Serving in Solitary

Imagine being in an eight-by-ten foot cell 23 for hours of the day, completely alone, with no one but the occasional guard and the thoughts in your head to keep you company.  Now imagine being in that room for over two decades, not because you’ve proven yourself violent in prison, but because you’ve been accused of being affiliated with a prison gang.  Does it sound inhumane or possibly unconstitutional?

Maybe you’re thinking this only happens in third world countries, never here in America. However, according to a recent report by the LA Times, there are currently over 1000 prisoners being held in isolation at California’s maximum security facility Pelican Bay, 300 of whom have been in isolation for over a decade .  Under the prison’s policy, with a limited exception, an inmate will be placed in solitary for a minimum of six years if prison investigators find three pieces of information linking them to a gang.  Even more disturbingly, other reports state that there may be as many as 100,000 prisoners in solitary confinement nationwide.

During my second year at Santa Clara University School of Law, we were fortunate to host Albie Sachs, former Chief Justice of the South African Constitutional Court, as a speaker.  Midway through his talk, Mr. Sachs began to sing in a deep voice.  As the audience fell silent listening to his sad tune, he shut his eyes and appeared to be reliving a memory of some kind.  At the end of his tune, Mr. Sachs looked up at the audience and described that singing was how he had survived solitary confinement in a South African prison for almost 170 days.  He went on to explain the torture of being alone in a cell—and the maddening effect of not having anyone to communicate with except for the guards, who visited to interrogate him.

While Mr. Sachs gained his freedom from solitary in less then a year, many of the prisoners across the United States serve large portions or sometimes the entirety of their sentences in isolation.  According to a 2006 series by NPR on long-term confirnement, 95% of these isolated inmates will one day return to society.  How being caged with minimal human contact for multiple years can prepare a person to reenter society and rehabilitate them into law abiding citizens is anyone’s guess.