social
isolation and loneliness in the world at large. It's regarded
(21:16):
internationally as a public health crisis, and whatever form it
takes in the world at large, it is much much
worse than solitary confinement. So I think the as as
we become increasingly aware as as a population that this
is harmful for anybody. And now you know, as we've
had an opportunity to experience ourselves, it doesn't feel good
(21:40):
and it's destabilizing for all of us, and it's noticeable.
You can it's tangible for us now. I think the
notion that we would subject people to this imprisonment in
addition to all the other deprivations which they're experiencing in prison,
is something that is increasingly questioned by much, much large
your numbers of people who have had just a little
(22:02):
bit a glimmer of insight into what's this like in
their own day to day lives, we can only imagine
what it would be like for somebody like Jarvis enduring
this for not just months or years, but decades. Up next,
a recent shift in the way prisons are contending with
solitary confinement and why it gives Professor Hainey hope for
(22:22):
a more humane future in our prison systems. The other
reason I'm optimistic about this is that I think in
many parts around the country, prison systems have gun to
(22:46):
think of alternatives. I think, what what we We've used
solitary confinement largely because there was no pressure on systems
to do anything differently, and correctional systems were not a
creative about figuring out responses to disciplinary problems and prison
(23:07):
violence that did not involve throwing people in an isolation cell,
and I think increasingly, over the years and different parts
of the country, systems have become much more innovative and
creative and humane in terms of how they deal with
those problems. It's not as widespread as it should be,
and most places have not going remotely as far as
(23:28):
they should, but they're at least grappling with the issue.
They're trying to figure out better ways. The whole issue
of I mean this doesn't apply to drivers, but the
whole issue of who's in solitary confinement and the fact
that in most prison systems a disproportionate number of the
people who are there are mentally ill, and of any
grip that should not be placed in solitary confinement, the
(23:49):
mentally ill or at the top of the list, yet
disproportionate numbers of them are there. They're there for various reasons,
but largely because they're Their mental illness makes difficult, if
not impossible, for them to follow the myriad rules and
regulations of a prison environment. They're easily provoked, so they
easily get in trouble, and prison systems throw up their
(24:10):
hands and instead of dealing with the mental health problem,
discipline them as though they're willfully violating the prison rules
and regulations, and that needs to be I think addressed
head on, and many systems are beginning to do that,
so that what I just said is something that I
think many prison officials now understand in a much more
(24:34):
serious way than you know, even a few years ago,
and they're taking steps to deal with mental illness in
prison systems in a way that they didn't before. That
does not involve putting people in solitary confinement where they're
likely to deteriorating to compensate even more. Do you have
(24:55):
any PTSD from solitary Nothing that has been diagnosed by
medical but definitely things that I see in myself. I
start to get real anxious at times, and I'll feel
like I have to you know, when with a big crowd.
That will start to make me nervous, and I'll go
off by myself. And you know what is interesting, there
(25:16):
was a convening of sorts with Craig Haney. He's done
a lot of work around the issues of solitary He's
from the northern California area. He actually worked on Jarvis's
initial trial back in the late eighties. Okay, great, so yeah,
so that that's amazing and and he has done so
much work. But we were at his home for a
convening that we were going to be at, you know
the next day, and it was a full house, you know,
(25:39):
amazing people, and I started to feel just like I
had to get away. So I went into his living room.
And when I went there, Albert wood Fox, who was
also a solitary survivor from Louisiana, was there, and he's
and I thought I made the immediate connection of you
felt like he just had to get out of the
(25:59):
crowd at a room. You know, it wasn't the people.
We admired all the people that were there, and it
was an honor to be in that presence and talking
to everybody. But then so that's how I often get
when I first came home and I was working at
an office at Pacific Interpreting Services, you know, I used
to have to call and I was dealing doing billing
and collections with insurance agencies and we were we were
(26:21):
in a big room and there was like four of
us at our desks, and my boss gave me my
own office, and I'll never forget the feeling of being
in my own office. I went to him in person,
and I said, did I do something wrong? I went,
I was like, I don't. I loved my job, but
at that moment, I didn't even want to go back
(26:41):
to work. And I went into his office. I said,
can I speak to you? And I think I felt
like crying, you know, and I said, why am I
getting put in my own office? What did I do wrong?
