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Solitary Confinement Dehumanizes Us All - ACLU and Others Urge Congress for Reform

Today, for the first time ever, Congress is holding a hearing to look into the problems created by solitary confinement (listen here for a live stream and here to read testimony submitted to the Subcommittee).  The ACLU of Maine and the ACLU National Prison Project have been pushing for reform and reduction of solitary confinement for years, both in Maine and nationally.  We took advantage of this groundbreaking opportunity to submit testimony urging Congress to recognize that prolonged isolation of prisoners and isolation of even short durations for prisoners with serious mental illness violate both human rights and constitutional rights.  We were pleased to be able to outline, in our testimony, the amazing changes taking place in Maine's correctional facilities.  In the past year, Maine has reduced the use of solitary confinement by 70%! "Stark and foreboding...scarcely larger than the size of a king size bed...the only time they are physically touched is when they are placed in restraint." Dr. Craig Haney, leading expert on the psychological effects of solitary confinement describing the practice in many US prisons in his testimony before Congress.   He has documented that solitary confinement creates, "in some cases grotesque forms of self harm and mutilation....[as well as ] cognitive dysfunction, hopeless, depression, anger and rage." Much of testimony submitted to Congress outlines the clear and mounting evidence that the stress of being placed alone, in a small box, for all but five hours per week can cause serious psychological damage and create mental illness in previously healthy inmates. Solitary confinement should be extremely limited and governed by clear due process. 

It should be used only in response to clear danger or violence that cannot be controlled in other settings.

All prisoners should be screened before being placed and should be assessed periodically,

And all prisoner should have a meaningful opportunity to challenge placement in solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement jeopardizes our public safety, is fundamentally inhumane and wastes taxpayer dollars. We must insist on humane and more cost-effective methods of punishment and prison management. Hopefully, “Reassessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal, and Public Safety Consequences”  will focus much needed attention on this dire problem.   Fortunately, some in Congress seem to be getting the message.  Senator Durbin, "Do you believe 23 hours per day isolation has a detrimental impact?   Do  you believe you could live in a box like that, 23 hours a day, and you could go in 'normal' and still come back out that way?" No Senator, we don't. For more on what the ACLU and prisoner advocates are doing across the country, check out Stop Solitary. And read more heartwrenching testimony describing the horrors experienced by those subjected to solitary, like the below excerpt from Stuart Andrews, Jr., here at Solitary Watch. 

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Stop Solitary

What do you call placing over 80,000 American prisoners in isolated environments for 22-24 hours a day for months or years or decades causing serious psychological damage that increases recidivism and prison violence and costs upwards of $75,000/annually per inmate? A complete failure. Today, the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights is holding the first-ever Congressional hearing on solitary confinement, titled “Reassessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal, and Public Safety Consequences” and the ACLU of Maine submitted written testimony detailing Maine’s success in reducing the use of solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison by more than 70% over the last year. You can read the ACLU of Maine testimony here. The hearing is a long overdue but encouraging sign that the Federal government is finally taking account of what is a fundamentally inhumane form of punishment. Nationally, Maine has become a leader in the movement to reduce solitary confinement.  As states struggle with rising prison costs and prison populations that are higher than any other country in the world, Maine’s success provides a roadmap for reform.  The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and keeps more people in prison and jail than any other country in the world including those with most repressive dictators. The vast majority of prisoners in solitary confinement are eventually released back into our communities.  Unfortunately, prisoners deprived of normal human contact cannot properly reintegrate into society, resulting in higher recidivism rates. Solitary confinement causes and exacerbates mental illness.  The mentally ill often deteriorate catastrophically in solitary, leading courts to consistently find that subjecting the mentally ill to solitary is cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. For more on what the ACLU is doing across the country, check out Stop Solitary.

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The ACLU of Maine has submitted testimony to Congress for the 1st-ever hearing on abuse and overuse of solitary confinement.  

