SENATOR LELAND YEE’S BILL LIMITING USE OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR KIDS PASSES OUT OF COMMITTEE

SB 61, a bill that defines and limits the use of solitary confinement for kids locked up in state and county juvenile facilities passed out of the Senate Public Safety Committee on Wednesday. The bill, authored by Senator Leland Yee, (D-San Francisco/San Mateo) is something that youth advocates have been pushing.

A statement from Yee’s office outlined the following points:

**Nationally, over half of the youth who committed suicide while in a correctional facility were in solitary confinement and 62 percent had a history of being placed in solitary confinement.

***Research also shows that individuals who were forced into solitary confinement had much higher rates of recidivism as well as developing psychopathologies.

**“The use of solitary confinement on a child is wrong and should be used only in the most extreme situations,” said Yee, who is a child psychologist. “The studies are clear – holding juveniles in solitary increases recidivism rates, exacerbates existing mental illness, and makes youth more likely to attempt suicide. The overuse of solitary confinement with children destroys young lives.”

“Solitary confinement is an archaic way of dealing with incarcerated children” said Yee. “Clearly, solitary confinement does not benefit society in the long run and actually makes our communities more dangerous. If we embrace scientific evidence over the status quo, we can work to rebuild broken lives and keep California safer.”

Dr. Laura Abrams of UCLA testified on behalf of SB 61, saying, “The mission of the juvenile justice system is to offer youth an opportunity for rehabilitation while also promoting public safety. The use of solitary confinement is counter to these goals. Not only does solitary confinement undermine rehabilitation efforts, but also as the potential to return a young person to society with exacerbated trauma and mental illness that can manifest in violence toward self or others.”

We’re watching this bill and are heartened by this first step toward passage!

HOW SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS BACKFIRE

This run-of-the-mill yet heartbreaking story of the everyday manner in which the use of a school suspension fairls to serve either the student or the safety of the school, is all too common. It is by Sally Lee writing for the Huffington Post. Here’s a representative clip:

Working in the Bronx, as she writes in the Suspensions Stories blog, E.E.M. is a history teacher who helped develop a “Moot Court” project that has become one of the seminal academic experiences of upperclassmen at her school. Student teams research real First and Fourth Amendment Supreme Court cases and then develop arguments and present in front of guest “justices.” Each year students are highly engaged in this project, and one year four of them, a crew of friends who had known each other since childhood, were working hard to prepare for their presentation. But just weeks before the case presentations, three of the young men were involved in an altercation (involving many people from multiple schools in the building) that was the result of an out-of-school turf tension related to the two sets of housing projects near the school. The three young men were given a 60-day out-of-school suspension. The effect? The students never got to stand tall and present their cases in front of peers and impressed guests. Instead, one student transferred to a school that didn’t match his needs or interests, another moved out of state, one returned to the school with little trust for faculty, and the fourth, who wasn’t involved in the fights, grew listless after the destruction of what had been a positive and supportive team for him: his friends. What could have been for these young men had the school system intervened earlier and responded differently? For E.E.M. and her colleagues, stories like these are common, and they are heartbreaking. Educators see so much promise in their students, but what is their fate when time and again they are demoralized and alienated by schools without adequate and supportive resources?

HOPELESSNESS REIGNS AT GUANTANAMO

We don’t usually stray into issues that relate to national security, but for those of us concerned about humane and constitutional incarceration policies, this situation is of grave concern. The New York Times’ Charlie Savage has written a painful and shameful story about the dispair that has spread among the prisoners at Guantanamo, resulting in a mass hunger strike that is now threatening lives.

Here’s a clip from Savage’s excellent and disturbing story:

In the early afternoon quiet, guards in camouflage fatigues walked the two-tiered cellblocks of Camp Six, where the most cooperative of the 166 terrorism suspects held in the military prison here are housed. From a darkened control room, other guards watched banks of surveillance monitors showing prisoners in white clothing — pacing, sleeping or reading — in their cells.

But the relative calm on display to visiting reporters last week was deceiving. Days earlier, guards had raided Camp Six and locked down protesting prisoners who had blocked security cameras, forbidding them to congregate in a communal area. A hunger strike is now in its third month, with 93 prisoners considered to be participating — more than half the inmates and twice the number before the raid.

“They are not done yet, and they will not be done until there is more than one death,” said a Muslim adviser to the military, identified as “Zak” for security reasons, who fears there may be suicides. Only one thing, he predicted, will satisfy the detainees: if someone is allowed to leave.

The spark for the protest is disputed. Detainees, through their lawyers, say that when guards conducted a search of their cells on Feb. 6, they handled their Korans in a disrespectful way. Prison officials dispute that.

But both military officials and lawyers for the detainees agree about the underlying cause of the turmoil: a growing sense among many prisoners, some of whom have been held without trial for more than 11 years, that they will never go home.

AND THE REALLY, REALLY BAD JAIL OF THE MONTH AWARD GOES TO….THE BALTIMORE CITY DETENTION CENTER

Jail guards as inmates’ babymamas plus a thriving drug biz behind bars and more. Rochelle Ritchie of CBS reports this story (and so has nearly everyone else). Here’s a clip in case you missed the sad and jaw-dropping saga of one of Baltimore’s jail:

Twenty-five people, 13 of those female correction officers, are now behind bars facing federal charges of racketeering, money laundering and possession of drugs with the intent to distribute. Investigators say the women helped White and other gang members smuggle cell phones, marijuana, prescription pills and cigarettes into the Baltimore City Detention Center.

“It’s pretty much its own city. The guards aren’t running the jail; prisoners really run the jail,” said one former inmate.

The illegal operation isn’t surprising to former inmates.

“I was in there before. Everywhere you look, people lighting up marijuana joints, tobacco…we even get alcohol in there,” said a former inmate.

And here’s a clip from a story by Dan Rodricks for the Baltimore Sun:

I have lots of questions about the Black Guerrilla Family case, starting with this: Was the warden of the Baltimore City Detention Center asked to approve maternity leave for any of the female correctional officers allegedly impregnated by inmate Tavon “Bulldog” White?

I thought it was a pretty good question.

A taxpayer’s question.

According to the U.S. attorney’s office, White got four of his jailers pregnant. (Do you think these women knew what was going on before the indictment came down? Do you think they all got along and attended Lamaze class together?)

If the indictment is correct, if female prison guards fraternized with an inmate to the point of pregnancy — a couple of them had White’s name tattooed on their bodies, the feds say — then I don’t want to hear that they asked for paid maternity leave.

Don’t tell us that.

Bad enough that White pretty much ran the jail, according to the indictment.

