October 19, 2025 • 43 mins
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The final episode of our season takes you deep inside the fight to end one of America's most disturbing prison practices: solitary confinement. When Craig Waleed spent 30 days in "the box," he began hallucinating and questioning his existence. Years later, he's working with Disability Rights North Carolina to ensure others don't suffer the same fate.
"Research shows that any amount of time exposed to solitary confinement is detrimental to one's psychological makeup," Craig explains. "It can cause atrophy to the brain to the point where parts of the brain will not recover." This reality is why the United Nations considers isolation beyond 15 days to be torture under the Mandela Rules – standards most US prisons ignore.
We also meet Dolores Canales, whose activism began when her son was placed in indefinite solitary confinement at California's Pelican Bay Prison. When prisoners launched hunger strikes to protest these conditions in 2011 and 2013, Dolores became a principal organizer, helping to form California Families Against Solitary Confinement and eventually co-founding the national Unlock the Box campaign.
In 2023, Judy Van Wyk and April Barber partnered to create a podcast about the many issues people face when transitioning from prison. Van Wyk is a longtime video producer and criminal justice advocate. April Barber received a life sentence when she was 15. After more than 31 years, she had her sentence commuted by Governor Cooper. She was released March 24, 2022.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back Episode 6, our final episode of the 98%
Life After Prison, to the nearly98% of incarcerated people in
North Carolina who willeventually be released back into
our communities, often withlittle more than a $45 gate
check.
I'm April Barber-Scales.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And I'm Judy Van Wyk.
Did you know that since 2016,81 incarcerated people have died
by suicide and that 60% ofthose deaths have occurred in
solitary confinement?
Last year alone, 13 people diedin North Carolina's prisons.
(00:53):
This at a time when a growingproportion of North Carolina's
prison population have beendiagnosed with mental illness.
If you want to learn more aboutthis public health crisis,
check out Rachel Crumpler'slatest article in North Carolina
Health News.
It's an online newspaper that'sdoing a stellar job of
(01:13):
reporting on incarceration inthis state.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Today we're going to meet two people who are on a
mission to end the practice ofprolonged solitary confinement
in our country's prisons.
Craig Waleed is a projectmanager of the In Solitary
Campaign for Disability Rights,north Carolina.
He himself has spent time insolitary confinement, an
(01:37):
experience he says caused him tohallucinate and question his
very existence.
He's fighting to save othersfrom prolonged time in the box,
a practice the United Nationsconsiders torture.
Here's his story.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I'm a formerly incarcerated person.
I survived solitary confinementtwice, both 30-day sentences.
I've been out of prison as ofDecember 26th for 27 years, but
one of the things I told myselfwhile incarcerated is that I
would dedicate my life tohelping people who are
incarcerated have a betterquality of life.
(02:31):
And so I was living here inNorth Carolina and I was working
with a professor at UNC wherewe were doing research on the
intersection of health and massincarceration, and we met weekly
(02:54):
with Disability Rights.
North Carolina's criminal legalteam and Disability Rights had
a position opening up thisposition that I hold as the
project manager, and theyadvertised it.
I applied for it, interviewedone time, and the rest has been
history.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Tell me a little bit about your own experience with
the carceral system.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah.
So at the age of 19, I wassentenced to four to 12 years
for violent assault.
I spent eight years behind thewall and four years on parole.
While incarcerated, I spent alot of time reading, writing,
(03:39):
contemplating my own life, thecircumstances that led to me
being incarcerated, but alsothinking about what I wanted my
life to be likepost-incarceration.
And so part of that reading andwriting and studying also led
me to a higher education programwhile incarcerated, program
(04:07):
while incarcerated, and Iultimately walked out of prison
with an associate's degree inliberal arts.
But more so the degree and thestudying and whatnot.
It served almost as a mechanismthat turns over the soil of my
cognitive space, which made memuch more receptive to new and
(04:28):
different ideas that would helppropel me in a totally different
direction, away from thepenitentiary that in some way,
prison saved their life.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I don't know if you feel that dramatically about it,
but it sounds like it workedfor you.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
In a sense I agree, and I've thought that over the
years, in many regards prisondid serve to preserve me,
because the way I was living ifI didn't go to prison, I
probably would have eithergotten a life sentence somewhere
along the way or I probablywould have gotten killed.
Being in prison preserves mylife, but at the same time
(05:18):
prison left me with a lifetimeof scars psychological and
emotional scars, and, as I saidin our opening, I've been out
for 27 years but there's stilljust components of that prison
experience that I just can'tshake.
It's like the ghosts are alwaysthere.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Tell me about your time in solitary confinement.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So I'll tell you.
First, prison is such a loudand just chaotic environment
that before I ever got sent tosolitary, there were times that
I would ask the sergeant can youput me in solitary for three
days or something, because Iwanted to just get away from the
(06:03):
noise and the chaos.
And they would always tell mewe can't, you have to do
something.
And I refused to do somethingto get myself locked up.
But once I was in solitary, thelack of stimulation, the
dehumanization that Iexperienced at the hands of
(06:24):
other corrections officers wasvery harmful, I think, and very
calls me to really question myself-worth at times, you know,
and just being a human being,part of our makeup is to engage
with others.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Can I ask what got you into solitary confinement?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, and both times I shouldn't have been in
solitary.
Judy, that's the whole thing.
One time it was thecommemoration of the Attica
riots, had no idea about it.
So I'm like, oh okay, and I waswalking with some guys and I
run up to him hey, hey, this iswhat they're doing.
(07:14):
And I repeated that whole thingabout Attica and some officers
were on the walkway and happenedto hear me tell the guys that
so we go on the walkway, I meango in the cafeteria, and we do
our thing, dump our food, walkout and as we're walking back
past, the two officers grab meand arrest me and take me to
solitary and tell me that I'mbeing put in solitary for
(07:37):
inciting a riot.
And then the second time I'llnever forget this because I was
traumatized I'm in a mediumsecurity and there's a dormitory
type setting with bunks, likebarracks in the military almost,
and I'm standing at my bunk andthere's the officer there we're
(07:58):
talking about something Iforgot and there's a couple
other incarcerated people andthis guy comes tearing into the
day room, I mean out of the dayroom, into the barracks area,
into the bunk area and behindhim comes like three or four
guys, maybe five, and they jumpon him and they beat him, kick
him, cut him, stab him, rightthere in front of us.
(08:22):
Blood's everywhere.
The officer pulls his emergencypin, everybody goes back to
their separate bunks and thewhole rescue squad comes in.
I'm shook, the officer's shook.
They take this guy out.
I don't know if he lived ordied.
I do know he did live.
But at that point the officerjust started pointing out people
(08:45):
who were involved.
And he pointed me out and Ithink he just didn't remember.
He just knew he was talking tome.
But at that point I'm like well, why the hell do you point me
out?
I was just talking to you whenthis happened.
But as a result, I ended upbeing sent to solitary and after
about four weeks, the guy whogot attacked.
(09:06):
They had a hearing and they tookme out of the cell and brought
me into this dark room and hadme strip search, like one piece
of clothing at a time, and if Idid it the wrong way, they had
other officers in there withtheir gloves on their sticks and
they're like we're going tobeat you up if you don't take
off your right shoe with yourleft hand.
(09:28):
And after I strip searchedappropriately and put my clothes
back on the guy who got beat up.
They had him in another roomand they asked him point blank
is this one of the people whojumped on you?
And I guess they did that witheveryone, but I was there and he
said no, he had nothing to dowith it.
(09:49):
And they let me go.
