------- STOPMAX Voices -------Solitary Confinement Testimonies

Testimony from Women's Control Unit in FLA

2008-06-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

I knew I couldn’t just “sit here and pass time” and I would emerge from this abyss unchanged. I had to do something, something different from my first CM stay (where I broke) – I had hung myself and was cut down by my “torturers” – revived and sent to an outside hospital for observation (lack of oxygen and throat damage). I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck…

I just knew back then (2003) I wasn’t “CM material.” I couldn’t live like this – so deprived of EVERYTHING because I’m a “needy” person and CM is not a place for the needy – “indeedy…” There were a lot of different factors at play that pushed me to decide to kill myself before they killed me.

Nevertheless, here I am again, back in prison – chewed up and swallowed by the beast who didn’t get its fill of me the last 2 times and here I am CM-ed due to prior CM placement and a history that marks an inability to live in open population without disrupting the orderly running of the facility – YEAH! (smile) and being a threat to the security of the institution.

I have been indigent since August and owe $28.00 to medical.. So I can’t get anything to make myself semi-comfortable or (get) the proper food to eat for my Hep. C. I can’t get any more batteries, nor can I even buy (wear) sneakers or shorts or t-shirts on cool days…I would be floored if I could eat tuna & drink V-8, listen to the radio, have my own writing paper, a stock of hygienes and whatever is close to a “necessity!” I would love to be able to order stuff once a week, like 66 of the women here (only 4 of us are “poor”). There are only 70 CM women in Florida State prisons. Lowell (here) is the only CM for women. So, I’m one of their Public Enemy #1’s

Within A cage- Poem

2008-06-27T10:20:00.000-07:00

Within a Cage

How can you
Lock me in a Cage,
Within a Cage,
For some misdeed done,
Within a Cage?
All you can do,
Is feed my rage.
You can’t teach me anything good,
Within a Cage . . .
Except Monsters control the Locks,
And in terror I’ve lost the keys.
Within a Cage,
I plead and pray,
But it simply gets worse,
Every day . . .
Within a Cage,
Animosity worsens,
Empathy is lost,
And
The Days turn into,
Daze . . .

Within a Cage.

© JRF 2008
April 16, 2008

Family-Reflection

2007-12-31T13:28:00.001-08:00

“There’s no way I can exaggerate or in any way overemphasize the impact that these last 11 years has had on the total movement of my life. During that time I lost my best friend (my dad) and “watched” helplessly as my mother went from a spry, hard-working wonder-woman to a virtual invalid. In the interim so many things have become clear to me, like the emotional and psychological ripple effect that my bad behavior has had on people I never meant to hurt, my family included. I look back at the person I’ve been and to be perfectly honest, I’m ashamed.” (11 years; Alger, Michigan)

Scars of Mental Anguish

2007-11-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

This person was confined to a “close management” control unit after seeking anti-depressant medication and the possibility to see a psychiatrist.
“I decided to let you know my experience of what may amount to torture, or at least in the public eye, as I am convinced that I bear the scars of mental anguish…I did not eat for ten days due to a hunger strike. While being held as a suicidal [I only received] a shroud of a short blanket for warmth in a freezing cell (suicide alert prisoners often do not receive sheets or long blankets). Over a month elapsed and in that time period I was beaten with the fist by two officers. I was made to stand barefoot on the concrete floor while an inmate shaved my face with electric clippers that shocked my face. I could feel the electricity run from my chin to my earlobe. The pain was excruciating, and my plea for it to stop was met with laughter and threats of reprisal. …The struggle of survival didn’t end there. The next year or more has been met with physical and mental abuse where I had to rescue myself…I sit in a cell the size of a small bathroom with blinds over the window for over a year and the memory of isolation I know will linger…The anguish of incarceration, separation and careless custody and control must be met with a strong mind…because peace of mind they will take…if you aren’t exercising peace in the midst of evil.”