If his baby mamas — excuse me, his alleged baby mamas — had the chutzpah to ask for paid maternity leave, that would add insult to injury….

As more and more civil rights organizations and some lawmakers, push for a reexamination of prison policies that keep certain inmates in solitary confinement for years, even decades, in October the California Department of Corrections (CDCR) revised its own policies regarding what can land an inmate in the SHU—or Special Housing Unit—which is solitary confinement. Since then it has been slowly letting some SHU inmates back into the general population.

Critics say the the revised policy doesn’t got nearly far enough.

Yet it’s a start.

The LA Times Paige St. John has more on this story.

Here’s a clip:

Department spokeswoman Terry Thornton this week said the agency has so far reviewed 144 inmates who were placed in the SHU because they allegedly associated with prison gangs, an activity that now no longer merits segregation. Of those reviewed, she said, 78 have been released into the general population and 52 have entered the “step down” program. An additional seven inmates have been retained in segregation, Thornton said, “for their safety,” and the remaining 10 have agreed to debrief, the term the corrections department uses for providing prison investigators information on gang activity.

Thornton said the department intends to eventually review all SHU inmates for possible release, though there are about 1,200 in segregation at Pelican Bay State Prison alone, some held there more than 20 years.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a federal lawsuit against the state contesting the indefinite stays, and Amnesty International last year released a report contending SHU conditions are inhumane.

GEORGE WILL WRITES ABOUT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AS TORTURE

Conservative columnist George Will writes a strongly worded column about why solitary confinement qualifies as torture.

Here’s how it opens:

“Zero Dark Thirty,” a nominee for Sunday’s Oscar for Best Picture, reignited debate about whether the waterboarding of terrorism suspects was torture. This practice, which ended in 2003, was used on only three suspects. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of American prison inmates are kept in protracted solitary confinement that arguably constitutes torture and probably violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.”

Noting that half of all prison suicides are committed by prisoners held in isolation, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) has prompted an independent assessment of solitary confinement in federal prisons. State prisons are equally vulnerable to Eighth Amendment challenges concerning whether inmates are subjected to “substantial risk of serious harm.”

America, with 5 percent of the world’s population, has 25 percent of its prisoners. Mass incarceration, which means a perpetual crisis of prisoners re-entering society, has generated understanding of solitary confinement’s consequences when used as a long-term condition for an estimated 25,000 inmates in federal and state “supermax” prisons — and perhaps 80,000 others in isolation sections within regular prisons. Clearly, solitary confinement involves much more than the isolation of incorrigibly violent individuals for the protection of other inmates or prison personnel.

Federal law on torture prohibits conduct “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.” And “severe” physical pain is not limited to “excruciating or agonizing” pain, or pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, or even death.” The severe mental suffering from prolonged solitary confinement puts the confined at risk of brain impairment.

Supermax prisons isolate inmates from social contact. Often prisoners are in their cells, sometimes smaller than 8 by 12 feet, 23 hours a day, released only for a shower or exercise in a small fenced-in outdoor space. Isolation changes the way the brain works, often making individuals more impulsive, less able to control themselves. The mental pain of solitary confinement is crippling: Brain studies reveal durable impairments and abnormalities in individuals denied social interaction. Plainly put, prisoners often lose their minds.

I was happy to note that Will references “Hellhole,” the excellent 2009 article New Yorker article by surgeon/writer Atul Gwande that explores whether or not solitary confinement is torture. (If you’ve not read it, I strongly, strongly recommend it.)

DENVER SCHOOLS LEAD NATION WITH SMART DISCIPLINE POLICIES

This article by Julianne Hing in Colorlines Magazine has the story. Here’s how it opens:

Already home to one of the most progressive school discipline policies in the country, Denver has set out to best even its own record. On Tuesday, Denver Public Schools and local and county police departments inked a five-year agreement specifically designed to limit student interaction with the juvenile justice system. The agreement offers a rare example of a school system that is bucking the national trend toward criminalizing student misbehavior.

Just two months after the gun massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn., and in a state that has had its share of mass shootings, the Denver pact comes at a pivotal point in the national debate on firearms and school security.

The school system had already articulated a commitment to minimizing police contact with its students. But because of a lingering zero-tolerance framework that required harsh and automatic penalties for student misbehavior, the 15 officers assigned to the city’s schools were functioning as disciplinarians, meting out suspensions, expulsions and tickets for minor infractions like chewing gum, fighting in the schoolyard and exposing their tattoos.

The new agreement—the result of a collaboration between law enforcement, school officials and a Denver-based community organization called Padres y Jovenes Unidos—turns the concept of minimal police contact into an official, districtwide policy.

“This is a historic collaboration between a school district, a police department and an organization [that] represents parents and young people of color who are most impacted by these policies,” said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of the Advancement Project, a national civil rights group that partnered with Denver-based Padres y Jovenes Unidos to secure the agreement.

With the new agreement, police officers are now being directed to know and observe the difference between disciplinary issues and criminal acts. Law enforcement officials have agreed that they will only respond to serious offenses. The district will use restorative justice practices to address routine student misbehavior.

“It’s not, ‘You did something wrong, go home for five days and watch television,’ ” Denver Superintendent Tom Boasberg told the Washington Post. “It’s, ‘What did you do wrong? Who did you harm? How are you going to make them whole, and what are you learning from this?’ ”

SOCIAL TRENDS DRIVING GUN AND GANG VIOLENCE

The Atlantic’s Ta-nehisi Coates has a very interesting discussion about trends in gun violence with the Chicago Crime Lab’s Harold Pollack.

Here’s a clip:

Like everyone, we at The Atlantic have spent the weeks since Newtown thinking about the role of guns in America. In our ongoing effort to broaden the conversation, I spent some time talking to Professor Harold Pollack, who co-directs the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago. Pollack is one of the foremost voices on gun violence from a public health perspective. Pollack and his colleagues at the Crime Lab have done yeoman’s work in helping us understand how guns end up on the streets of cities like Chicago, and how precisely they tend to be used.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Hi, Harold. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us over here at The Atlantic. We’ve had several off-line conversations which have been illuminating to me. I greatly appreciate your willingness to take some time to do this for the Horde, as we say on the blog.

Harold Pollack: It’s great to correspond with you, Ta-Nehisi, regarding what can actually be done to reduce gun violence. I’m a big fan of your work. I should mention by way of self-introduction that I am a public health researcher at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

Here in Chicago, we have become the focus of much national attention because we had our 500th homicide [of the year in 2012]. We’re sometimes called the nation’s murder capital — though this mainly reflects the fact that we are a big city. We’re more dangerous than L.A. or New York, but we’re actually in the middle of the pack when it comes to homicide rates. Still, we’re dangerous enough. The declining homicide rates in many prosperous and middle-class neighborhoods casts a harsh light on the high rates facing African-American (and to a lesser-extent) Latino young men on the city’s south and west sides. Lots to talk about. I am looking forward to talking. So let’s get to it.