After like four or five weeks,the research shows that any
amount of time exposed tosolitary confinement is
detrimental to one'spsychological makeup, to one's
psychological makeup.
It can cause atrophy to thebrain to the point where parts
of the brain will not recover.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
What are the Mandela Rules?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, so the Mandela Rules are essentially a set of
rules or suggestions that havebeen passed down from the United
Nations Special Rapporteur.
I think is the title.
There are suggestions for howpeople should be kept in
(10:36):
isolation if they must be, andessential to that is that
anything.
If someone's left in solitaryconfinement over 15 days, it's
considered torture.
The North Carolina Departmentof Adult Corrections has not
adopted the Mandela Rules.
(10:56):
However, in some of theirlatest, I guess, memos or
writings they are using languagethat reflects their
understanding of the MandelaRules, but I don't think they're
applying anything.
And I say that because late in2024, myself and one of my
(11:18):
colleagues, we were at GranvillePrison here in North Carolina
in their H-CON unit, and H-CONis the highest security level of
isolation or solitaryconfinement, what they'll call
restrictive housing, but it'sall the same thing, different
euphemisms and the people inthere were not allowed to come
(11:40):
out of the cell.
People were locked in 23 andone, 24 and one, so that other
one hour that they came out itwas like they were still in
isolation, because they werelike two cells that would face
each other and then in betweenthe cells was like a foyer that
(12:01):
was also locked off, and so themen would explain to us that
they were allowed to come out ofthe cell into the locked foyer,
one at a time, but they'restill locked.
They're just not in that cell,but they're right in the locked
little foyer, one at a time, butthey're still locked.
They're just not in that cell,but they're right in the locked
little foyer right outside.
Typically, you hear the systemplayers say that well, we're not
(12:21):
going to adopt the Mandelarules because of officer safety
or security reasons, to keep thefacility safe, et cetera, et
cetera.
However, research shows us thatsolitary confinement actually
makes prisons less safe becauseof the impact that it has on
(12:43):
people psychologically andemotionally, and many of them
will come out of solitaryconfinement.
Many of them will return togeneral population and if they
have not been treated humanely,they're more likely to be
engaged in inhumane behavioronce they get back to the
general population or the mainpopulation, which is in the
(13:05):
world, the free world.
But also, on another note,speaking about solitary
confinement, I think that it'simportant to also take into
account that people who areexposed to solitary are
oftentimes at what I'll sayhyper super increased rates of
(13:26):
suicidality.
Lots of suicides have happenedin solitary confinement in North
Carolina, but alsopost-solitary or
post-incarceration high rates ofsuicide, drug overdose,
(13:46):
homicide.
But we also have to take intoaccount that this is not just
the people who are incarcerated,but also the people who work in
these units also are at superhyper increased rates or at risk
of developing very similar typeof health consequences.
But also it makes me thinkabout my experiences in Norway.
When I went to Norway we satwith corrections officials and
(14:09):
they essentially explained thatthey provide the corrections
staff almost two years oftraining.
They learn social work skills,they learn psychological skills,
psychology skills just a veryin-depth training on how to work
with people.
And what I dig about the Norwaymodel, though people say, well,
(14:34):
they have smaller populations,this, that and the third, but we
can still borrow from them.
And one of the things that Idig that they do is this thing
called dynamic security, wherethe staff are developing
relationships with theincarcerated people.
They're not chumming up withthem, but they're showing them
respect and they're treatingthem with respect.
And then the systems are notharsh where people are so
(14:57):
traumatized.
The systems are providingpeople opportunities to
habilitate themselves orrehabilitate themselves so that
when they get out that they canbe an asset to their communities
.
You know, whereas in ourAmerican society our officers
are getting more training onweapons and you know other types
(15:20):
of security measures tosuppress people and the
environments are harsh, and sopeople are not getting the
opportunity to develop differentthought, behavior, academic,
vocational mechanisms to helpthem become assets to their
communities.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The other thing we haven't talked about but is a
real problem is that prisonshave become a dumping ground for
people with mental healthissues, and mental health and
solitary confinement are like,not compatible.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Not at all, judy.
And as I said earlier,statistics will show that a
disproportionate amount ofpeople in prison have
psychological or emotionaldisabilities disabilities.
Solitary confinement in and ofitself can either exacerbate
some of those issues or it cancreate new issues where issues
(16:20):
were not before.
And then also, what we find isthat, statistically again, we'll
find that more people insolitary confinement have
psychological disorders.
So what that says to me is thatthose persons are more likely
to be mistaken as maybedisobeying rules or causing a
(16:44):
disruption, whereas indeedwhat's happening is they may be
just having a psychologicalbreakdown.
Their disorder may just becoming to fruition because of
the environment of prisons.
It does nothing to help peoplebe better.
But also there's differentcomponents of solitary that they
(17:06):
won't call solitary, such asprotective custody.
Someone is kept in isolation toprotect them, to keep them safe
.
I say, okay, if we have toisolate people, we still have to
treat them humanely.
If we have to isolate people,we still have to let them out of
these cells for more than anhour.
(17:29):
They still need to have accessto sunlight, fresh air, grass
these things are part of whatyou know helps humans.
Remember that we're human as asociety, as a community.
We really have to lean on them,for lack of a better term.
Put some pressure on them, youknow, let them know that you're
(17:51):
using our tax dollars to tortureour citizens.
So what if they come from poor,disadvantaged backgrounds?
They're still people, they'restill citizens and they deserve
humane treatment.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Tell us about your work with disability rights.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So we're part of the Unlock the Box movement or
campaign, which is a nationalcampaign to end solitary in the
country.
And so here in North Carolina,unlock the Box is known as End
Solitary NC and we have been ona campaign to educate the public
(18:42):
about the harms of solitaryconfinement, and we've done that
through public speaking events.
We've done that through justpassing out flyers events.
We've done that through justpassing out flyers.
We've done that most recentlythrough bringing our life-size
replica solitary confinementcell to different venues.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
From your perspective , what would it take for the
carceral system not to includesolitary confinement?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That's a great question, but I think one thing
is to think about people througha humane lens, to look at
people as human beings who aredeserving of respect and care.
(19:35):
But the system is such a largebeast of sorts that I think it
would be very difficult to getit to change.
But I think, yeah, we have tostart by humanizing the people
(19:55):
who live there and work there,and I think part of that change
has to be less security-orientedand more rehabilitative or
habilitative-oriented, wherepeople are getting the type of
attention and treatment thatthey need, are getting the type
of attention and treatment thatthey need.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Is there anything else that you think that we have
overlooked, or anything elseyou want to say?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I don't think we've overlooked anything.
If the folks on the inside hearthis, I just want to encourage
you to keep doing things toimprove yourself.
Do the best that you can do, nomatter where you are, so that
when the opportunity comes to dobetter, you're ready.
You know Life don't stop justbecause you're in prison.
Your life's still going.
(20:46):
You just happen to be in prison, but you can still improve your
life.
You can still impact thecommunity inside prison.
And if you think you're gettingout of prison, that's even more
reason to continue to work onyourself.
Even if you've got to spenddecades behind the wall, you're
getting out.
Keep working on making yourselfthe best that you can be.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
You know, craig said a lot more about the Mandela
Rules that I didn't include.
Basically, the Mandela Rulesare an internationally
recognized blueprint for thehumane treatment of prisoners.
In addition to prolongedsolitary confinement, the rules
prohibit the confined isolationof people with mental or
physical disabilities, minors orpregnant women.
Still, very few states evenattempt to follow any of the
(21:43):
Mandela rules.
April, you were pregnant whileyou went to prison.