You know? Did I get you mad? And he looked
at me kind of you know, He's like, that's a
promotion and the compliment, how good you are? And then
I I went in my office and I closed the
door because I just I was feeling too overwhelmed. And
(27:05):
I called an insurance adjuster. They owed us so many
and I remember he was like, it's only thirty dollars,
you know, and and and I started telling him, you
know what, I could care less about the thirty dollars.
Do you want to know what just happened to me?
I was just placed in my own office. I'm all
alone in here. I started telling an insurance and just
(27:25):
working at Pacific Intermity Services, right, I mean, that's how
devastated I was. I think when you've had that experience,
you know you your life goes on and things, but
it doesn't leave you. I don't know how to explain it,
but it doesn't leave you. And and it will creep
in at times where the next thing you know, you're
(27:47):
just back in isolation, you know. So it's a constant processing,
it's a constant um. I don't think you're ever really
healed from it. Yeah, I can't imagine it's torture. Yeah,
soolutely I would define it as torture, you know. And
what's interesting is Kathleen Connolly. She I don't know she
still is, but a few years ago she was the
(28:09):
vice president for the Humane Society of the United States
of America, and she's literally quoted that research chimpanzees they
need to see and hear and touch and feel one
another because solitary confinement is detrimental to their physical well being,
you know. And and under federal government law, research chimpanzees
cannot be held in solitary confinement, you know. And then
(28:29):
in California, and this is what I would say, you know, California,
we're always getting saying saying that California is the outlier.
In California is progressive. But in California, in the November
two thousand and eight ballot, we had proposition to cage
free chickens. It passed unanimously. California should be voting on
(28:50):
cage free humans. And do you know the humane standards
for chickens. Proper and nutritious diet. That was actually one
of the demands of the hunger strikes. Proper nutricious diet,
adequate resting places, and the ability to engage in natural
behavior chickens. So separating a mother from her child, separating
(29:18):
a grandmother from her grandson or her great grandson, where
is the natural behavior in the way we keep humans confined?
But yet we have proposition to cage free chickens. We
need that same activism, we need that same looking people
as people. Well, Laura, thank you, you are delightful, Thank you.
(29:42):
I appreciate everything. All right, great, thank you, thank you
so much. Special thanks to Dolores Canalis and the work
she does as co founder of the California Families Against
Solitary Confinement. Next week, Laurie Shama, a staff writer the
Marshall Project, shares the good news of his latest book,
(30:03):
let The Lord Sort Them, The Rise and Fall of
the Death Penalty. This episode was written and produced by
Donni Fazzari and myself Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced
is compliments of the band Stick Figure from their album
Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach composed the original music. Nate
Dufort did the sound design. For more information on Jarvis
(30:26):
and to find out how you can follow his case
and support his cause, please visit free Jarvis dot org.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows
Dear Governor is a production of I Heart Media and
three Months Media. If you are moved by Jarvis Masters
and his thirty years struggle on san Quentin's death row,
and you'd like to support his cause, please consider signing
a petition on his behalf. Visit free Jarvis dot org
slash podcast to sign your name to an open letter
(00:20):
to California Governor Gavin Newsom, Dear Governor Newsom, Dear Mr
Governor Newsom. This is an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom.
Dear Governor Newsom. Public san Quentin calls it the Adjustment Center.
(00:44):
Orange County, California jails call it disciplinary housing. Pelican Bay
calls it the shoe or security housing unit. The practice
of solitary confinement goes by many names, including disciplinary confinement,
security housing, and restricted housing, all our euphemisms to soften
the harsh and tortuous reality of solitary confinement. A state
(01:08):
sanctioned system that forces citizens into cramped, windowless cells for
twenty three to twenty four hours a day, sometimes for
weeks at a time, months at a time, or, in
Jarvis Master's case, decades at a time. It's real small,
it's real small, and if you stand up, if you
five eleven or taller, you know, m can reach the ceiling.
(01:29):
You stand up in the middle of you sell both
sides the arms. You probably only need one arm to
test the other side. It's very small. There's a stink
of the toy in look back, and there's a little
vent like under the sink that host to suck in
the air with the son it does. They have lights.