I don’t know if I’ve told you how I come to this issue, but I should say for everyone reading this that I am from Baltimore — the West Side, as we used to call it. I came of age in the late 1980s and early 90s, a period in which violence spiked in our cities. I don’t know if Chicago today is as bad as it was in, say, 1988, but this was a period of deep fear for everyone in the black communities of Baltimore. And the fear was everywhere.

It changed how we addressed our parents. It changed how we addressed each other. It changed our music. The violence put rules in place that often look strange to the rest of the country. For instance, the mask of hyper-machismo and invulnerability — the ice-grill, as we used to say — looks strange, until you’ve lived in a place where that mask is the only power you have to effect a modicum of safety.

I’m in my late 40s. I was a typical suburban kid graduating high school outside New York. It wasn’t as tough for me as it was on the west side of Baltimore, but crime certainly touched my life. On one occasion, I was in Washington Heights on my way to an AP class at Columbia University. A group of middle-school or early-high-school kids jumped me in the subway station, and they attempted to wrest away my watch. My high school sweetheart had just given it to me; I didn’t want to give it up. So a kid grabbed me by the hair and smashed my head against the concrete floor until I finally relented. As you know, my cousin was beaten to death by two teenage house burglars a few years later.

So I remember very well both the fear and the anger that accompanies one’s sense of physical vulnerability. Of course this anger often comes with a race/ethnic/class tinge that poisons so much of what we are trying to do in revitalizing urban America.

Read on.

LELAND YEE REINTRODUCES BILL TO LIMIT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR KIDS

Tuesday, State Senator Leland Yee introduced a bill to “define and limit the use of solitary confinement in state and county juvenile correctional facilities.”

LA County is one of the regions that evidently is still sorely in need of such guidelines (yet it is far from the only one.)

The bill—which would reserve solitary confinement only for instances when a kid an “immediate and substantial risk of harm to others or the security of the facility”—is legislation that should have passed easily this last summer when Lee first tried to get it through the state legislature.

Instead, it was defeated by spineless lawmakers who were evidently terrified of being called soft on crime.

In order to get a bit of perspective on the matter it helps to know the following:

*The United Nations has urged all countries to prohibit solitary confinement in juvenile cases.

*Six states—Connecticut, Arizona, Maine, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Alaska—have already banned the use of solitary confinement for any kind of “punitive reasons,” due to the harm it can cause to kids whose brains are still developing.

*National figures show that over half of the kids who committed suicide while in a correctional facility were in solitary confinement at the time they killed themselves. And 62 percent of the kids who succeeded at suicide, had a history of being placed in solitary confinement.

*Studies have also found that young people who were forced into solitary confinement had much higher rates of recidivism after they were released, as well as having a much higher likelihood for developing psychopathologies.

*In a lengthy report released last October by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, experts describe how “young people are psychologically unable to handle solitary confinement with the resilience of an adult. And, because they are still developing, traumatic experiences like solitary confinement may have a profound effect on their chance to rehabilitate and grow. Solitary confinement can exacerbate, or make more likely,
short and long-term mental health problems.”

In other words, in all but the most extreme cases, solitary helps neither public safety, nor the kids themselves. Instead it is likely to cause psychological and/or emotional damage.

And yet California still uses the practice with cheerful abandon, both in state facilities and in local juvenile facilities like LA County’s juvenile probation camps.

CALIFORNIA AND KIDS IN SOLITARY

Being in isolation to me felt like I was on an island all alone[,] dying a slow
death from the inside out.
—Letter from Kyle B. (pseudonym), from a California kid to Human Rights Watch,
May 3, 2012.

So how much do we use solitary on kids in California?

A 2011 audit of one California Division of Juvenile Justice facility, found that of 93 young people placed in restricted housing, 16 were held for a total of 78 days, during which they were only provided an average of 74 out-of-room minutes each day.

In LA County’s juvenile probation camps, although the stays are not as long as in the state facilities (usually not more than ten days), a number of LA County’s camps make liberal use of solitary confinement, or the SHU (special housing unit).

It seems the camps are sending kids to the SHU despite having been specifically ordered not to by the County’s long-standing Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Justice, which states that probation officials should reserve “the use of isolation for only the most violent misconduct.” Even when a kid is out of control, the DOJ recommends strategies other than isolation, pointing out that putting a teenager in solitary causes “the youth’s risk of self-harm [to] increase,” and “the use of isolation provides no opportunity to address the decision-making or skill deficits that underlie the youth’s non-compliant behavior.”

Yet, despite more than six years of DOJ monitoring, many of LA’s camps have yet to get with the program.

To give you a quick idea of what we’re talking about: in a single month last fall, one LA County probation camp that houses approximately 60 kids on any given day, sent teenagers to the SHU 80 times.

By far the most common reasons for sending a teenager to solitary in the LA County probation camps are the catch-all categories of “disruption,” and “failure to follow instructions,” along with “fighting.” The more serious behavior issues like assault or attempted assault, which could warrant a short SHU stay according to Yee’s bill and the DOJ, were close to nonexistent as listed reasons for landing LA teenagers in isolation.

And in LA County’s camps “Failure to Follow Instructions” could be anything from talking back, to not moving quickly between one’s dorm and the cafeteria, to an unwillingness to eat one’s vegetables at meal time. (Yes, the non-vegetable-eating referral to the SHU really did occur.)

THE BILL

And so this bill, SB 61.

According to Yee’s office the provisions of SB 61 would:

*define solitary confinement as the involuntary placement in a room or cell in isolation from persons other than staff and attorneys.
*provide that solitary confinement shall only be used when a minor poses an immediate and substantial risk of harm to others or the security of the facility, and all other less restrictive options have been exhausted.
*provide that a minor or ward shall only be held in solitary confinement for the minimum time necessary to address the safety risk.
*provide additional restrictions on the use of solitary confinement for minors with suicidal or self-harming behavior.
*provide that clinical staff shall review minors or wards regularly to ensure that their physical and mental health is not endangered.
*empower existing county juvenile justice commissions to report on the use of solitary confinement in juvenile facilities.

One would think that, given given the pile of research on the negative affects of locking a kid in a room for 22-23 hours a day, except in the most extreme of circumstances, Yee’s bill would sail through the legislature with enthusiastic bi-partisan approval. But as I mentioned above, in 2012, that was far from the case.

Let us hope that 2013 will bring a better outcome.