How did they treat you?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I was locked in an isolation room, a sort of
solitary confinement, but notlike a SIG, so there wasn't
anyone to talk to or anyone tocommunicate with except me and
my unborn child and anoccasional staff member.
But I do have a story along thelines of solitary confinement.
(22:12):
I think this might shock you,judy, but it brought something
to mind.
There was a husband and wifeteam that worked there two ends
of the prison.
The wife worked in segregation,which is where solitary
confinement is, and the husbandworked on the yard and sometimes
on my unit.
So I was closer.
I was close to both, but closerto him because he was one that
(22:34):
had the key to the yard.
So I was closer.
I was close to both, but closerto him because he was one that
had the key to the yard.
So I had to make him my friendso I could get all of my yard
time.
Well, there was an incident ofsuicide on solitary confinement
on this lady's watch who wassuper sweet, very nice lady, and
she said to me afterwards shewas.
She told me.
She said April, I'm the onethat got her down.
(22:55):
So this lady began to uh, youknow she wasn't showing up for
her shifts and stuff.
And so I asked the um, thehusband, how she was, says she's
, you know she's taking thispretty hard.
So she took some time off.
He told me that they would goplaces.
She was getting ready to go tothe gym at her home and she
(23:18):
couldn't get out of the car Likeshe was just physically frozen
so fast forward.
The lady never came back to work.
She eventually started drawingdisability for PTSD.
So imagine what the person inthe cell who talked to the
person that she cut down becauseit was hanging that, and so
imagine that how the person inthe cell felt talking to this
(23:41):
person for days, months on end,and then the person wasn't there
.
So if the lady had to retire,if someone who made a career and
a job of this for years shewasn't a new employee and a job
of this for years, she wasn't anew employee, she had been there
for years.
And so if she had to quitbecause of her mental health
issues, imagine how the personleft in the box felt that no
(24:02):
longer talked to the cellmate.
Just point to ponder.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's very disturbing Not shocking, I'm afraid to say,
but disturbing and it reallypoints to the real impact that
working, that it's not easy tobe a correctional officer, and I
think it's really easy forpeople to demonize the
(24:25):
correctional officers, whereit's the system that is just
really messed up.
Yeah, oh my, that's a horriblestory.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, it's really sad .
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, yeah.
The second person we're goingto meet today is Dolores Canales
, who is instrumental in theformation of Unlock the Box, a
national campaign whose statedmission is to end solitary
confinement in all US prisons,jails, detention facilities and
(25:02):
juvenile facilities.
The goal of Unlock the Box isto bring the United States in
full compliance with the UNMandela rules for the treatment
of prisoners.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Dolores began her journey in 2011 during a
prison-led hunger strike atPelican Bay Prison in California
.
The strike was a protestagainst the inhumane conditions
of solitary confinement,including indefinite sentences.
Desperate to save her son, whowas striking, Dolores protested
(25:33):
from the outside In 2013,.
When a second hunger strikeerupted, she joined other
families in becoming a principalorganizer in the protest.
This time, 29,000 prisonersrefused to eat, with a core of
men who maintained a hungerstrike for 60 days.
Men who maintain a hungerstrike for 60 days.
(25:58):
Dolores' advocacy led to theformation of California families
against solitary confinementand helped end indefinite
solitary confinement inCalifornia.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Welcome to our show, Dolores.
I really enjoyed meeting you atthe screening of the strike in
Durham.
That's the documentary thattells the story about the
Pelican Bay hunger strike.
Speaking of Pelican Bay, canyou tell us what it means to
receive an indefinite sentencein solitary confinement, what
(26:30):
that meant on the ground?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Right, well, the indefinite.
It was referred to as anindefinite shoe term.
A shoe is what was?
You know?
It's called a security housingunit and the indefinite shoe
term here in California, the wayit was being used at the time.
You did not have to commit anactual rules violation, you
didn't have to have anymisbehavior at all.
(26:58):
They did it.
They practiced it more on anassumption-based practice and
arbitrary measures, such as ifyou had a note from somebody
else, or if somebody else had anote and had your name in it, or
, um, you know, if you had abook the solid dad brothers, uh,
different things, pictures,they, they use different things
(27:20):
they would then label you as agang validation.
They had this whole processwhere they would label you as an
associate of a gang or a gangmember, and and so therefore,
they would put you in securityhousing unit indefinitely and
you get a review every six years, and so the only way out at
that time would be if you choseto.
(27:41):
They had this system called thedebriefing process, where you
had to provide them informationon other people and they would
have no misconduct as far asactual documentation of
write-ups.
It was just these 1030 chronos,which a 1030 chrono is a
(28:01):
confidential chrono and it'snoted in your central file where
somebody else is saying thingsabout you, but there doesn't
even have to be an actualinvestigation into the acts that
you're being accused of.
So therefore a 115 never comesinto play.
A 115 is a serious rulesviolation report.
(28:21):
Somebody else can say all thesethings about you.
You'll never get a rulesviolation report for the things
that are being said about you,so it'll never be cooperated
with an actual misconduct forthem.
So it's based on gossip.
Disclose to you who is sayingthis.
(28:49):
So it's a rather complicatedprocess that California
Department of Corrections stillutilizes to this day.
They still have these 1030Kronos.
And one thing we did find outin the Ashford versus Brown
lawsuit that you know the hungerstrikes it was all revolved
around was that oftentimes theseconfidential chronos, they're
just fabricated.
(29:09):
They're either fabricated orthey were written by COs
themselves, and that wasadmitted in court, but their
justification for doing it wasthey've done this long before
the Ashker lawsuit.
So therefore it has nothing todo with the Ashher settlement in
itself.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That sounds like a police state.
No, it sounds like East Berlinor a story out of there.
It doesn't sound like theUnited States.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Right, right.
Well, you know it's complicatedbecause CDC oversees themselves
, the legislators are supposedto oversee them, and our
governor, of course, but theCCPOA, which is the Union for
the Prison Guards?
They donate millions to ourDemocratic Party here in
California, can you?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
briefly describe the changes that came about in
California as a result of thePelican Bay strike that came
about in California as a resultof the Pelican Bay strike.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yes, well, you know, once that hunger strike took
place, it really like wokepeople up to what we were doing,
just with mass incarceration,with incarceration in itself.
So, cdc, they ended the use ofindefinite solitary confinement
because at that, that time, wehad people in isolation, you
know, 10 years to 40 years,literally on indefinite terms
and with arbitrary use of of theisolation, of the placement of
(30:42):
isolation, and so what ended uphappening was they ended the use
of indefinite solitaryconfinement.
People could still get shoeterms, but they're stipulated
Like, for instance, you know,for murder you get like a
five-year shoe term or escape.
I mean, there's still shoeterms still exist, but it's a
definite shoe term of how longyou'll be placed in solitary
(31:04):
confinement.
They also allow programming.
They're supposed to allowprogramming while you're in SHU
so that you could have some sortof program, although that's why
we've been working on theMandela Bill in California,
because we're finding that theyare still using.
They found a different way.
Oh well, we'll put you inadministrative segregation,
(31:24):
which is isolation, and we'llcall it pending investigation,
and they can leave you there fora year or two years, you know,
with their whole pendinginvestigation, and we also found
that a lot of people were justbeing stagnant in isolation with
no access to programming andanother thing.
So now, so the governor nowstepped in and said SHU no
(31:49):
longer exists in California, nowwe have RU.
So now it's called RestrictiveHousing Unit and we have RU and
the whole focus is supposed tobe to process you out, to give
you access to programs.
So there's like a whole200-page implementation report
on it programs.
There's like a whole 200 pageimplementation report on it.