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“Stop-and-Frisk” Coming Under Much-Needed Scrutiny

It was a busy weekend for civil rights marchers. Here in Maine, a gorgeous Saturday allowed for a festive crowd to celebrate LGBT Pride Month in full force. The ACLU of Maine was thrilled to be part of the parade, complete with staffers, board members, and supporters all sporting flashy new t-shirts. And with polls continuing to show growing support for marriage fairness, there was plenty of reason to be optimistic that 2012 will prove to be a watershed year for civil rights here in Maine.   In New York City, however, the weekend featured a civil rights march with a much more somber mood. In protest of stop-and-frisk policies that target racial minorities, thousands of New Yorkers gathered on Sunday for a “silent march” down the streets of Manhattan. The demonstrators’ purpose was clear: bring attention to the stark and undeniable bias in police stops, and force the authorities to consider the serious privacy concerns that such actions raise.   A little background is necessary: In 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in Terry v. Ohio that police may stop a person if the have “reasonable suspicion” that a crime either has been or is about to be committed. Additionally, police may frisk the suspect for weapons so long as they have reasonable suspicion that the suspect might be armed. The decision in Terrywas not universally praised, even in 1968. In fact, the ACLU was so concerned about the case at the time that our attorneys represented Terry and filed briefs with the Supreme Court arguing against the “reasonable suspicion” standard – though unfortunately we were not victorious.   While Terry may allow police to “stop-and-frisk” citizens without probable cause, it certainly does not permit them to do so based on race or any other stereotype. And that brings us back to yesterday’s silent march in New York City, which comes amid a growing backlash against police practices that unfairly target racial minorities, particularly young black males. The numbers, as collected by the New York Civil Liberties Union, paint a disturbing picture: Of those who were stopped by police last year, 87 percent were black or Latino, compared to just 9 percent who were white. More than half were aged 14-24. And a whopping 89 percent turned out to be totally innocent. If that doesn’t warrant a protest march, I don’t know what does.   New York may be uniquely diverse in some ways, but these statistics are not an aberration. Racial profiling is a very real problem all around the country, and it can often rear its ugly head in subtle ways – like a police stop that doesn’t result in an arrest, or an unnecessary frisk initiated because a suspect was said to be acting “suspiciously.” We can’t ignore this form of profiling, for its results can be extremely damaging not just to the individuals stopped, but also to our communities at large. Kudos to the marchers this weekend who brought attention to this issue, and big props to the New York Civil Liberties Union for keeping “stop-and-frisk” abuse atop their radar. Let’s hope that the police stop and listen to these very important concerns and make meaningful changes to eliminate racial profiling during law enforcement stops.

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Mapping the FBI

No one should be targeted by law enforcement as "suspicious" based on who they are or what they believe.  It's especially wrong for law enforcement to profile communities of color, immigrant communities, or religious minorities for increased surveillance and investigation.  But that's just what the FBI's controversial racial and ethnic mapping program seems to encourage.  A 2008 FBI operations guide authorized agents to collect information about and map so-called "ethnic-oriented" businesses, behaviors, lifestyle characteristics and cultural traditions in communities with concentrated ethnic populations.  When the ACLU heard about this program, we were very concerned that racial and ethnic mapping might soon lead to unconstitutional and illegal racial and ethnic profiling.  Here in Maine we were concerned that the FBI might be targeting our communities of color or immigrant communities in Lewiston and Portland for example.  So we filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out.  Almost two years later, the FBI sent us and affiliates across the country hundreds of pages of almost entirely blanked out documents.  Among the "secret" and redacted documents appears to be an ordinary United States census map.  The hundreds of blank pages, which you can see for yourself here, make a mockery of the Freedom of Information Act.  The public has the right to monitor and understand the workings of government, and that includes the FBI.  The FBI has a legal and constitutional responsibility to disclose information about its activities. Today, the ACLU of Maine and our colleagues at the ACLU of Rhode Island filed an administrative appeal to challenge the FBI's refusal to disclose information about its ethnic mapping project.  We will work to secure as complete a picture as possible about objectionable FBI surveillance practices in our communities.  We will map the FBI, exposing misconduct, abuse of authority, and unconstitutional profiling across the country. It's a matter of civil rights and civil liberties, but it's also a matter of safety.  Law enforcement based on facts and evidence are more effective than a system based on racial stereotypes and mass suspicion.  You can read more at www.aclu.org/mappingthefbi. 