We’re going to be tracking this bill, as well as continuing to look at the practice here in LA County, along with other regions.

DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT ON TEENS AND THE NEED FOR A DIFFERENT APPROACH

A new report by the Human Rights Watch and the ACLU reinforces the need for effective alternatives to the all-too-common use of solitary confinement in the youth detention setting. The report surveys over 125 kids in 19 states, including California, who have spent time in isolation, and provides first-hand accounts of the devastating effects of solitary confinement on developing youth. Here’s a clip from the Human Rights Watch article:

Because young people are still developing, traumatic experiences like solitary confinement may have a profound effect on their chance to rehabilitate and grow, the groups found. Solitary confinement can exacerbate short- and long-term mental health problems or make it more likely that such problems will develop. Young people in solitary confinement are routinely denied access to treatment, services, and programming required to meet their medical, psychological, developmental, social, and rehabilitative needs.

The New York City Department of Corrections, for example, reported that in fiscal year 2012, which ended in June, more than 14 percent of all adolescents were held in at least one period of solitary confinement while detained. The average length of time young people spent in solitary confinement at Rikers Island was 43 days. More than 48 percent of adolescents at Rikers have diagnosed mental health problems.

[SNIP]

The solitary confinement of young people under age 18 is itself a serious human rights violation and can constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights law, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU said. Conditions that compound the harm of solitary confinement, such as denial of educational programming, exercise, or family visits, often constitute independent, serious human rights violations.

A number of corrections officials have begun to recognize and speak against the use of solitary confinement, saying that it is costly, ineffective, and harmful.

There are alternative ways to address the problems – whether disciplinary, administrative, protective, or medical – that officials typically cite to justify using solitary confinement, while taking into account the rights and special needs of adolescents, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU said. Youth could be housed in specialized facilities organized to encourage positive behavior. And punishment should be proportional to the infraction, using any short-term isolation as a rare exception.

Here’s what some of the surveyed kids had to say about their time in isolation:

“In seg[regation] you either implode or explode; you lose touch with reality, hear voices, hallucinate and think for hours about killing yourself, others or both. The anger and hurt gets so intense that you suspect everyone and trust no one and when someone does something nice for you, you don’t understand it.” – “Douglas C.” Colorado, April 2012.

“I just felt I wanted to die, like there was no way out – I was stressed out. I hung up the first day. I took a sheet and tied it to my light and they came around … The officer when she was doing rounds found me. She was banging on the window – ‘Are you alive? Are you alive?’ I could hear her but I felt like I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe.” – “Luz M.,” New York, April 2012

NO ONE TO ADDRESS SAN DIEGO’S YOUTH JUSTICE PROBLEMS

As election day nears for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ open seat, neither of the two candidates have addressed the colossally important problems of youth gang violence and prescription drug abuse—in fact, these issues remain largely ignored by everyone, says San Diego CityBeat writer Dave Maass. Here’s how Dave’s story for CityBeat and the Crime Report opens:

California’s second largest county is coping with widespread gang violence and prescription drug abuse among youth. But as election day nears, juvenile justice remains a whisper in a monsoon of economic rhetoric.

According to statistics released this year by the San Diego Association of Governments, 38 percent of male juveniles arrestees— and 28 percent of female juvenile arrestees— reported gang affiliations. And last year, 37 percent of juveniles arrested acknowledged prescription drug abuse— the highest rate in four years—according to a county task force.

In the only race on any level with a direct influence over juvenile justice policy in this county of more than 3.1 million people, the challenges of dealing with troubled young people have indeed surfaced—but almost as an afterthought.

The two candidates for the five-member San Diego County Board of Supervisors have an opportunity to take the county in a new direction as they vie for the first open seat in 16 years. So far they’ve traded jabs on funding for after-school programs as part of a larger campaign quarrel over an alleged county “slush fund.”

But in general the juvenile justice problems which are preoccupying some parents and county officials barely get a close examination.

That may not be surprising in an election season that has hinged on jobs and the economy in local as well as national contests. Even in education-related races, the debate has focused squarely on financial mismanagement and labor unions, issues that put the welfare of troubled kids below the concerns of taxpayers.

We, too, wish our local and statewide candidates would focus more on juvenile justice issues which, thus far, don’t seem to be high up on the political talking points list.

NY YOUTH RECORDS “STOP AND FRISK” INCIDENT

A 17-year-old son of a NY law enforcement officer secretly recorded a “stop and frisk” encounter in which police officers called him a “mutt” and told him that they would “break his arm off.”

The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf (who happens to live in Venice, CA) talks about how recording perceived wrong-doing can make a big difference and has the rest of the 17-year-old’s experience and its effect. Here’s a clip:

That’s how the politics of this issue will change.

What’s required is more secret recording. It’s very difficult to defend Stop and Frisk when the reality of how it’s administered is made public in a way the average person can understand. Technology is permitting the government to spy on us in unprecedented ways, but it can empower citizens too.

Any 17-year-old can record a Stop and Frisk encounter.

Any non-profit can teach people in affected areas how to inconspicuously record anytime they see one of these encounters.

Big Brother is being watched.

ARE THE FEDS EXAMINING ONE OF THE UNDERSHERIFF’S INMFAMOUS “WORK THE GRAY” SPEECHES?

WitnessLA has obtained the following email that went out to all LASD lieutenants this past Wednesday morning:

From: Federal Grand Jury Inquiry
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2012 7:36 AM
To: All Lieutenants
Subject: Federal Criminal Grand Jury Subpoena #1788

Good morning,
The Department has received a subpoena from the Federal Criminal Grand Jury which commands, in part, the following documents:

“4. Any and all correspondence between members or associates of the CCJV [Citizen's Committee on Jail Violence] and any member of the LASD at the level of Lieutenant or above.”
YOU MUST RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL. If you possess documents that are responsive to this subpoena, please indicate so in a reply email. If you do not have documents that are responsive, indicate such in a reply email.

It is of the utmost importance that we comply fully with this subpoena.
Your prompt attention to this matter is necessary and your cooperation is appreciated.

In that the memo was notably fuzzy about what this subpoena/grand jury business was about, there has much department speculation about what exactly the Feds are looking for.

Robert Faturechi from the LA Times wrote about the subpoena on Saturday. (You can read his article here.) In his story, he reported that the memo provoked concern that the subpoena could inadvertently “force department members to out themselves” if they have given testimony privately and in confidence to the Citizen’s Commission on Jail Violence.

However, a department source has told us that the subpoena may pertain to a story that WitnessLA first reported last month about an incident that occurred in mid-2005, after the murder of Sheriff’s Deputy Luis Gerardo Ortiz by a Hawaiian Gardens gang member.