And you know, so we're we'relooking at that and seeing how
(32:11):
it's going so far.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So you started to protest in 2011.
And then that grew in the 2013strike and you formed California
Families Against SolitaryConfinement.
So how is that stateorganization affiliated with
(32:35):
Unlock the Box?
Did it lead to the beginning ofUnlock the Box?
Speaker 4 (32:40):
You know, actually it did, and I have all that in
writing.
Amy Fatig, who was with theACLU at the time, you know, says
she had never, you know,working on prison policy on a
national level.
She says she has never seenwhat transpired in California
anywhere, not even on a globallevel.
And so what ended up happeningis she, they brought some of us
(33:01):
together from variousorganizations, and I was the
local, I was the only localrepresentative for California,
but the rest were like NERC,national Religious Campaign
Against Torture, solitary WatchOf course he works on around
nationally and the ACLU, and wemet with some funders to really
(33:26):
to bring in a position, just onecentralized position that would
be able to work with everybodyon a national level.
And so the funders agreed andthen we created the job
description and everythingtogether and we went through
hundreds of resumes, and so I ama co-founder of Unlock the Box,
(33:47):
I was part of the interviewteam, and so we did end up
hiring Jessica Sandoval, andwhich she's really moved the
needle forward on a nationallevel, you know.
And so it's been really amazingto see.
You know there's over 20 statesnow working on campaigns the
Mandela Bill, you know just tosee what's transpired from that
(34:10):
work and how this is.
This is now a conversationaltopic.
I mean, you hear about it onthe news now you know people
being kept in isolation, peoplebeing kept in solitary
confinement is referred to astorture, and so, yeah, it's been
incredible.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Wow, that is amazing.
It's got a long ways to go.
You know, I know just from the.
You know the one episode that Idid on Solitary.
I have had so many people sayto me I had no idea.
People don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Right, yeah, well, and that's what I found during
the hunger strikes.
You know, I mean I'm in thestrike and I say there's a part
where I talk about this.
We're literally just here inCalifornia.
I used to walk around with afolder to have the pictures of
what the cells actually lookedlike and people could not
believe that we did this inAmerica.
I mean, there was shock.
There was like that's thingsyou hear about in the third
(35:09):
world country, we don't do thisin America.
And then, of course, even moreshock with you know, certainly
we would never do this inCalifornia.
California is just too.
You know, and I'll never forget,when the hunger strike strikes
first started, there was thisBetty White commercial, right,
and it would say what do I loveabout California?
And it would pull back thescreen and it would have people
(35:30):
doing yoga on the beach or itwould have people jet, you know,
snow skiing in Big Bear andhave you want to know the truth
about California?
And show like one of thePelican Bay cells with no
windows.
I mean, the architecturaldesign in itself is inhumane.
(35:56):
The minds that sat there andcreated those cells for human
beings to be placed in have tobe a bit deranged and they have
to live with themselves everyday knowing that people are in
those cells, going mad, beingtortured.
You know cells that theycreated, that they designed and
(36:18):
that they became millionairesoff of.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
We could talk about this for hours we could talk
about this for hours, but yeah,of course I know people
sometimes.
Somebody just said the otherday they talked about it as work
, right, and I said you don'tunderstand.
Like this is, this is my life,like I talk about this every
single day.
I talk about like how are wetreating people?
(36:43):
You know, what are we doing topeople, how are we making things
better, and so it's just yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I understand that, in addition to the work that you
do on the steering committee forUnlock the Box, you also do a
lot of outreach with thefamilies of people in solitary
confinement.
Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yes, yes, I do, and you know, and I'm very- honest
with the families.
I said I let them know.
You know, some of the thingsthat I think are so important is
, for one, does your loved onewant you to get involved?
And another is, if you're goingto get involved, you have to be
prepared to stay involved.
It is not a journey for thefaint of heart and just a lot of
(37:35):
support sometimes.
That's just what it is.
I wish I had all the answerssometimes, but I let them know
I'm a family member, just likeyou are, and two always run
everything past theirincarcerated loved one.
I don't ever give advice of whatsomeone should do.
If I do give advice, I'll sayask your incarcerated loved one
(37:58):
what they think of this, becauseI see a lot of people you know
have some amazing ideas and Ithink the most important voice
and the most importantconsideration is the one that is
still inside that might have toendure retaliation.
Is there a network of supportif you begin to get involved?
Is there a network of supportfor you if that person, if your
(38:19):
son or your daughter, startsfacing retaliation?
To where you're going to have ateam that will be ready to hit
the phone lines and call theprison, call your local
legislators, you know, connectthe activism to the retaliation
and the timing.
You know just different thingslike that and so you know it's
not like I let people know.
(38:40):
I'm a family member, just likeyou are, and I wish I had all
the answers, but you know we'refinding them all out together.
But you know, definitely, ifyou're going to get involved,
just be prepared to stayinvolved until your loved one is
home.
Another thing is is all thedifferent state campaigns like,
(39:02):
for instance, a lot of theunlock the box, states have been
showing the strike, which thestrike is, the, you know the
documentary of the hungerstrikes that took place in the
state of California, and so alot of the states have been
showing the strike and sometimesthey will have us, some of the
protagonists, out to go be partof their panel with their local
(39:24):
organizers, part of their panelwith their local organizers, and
that's been really beautifuland to be a part of and to just
be embraced by community andyour own son.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
how is he doing?
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Well, yeah, it's been a journey.
It's been quite a journey, andnow I can see all the
retaliation.
I mean I have so muchdocumentation connecting all the
docs, but I mean he's holdingin there.
He has been filed some newcharges and he has been filed
with federal charges.
(39:57):
Now he got his original casedismissed to a misdemeanor after
30 years, after 30 years and hekept fighting and kept fighting
.
I was sitting in the courtroomwhere the judge said out loud to
the district attorney thatstill did not want him to be
resentenced.
Might I remind you, not onlywas he never involved, he was
(40:20):
standing on the other end withhis back turned.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
My, that's quite a story.
We have just one minute left.
What would you like to say inclosing?
Speaker 4 (40:34):
You know I thank you for having this podcast.
Thank you for having me on thispodcast.
What I'd really like to say isI'd like to urge the audience if
you're listening right now,please pass this podcast on.
Encourage others to listen,encourage others to get involved
with your local state campaignsand to look into how you can
make a difference.
And, believe me, it often doesnot take much.
(40:56):
Sometimes it's something assimple as a phone call or a
letter, you know, and so I wouldreally encourage people to get
involved.
You can go onunlocktheboxcampaignorg as well
and see all the states that arenow working on changing these
horrific conditions ofconfinement.
And I want to thank you and DrCraig Waleed.
(41:17):
He's been amazing also.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I love Dr Craig Waleed and thank you, Dolores.
This means so much to me thatyou were willing to talk to us.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Absolutely, judy, and it's been amazing connecting
with you.
This means so much to me thatyou were willing to talk to us.
Absolutely, judy, and it's beenamazing connecting with you.
Thank you so much for having meand if you're listening right
now, please share this podcastand ask the people that you
share it with to keep on sharingit, all right?
Thank you so much.
You have a wonderful day.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
For everyone listening.
I urge you to see the Strike,the documentary about the men of
Pelican Bay Supermax Prison inCalifornia who went on the
largest hunger strike in UShistory and sparked a campaign
to end the indeterminate use ofsolitary confinement.
You'll learn the role DoloresCanales played in both the
(42:05):
strike and the legislation thatfollowed.
The documentary is currentlystreaming on PBS's show
Independent Lens and you canalso find it on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Well, that's our show for today, and it's the last
show of the season.