They have sockets, two sockets for a TV. In the radio,
(01:53):
they have shells. Did you have a TV or radio
down down there? Yeah? Yeah, it. They were giving them
out black and white televison. Remember black and white television?
Do you remember those? I do? Do I remember my
first one? Okay, remedies had a little screwing up in
(02:20):
the middle of it. Yep. So yeah, I had. I
had a TV and I had a radio, and so
did everyone else. They basically didn't want you to study.
They didn't want you to think. They gave you a
TV and hope you watched it day in and down.
So you're more dangerous if you're educated. You know, they
(02:45):
didn't want you studying. There were times when I first
got here, there's there was a lot of books. If
they caught it in and they saw those books in yourself.
You go straight to the whole. So you couldn't even
have a book in yourself. There were certain books that
you couldn't have. Revolutionaries, whether you're talking about George Jacks
(03:10):
and a Phenan or cast Row or anything that was
with a socialist conscious, you couldn't have those books. Say so,
more often than not, those who are sentenced to solitary
are denied not only certain books, but phone calls, contact visits,
and recreational or educational training other than the exercise yard,
(03:33):
where other programs or classes or anything that you guys
were entitled to participate in. No classes, no anything. The
only thing you can probably do is sign up to
go to the law libry. The only let you go
to the law librries, because you had a constitutional life.
To go to the law librarian. You shall at three
(03:53):
times a week. You may order some books. People can
order books for you. You have Kelly's, you have radios.
You allow one package care pactage from from now side
every years. You know, the debate around it is how
do you define torture? But if if you define it
(04:15):
as the needless infliction of pain, then it is certainly
that Craig Haney, who was on the last episode, as
a social psychologist and a professor at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, who has done groundbreaking research on the psychological
impact of solitary confinement. Is pain which is often long lasting, irreversible,
(04:37):
and it is pain which sometimes can be fatal and
for most people, that's where torture is. The a c
l U has had its sites on the unjust nature
of solitary confinement for years. Long term isolation their website says,
costs too much, does nothing to rehabilitate prisoners, and exacerbates
mental illness or even causes it in prisoner is who
(05:00):
were healthy when they entered solitary Why do you think
the US still uses that practice? Is it just to
break spirits? Is just a punitive thing that the proponents
of solitary confinement? Why do they continue this practice? I
think I think there there are mixed motivations. I think
(05:20):
there are some people who do it out of a
failure of imagination. They can't think of any better way
to control prisoners who they think need to be controlled.
And this is you know the old saying, if if
all you have is a hammer, and everything looks like
a nail. It's the only way you can think of
trying to shape prisoners behavior is to threats and intimidation
(05:46):
and ultimately punishment, And if that still doesn't work, then
you continue to escalate the punishment and do it more
and more, even though it would appear that it's counterproductive,
you can't think of anything else to do. Thankly, I
think in some instances it has been used, as you
described the moment ago, to break people's spirits. I think
(06:07):
for some correctional officials, the fact that it's painful and
perhaps for many prisoners, even damaging, perhaps even irreversibly damaging,
is an unintended consequence. Some of them, I think, wish
you didn't do that, But they use in any way
because they don't know what else to do. But then
(06:27):
I also think there are a category of officials who
do it because it's destructive. I don't think that characterizes
all of them, but I've encountered people who have put
people in solitary confinement because they wanted to break them
and won't let them out because they're not yet broken enough.
(06:48):
And yes, that's happened, you know. I've seen that happen.
I think there are mixed motivations for its continued use. Yeah,
what are some of the physical traumas the people endure
as a result of solitary confinement without the light, without
the human touch. Is there a physical destruction that happens?
(07:09):
You know what, we're beginning to understand that that it
is not just psychological and anything is profoundly psychologically damaging people.
But there's also a lot of research which has now
been done outside of prisons in jails. You know, it's
hard to do research in prisons and jail a hard
to get access to them, hard to get hard to
get even into the places, let alone to actually have
(07:30):
access to the people who are confined there. But we
know that isolation in the world at large as physical
as well as psychologically negative consequences on people. And so
there's been research that suggests that people who are exposed
to social isolation and loneliness are at medical risk in
(07:52):
a way that is equivalent to other kinds of medical
risks like smoking. That is to say, they get sick
at higher rates and their mortality is affected negatively. That's
how dangerous it is to people's physical well being. And
then The psychological dangers are many and varied, and they
run the gamut. They run the gamut from depression, which
(08:15):
is perhaps the most common reaction that people have to
it to a kind of anxiety which people can't control.