According to our source, Undersheriff Paul Tanaka was ushered in to speak to a room full of 80 to 100 deputies, federal agents and other members of law enforcement, who were all part of a multi-agency task force being briefed before the service of a series of search warrants in connection with the killing of Deputy Ortiz. According to the story, before he began, Tanaka told anyone who was video taping the proceedings, to turn off all recording devices. Then he reportedly gave to those assembled a version of his “work the gray,” speech, and some of those listening were concerned by the skate-the-edge ethic they believed the speech tacitly encouraged.

Subsequent to our reporting, the CCJV [Citizen's Committee on Jail Violence] brought the incident into public testimony, and questioned Mr. Tanaka himself on what had occurred. (He denied telling anyone to turn off recording devices or saying anything that implied working on or over the legal line.)

We have been told that pursuant to the commission meeting, the feds became interested and that 11 federal officers have already been interviewed by the FBI on this matter.

Of course, due to what appears to be the general nature of the subpoena request, the “work the gray” incident, may be only one of the things that the feds are looking at.

One thing we do know is that the FBI investigation that began by looking into incidents of violence and corruption in Men’s Central Jail continues to widen.

As we learn more about the issue of the subpoena and the grand jury we will let you know.

LAPD’S DEPUTY CHIEF PAT GANNON IS RETIRING…AND NEARLY EVERYBODY HE KNOWS WANTS TO TALK HIM OUT OF IT

The South Bureau of the LAPD polices some of the most challenging real estate in in all of California. Yet in the last few years it has been led by a series of commanding officers who have managed to create good relationships with communities whose residents had, for decades, felt themselves to be at war with LA’s law enforcement.

The person commanding South Bureau right now is a guy named Pat Gannon, who is extraordinarily well liked by community members, activists, city government types, and the officers under him. Smart, strategic, warm and innovative, it is difficult to find anyone who doesn’t like the man.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that Gannon is retiring on August 31.

Now that the dreaded time has nearly arrived, writer Diana Chapman has written a nice profile of Gannon for City Watch explaining why she and those in the communities LAPD’s South Bureau polices don’t want to see Pat Gannon go. Not at all.

Here’s a clip:

He returned phone calls.

He set up water polo and basketball games between his officers and community kids. Sometimes he even played in them. As the captain of the Los Angeles Police Department’s 77th Division, he closed down an entire street Halloween night so parents and children could trick-or-treat safely in the neighborhood saturated with crime. His officers policed the event.

Most of all, LAPD Deputy Chief Pat Gannon, who retires from the department Aug. 31, listened to people like you and me.
“He was a saint,” said Neal Kleiner, who met Gannon when he was principal at one of the toughest middle schools — John Muir — in the 77th Division. Having called Gannon’s predecessor and never getting a response, Kleiner was astonished when Gannon, then the new captain, called him without provocation.

“He initiated a call to me and visited Muir,” Kleiner said still with amazement. “He let me know that his men were there to service the community and if I needed help to call. He was a frequent visitor to the school and met with the staff and parents and he demonstrated a genuine concern for my school and the community.”

Said Mike Lansing, the Harbor Area Boys and Girls Club executive director: “Pat always supported the Boys and Club and the work we do. He advocated for kids through his police work and had officers interact with our members — including playing basketball. Sometimes, Pat even played himself. He is one of the great leaders who actually wanted to know what we did — he took the time to listen and engage our members.”

Gannon, 56, retires not because he wants to, but because he signed on to an economically savvy retirement package the LAPD offered years ago which he now regrets.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: It's called the DROP program and it can seem like a good idea at the time, and then becomes something that LAPD officers wish they could reverse as retirement time approaches. That's the situation with Gannon. I know because I've asked him about the issue mournfully several times.]

“I could have stayed forever,” said Gannon, who plans to look for other police work. “I’m going to continue working. It was interesting to me. I worked cases. I solved them and I enjoyed that.”

ENDING THE OVERUSE OF SOLITARY

The wide use of solitary confinement as a punitive measure in U.S. prisons continues to be controversial. On Sunday, the online only version of the New York Times featured a new op ed challenging the cost/benefit wisdom (or lack thereof) of the practice, written by Vanderbilt University associate professor, Lisa Guenther, who is the author of the forthcoming book “Social Death and Its Afterlives: A Critical Phenomenology of Solitary Confinement.”

Here’s how it opens:

There are many ways to destroy a person, but the simplest and most devastating might be solitary confinement. Deprived of meaningful human contact, otherwise healthy prisoners often come unhinged. They experience intense anxiety, paranoia, depression, memory loss, hallucinations and other perceptual distortions. Psychiatrists call this cluster of symptoms SHU syndrome, named after the Security Housing Units of many supermax prisons. Prisoners have more direct ways of naming their experience. They call it “living death,” the “gray box,” or “living in a black hole.”

In June the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, headed by Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, held the first Congressional hearing on solitary confinement. Advocates and experts in the field were invited to submit testimony on the psychological, ethical, social and economic issues raised by punitive isolation. Among the many contributors was Anthony Graves, who spent over 18 years on death row in Texas, most of them in solitary confinement, for a crime he did not commit. Graves describes his isolation as a form of “emotional torture.” Two years after his exoneration and release, he still feels trapped in isolation: “I am living amongst millions of people in the world today, but most of the time I feel alone. I cry at night because of this feeling. I just want to stop feeling this way, but I haven’t been able to.”

We tend to assume that solitary confinement is reserved for “the worst of the worst”: violent inmates who have proved themselves unwilling or unable to live in the general population. But the truth is that an inmate can be sent to the hole for failing to return a meal tray, or for possession of contraband (which can include anything from weapons to spicy tortilla chips). According to the Bureau of Justice, there were 81,622 prisoners in some form of “restricted housing” (code for solitary confinement) in 2005. If anything, these numbers have increased as isolation units continue to be built in prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers across the country. Given that 95 percent of all inmates are eventually released into the public, and that many of these will be released without any form of transition or therapy, solitary confinement is a problem that potentially affects every one of us.

LAWSUIT SAYS TIME IN SHUS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED TORTURE

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit against Gov. Brown, the head of the CDCR, Matthew Cate, and others on behalf of inmates who have been in isolation in Pelican Bay’s Secure Housing Units for between 10 to 28 years. The CCR claims that the solitary living conditions inside SHUs should be considered cruel and unusual punishment and thus, a violation of the 8th Amendment.