We're going to take a shortbreak before we begin preparing
for our next season.
In the meantime, take a listento some of our previous episodes
and check us out on Facebookand Instagram.
If you'd like to reach out tous, you can email us at
98percentlifeafter at gmailcom.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
At the end of June I'm going to have another
shoulder replacement, so I'll beout of commission for a while,
but before then I plan to post aspecial episode featuring a
couple of residents of OrenCorrectional Center who train
therapy dogs for people with avariety of disabilities.
Stay tuned to the 98%.
Life After Prison, a showdedicated to all the people who
(43:08):
are incarcerated and coming home.
Welcome back Episode 6, our final episode of the 98%
Life After Prison, to the nearly98% of incarcerated people in
North Carolina who willeventually be released back into
our communities, often withlittle more than a $45 gate
check.
I'm April Barber-Scales.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
And I'm Judy Van Wyk.
Did you know that since 2016,81 incarcerated people have died
by suicide and that 60% ofthose deaths have occurred in
solitary confinement?
Last year alone, 13 people diedin North Carolina's prisons.
(00:53):
This at a time when a growingproportion of North Carolina's
prison population have beendiagnosed with mental illness.
If you want to learn more aboutthis public health crisis,
check out Rachel Crumpler'slatest article in North Carolina
Health News.
It's an online newspaper that'sdoing a stellar job of
(01:13):
reporting on incarceration inthis state.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Today we're going to meet two people who are on a
mission to end the practice ofprolonged solitary confinement
in our country's prisons.
Craig Waleed is a projectmanager of the In Solitary
Campaign for Disability Rights,north Carolina.
He himself has spent time insolitary confinement, an
(01:37):
experience he says caused him tohallucinate and question his
very existence.
He's fighting to save othersfrom prolonged time in the box,
a practice the United Nationsconsiders torture.
Here's his story.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
I'm a formerly incarcerated person.
I survived solitary confinementtwice, both 30-day sentences.
I've been out of prison as ofDecember 26th for 27 years, but
one of the things I told myselfwhile incarcerated is that I
would dedicate my life tohelping people who are
incarcerated have a betterquality of life.
(02:31):
And so I was living here inNorth Carolina and I was working
with a professor at UNC wherewe were doing research on the
intersection of health and massincarceration, and we met weekly
(02:54):
with Disability Rights.
North Carolina's criminal legalteam and Disability Rights had
a position opening up thisposition that I hold as the
project manager, and theyadvertised it.
I applied for it, interviewedone time, and the rest has been
history.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Tell me a little bit about your own experience with
the carceral system.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah.
So at the age of 19, I wassentenced to four to 12 years
for violent assault.
I spent eight years behind thewall and four years on parole.
While incarcerated, I spent alot of time reading, writing,
(03:39):
contemplating my own life, thecircumstances that led to me
being incarcerated, but alsothinking about what I wanted my
life to be likepost-incarceration.
And so part of that reading andwriting and studying also led
me to a higher education programwhile incarcerated, program
(04:07):
while incarcerated, and Iultimately walked out of prison
with an associate's degree inliberal arts.
But more so the degree and thestudying and whatnot.
It served almost as a mechanismthat turns over the soil of my
cognitive space, which made memuch more receptive to new and
(04:28):
different ideas that would helppropel me in a totally different
direction, away from thepenitentiary that in some way,
prison saved their life.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
I don't know if you feel that dramatically about it,
but it sounds like it workedfor you.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
In a sense I agree, and I've thought that over the
years, in many regards prisondid serve to preserve me,
because the way I was living ifI didn't go to prison, I
probably would have eithergotten a life sentence somewhere
along the way or I probablywould have gotten killed.
Being in prison preserves mylife, but at the same time
(05:18):
prison left me with a lifetimeof scars psychological and
emotional scars, and, as I saidin our opening, I've been out
for 27 years but there's stilljust components of that prison
experience that I just can'tshake.
It's like the ghosts are alwaysthere.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Tell me about your time in solitary confinement.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
So I'll tell you.
First, prison is such a loudand just chaotic environment
that before I ever got sent tosolitary, there were times that
I would ask the sergeant can youput me in solitary for three
days or something, because Iwanted to just get away from the
(06:03):
noise and the chaos.
And they would always tell mewe can't, you have to do
something.
And I refused to do somethingto get myself locked up.
But once I was in solitary, thelack of stimulation, the
dehumanization that Iexperienced at the hands of
(06:24):
other corrections officers wasvery harmful, I think, and very
calls me to really question myself-worth at times, you know,
and just being a human being,part of our makeup is to engage
with others.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Can I ask what got you into solitary confinement?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, and both times I shouldn't have been in
solitary.
Judy, that's the whole thing.
One time it was thecommemoration of the Attica
riots, had no idea about it.
So I'm like, oh okay, and I waswalking with some guys and I
run up to him hey, hey, this iswhat they're doing.
(07:14):
And I repeated that whole thingabout Attica and some officers
were on the walkway and happenedto hear me tell the guys that
so we go on the walkway, I meango in the cafeteria, and we do
our thing, dump our food, walkout and as we're walking back
past, the two officers grab meand arrest me and take me to
solitary and tell me that I'mbeing put in solitary for
(07:37):
inciting a riot.
And then the second time I'llnever forget this because I was
traumatized I'm in a mediumsecurity and there's a dormitory
type setting with bunks, likebarracks in the military almost,
and I'm standing at my bunk andthere's the officer there we're
(07:58):
talking about something Iforgot and there's a couple
other incarcerated people andthis guy comes tearing into the
day room, I mean out of the dayroom, into the barracks area,
into the bunk area and behindhim comes like three or four
guys, maybe five, and they jumpon him and they beat him, kick
him, cut him, stab him, rightthere in front of us.
(08:22):
Blood's everywhere.
The officer pulls his emergencypin, everybody goes back to
their separate bunks and thewhole rescue squad comes in.
I'm shook, the officer's shook.
They take this guy out.
I don't know if he lived ordied.
I do know he did live.
But at that point the officerjust started pointing out people
(08:45):
who were involved.
And he pointed me out and Ithink he just didn't remember.
He just knew he was talking tome.
But at that point I'm like well, why the hell do you point me
out?
I was just talking to you whenthis happened.
But as a result, I ended upbeing sent to solitary and after
about four weeks, the guy whogot attacked.
(09:06):
They had a hearing and they tookme out of the cell and brought
me into this dark room and hadme strip search, like one piece
of clothing at a time, and if Idid it the wrong way, they had
other officers in there withtheir gloves on their sticks and
they're like we're going tobeat you up if you don't take
off your right shoe with yourleft hand.
(09:28):
And after I strip searchedappropriately and put my clothes
back on the guy who got beat up.
They had him in another roomand they asked him point blank
is this one of the people whojumped on you?
And I guess they did that witheveryone, but I was there and he
said no, he had nothing to dowith it.
(09:49):
And they let me go.
After like four or five weeks,the research shows that any
amount of time exposed tosolitary confinement is
detrimental to one'spsychological makeup, to one's
psychological makeup.
It can cause atrophy to thebrain to the point where parts
of the brain will not recover.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
What are the Mandela Rules?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, so the Mandela Rules are essentially a set of
rules or suggestions that havebeen passed down from the United
Nations Special Rapporteur.
I think is the title.
There are suggestions for howpeople should be kept in
(10:36):
isolation if they must be, andessential to that is that
anything.
If someone's left in solitaryconfinement over 15 days, it's
considered torture.
The North Carolina Departmentof Adult Corrections has not
adopted the Mandela Rules.