They find themselves nervous and anxious and unable to sleep,
to psychosis, I mean where people lose their really lose
their bearings, They lose the sense of who they are
so much of who we are. It's interesting this has
become much more of an issue for the population at
(08:37):
large now that we're all in isolation essentially. You know,
you hear people talking about not knowing who they are,
being disoriented, losing touch with themselves, losing touch not just
with their families that they can't see, but losing touch
with themselves, not being able to do the things that
they ordinarily do or get joy from. Much has been
written about how social distancing and isolation has been hard
(08:59):
on the psyche of Americans. The CDC reported at the
end of last year that the prevalence of anxiety tripled
from March to June, and depression has risen four times
in that time period. Multiply that times a thousand, and
that's what solitary confinement as to people, because people in
solitary confinement don't have the options we have to distract ourselves.
(09:22):
They don't have access to to various kinds of things
that are still interesting even though they don't involve people
solitary confinement of deprived prisoners of most of those things
as well. And we all know that our own isolation
is being done for a medical purpose. It's medically necessary
and it won't last forever, even though it's certainly gone
(09:45):
on most as it would. But you know, prisoners in
solitary confinement on an indefinite basis, they're not there for
anything good. From their perspective, it's not as though it's
a that the pain that they're experiencing is for so noble,
ultimately good end. And they also many times don't know
when it's going to end. They don't have any any
(10:07):
end date that they can look forward to or any
progress that they can see. So the Unlock the Box
campaign they are a group they're about abolishing solitary and
they said that there's been a five increase in the
use of solitary during the days of COVID. Does this
resonate truth to you? And well, I know it's true.
(10:27):
I know it's true because I've been I mean, they've
been involved in in um lighting declarations. Trying to reverse
that trend, prison systems have resorted to imposing forms of
solitary confinement, but labeling and medical quarantine or medical isolation
(10:48):
or lockdowns that are designed to impose social distancing by
simply keeping people separating their cells um And you know,
while on the one man, I understand the motivation to
keep people medically healthy, what they're not taking into account
is how psychologically unhealthy environment they're creating, which, you know,
(11:11):
if you harken back to what we were talking about
earlier about isolation actually having medical physical consequences on people
in the long run, we actually may be making people
less resilient in the face of COVID nineteen. I mean,
because people deteriorate physically as well as mentally when they're
(11:32):
kept in isolation. So the notion that you can make
everything great just by locking everybody in their cell first
of all, is probably medically naive. That's not going to
work because clearly people have contact with staff members who
are coming in and going every day, so that's not
an impermeable safeguard against them closure to COVID nineteen, And
(11:55):
it also doesn't take into account the negative psychological consequences
are keeping form isolation and none of which is being
taken into account in many correctional facilities prior to COVID.
(12:20):
As late as the summer of twenty nineteen, approximately sixty
thou imprisoned men and women in the US were held
in isolation for an average of twenty two hours a
day for fifteen days, and a significant percentage of those
restricted to solitary confinement had serious mental illness. My name
is Dolores Canalis. I am co founder of California Families
(12:43):
Against Solitary Confinement. We organize with family members to expose
the use of solitary confinement and to eventually hopefully end
the use of solitary confinement and the draconian conditions. Now,
you have an interesting personal story, and that's really kind
of what drew you to this work. Well, yes, absolutely,
I began getting incarcerated at eighteen years old. And when
(13:06):
I first got incarcerated, I did have a drug addiction
and then I kept going back. It was through recidivism.
So I do have an extensive arrest history. But It
was all behind a drug addiction. You know. Now I
do have nineteen years sobriety. The very first time I
ever did get arrested, there was a juvenile, as is
a juvenile, but I was let out immediately. I only
stayed twenty four hours. But the first thing, you know,
(13:29):
I noticed, of course, besides being stripped naked, was being
thrown in a cell all by myself. So that was
actually my first experience with solitary confinement. They won't refer
to it as solitary confinement, but at that time, it
was just these individual single cells. What did they call it,
adjustment center or they just called it like the housing unit.
