AMERICA’S
SUPERMAX PRISONS DO TORTURE by Kiilu
Nyasha ....
November 22, 2009....
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President Barack Obama has clearly stated, “We don’t
torture.”....
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Oh, yes we do.
Big time. ....
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A
myriad of studies have clearly shown that human beings are social creatures –
making prolonged isolation torture.....
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The New
Yorker published an article March 30,
2009 by Atul Gawande titled, Hellhole: The United States holds tens of thousands of
inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture?....
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Gawande
asks, “If prolonged isolation is – as research and experience have confirmed
for decades –so objectively horrifying, so intrinsically cruel, how did we end
up with a prison system that may subject more of our own citizens to it than
any other country in history has?”....
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By
2000, some 60 supermax prisons had been opened nationwide, in addition to new
isolation units in nearly all maximum-security prisons. ....
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The
first such gulag was established in 1983 in Marion, Illinois. In 1989,
California opened Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border housing over
1,200 captives. It’s been the
model for dozens of other states to follow. The SHU (Security Housing Unit) is entirely windowless, and
from inside a cell with doors perforated with tiny holes, prisoners can only
see the hallway. ....
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They’re
confined 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year with just a
brief time (when permitted) in the “dog run” or outdoor enclosure for solitary
exercise with no equipment, not even a ball. ....
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But
after nearly 20 years, California is now holding more people in solitary than
ever; yet its gang problem is worse, and the violence rates have actually gone
up.....
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Nationwide,
at least 25,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement with another 50-80,000 in
segregation units, many additionally isolated but those numbers are not
released.....
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According
to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons
reported there are 216 so-called international terrorists and 139 so-called
domestic terrorists currently in federal facilities (I’m convinced the real terrorists
are on Capitol Hill). No one has
ever escaped from these “most secure prisons.” ....
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In
a 60 Minutes segment titled, Supermax: A Clean Version of Hell
(revisited), June 21, 2009, the reporters took cameras into the ADX-Florence,
Colorado Supermax where there have been six wardens since it opened in
1994. It’s where Imam Jalil
al-Amin and Mutulu Shakur are held captive, along with myriad other political
prisoners. ....
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One
former warden stated, “I don’t know what hell is, but I do know the assumption
would be, for a free person, it’s pretty close to it.”....
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“Supermax
is the place America sends the prisoners it wants to punish the most – a place
the warden described as a clean version of hell.”....
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In a national
study (Hayes and Rowan 1988) of 401 suicides in U.S. prisons —one of the
largest studies of its kind—two out of every three people who committed suicide
were being held in a control unit. ....
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In one year,
2005, a record 44 prisoners killed themselves in California alone; 70 percent
of those suicides occurred in segregation units ....
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Bret
Grote is an investigator and organizer with Human
Rights Coalition/Fed Up!, a prisoner rights/prison abolitionist
organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ....
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In
the Angola 3 Newsletter, Grote
details how HRC/Fed Up! Documented many hundreds of human rights abuses in
Pennsylvania’s 27 prisons. Their
investigations concluded that Pennsylvania is “operating a sophisticated program of torture under an utterly
baseless pretext of ‘security,’ wherein close to 3,000 people are held in
conditions of solitary/control unit confinement each day.”....
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Supermax
prisons can also contain death rows where prisoners can spend decades in
isolation, torture, with the added torment of impending execution. One obvious example is the highly
political case of former Black Panther, journalist and author, Mumia Abu-Jamal,
falsely convicted of killing a cop in 1981. Despite hard evidence of innocence, he’s still locked up in
SCI Green, a Pennsylvania Supermax, after 27 years on death row and the signing
of two death warrants.....
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These conditions are a flagrant violation of article 6 of
the U.S. Constitution which affirms that treaty law (i.e. international law) is
the “supreme law of the land.” Thus, article 10 (3) of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stipulates that “The penitentiary system
shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their
reformation and social rehabilitation.”....
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Contrary to the
lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key rhetoric of politicians, A Zogby poll released in April 2006 found
87 percent of Americans favor rehabilitative services for prisoners as opposed
to punishment only.....
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The Commission on
Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, a bipartisan national task force,
produced a study after a yearlong investigation (2005-2006) that called for ending long-term solitary
confinement of prisoners. The
report found practically no benefits and plenty of harm – for prisoners and the
public.....
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One of the most
egregious cases of prolonged torture is the politically-charged isolation of
Hugo Pinell still held in Pelican Bay’s SHU after nearly 20 years. For his active resistance back in the
1960s and assault conviction in the San Quentin Six case (1976), my dear friend
has spent a total of 40 years in hellholes – 45 of his 64 years in
California prisons. (www.hugopinell.org). ....
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“In
much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced
legalized segregation,” writes Gawande, “ours has countenanced legalized
torture. And there is no clearer
manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement – on our own
people, in our own communities, in a supermax prison, for example, that is a
30-minute drive from my home.”....
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In
the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, Distrust
all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!....
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Power
to the people!....
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