(10:56):
However, in some of theirlatest, I guess, memos or
writings they are using languagethat reflects their
understanding of the MandelaRules, but I don't think they're
applying anything.
And I say that because late in2024, myself and one of my
(11:18):
colleagues, we were at GranvillePrison here in North Carolina
in their H-CON unit, and H-CONis the highest security level of
isolation or solitaryconfinement, what they'll call
restrictive housing, but it'sall the same thing, different
euphemisms and the people inthere were not allowed to come
(11:40):
out of the cell.
People were locked in 23 andone, 24 and one, so that other
one hour that they came out itwas like they were still in
isolation, because they werelike two cells that would face
each other and then in betweenthe cells was like a foyer that
(12:01):
was also locked off, and so themen would explain to us that
they were allowed to come out ofthe cell into the locked foyer,
one at a time, but they'restill locked.
They're just not in that cell,but they're right in the locked
little foyer, one at a time, butthey're still locked.
They're just not in that cell,but they're right in the locked
little foyer right outside.
Typically, you hear the systemplayers say that well, we're not
(12:21):
going to adopt the Mandelarules because of officer safety
or security reasons, to keep thefacility safe, et cetera, et
cetera.
However, research shows us thatsolitary confinement actually
makes prisons less safe becauseof the impact that it has on
(12:43):
people psychologically andemotionally, and many of them
will come out of solitaryconfinement.
Many of them will return togeneral population and if they
have not been treated humanely,they're more likely to be
engaged in inhumane behavioronce they get back to the
general population or the mainpopulation, which is in the
(13:05):
world, the free world.
But also, on another note,speaking about solitary
confinement, I think that it'simportant to also take into
account that people who areexposed to solitary are
oftentimes at what I'll sayhyper super increased rates of
(13:26):
suicidality.
Lots of suicides have happenedin solitary confinement in North
Carolina, but alsopost-solitary or
post-incarceration high rates ofsuicide, drug overdose,
(13:46):
homicide.
But we also have to take intoaccount that this is not just
the people who are incarcerated,but also the people who work in
these units also are at superhyper increased rates or at risk
of developing very similar typeof health consequences.
But also it makes me thinkabout my experiences in Norway.
When I went to Norway we satwith corrections officials and
(14:09):
they essentially explained thatthey provide the corrections
staff almost two years oftraining.
They learn social work skills,they learn psychological skills,
psychology skills just a veryin-depth training on how to work
with people.
And what I dig about the Norwaymodel, though people say, well,
(14:34):
they have smaller populations,this, that and the third, but we
can still borrow from them.
And one of the things that Idig that they do is this thing
called dynamic security, wherethe staff are developing
relationships with theincarcerated people.
They're not chumming up withthem, but they're showing them
respect and they're treatingthem with respect.
And then the systems are notharsh where people are so
(14:57):
traumatized.
The systems are providingpeople opportunities to
habilitate themselves orrehabilitate themselves so that
when they get out that they canbe an asset to their communities
.
You know, whereas in ourAmerican society our officers
are getting more training onweapons and you know other types
(15:20):
of security measures tosuppress people and the
environments are harsh, and sopeople are not getting the
opportunity to develop differentthought, behavior, academic,
vocational mechanisms to helpthem become assets to their
communities.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The other thing we haven't talked about but is a
real problem is that prisonshave become a dumping ground for
people with mental healthissues, and mental health and
solitary confinement are like,not compatible.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Not at all, judy.
And as I said earlier,statistics will show that a
disproportionate amount ofpeople in prison have
psychological or emotionaldisabilities disabilities.
Solitary confinement in and ofitself can either exacerbate
some of those issues or it cancreate new issues where issues
(16:20):
were not before.
And then also, what we find isthat, statistically again, we'll
find that more people insolitary confinement have
psychological disorders.
So what that says to me is thatthose persons are more likely
to be mistaken as maybedisobeying rules or causing a
(16:44):
disruption, whereas indeedwhat's happening is they may be
just having a psychologicalbreakdown.
Their disorder may just becoming to fruition because of
the environment of prisons.
It does nothing to help peoplebe better.
But also there's differentcomponents of solitary that they
(17:06):
won't call solitary, such asprotective custody.
Someone is kept in isolation toprotect them, to keep them safe
.
I say, okay, if we have toisolate people, we still have to
treat them humanely.
If we have to isolate people,we still have to let them out of
these cells for more than anhour.
(17:29):
They still need to have accessto sunlight, fresh air, grass
these things are part of whatyou know helps humans.
Remember that we're human as asociety, as a community.
We really have to lean on them,for lack of a better term.
Put some pressure on them, youknow, let them know that you're
(17:51):
using our tax dollars to tortureour citizens.
So what if they come from poor,disadvantaged backgrounds?
They're still people, they'restill citizens and they deserve
humane treatment.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Tell us about your work with disability rights.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So we're part of the Unlock the Box movement or
campaign, which is a nationalcampaign to end solitary in the
country.
And so here in North Carolina,unlock the Box is known as End
Solitary NC and we have been ona campaign to educate the public
(18:42):
about the harms of solitaryconfinement, and we've done that
through public speaking events.
We've done that through justpassing out flyers events.
We've done that through justpassing out flyers.
We've done that most recentlythrough bringing our life-size
replica solitary confinementcell to different venues.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
From your perspective , what would it take for the
carceral system not to includesolitary confinement?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
That's a great question, but I think one thing
is to think about people througha humane lens, to look at
people as human beings who aredeserving of respect and care.
(19:35):
But the system is such a largebeast of sorts that I think it
would be very difficult to getit to change.
But I think, yeah, we have tostart by humanizing the people
(19:55):
who live there and work there,and I think part of that change
has to be less security-orientedand more rehabilitative or
habilitative-oriented, wherepeople are getting the type of
attention and treatment thatthey need, are getting the type
of attention and treatment thatthey need.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Is there anything else that you think that we have
overlooked, or anything elseyou want to say?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
I don't think we've overlooked anything.
If the folks on the inside hearthis, I just want to encourage
you to keep doing things toimprove yourself.
Do the best that you can do, nomatter where you are, so that
when the opportunity comes to dobetter, you're ready.
You know Life don't stop justbecause you're in prison.
Your life's still going.
(20:46):
You just happen to be in prison, but you can still improve your
life.
You can still impact thecommunity inside prison.
And if you think you're gettingout of prison, that's even more
reason to continue to work onyourself.
Even if you've got to spenddecades behind the wall, you're
getting out.
Keep working on making yourselfthe best that you can be.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
You know, craig said a lot more about the Mandela
Rules that I didn't include.
Basically, the Mandela Rulesare an internationally
recognized blueprint for thehumane treatment of prisoners.
In addition to prolongedsolitary confinement, the rules
prohibit the confined isolationof people with mental or
physical disabilities, minors orpregnant women.
Still, very few states evenattempt to follow any of the
(21:43):
Mandela rules.
April, you were pregnant whileyou went to prison.
How did they treat you?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I was locked in an isolation room, a sort of
solitary confinement, but notlike a SIG, so there wasn't
anyone to talk to or anyone tocommunicate with except me and
my unborn child and anoccasional staff member.
But I do have a story along thelines of solitary confinement.
(22:12):
I think this might shock you,judy, but it brought something
to mind.
There was a husband and wifeteam that worked there two ends
of the prison.
The wife worked in segregation,which is where solitary
confinement is, and the husbandworked on the yard and sometimes
on my unit.
So I was closer.
I was close to both, but closerto him because he was one that
(22:34):
had the key to the yard.
So I was closer.
I was close to both, but closerto him because he was one that
had the key to the yard.