(13:49):
And and this is one thing that I always attempt
to convey to people, is we know about the solitary
confinement that we refer to as the shoe, the security
housing unit. We know about admit strait of segregation which
is also solitary confinement, and different types of units that
they referred to, but oftentimes these cells are built so
(14:11):
that you are in a form of isolation, and this
is throughout incarceration. I just remember the absolute feeling of
despair and hopelessness when I was put in there as
a youth. There was absolutely nothing in that room. There
wasn't a book or a TV or anything to occupy
my thoughts in my mind. Jarvis, So he was in
(14:33):
the adjustment center or solitary for twenty two years straight.
And he said, and I believe this to be true.
The only thing that really kept him saying, because he
is a genuinely joyful individual, and the only thing that
had really kept him saying was his meditation practice. So
when you were in for prolonged periods of time, what
(14:54):
did you think, what did you do? Where did you
go in your mind? How did you survive? It is
definitely having the support of people on the outside and
that communication. And then I would get weekly visits, even
though my visits were only fourty minutes behind glass. My
mom used to drive out there, and then you know,
also several of my friends. I used to drive out
(15:14):
there just to get me out of myself, because you
would get out of your son and then you had
to be put in a van and driven to where
the visiting room was. So it was like a little
out here, you know. So so that was one of
I think one of the main things that connection with
family and then reading and then the other women in
solitary along with me. You know, we used to yell
(15:36):
at our doors or when we go to yard time,
and we'd be able to talk through the chain link fence.
We'd have those few moments of being able to talk
to the chain link fence. And I think definitely, you know,
the meditation, the books that I read at the time,
I would read a lot on recovery, on you know, meditation.
I read Sermon on the Mountain. They're you know, the
(15:58):
big book of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know,
just trying to read a lot of things like that.
So a typical day was I always used to get
up in the morning. You know, we get our breakfast trays,
get up in the morning, take a bird bath. You
have to use your sink right there, you know, comb
my hair, get dressed, get ready. Did you have a
(16:19):
mirror to see yourself. Yeah, it's one of those mirrors
that it's not a real mirror metal. It's like, yeah,
you look real blurry. It's one of those, you know,
so it kind of gives you the illusion of you're
looking in a mirror. And uh so, you know, I'd
get up, get dressed, get ready, Uh, there were times
and we'd have conversations in the event. We'd be able
(16:40):
to talk through the events and y'all through the vents
and have conversations in our events, maybe share about letters
that we got, things like that. Even for dinner sometimes
I used to literally like just get ready for dinner.
One time, I even, like, you know, put a sheet
around me like it was a dress, and you know,
just getting ready and pretending like I'm have like make Alaska's.
(17:01):
And then while many are irreversibly broken by the prolonged
isolation of solitary, some like Jarvis, have been successful. It's
staving off those effects. I asked Professor Haney, what qualities
and practices help these individuals to cope and come out
on the other side undamaged. The prisoners that I see
who were most successful at warding off the worst of
(17:24):
these experiences, the worst consequences of these experiences. And it's
a it's a three part it's a three part program.
The forest is to take it seriously. I mean, the
people who worry me are the people who say, this
isn't bothering me, it's it's nothing, it's and the people
vary in terms of the degree in which they are
harmed by it. That's certainly true. But people who don't
(17:46):
take it seriously are at risk of being affected by
it in ways that they don't recognize or notice. So
people who are successful at we're standing or resisting it,
take it seriously, understand that they are there's surviving in
the face of what is a psychological assault on who
they are, and that they have to figure out ways
to resist it psychologically. So it's it's acknowledge it. Then
(18:12):
impose a structure on what is otherwise the emptiness of
the time that you're serving. I mean, one of the
things that prisoners tell you in these places is there's
no day or night. I mean, even though you can technically,
you know, you might be able to see the sunlight
or whatever, in some places you can't even do that,
but there's no real routine. There's no Every day is
(18:33):
like the day before and the day after, and you
have there's very little that you can do that you
have to do, and so you have to create a
structure for yourself. And some, you know, very successful prisoners,
successful in surviving this environment, create a very rigid structure
for themselves that they insist on imposing on themselves. You
(18:57):
get up at a certain time, you clean yourself at
a certain time, you read for a certain number of hours,
you you write letters at a certain period of time,
You exercise a certain you know, you have an exercise
routine that you scrupulously follow, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. To impose
order on disorder, to impose structure and otherwise a kind
(19:20):
of empty, chaotic experience that you can get lost in.