Here’s a clip from the Center for Constitutional Rights’ case description:

SHU prisoners spent 22 ½ to 24 hours every day in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell. They are denied telephone calls, contact visits, and vocational, recreational or educational programming. Food is often rotten and barely edible, and medical care is frequently withheld. More than 500 Pelican Bay SHU prisoners have been isolated under these devastating conditions for over 10 years, more than 200 of them for over 15 years; and 78 have been isolated in the SHU for more than 20 years. This suit asserts that prolonged confinement under these conditions has caused harmful and predictable psychological deterioration among SHU prisoners. Solitary confinement for as little as 15 days is now widely recognized to cause lasting psychological damage to human beings and is analyzed under international law as torture.

Truthout’s Tara Culp-Ressler reports on the issue. Here’s a clip:

The lawsuit is in line with United Nations experts’ recommendations for a nation-wide ban on solitary confinement. The UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez, urged the U.S. to cease the practice except in very rare cases:

Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular, lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing Unit… whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a punishment or extortion technique. [...] Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

WitnessLA has also previously posted about Atul Gawande’s outstanding 2009 article published by The New Yorker in which Gawande explores whether or not solitary confinement is torture.

STUDY SAYS PLEA BARGAINS A PROBLEM FOR INNOCENT DEFENDANTS

A new study illuminates the considerable problems of innocent defendants’ plea bargaining out of fear of heavier sentencing.

Sentencing Law and Policy has the abstract. Here’s a clip:

Strikingly, the authors’ study found that over half of the participants were willing to falsely admit guilt in return for a perceived benefit. This finding not only brings finality to the long-standing debate regarding the possible extent of plea bargaining’s innocence problem, but also ignites a fundamental constitutional question regarding an institution the Supreme Court reluctantly approved of in 1970 in return for an assurance it would not be used to induce innocent defendants to falsely admit guilt.

(You can also download the study here.)

Note: This also relates to our previous post on Brian Banks’ exoneration after pleading no contest to a rape charge in order to avoid a 40-to-life sentence. You can revisit it here.

SLOW DEPENDENCY COURT SYSTEM A DETRIMENT

LA County’s dependency courts often drag foster care cases out for far too long, costing families time and heartache and costing children security and stability. LA Times columnist Jim Newton has been following one such case.

LA Times’ columnist Jim Newton has been following one such case. Here’s how his most recent article on the topic opens:

In the weeks since Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Michael Nash opened this county’s dependency proceedings to the press, there have been a number of revelations about a system that, until now, has been largely shielded from scrutiny. For the first time, the public is getting a broad look at the consequences of sloppy social work, the defensiveness of lawyers used to operating in secret, the agonizing decisions of judges, even the occasional happy outcome in which a family, once torn apart, is successfully reunited.

But one overarching fact of the dependency courts, where judges supervise the lives of children in foster care, is the high and hidden cost of delay. Some cases drag on for months, even years, while children lose their chance to begin their lives in secure, safe families.

Photo: Michael Montgomery/KQED

EDITOR’S NOTE: OUR HEARTS GO OUT TO THE LAPD OFFICER WHO FOUND HIS MOTHER SHOT TO DEATH SUNDAY NIGHT

Early Monday morning there were still few details and the name of the grieving officer had not been released.

The AP has the fragments of the story that are thus far available.

A Los Angeles police officer who went to check on his mother after she didn’t return his phone calls found her shot to death on Sunday.

The officer found his elderly mother inside her South Los Angeles home around noon, department spokesman Cleon Joseph said.

He said police had no suspect information and did not know the motive for the attack.

A family friend said the officer and his mother were very close.

“He checks up on his mother every day,” Allyson Smith said.

“She was beautiful, I mean a lovely mother,” Smith said. “That’s her only son.”

KABC-TV reported that the officer is a department veteran who trains recruits at the police academy…

by Celeste Fremon and Taylor Walker

While WLA was dark earlier this week, a few things happened that we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss:

DEATH PENALTY REPEAL WILL BE ON NOVEMBER BALLOT IN CALIFORNIA

First of all, on Monday, the initiative known as the SAFE California Act, officially qualified for the ballot. This means that, in November, Californians will have the opportunity to vote on a measure that would ban the death penalty in the state, in favor of life without the possibility of parole.

The death penalty is alarmingly disproportionately applied to people of color, particularly African Americans.

Jeanne Woodford, who was formerly the head of the California Department of Corrections, and the former warden of San Quentin prison, is one of the ballot measure’s most vocal supporters, and was quoted in the press release announcing the measure’s official approval by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen.

“I oversaw four executions at San Quentin,” said Woodford. “I can tell you as a law enforcement officer with 34 years of experience those executions did not make any one of us safer. What they did do was consume millions of dollars in resources that would be better spent on solving crime. Now, Californians will have a real chance to improve personal safety by replacing the death penalty with life in prison without parole, and directing some of the savings to solving more rape and murder cases.”

The fact that the initiative has qualified in California is eliciting a lot of comment from outside the state.

For example, there is this from the International Business Times by Ashley Portero:

….Studies conducted in multiple states have concluded that carrying out inmate executions is ultimately more expensive than sentencing them to life without parole, further leading capital punishment opponents to question the logic of the system.

California taxpayers alone have spent more than $4 billion on the 13 inmate executions the state has performed since 1978, according to a three-year study published in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review last year. The study estimated the costs of capital trials, enhanced security on death row and legal representation for death penalty defendants adds $184 million to California’s budget each year.

Similar studies have been conducted in at least 9 other states since 2000, all of which have concluded imposing the death penalty is exorbitantly more expensive than a life-without-parole sentence. A 2001 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded that capital crime trials place huge and unexpected burdens on country budgets, often leading them to counter those high costs by defunding public projects and increasing taxes….

Also, the Death Penalty Information Fact Sheet has some interesting statistics pertaining to the topic….such as these:

-California had 723 death row inmates as of Jan. 2012 (the second highest, Florida, had 402).

-Over 130 people have been exonerated since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1973.

-”A 2010 poll by Lake Research Partners found that a clear majority of voters (61%) would choose a punishment other than the death penalty for murder.”

There’s more, so check it out.

THE CANDIDATES FOR LA’S DISTRICT ATTORNEY SPEAK ABOUT THE DEATH PENALTY AND REALIGNMENT…BADLY

The LA Times video-taped five of the candidates for DA speaking on questions that are crucial for any potential LA D.A. to be able to answer coherently. In the videos posted on Wednesday, nearly to a person, the candidates’ answers seemed to indicate a horrifying cluelessness on realignment. On the issue of the death penalty, there’s mostly a lot of pandering and very little reasoned opinion.

Not cheering.

Watch the videos here and then read the LA Times editorial that takes the candidates to task for their inexcusable lack of willingness to say anything that might be actually thought through, fact-based and responsible.