So I had to make him my friendso I could get all of my yard
time.
Well, there was an incident ofsuicide on solitary confinement
on this lady's watch who wassuper sweet, very nice lady, and
she said to me afterwards shewas.
She told me.
She said April, I'm the onethat got her down.
(22:55):
So this lady began to uh, youknow she wasn't showing up for
her shifts and stuff.
And so I asked the um, thehusband, how she was, says she's
, you know she's taking thispretty hard.
So she took some time off.
He told me that they would goplaces.
She was getting ready to go tothe gym at her home and she
(23:18):
couldn't get out of the car Likeshe was just physically frozen
so fast forward.
The lady never came back to work.
She eventually started drawingdisability for PTSD.
So imagine what the person inthe cell who talked to the
person that she cut down becauseit was hanging that, and so
imagine that how the person inthe cell felt talking to this
(23:41):
person for days, months on end,and then the person wasn't there
.
So if the lady had to retire,if someone who made a career and
a job of this for years shewasn't a new employee and a job
of this for years, she wasn't anew employee, she had been there
for years.
And so if she had to quitbecause of her mental health
issues, imagine how the personleft in the box felt that no
(24:02):
longer talked to the cellmate.
Just point to ponder.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
It's very disturbing Not shocking, I'm afraid to say,
but disturbing and it reallypoints to the real impact that
working, that it's not easy tobe a correctional officer, and I
think it's really easy forpeople to demonize the
(24:25):
correctional officers, whereit's the system that is just
really messed up.
Yeah, oh my, that's a horriblestory.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, it's really sad .
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, yeah.
The second person we're goingto meet today is Dolores Canales
, who is instrumental in theformation of Unlock the Box, a
national campaign whose statedmission is to end solitary
confinement in all US prisons,jails, detention facilities and
(25:02):
juvenile facilities.
The goal of Unlock the Box isto bring the United States in
full compliance with the UNMandela rules for the treatment
of prisoners.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Dolores began her journey in 2011 during a
prison-led hunger strike atPelican Bay Prison in California
.
The strike was a protestagainst the inhumane conditions
of solitary confinement,including indefinite sentences.
Desperate to save her son, whowas striking, Dolores protested
(25:33):
from the outside In 2013,.
When a second hunger strikeerupted, she joined other
families in becoming a principalorganizer in the protest.
This time, 29,000 prisonersrefused to eat, with a core of
men who maintained a hungerstrike for 60 days.
Men who maintain a hungerstrike for 60 days.
(25:58):
Dolores' advocacy led to theformation of California families
against solitary confinementand helped end indefinite
solitary confinement inCalifornia.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Welcome to our show, Dolores.
I really enjoyed meeting you atthe screening of the strike in
Durham.
That's the documentary thattells the story about the
Pelican Bay hunger strike.
Speaking of Pelican Bay, canyou tell us what it means to
receive an indefinite sentencein solitary confinement, what
(26:30):
that meant on the ground?
Speaker 4 (26:33):
Right, well, the indefinite.
It was referred to as anindefinite shoe term.
A shoe is what was?
You know?
It's called a security housingunit and the indefinite shoe
term here in California, the wayit was being used at the time.
You did not have to commit anactual rules violation, you
didn't have to have anymisbehavior at all.
(26:58):
They did it.
They practiced it more on anassumption-based practice and
arbitrary measures, such as ifyou had a note from somebody
else, or if somebody else had anote and had your name in it, or
, um, you know, if you had abook the solid dad brothers, uh,
different things, pictures,they, they use different things
(27:20):
they would then label you as agang validation.
They had this whole processwhere they would label you as an
associate of a gang or a gangmember, and and so therefore,
they would put you in securityhousing unit indefinitely and
you get a review every six years, and so the only way out at
that time would be if you choseto.
(27:41):
They had this system called thedebriefing process, where you
had to provide them informationon other people and they would
have no misconduct as far asactual documentation of
write-ups.
It was just these 1030 chronos,which a 1030 chrono is a
(28:01):
confidential chrono and it'snoted in your central file where
somebody else is saying thingsabout you, but there doesn't
even have to be an actualinvestigation into the acts that
you're being accused of.
So therefore a 115 never comesinto play.
A 115 is a serious rulesviolation report.
(28:21):
Somebody else can say all thesethings about you.
You'll never get a rulesviolation report for the things
that are being said about you,so it'll never be cooperated
with an actual misconduct forthem.
So it's based on gossip.
Disclose to you who is sayingthis.
(28:49):
So it's a rather complicatedprocess that California
Department of Corrections stillutilizes to this day.
They still have these 1030Kronos.
And one thing we did find outin the Ashford versus Brown
lawsuit that you know the hungerstrikes it was all revolved
around was that oftentimes theseconfidential chronos, they're
just fabricated.
(29:09):
They're either fabricated orthey were written by COs
themselves, and that wasadmitted in court, but their
justification for doing it wasthey've done this long before
the Ashker lawsuit.
So therefore it has nothing todo with the Ashher settlement in
itself.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
That sounds like a police state.
No, it sounds like East Berlinor a story out of there.
It doesn't sound like theUnited States.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Right, right.
Well, you know it's complicatedbecause CDC oversees themselves
, the legislators are supposedto oversee them, and our
governor, of course, but theCCPOA, which is the Union for
the Prison Guards?
They donate millions to ourDemocratic Party here in
California, can you?
Speaker 2 (30:00):
briefly describe the changes that came about in
California as a result of thePelican Bay strike that came
about in California as a resultof the Pelican Bay strike.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yes, well, you know, once that hunger strike took
place, it really like wokepeople up to what we were doing,
just with mass incarceration,with incarceration in itself.
So, cdc, they ended the use ofindefinite solitary confinement
because at that, that time, wehad people in isolation, you
know, 10 years to 40 years,literally on indefinite terms
and with arbitrary use of of theisolation, of the placement of
(30:42):
isolation, and so what ended uphappening was they ended the use
of indefinite solitaryconfinement.
People could still get shoeterms, but they're stipulated
Like, for instance, you know,for murder you get like a
five-year shoe term or escape.
I mean, there's still shoeterms still exist, but it's a
definite shoe term of how longyou'll be placed in solitary
(31:04):
confinement.
They also allow programming.
They're supposed to allowprogramming while you're in SHU
so that you could have some sortof program, although that's why
we've been working on theMandela Bill in California,
because we're finding that theyare still using.
They found a different way.
Oh well, we'll put you inadministrative segregation,
(31:24):
which is isolation, and we'llcall it pending investigation,
and they can leave you there fora year or two years, you know,
with their whole pendinginvestigation, and we also found
that a lot of people were justbeing stagnant in isolation with
no access to programming andanother thing.
So now, so the governor nowstepped in and said SHU no
(31:49):
longer exists in California, nowwe have RU.
So now it's called RestrictiveHousing Unit and we have RU and
the whole focus is supposed tobe to process you out, to give
you access to programs.
So there's like a whole200-page implementation report
on it programs.
There's like a whole 200 pageimplementation report on it.
And you know, so we're we'relooking at that and seeing how
(32:11):
it's going so far.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So you started to protest in 2011.
And then that grew in the 2013strike and you formed California
Families Against SolitaryConfinement.
So how is that stateorganization affiliated with
(32:35):
Unlock the Box?
Did it lead to the beginning ofUnlock the Box?
Speaker 4 (32:40):
You know, actually it did, and I have all that in
writing.
Amy Fatig, who was with theACLU at the time, you know, says
she had never, you know,working on prison policy on a
national level.
She says she has never seenwhat transpired in California
anywhere, not even on a globallevel.