And then the third thing that successful people do, again
successful in surviving this environment reasonably intact, is to overcome
the acep reality of it in whatever way they can
write letters, have visits, reach out, create as much of
(19:45):
a social world as you can, despite the prison systems
imposing on you as much of an a social world
as as it can, so you circumvent that and in
whatever way you can. You know, I know with clients
of mine who who were in isolation, when they're reaching
(20:06):
a crisis stage is when they cut off visits, when
they when they want to see people anymore. That's a
sign to me that this their their ability to relate
to other people's atrophy. And people are now becoming they're
now coming to represent and a versus stimulus if you will, uh,
(20:27):
And that's problematic and you have to do what you
can to to reverse that. We talked to Dolores Kenalis.
She's the co founder of the California Families Against Solitary Confinement.
She says that she knows of you and your work
and and obviously they are a big advocate for abolishing
solitary Do you think that's something that's going to happen
nationally in our lifetime? I do, you know, And I
(20:51):
have friends who think on naive for saying that I do,
because I think there has been in the last ten
to fifteen years enough science around not just the harmfulness
of solitary confinement per se, but the harmfulness of social
isolation and loneliness in the world at large. It's regarded
(21:16):
internationally as a public health crisis, and whatever form it
takes in the world at large, it is much much
worse than solitary confinement. So I think the as as
we become increasingly aware as as a population that this
is harmful for anybody. And now you know, as we've
had an opportunity to experience ourselves, it doesn't feel good
(21:40):
and it's destabilizing for all of us, and it's noticeable.
You can it's tangible for us now. I think the
notion that we would subject people to this imprisonment in
addition to all the other deprivations which they're experiencing in prison,
is something that is increasingly questioned by much, much large
your numbers of people who have had just a little
(22:02):
bit a glimmer of insight into what's this like in
their own day to day lives, we can only imagine
what it would be like for somebody like Jarvis enduring
this for not just months or years, but decades. Up next,
a recent shift in the way prisons are contending with
solitary confinement and why it gives Professor Hainey hope for
(22:22):
a more humane future in our prison systems. The other
reason I'm optimistic about this is that I think in
many parts around the country, prison systems have gun to
(22:46):
think of alternatives. I think, what what we We've used
solitary confinement largely because there was no pressure on systems
to do anything differently, and correctional systems were not a
creative about figuring out responses to disciplinary problems and prison
(23:07):
violence that did not involve throwing people in an isolation cell,
and I think increasingly, over the years and different parts
of the country, systems have become much more innovative and
creative and humane in terms of how they deal with
those problems. It's not as widespread as it should be,
and most places have not going remotely as far as
(23:28):
they should, but they're at least grappling with the issue.
They're trying to figure out better ways. The whole issue
of I mean this doesn't apply to drivers, but the
whole issue of who's in solitary confinement and the fact
that in most prison systems a disproportionate number of the
people who are there are mentally ill, and of any
grip that should not be placed in solitary confinement, the
(23:49):
mentally ill or at the top of the list, yet
disproportionate numbers of them are there. They're there for various reasons,
but largely because they're Their mental illness makes difficult, if
not impossible, for them to follow the myriad rules and
regulations of a prison environment. They're easily provoked, so they
easily get in trouble, and prison systems throw up their
(24:10):
hands and instead of dealing with the mental health problem,
discipline them as though they're willfully violating the prison rules
and regulations, and that needs to be I think addressed
head on, and many systems are beginning to do that,
so that what I just said is something that I
think many prison officials now understand in a much more
(24:34):
serious way than you know, even a few years ago,
and they're taking steps to deal with mental illness in
prison systems in a way that they didn't before. That
does not involve putting people in solitary confinement where they're
likely to deteriorating to compensate even more. Do you have
(24:55):
any PTSD from solitary Nothing that has been diagnosed by
medical but definitely things that I see in myself. I
start to get real anxious at times, and I'll feel
like I have to you know, when with a big crowd.