I am Dying Every Day

2007-11-16T08:03:00.000-08:00

“I am dying here every day, mentally and physically. This is happening to all of us. We have been ignored, locked up in the middle of the ocean for years. Rather than humiliate myself, having to beg for water, I would rather hurry up the process [of dying] that is going to happen anyway. “I would like to die quietly, by myself. I was once 250 lbs (17 stone 12 lbs). I dropped to 130 lbs (9 stone 4 lbs) in the first hunger strike. I want to make it easy on everyone. I want no feeding, no forced tubes, no ‘help’, no ‘intensive assisted feeding’. This is my legal right. “The British government refuses to help me. What is the point of my wife being British? I thought Britain stood for justice, but they … abandoned us [British residents], people who have lived in Britain for years, and who have British wives and children. I hold the British government responsible for my death, as I do the Americans.”

Restraint Chairs

2007-03-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

In the restraint chairs your hands and feet are each shackled then 2 seat belts are put in an X across your chest. You cannot move except your head. Think of being strapped into an electric chair only more secure. They do not allow you to use the bathroom or eat or drink while you are strapped into the chair. In the intake area there is a row of them- sometimes filled with people. They are on rollers to they may be moved around either while empty or with a human strapped down into them. They also sometimes put a net over your head to keep you from spitting on them, they say.

-Prisoner from Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, AZ

An American Jail

2007-03-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

I could tell you about the WORST horror stories at the Maricopa County Jail system. They're chaining inmates to bare cement slabs, strapping them into chairs, withholding food and water and the use of the bathroom so they are forced to go in their pants, throwing inmates' unwrapped, uncovered food down on to the concrete floor and leaving inmates in cells with no toilets so they must deficate on the floor with no toilet paper and then leaving the inmates in the cell without removing the human waste. The abuse at the 4th Ave Jail is so incredible you would not even believe you were in an American jail. There are so many roaches falling from the ceiling at night that when they hit your sheet it sounds like rain coming down...The COs had beaten me black and blue from head to toe while I was passed out dead. I requested pictures of my body to show the black and blue and yellow and green marks all over my body from the severe beating I received, but MCSO refused to document my injuries.

-Prisoner at Maricopa County 4th Ave Jail

Paranoia

2007-03-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Paranoia effects everyone, some won't admit it due to ego and pride. Any change in the routine of time- breakfast, lunch, dinner, phone calls, mail, nurses line, shakedowns, store, library, lights on , lights off- can and will cause PARANOIA and have people thinking conspiracy. SuperMax forces people to be creative, deceitful, and show Einstein-like geniuses and craftsmanship that rivals the masters of guerrilla warfare. For the gangsters, lockdown is a time to plan, prepare, and plot their next cross out. Death Row was peaceful compared to SuperMax because on the Row there are no politics and you always know where you stand. In SuperMax you never know. In SuperMax, people bang, flood, start fires, go on hunger strikes, refuse to lock down in showers and rec cages and get gassed by the A-Teams with pepper spray. The cops have masks but the whole pod and cluster choke for 20-30 minutes.

-Prisoner in Arizona, Eyman (I)

Roaches and More...

2007-02-22T10:33:00.000-08:00

I have received 24-7 harassment for 5-6 MONTHS now for complaints about the ROACH infestion problem here to the Govenor and others - they come "CLEAN" my cell with FILTHY mop water about 3 times a week now - they wake me up 1-2-3-4 AM almost everday to give me my mail. My cell has been searched 6 or 7 times in 14 days. It is ABSURD the harassment i am receiving for complaining about the ROACHES and the torn up-worn out ROACH INFESTED trashed bed mats inmates are forced to accept...I have been told it is ADC standard policy to harass inmates that complain about conditions and such - I have been sleep deprived for 5-6-7- months now since I started complaining about ROACHES and such.