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Maine vs. Florida - Proud to Live in a State That Respects the Fundamental Right to Vote

Yesterday Maine voters exercised their fundamental right with all of the rights they have come to depend on.  They could register at the polls, enroll in a party, and cast their ballot even if they forgot their wallet at home. I am so proud to be part of an organization that helped protect voter access and to live in a state that understands government's role should be to help assist and support citizens' ability to get to the ballot box. In contrast, check out two recent clips from the Daily Show (the second here) discussing Florida Governor Rick Scott's new law requiring new voters to submit their completed voter registration forms within 48 hours of filling them out.  Even one minute over the deadline and the forms become void.  The law dramatically impacts the ability of organizations like our voting rights allies - League of Women Voters - to register new voters.  The law has reportedly already caused a 20% decrease in new voter registration and is layered on top of other new barriers to voting.  That despite no evidence that it's needed.  According to the Daily Show interview with Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall, even those running elections in Florida don't support the law.  McFall states: "The law doesn't make any sense.  I don't see fraud in voter registration.  It just isn't happening."   Governor Scott has also ordered the purge of as many as 182,000 suspected non-citizens from Florida's voter rolls earlier this year, triggering a legal battle between the state and the U.S. Department of Justice who has determined that the purge violates federal voter-suppression laws. I hope that as evidence mounts about the discriminatory impact and lack of need for the recent wave of voter suppression laws, the tide will turn and states (including ours) will, instead, look at ways to increase voter enrollment and participation.

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Today, our government is killing people in countries in which the United States is not at war. It reportedly adds suspected terrorists — including U.S. citizens — to "kill lists" for months at a time, which by definition cannot be limited to genuinely imminent threats. The New York Times disclosed that the government "counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants" unless intelligence proves them innocent — but only after they are dead. When mistakes are made, our nation refuses to acknowledge them and does not compensate victims. The first Yemeni missile strike President Obama authorized, in December 2009, targeted alleged militants but killed 21 children and 14 women. WikiLeaks revealed a secret agreement by Yemen to accept responsibility for the U.S. killing. Yemenis were enraged, but most Americans probably never heard about it.

Excerpt from a USA Today op-ed by ACLU National Security Project director, Hina Shamsi about the U.S. government’s unlawful targeted killing program

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A Loving Decision

It's hard to believe that only 40 years ago, some states in our union did not allow interracial couples to marry. I hope that my future children can look back 40 years from now and say the same thing about their moms and other same-sex couples. Today especially, I'm proud to work for the ACLU, because we have a track record of making sure people have equal protection under the law. Bernard Cohen, an ACLU attorney, took the case of Richard and Mildred Loving of Virginia, an interracial couple that had to leave their home state to avoid being put in jail for violating the state's laws against their marriage. I can't imagine being arrested for marrying the person you love, but I can imagine not being able to get married in the first place. Today, same-sex couples leave Maine to live in another state, where their marriages will be legally recognized.  Unfortunately, the Defense of Marriage Act prevents federal recognition and benefits to couples who are married in states that allow same-sex marriage. All of the other New England states except for Maine, by the way. Cohen won his case on behalf of the Lovings, which went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1967. His closing argument was so moving, I wanted to share some of it with you: "The Lovings have the right to go to sleep at night knowing that if should they not wake in the morning, their children would have the right to inherit from them. They have the right to be secure in knowing that, if they go to sleep and do not wake in the morning, that one of them, a survivor of them, has the right to Social Security benefits. All of these are denied to them, and they will not be denied to them if the whole anti-miscegenistic scheme of Virginia... [is] found unconstitutional." At the ACLU, we believe that same-sex couples should have all the same rights listed in Cohen's closing argument about interracial couples 40 years ago. We're getting closer to achieving that goal. This weekend is Southern Maine Pride and we're marching to celebrate our victories thus far as we hope for a historical win this November. To join us, email me at jbarkley@aclumaine.org

