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Harmful Effects of Prolonged Isolated Confinement - by Stephen Lendman
Terry Kupers is a practicing psychiatrist, an expert on long-term isolated prison confinement, author of numerous articles on the subject as well as his book titled, "Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It." He's also a frequent expert witness in related cases, serves as a consultant, and is currently Institute Professor in the Graduate School of Psychology at Wright Institute, Berkeley, CA. More on his work below.
Social scientists have studied the effects for years, social psychologist Hans Toch coining the term "isolation panic" to describe symptoms he observed in men he interviewed, including panic, rage, a sense of total loss of control, emotional breakdown, regressive behavior, and self-mutiliation. He distinguished between difficult but tolerable incarceration and intolerable long-term isolation.
An October 14, 2007 Scott Pelley's 60 Minutes report called Supermax prisons "A Clean Version of Hell," referring to the only federal one, the US Penitentiary Florence (ADMAX) Facility, Florence, Colorado, entirely a Supermax facility. He called it secretive, closed to the public, the media, and 60 Minutes only could approach the perimeter and be able to interview former warden Robert Hood, in charge from 2002 - 2005.
He called it "the Harvard of the system....except that (its) ivory towers may be easier to get into." Allegedly, most inmates are too violent to be kept elsewhere, and over 40 (as of October 2007) were convicted "terrorists." Based on this writer's work, most, if not all, are innocent victims of police state justice.
Garrett Linderman was released. Pelly interviewed him and asked how it's different from other lockups. "Your connections to the outside. Your family. Through phone calls, visits, all those are pretty much stopped at the ADX. There's no comparison. It breaks down the human spirit. It breaks down the human psyche. It breaks your mind. (It's the) perfection of isolation, painted pretty." (They) perfected it there."
60 Minutes learned of an even higher confinement level inside, sort of an "ultramax" group of cells with virtually no human contact, not even with guards, housing only two prisoners considered so dangerous they're in "Range 13." One is Tommy Silverstein who killed a prison guard. The other is alleged World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef.
According to Hood, Yousef is there because "He has that Charlie Manson look. He just has the eyes. He has some charisma about him. He's in uniform. But you know that there's a powerful person that you're looking at."
Other prominent Supermax prisoners include unabomber Ted Kaczynski; Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh (before his execution) and Terry Nichols; Robert Hanssen, the FBI supervisor turned Soviet spy; Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park bomber, alleged Al Qaeda terrorists who bombed US African embassies, and mob informant Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.
Perhaps heading there are the Fort Hood shooter, and alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and his four co-conspirators, now at Guantanamo. They'll likely be tried in rigged military tribunals with no right of appeal, are already pre-judged guilty, face certain convictions and the death penalty, followed by isolated confinement until executed - even though no evidence substantiates their guilt.
So-called "terrorists" are denied due process and judicial fairness. Charges against them are bogus. The rule of law is undermined. Secret evidence is unavailable to the defense. Extremist judges allow it. Major media reports are viciously biased, and juries are intimidated to convict.
Definitions
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) National Institute of Corrections calls the term "supermax" the most common one to describe "special housing unit(s), maxi-maxi, maximum control facilit(ies), secured housing unit(s), intensive management unit(s), and administrative maximum penitentiar(ies.)." It describes them as:
"a highly restrictive, high-custody housing unit within a secure facility....that isolates inmates from the general prison population and from each other due to grievous crimes, repetitive assaultive or violent institutional behavior, the threat of escape or actual escape from high-custody facility(s), or inciting or threatening to incite disturbances in a correctional institution."
In a 1999 report titled, "Supermax Prisons: Overview and General Considerations," the DOJ said although "concentration, dispersal, and isolation are not new, the development of 'supermax' prisons is a relatively recent trend." Prisons always had "prisons within the prison" for their worst inmates (usually called administrative segregation), and most states operate one or more facilities for their "most threatening inmates." Florence, CO is the sole federal one and 100% Supermax.
Other definitions describes "control-unit" prisons, or units within prisons providing the most secure levels of custody for the "worst of the worst" criminals and those threatening national security. They're maximum security facilities or prison wings in which inmates are held in long-term solitary confinement under constant surveillance by closed-circuit TV.