-Prionser in Arizon, Eyman (I)

I Was Done

2007-02-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

I was strapped into a restraint chair for a few hours or so just to harass me. I have seen people forced to relieve themselves in their clothes because staff refused to let them go to the bathroom while strapped in the chair and also chained to various tables in waiting/holding areas. They would be screaming and begging to be allowed to go to the bathroom and staff would not let them. That is why I attempted suicide. I was done with watching the beatings, torture, and horror and done with the harassment 24-7 and the continuous torment and torture- fingers wrenched out of joint while applying handcuffs, handcuffs clamped in the skin against the bone, the leg chains clamped on so tight that my feet turned purple, constant various threats by staff, being woke up all during the night for various reasons- to deliver mail at 2AM, deliver the paper at 3AM, wake me up to ask me if I am asleep at 4AM. I was done.

-Prisoner in Maricopa 4th Ave Jail, Arizona

All I Needed Was Someone to Talk to

2007-01-31T09:18:00.000-08:00

The incident unfolded like this: I told an officer that I was feeling really anxious and very depressed and wanted to talk to someone. But I guess with my past suicide attempt, they don’t want to take any chances. So they put me in this black restraint chair in the detention center’s gym with the lights off and no one around. While they were putting me in the chair, and before, I didn’t resist at all. All I wanted was to talk to someone. While being put in the chair I told the Sgt in charge I was having a hard time to breathe, he said that if I could ask a question, it wasn’t too tight. So I was left alone for about three hours until they fed me. I asked again about when I was being let out of the chair, they told me that they didn’t know, so when they left I started to freak out cause I saw no end to my restrained isolation and flipped the chair. I was upside down for a couple of minutes until someone noticed. They came in and straightened me out and left for another couple of hours—I know that it was a while cause it was a different shift coming on. And somewhere in between all of that the warden came to talk to me. I asked him why I was being treated this way—he said that it was for my own good, so I don’t hurt myself. I wasn’t aggressive to anyone or causing trouble, all I needed was someone to talk to. After they got me out of the chair I was put in a restraint bed for a couple of days. I cant remember how long. I didn’t do anything. Again I didn’t resist. While in the chair and the bed I was forced to urinate on myself and sit and lay in it for some time. …I learned one thing—don’t say anything no matter what or I’ll be restrained again …
-Prisoner at Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup, MD

Code of Silence

2007-01-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

I want to tell you about the Code of Silence among the prison and jail population. Basically no matter what, you tell the cops nothing about problems with other inmates. MCSO uses the inmate Code of Silence to cover up the violence that they allow. If you write a note to the guard about being beat up or extorted or stolen from, more than likely the guard will show the note to the person doing the beating or extortion and the note writer will be beaten by more inmates for telling the guard about anything. - Prisoner in Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Arizona

4 Point Restraints

2007-01-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

The following is from a mentally ill person in prison. It is a re-telling of his time spent in 4 point restraints for 3 weeks. This took place in a prison in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in February. Two other people in prison wrote to the Michigan branch of the AFSC alerting them to the fact that this man had been held in restraints for so long.