And so what ended up happeningis she, they brought some of us
(33:01):
together from variousorganizations, and I was the
local, I was the only localrepresentative for California,
but the rest were like NERC,national Religious Campaign
Against Torture, solitary WatchOf course he works on around
nationally and the ACLU, and wemet with some funders to really
(33:26):
to bring in a position, just onecentralized position that would
be able to work with everybodyon a national level.
And so the funders agreed andthen we created the job
description and everythingtogether and we went through
hundreds of resumes, and so I ama co-founder of Unlock the Box,
(33:47):
I was part of the interviewteam, and so we did end up
hiring Jessica Sandoval, andwhich she's really moved the
needle forward on a nationallevel, you know.
And so it's been really amazingto see.
You know there's over 20 statesnow working on campaigns the
Mandela Bill, you know just tosee what's transpired from that
(34:10):
work and how this is.
This is now a conversationaltopic.
I mean, you hear about it onthe news now you know people
being kept in isolation, peoplebeing kept in solitary
confinement is referred to astorture, and so, yeah, it's been
incredible.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Wow, that is amazing.
It's got a long ways to go.
You know, I know just from the.
You know the one episode that Idid on Solitary.
I have had so many people sayto me I had no idea.
People don't know.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Right, yeah, well, and that's what I found during
the hunger strikes.
You know, I mean I'm in thestrike and I say there's a part
where I talk about this.
We're literally just here inCalifornia.
I used to walk around with afolder to have the pictures of
what the cells actually lookedlike and people could not
believe that we did this inAmerica.
I mean, there was shock.
There was like that's thingsyou hear about in the third
(35:09):
world country, we don't do thisin America.
And then, of course, even moreshock with you know, certainly
we would never do this inCalifornia.
California is just too.
You know, and I'll never forget,when the hunger strike strikes
first started, there was thisBetty White commercial, right,
and it would say what do I loveabout California?
And it would pull back thescreen and it would have people
(35:30):
doing yoga on the beach or itwould have people jet, you know,
snow skiing in Big Bear andhave you want to know the truth
about California?
And show like one of thePelican Bay cells with no
windows.
I mean, the architecturaldesign in itself is inhumane.
(35:56):
The minds that sat there andcreated those cells for human
beings to be placed in have tobe a bit deranged and they have
to live with themselves everyday knowing that people are in
those cells, going mad, beingtortured.
You know cells that theycreated, that they designed and
(36:18):
that they became millionairesoff of.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
We could talk about this for hours we could talk
about this for hours, but yeah,of course I know people
sometimes.
Somebody just said the otherday they talked about it as work
, right, and I said you don'tunderstand.
Like this is, this is my life,like I talk about this every
single day.
I talk about like how are wetreating people?
(36:43):
You know, what are we doing topeople, how are we making things
better, and so it's just yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I understand that, in addition to the work that you
do on the steering committee forUnlock the Box, you also do a
lot of outreach with thefamilies of people in solitary
confinement.
Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yes, yes, I do, and you know, and I'm very- honest
with the families.
I said I let them know.
You know, some of the thingsthat I think are so important is
, for one, does your loved onewant you to get involved?
And another is, if you're goingto get involved, you have to be
prepared to stay involved.
It is not a journey for thefaint of heart and just a lot of
(37:35):
support sometimes.
That's just what it is.
I wish I had all the answerssometimes, but I let them know
I'm a family member, just likeyou are, and two always run
everything past theirincarcerated loved one.
I don't ever give advice of whatsomeone should do.
If I do give advice, I'll sayask your incarcerated loved one
(37:58):
what they think of this, becauseI see a lot of people you know
have some amazing ideas and Ithink the most important voice
and the most importantconsideration is the one that is
still inside that might have toendure retaliation.
Is there a network of supportif you begin to get involved?
Is there a network of supportfor you if that person, if your
(38:19):
son or your daughter, startsfacing retaliation?
To where you're going to have ateam that will be ready to hit
the phone lines and call theprison, call your local
legislators, you know, connectthe activism to the retaliation
and the timing.
You know just different thingslike that and so you know it's
not like I let people know.
(38:40):
I'm a family member, just likeyou are, and I wish I had all
the answers, but you know we'refinding them all out together.
But you know, definitely, ifyou're going to get involved,
just be prepared to stayinvolved until your loved one is
home.
Another thing is is all thedifferent state campaigns like,
(39:02):
for instance, a lot of theunlock the box, states have been
showing the strike, which thestrike is, the, you know the
documentary of the hungerstrikes that took place in the
state of California, and so alot of the states have been
showing the strike and sometimesthey will have us, some of the
protagonists, out to go be partof their panel with their local
(39:24):
organizers, part of their panelwith their local organizers, and
that's been really beautifuland to be a part of and to just
be embraced by community andyour own son.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
how is he doing?
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Well, yeah, it's been a journey.
It's been quite a journey, andnow I can see all the
retaliation.
I mean I have so muchdocumentation connecting all the
docs, but I mean he's holdingin there.
He has been filed some newcharges and he has been filed
with federal charges.
(39:57):
Now he got his original casedismissed to a misdemeanor after
30 years, after 30 years and hekept fighting and kept fighting
.
I was sitting in the courtroomwhere the judge said out loud to
the district attorney thatstill did not want him to be
resentenced.
Might I remind you, not onlywas he never involved, he was
(40:20):
standing on the other end withhis back turned.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
My, that's quite a story.
We have just one minute left.
What would you like to say inclosing?
Speaker 4 (40:34):
You know I thank you for having this podcast.
Thank you for having me on thispodcast.
What I'd really like to say isI'd like to urge the audience if
you're listening right now,please pass this podcast on.
Encourage others to listen,encourage others to get involved
with your local state campaignsand to look into how you can
make a difference.
And, believe me, it often doesnot take much.
(40:56):
Sometimes it's something assimple as a phone call or a
letter, you know, and so I wouldreally encourage people to get
involved.
You can go onunlocktheboxcampaignorg as well
and see all the states that arenow working on changing these
horrific conditions ofconfinement.
And I want to thank you and DrCraig Waleed.
(41:17):
He's been amazing also.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
I love Dr Craig Waleed and thank you, Dolores.
This means so much to me thatyou were willing to talk to us.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Absolutely, judy, and it's been amazing connecting
with you.
This means so much to me thatyou were willing to talk to us.
Absolutely, judy, and it's beenamazing connecting with you.
Thank you so much for having meand if you're listening right
now, please share this podcastand ask the people that you
share it with to keep on sharingit, all right?
Thank you so much.
You have a wonderful day.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
For everyone listening.
I urge you to see the Strike,the documentary about the men of
Pelican Bay Supermax Prison inCalifornia who went on the
largest hunger strike in UShistory and sparked a campaign
to end the indeterminate use ofsolitary confinement.
You'll learn the role DoloresCanales played in both the
(42:05):
strike and the legislation thatfollowed.
The documentary is currentlystreaming on PBS's show
Independent Lens and you canalso find it on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Well, that's our show for today, and it's the last
show of the season.
We're going to take a shortbreak before we begin preparing
for our next season.
In the meantime, take a listento some of our previous episodes
and check us out on Facebookand Instagram.
If you'd like to reach out tous, you can email us at
98percentlifeafter at gmailcom.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
At the end of June I'm going to have another
shoulder replacement, so I'll beout of commission for a while,
but before then I plan to post aspecial episode featuring a
couple of residents of OrenCorrectional Center who train
therapy dogs for people with avariety of disabilities.
Stay tuned to the 98%.
Life After Prison, a showdedicated to all the people who
(43:08):
are incarcerated and coming home.
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