Here’s a clip:

Voters should expect the six candidates for district attorney to have mastered the facts of realignment and to be able to present well-thought-out policies for re-creating the justice system in Los Angeles County and making the reforms stick.

But today, none of the candidates seems completely prepared to grapple with what to do next. Some repeat falsehoods as if they were gospel: Los Angeles County’s jails are overcrowded (false; they are at about half capacity). California’s recidivism rate is 70% (meaningless, without distinguishing between a new criminal offense that should land an offender back behind bars and a technical parole violation, such as failing to report to an agent in time). Realignment puts parolees on our streets unsupervised (a blatant falsehood). State prisoners are being released early under realignment (false). But it’s true that if prosecutors, the courts and the sheriff are not careful, they will release people whom they should keep. And it’s true that under realignment, more jail inmates (as opposed to prison inmates) may be unsupervised upon release.

Alan Jackson has two answers to realignment: repeal it (which is not going to happen, and Jackson knows it) and allow counties to send prisoners out of state instead of seeking alternative treatment and supervision for those who can respond to it. Carmen Trutanich repeats the old saw that “we cannot start crying, ‘The sky is falling.’ ” We know that, but what would he do as D.A. to make realignment work? “This is a terrible mistake,” Jackie Lacey offers somewhat wearily. “But it’s also an opportunity.” Very well, but how will she respond to that opportunity?

JERRY BACKS CARMEN

Did we mention that Governor Jerry Brown announced on Thursday that he would be supporting City Attorney Carmen Trutanich in the upcoming Los Angeles District Attorney’s race? Okay, consider it mentioned.

THREE STRIKES INITIATIVE ALSO CLOSE TO QUALIFYING

An initiative to modify California’s Three Strikes Law is headed for the November ballot with almost twice as many signatures as necessary. SF DA George Gascon (who is also the former Assistant Chief of the LAPD), and LA DA Steve Cooley, have both publicly endorsed the measure which would eliminate the mandatory 25 to life for non-violent and less grievous third strike felonies.

Sacramento Bee’s Torey Van Oot writes:

…Under the proposal, only offenders convicted of a “third strike” felony that is violent or serious would face a minimum sentence of 25 to life in prison. The measure, which is modeled after proposed legislation, would also allow some offenders currently behind bars for a “third strike” that was a minor crime to seek a re-sentencing.

Voters rejected a similar measure, Proposition 66, in 2004.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, who has endorsed the new measure, said in a statement that the initiative “saves California taxpayers money and restores the original intent of the law,” which was approved by voters in 1994, “by focusing on truly dangerous criminals.” A fiscal analysis estimates the measure could reduce prison costs by up to $100 million a year in the future.

Tracy Kaplan for the San Jose Mercury News has a nicely informative piece on the newly ballot-ready initiative, in which she quotes Steve Cooley and others.

CDCR CALLS EMERGENCY MEETING IN ONGOING NEGOTIATIONS WITH HUNGER STRIKER GROUP

Isaac Ontiveros reports for the San Francisco Bay View. (EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s not entirely clear if the meeting is really an “emergency meeting,” or if the “emergency” part is a bit of hyperbole from the Bay View editors.) In any case, here’s the deal:

A little over a month after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) released its “Security Threat Group Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy,” which proposes new gang validation and Security Housing Unit (SHU) step down procedures, the department has called a meeting with members of the mediation team advocating on behalf of SHU and Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg or ASU) prisoners around the state as well as legislative aides in Sacramento….

20 YEARS AFTER THE LA RIOTS….WHICH WAY LA? DOES A WEEKS WORTH OF PROGRAMS

Warren Olney and his producers have done an unusually good series of programs this week on different aspects of the LA Riots of 1992. You can listen here.

SUPERVISOR RIDLEY THOMAS ORGANIZES A DAY OF DIALOGUE FRIDAY

This is from the press statement:

At 9 a.m. Friday, April 27, 200 civic leaders will return to the First A.M.E., gathering at the FAME Renaissance building at 1968 West Adams Boulevard, to participate in a Day of Dialogue. In small groups, participants will discuss the causes and impacts of the 1992 upheaval, and they will assess what progress has been made and what challenges remain….

I know from talking to various community organizers that this is going to be a very large and interesting event that will be well worth your time if you can get over there.

MAYOR OF UPLAND PLEADS GUILTY TO A BRIBERY CHARGE…

This is from Thursday’s U.S. Attorney’s Office statement:

The former mayor of Upland pleaded guilty today [Thursday] to a federal bribery charge, admitting that he accepted a $5,000 payment in exchange for helping a business obtain a conditional use permit from the city.

John Victor Pomierski, 58, who resigned as mayor last year after he was named in a grand jury indictment, pleaded guilty this morning before United States District Judge Virginia A. Phillips. Pomierski becomes the third defendant to be convicted in relation to a corruption investigation in the city of Upland.

As a result of today’s guilty plea to the bribery charge, Pomierski faces a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison. Judge Phillips is scheduled to sentence Pomierski on August 6.

(We don’t usually report on Upland. But we thought that a lot of you might like to know that the feds are on a roll—since they’re also very busy with ever widening investigations closer to home.)

EDITOR’S NOTE: WitnessLA has linked before to the TED talk about justice and injustice by civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative.

But, it’s worth listening to again. (And again.)

Stevenson was the dinner speaker on the first night of the symposium I attended in New York, and the 31 experienced and sometimes jaded reporters in the room were utterly riveted

On Tuesday, the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit alleging that the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) houses thousands of prisoners in solitary confinement conditions so harsh they violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

This is from Tuesday’s statement:

While other states also use solitary confinement, Arizona has added features that seem designed to gratuitously increase suffering. The cells in that state’s supermax Special Management Units (SMUs) were deliberately constructed with no windows to the outside, so prisoners — many of whom have no means of telling the time — become disoriented and confused, not knowing the whether it is day or night. The cells are often illuminated 24 hours a day, making sleep difficult and further contributing to prisoners’ disorientation and mental deterioration.

Some prisoners in solitary spend all but six hours a week alone in their cells. Their only respite occurs when they are taken to a slightly larger windowless cell, with no equipment, for “exercise.” Many prisoners refuse to go, because the cell is so small that it doesn’t allow meaningful exercise, and because prisoners are placed in restraints and strip-searched when going to and returning from the cell. And in a final cruelty, ADC reasons that because prisoners in solitary don’t get much exercise, they don’t need much food — some receive only two meals a day….

…..…“The prison conditions in Arizona are among the worst I’ve ever seen,” said Donald Specter, executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Prison Law Office. “Prisoners have a constitutional right to receive adequate health care, and it is unconscionable for them to be left to suffer and die in the face of neglect and deliberate indifference.”