"The staff laughed at me and was calling me nigger every day of those three weeks of torture and telling me if I keep tearing up their cells to try and get transferred back down to Huron Valley Center prison then you will die on that bed. Freezing to death, stsrving and sick from no blood pressure pills most of the time. Until I’m dead from all three ways. And I knew they was serious cause I spit on many of them for taking my food a lot and refusing me yard breaks sometimes. And I spit on them for refusing to give me a mattress and clothes when I was supposed to have. when chain to the bed. Anyway, when I was at the Marquette Prison chained to the bed the only way I was to make it alive each day for three weeks on the cold slab and ice cold room. cold chains on. and no mattress or clothes or food. most of the time. I had to raise my body up far as I could to do as many sit ups as I could every 20 minutes to keep from freezing to death and couldn’t sleep but two hours a day and a couple of hours at night because no matter what I was forcing myself to do 1000 thousand sit ups to stay warm. The cold would come back all over my body within one hour and I would have to do the half way sit-ups again for another 1000 times with tears in my eyes and anger and hate for the whole world beyond human imagination. The hate worse when I was forced to have to use the bathroom on myself and the bed for bowel movements or urinating—most times because they never let me up for three weeks to go the bathroom. And whenever they did bring me some food to eat it was mostly a sandwich and apple. Only then sometimes they will bring food that I could eat without being un-chain and with no spoon or fork. I had to use my hands and eat what little I could. I choked every time and had to throw up a lot of times. Sometimes they would let me keep the food tray to shit and piss in for emergency, ain’t that a bitch? Also when my head and back itched everyday and night I had to rub it against the wall. When I sit up and turn sideways and I had to rub my head on the wall up and down and sometimes bang my head on the wall to make it stop itching. even to the point of almost knocking myself out and every day and night I holler out how much I hate them all and I holler out curses saying Michigan will be destroyed worse than the state of Louisiana with tornadoes this summer and many will die from heat stroke from the sun burning more and more through the ozone layers of sky. And I’ve been spit on and punched." (22 years; Marquette--now at Ionia)

The Daily Grind

2007-01-11T09:42:00.000-08:00

I arrived here on 2/3/06 but immediately received a skin infection that took till about 8/10/06 to get rid of due to the medical neglect and incompetence here at ADC - I had golf ball size dripping OOZING sores and medical refused to see me for MONTHS at a time - they also gave me the wrong antibiotics and on and on. It is beyond a long incredible story - the medical neglect of inmates here is criminal - I had dripping oozing sores for 5 or 6 months for they refused to see me or give me more antibiotics or the RIGHT antibiotics - now they are giving me tickets left and right so I can't have my TV or other privileges so as to harass me more - also they are delaying and tampering with my mail and just flat NOT sending out my mail - ALSO my food is cold almost always and for 2 weeks or so now I have been receiving ROTTEN and sour milk almost everyday and my food is watered down to death - the oatmeal and gravy is almost water...
-Kemp Horton, a prisoner in Arizona Eyman (I)

Wrongful Restraints

2007-01-03T08:46:00.000-08:00

One of the prisons I was at was Correctional Mental Health Center-Jessup. I was put in restraints seven times there. Each time I was put in restraints I was put on my belly, naked. I was never let up to go to the bathroom, I had to lay in my own urine. I have a pacemaker and hypertension, and the staff still did this. One time the nurse even refused me my hypertension medication while in restraints. I was punched in the face by one correctional officer at the Maryland House of Correction-Annex in Jessup. -Maryland, Maryland Correctional Institution, Jessup

A Bad Dream

2006-12-20T13:03:00.000-08:00

The reason that they put me in SMU I on suicide watch was because I had had a nightmare the night before. And that's all it was- a bad dream. I had woken up kicking my locker. They stripped me naked (and remained that way until I left) and placed me into a filthy cell at SMU I that had cold air constantly blowing through it. I had an open wound on my foot that received no medical care. I was teased and taunted and my meals were being withheld from me to the point to where upon returning to my unit I was placed on a special diet. I also was not given a shower during my seven day stay.- A Prisoner in Arizona, Eyman

Closing Off

2006-12-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

Lately I’ve been finding myself with very little motivation and entrapment in laziness, flat-out. I help a lot of prisoners with their own problems, when really I cannot solve my own problems. A lot of times mentally I close off this administrative segregation world around me.- 20 years in solitary at Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility in Michigan

A Mentally Unhealthy Environment

2006-12-05T11:41:00.000-08:00

Living conditions are unsanitary. Like I said, I’ve caught MRSA staph infection six different times in two and a half years. They are painful boils and are caused by a germ/bacteria on the skin. I don’t get any sun and I’m in my cell 24/7…There’s no windows in my cell. I don’t see the outside whatsoever. It’s a mentally unhealthy environment…This place can mentally break [you] and cause paranoia.- A prisoner at Arizona, Eyman