That will start to make me nervous, and I'll go
off by myself. And you know what is interesting, there
(25:16):
was a convening of sorts with Craig Haney. He's done
a lot of work around the issues of solitary He's
from the northern California area. He actually worked on Jarvis's
initial trial back in the late eighties. Okay, great, so yeah,
so that that's amazing and and he has done so
much work. But we were at his home for a
convening that we were going to be at, you know
the next day, and it was a full house, you know,
(25:39):
amazing people, and I started to feel just like I
had to get away. So I went into his living room.
And when I went there, Albert wood Fox, who was
also a solitary survivor from Louisiana, was there, and he's
and I thought I made the immediate connection of you
felt like he just had to get out of the
(25:59):
crowd at a room. You know, it wasn't the people.
We admired all the people that were there, and it
was an honor to be in that presence and talking
to everybody. But then so that's how I often get
when I first came home and I was working at
an office at Pacific Interpreting Services, you know, I used
to have to call and I was dealing doing billing
and collections with insurance agencies and we were we were
(26:21):
in a big room and there was like four of
us at our desks, and my boss gave me my
own office, and I'll never forget the feeling of being
in my own office. I went to him in person,
and I said, did I do something wrong? I went,
I was like, I don't. I loved my job, but
at that moment, I didn't even want to go back
(26:41):
to work. And I went into his office. I said,
can I speak to you? And I think I felt
like crying, you know, and I said, why am I
getting put in my own office? What did I do wrong?
You know? Did I get you mad? And he looked
at me kind of you know, He's like, that's a
promotion and the compliment, how good you are? And then
I I went in my office and I closed the
door because I just I was feeling too overwhelmed. And
(27:05):
I called an insurance adjuster. They owed us so many
and I remember he was like, it's only thirty dollars,
you know, and and and I started telling him, you
know what, I could care less about the thirty dollars.
Do you want to know what just happened to me?
I was just placed in my own office. I'm all
alone in here. I started telling an insurance and just
(27:25):
working at Pacific Intermity Services, right, I mean, that's how
devastated I was. I think when you've had that experience,
you know you your life goes on and things, but
it doesn't leave you. I don't know how to explain it,
but it doesn't leave you. And and it will creep
in at times where the next thing you know, you're
(27:47):
just back in isolation, you know. So it's a constant processing,
it's a constant um. I don't think you're ever really
healed from it. Yeah, I can't imagine it's torture. Yeah,
soolutely I would define it as torture, you know. And
what's interesting is Kathleen Connolly. She I don't know she
still is, but a few years ago she was the
(28:09):
vice president for the Humane Society of the United States
of America, and she's literally quoted that research chimpanzees they
need to see and hear and touch and feel one
another because solitary confinement is detrimental to their physical well being,
you know. And and under federal government law, research chimpanzees
cannot be held in solitary confinement, you know. And then
(28:29):
in California, and this is what I would say, you know, California,
we're always getting saying saying that California is the outlier.
In California is progressive. But in California, in the November
two thousand and eight ballot, we had proposition to cage
free chickens. It passed unanimously. California should be voting on
(28:50):
cage free humans. And do you know the humane standards
for chickens. Proper and nutritious diet. That was actually one
of the demands of the hunger strikes. Proper nutricious diet,
adequate resting places, and the ability to engage in natural
behavior chickens. So separating a mother from her child, separating
(29:18):
a grandmother from her grandson or her great grandson, where
is the natural behavior in the way we keep humans confined?
But yet we have proposition to cage free chickens. We
need that same activism, we need that same looking people
as people. Well, Laura, thank you, you are delightful, Thank you.
(29:42):
I appreciate everything. All right, great, thank you, thank you
so much. Special thanks to Dolores Canalis and the work
she does as co founder of the California Families Against
Solitary Confinement. Next week, Laurie Shama, a staff writer the
Marshall Project, shares the good news of his latest book,
(30:03):
let The Lord Sort Them, The Rise and Fall of
the Death Penalty. This episode was written and produced by
Donni Fazzari and myself Corny Cole. Our theme song sentenced
is compliments of the band Stick Figure from their album
Set in Stone. Stu Sternbach composed the original music. Nate
Dufort did the sound design. For more information on Jarvis
(30:26):
and to find out how you can follow his case
and support his cause, please visit free Jarvis dot org.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows
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