Arizona has the 6th highest incarceration rate in the nation.

The ACLU was joined in the filing by the Prison Law Office, the Arizona Center for Disability Law, and the law firms Jones Day and Perkins Coie.

LATEST REPORT FROM VERA INSTITUTE SHOWS LESSONS FROM 14 STATES WHO HAVE SENTENCING REFORM, AND INCARCERATION ALTERNATIVES

Here’s a clip from the executive summary:

Most states are facing budget crises, and criminal justice agencies are not exempt. With fewer dollars available, they are challenged to increase public safety while coping with smaller budgets. This report distills lessons from 14 states that passed research-driven sentencing and corrections reform in 2011 and is based on interviews with stakeholders and experts, and the experience of technical assistance staff at the Vera Institute of Justice. It is intended to serve as a guide to policy makers and others interested in pursuing evidence-based justice reform in their jurisdiction.

Legislatures throughout the United States enacted sentencing and corrections policy changes in 2011 that were based on data analysis of their prison populations and the growing body of research on practices that can reduce recidivism. Although this emphasis on using evidence to inform practice is not new in criminal justice, legislators are increasingly relying on this science to guide the use of taxpayer dollars more effectively to improve public safety outcomes.
In highlighting important legislative

Sadly, California hasn’t, as yet, joined these forward looking fourteen. But check it out. The details are interesting.

NOTE: VERY LIGHT POSTING TODAY as my Interwebs have been down and are still behaving strangely. (Wind? Ghosts? Disgruntled public officials with garden sheers?) Good things coming tomorrow, I promise. So stay tuned.

Photo of Colorado’s SuperMax by Chris McLean/AP

INSIDE THE GRAY BOX – THE INCONVENIENT FACTS ABOUT SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN AMERICA

Right now approximately 80,000 Americans are living in solitary confinement in this country’s prisons. Many of them have no record of violence either in or out of prison, says a new investigative report by The Dart Society.

Here’s a clip from the report, written by Susan Greene:

Among the misperceptions about solitary confinement is that it’s used only on the most violent inmates, and only for a few weeks or months. In fact, an estimated 80,000 Americans — many with no record of violence either inside or outside prison — are living in seclusion. They stay there for years, even decades. What this means, generally, is 23 hours a day in a cell the size of two queen-sized mattresses, with a single hour in an exercise cage, also alone. Some prisoners aren’t allowed visits or phone calls. Some have no TV or radio. Some never lay eyes on each other. And some go years without fresh air or sunlight.

Solitary is a place where the slightest details can mean the world. Things like whether you can see a patch of grass or only sky outside your window – if you’re lucky enough to have a window. Or whether the guy who occupies cells before you in rotation has a habit of smearing feces on the wall. Are the lights on 24/7? Is there a clock or calendar to mark time? If you scream, could anyone hear you?

In the warp of time and space where [Osiel] Rodriguez lives, the system not only has stripped him of any real human contact, but also made it unbearable to be reminded of a reality that has become all too unreal. It’s ripping him apart. [Rodriguez robbed a bank and a pawn shop when he was 22 years old.]

“Looking at photos of the free world caused me so much pain that I just couldn’t do it any more,” writes Rodriguez, 36. “Time and these conditions are breaking me down.”

This is what our prisons are doing to people in the name of safety. This is how deeply we’re burying them.

SHOULD FREE SPEECH PROTECT THE RIGHT TO LIE?

William Bennett Turner writes for the NY Times about the alarmingly slippery slope presented by the Stolen Valor Act.

Here’s a clip:

XAVIER ALVAREZ is a liar. Even the brief filed on his behalf in the United States Supreme Court says as much: “Xavier Alvarez lied.” It informs us that he has told tall tales about playing hockey for the Detroit Red Wings, being married to a Mexican starlet and rescuing the American ambassador during the Iranian hostage crisis. But as the brief reminds us, “none of those lies were crimes.”

Another of his falsehoods, however, did violate the law. In 2007, while introducing himself at a meeting of a California water board, he said that he was a retired Marine who had been awarded the Medal of Honor (both lies). He was quickly exposed as a phony and pilloried in the community and press as an “idiot” and the “ultimate slime.”

But his censure did not end there. The federal government prosecuted him under the Stolen Valor Act, which prohibits falsely claiming to have been awarded a military medal, with an enhanced penalty (up to a year in prison) for claiming to have received the Medal of Honor. Mr. Alvarez was convicted but appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which held that the act violated the First Amendment.

The government has taken the case to the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments this week. The question before the court is not whether there is a constitutional “right” to lie. Rather, it’s a question about the scope of the government’s power over individuals — whether the government can criminalize saying untrue things about oneself even if there is no harm to any identifiable person, no intent to cheat anyone or gain unfair advantage, no receipt of anything of value and no interference with the administration of justice or any other compelling government interest.

Read the rest. It’s extremely interesting—especially when you start to consider the implications. (Hint: One of them involves Steven Colbert.)

THE SUPREMES, CITIZENS’ UNITED, THOSE CRANKY MONTANANS CHALLENGING THE LAW—AND THE MEANING OF RUTH GINSBURG’S REMARKS

On Friday of last week, the Supreme Court agreed to a stay on the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling of last fall,—one that upheld its own state law and thus basically made the US Supreme Court’s extremely controversial (and truly hideous) Citizens United decision inoperative in the Big Sky state.

Tom Goldstein over at SCOTUSBlog explains the significance of the message conveyed in the statement made by Justice Ruth Ginsburg (joined by Justice Breyer) at the hearing’s conclusion.

Or, if SCOTUSBlog is too wonky for your taste, the story at the Washington Post, addressing the same issue, lays things out more directly. Here’s how it opens:

Two Supreme Court justices suggested Friday that the court reconsider its controversial 2010 decision that allowed unlimited corporate and union spending in elections.

The suggestion came as the court blocked a Montana Supreme Court decision upholding a century-old ban on corporate campaign spending in the state.

The Montana ruling seems squarely at odds with the court’s 5 to 4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed unlimited corporate spending. The U.S. Supreme Court majority had said such independent spending did not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.

In Friday’s order, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer said the upheaval in the world of campaign finance since the Citizens United decision does not bear out the majority opinion.

“Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,’ ” Ginsburg wrote.

“A petition for certiorari [from those challenging the Montana court’s decision] will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway.”

Most experts think that the chances of Citizens United being modified or undone by the Supremes are worse than slim, as that would require Justice Kennedy (or someone more conservative than he) switching sides, which is unlikely. But the fact that the discussion will likely be raised may lay down tracks for a future court’s consideration.