No Psychological Reviews

2006-11-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

I have never received the periodic psychological evaluations mandated by policy. My only other contact with the psychologist is that I’ve seen him make rounds in the housing unit (walk by and look in everyone’s cell) once every few months. He’s stopped for a few seconds a couple of times and said a few words, apparently to gauge my sanity. - In long-term segregation 3 years, Michigan, Oaks Correctional Facility

So Stressed & Compulsive

2006-11-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

“On a day to day basis, I’m stressed out, agitated, with moments of high anxiety. When prisoners aren’t screaming all night, I sleep. Abuse by staff is normal, yet not done on a daily constant basis. Refusing to allow me a shower, or denying me a food tray because some staff doesn’t like my supposed attitude does occur. I have developed a compulsive disorder to the effect that I’m constantly cleaning my cell and washing my hands. Even though I know it’s clean. I’m now really germaphobic because bodily fluids are often thrown in these type of units.” -5 years in long-term segregation, Michigan, Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility

Buried Alive

2006-11-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

I apologize if my handwriting and letter seems sloppy. My hand is shaking with adrenaline. Please don’t misunderstand. I am not an angel. I’m a bad guy. Prison isn’t a nice place and I haven’t been a nice guy. When I came to prison I was 17. SMU II took me down a dark dark hole. I know SMU II made me numb, to where I could care less about consequences. Paranoid, feeling like they’re messing with me even if it was only my imagination. I grind my teeth and clench my teeth while I hold in my breath in flashes of anger. No outside stimulus whatsoever. I go a day or so without sleeping. I’m constantly thinking about what other people are thinking of me. I always feel when I’m escorted to rec or shower I could be punched or slammed at any moment. I’m very careful. My dreams are often violent. I can’t sleep unless I cover my chest with a magazine or book. SMU II does some weird shit to you man. I inspect my food, if it’s weird in any way I won’t eat it….The feeling of being buried alive is real. -Prisoner in Arizona, Eyman

Tazing the Mentally Ill

2006-10-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Tazing, I think is pretty common. I remember the first time I was in the Victoria jail…and I was in a solitary cell where some 'trouble' women were kept. Most seemed to be mental illness cases...anyhow, one woman that was clearly mental ill was drug out one night by about 10 guards and dragged, screaming, to the "chair"- where they get tazed. She was gone a long time, then brought back around the early morning, a whimpering mass of jelly. I saw this also when I was being processed in Harris County jail one time and one man caused some minor trouble being processed and they drug him off and he got tazed too. He came back crying. A tough man too. -Prisoner, Texas County Jails, Harris and Victoria

War of Attrition

2006-10-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

Segregation is like slow torture. The continuous monotony of being locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, the lack of any meaningful activities or programming—no school or anything, the non-stop noise, which at times can be deafening, the palpable levels of anger, frustration and hostility which because of segregation inmates constantly express and direct towards one another, the consistent stench as a result of mentally disturbed prisoners relieving themselves on their floors, refusing showers and throwing bodily fluids, and the denial of basic privileges which are common to general population such as access to the telephones, reasonable visiting hours, easy and flexible access to the libraries and other prison legal service, denial of store goods—a variety of hygiene products, snacks, etc… All of these things combine to really wear on you emotionally, Intellectually and spiritually like a war of attrition.

(10 years in long-term segregation)
Michigan, Marquette Branch Prison

A Reminder...

2006-06-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

"Their attempts at repressing me serve only to sharpen my fighting spirit." - Prisoner, SMU I, Florence, Arizona.

It's a Small World...

2006-05-19T10:39:00.000-07:00

Inside a supermax cell - possessions and all. This picture almost makes it look like someone comes in and folds your clothes for you when you aren't there.... Oh wait.