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A Thirty-Year-Old Precedent, Too Often Ignored

This week marks the thirtieth anniversary of Plyler vs. Doe, a watershed decision by the Supreme Court that changed the course of education in the United States. The case arose out of a Texas law that withheld funds to educate kids who were not “legally admitted” into the United States. As a result, public school districts were being allowed to deny enrollment to certain students, or in some cases charge a special tuition rate based on immigration status. Not surprisingly, the result was that poor, Latino, and non-English-speaking students were driven from the classroom.   Thankfully, the Supreme Court stepped in, striking down the law in 1982 as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Citing Brown v. Board of Education, the Court held that “denying these children a basic education” would “deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions, and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our Nation.”   In the last three decades, the Court’s decision in Plyler has proven to be quite significant. For starters, its recognition that due process and equal protection apply to everyone in America has become a central principle in efforts to combat anti-immigrant, racial profiling laws that discriminate so brutally against Latino and immigrant communities. In addition, Plyler has set the stage for many of today’s other battles over higher education, as immigrant youth fight to defend their ability to enroll in colleges and university, access in-state tuition and scholarships and financial aid, and secure passage of the DREAM Act’s path to citizenship for immigrants who came to the United States as children and graduate from high school.   Certainly Plyler has helped in these struggles for equal access to education, but unfortunately it has too often failed to be enough. As documented by the ACLU, schools in New York, New Jersey, Arizona, and elsewhere still routinely inquire into immigration status in the school enrollment process. Alabama’s anti-immigrant law goes even further, requiring public schools to determine the immigration status of children and many parents, and authorizing schools to report them to the immigration authorities. As a result, absentee rates for Hispanic students have increased significantly, and 13.4 percent of Hispanic children are withdrawing from Alabama public schools altogether. Plyler made it abundantly clear that the Constitution guarantees all children equal access to a basic public education, regardless of immigration status. We cannot lose sight of that principle, even though it is clear from recent events that its promise has yet to be fully achieved.

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One Letter

Two days ago, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled that the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act  (DOMA) is unconstitutional. This case follows on the heels of a separate 1st circuit court of appeals decision on May 31st that also declared DOMA unconstitutional.   The ruling came in an ACLU case brought by 83-year-old widow, Edith Windsor. Edith lived with her partner for 44 years. The New York Times featured her in this article where she says, ““If Thea was a Theo, I wouldn’t have had to pay,” Ms. Windsor said. “One letter.”   When her partner died, she was required to pay over $363,000 dollars in federal inheritance taxes: if her spouse was male and their marriage legal, she would have had to pay nothing.   Click this link to hear Edie tell the touching story of her life with Thea.

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Documents produced in response to the ACLU of Maine FOAA request suggest how improper gender stereotypes were incorporated into the gender-segregated classrooms: the Willard School December News describes the sixth-grade girls class: “young ladies have developed some important routine [sic] for themselves one [sic] is a daily cup of cocoa as they read the Portland Press Herald and discuss local, national and global events.” Over on the boys’ side, there are different routines: “The class has created an exercise area within the class and all the young men have the opportunity to exercise . . .Ms. Wagenfield’s class has signed up with the NFL Experience which is a free program sponsored by the National Football League where students can earn points towards prizes by tracking and increasing their daily activity.” “Federal law and the Constitution require equal educational opportunities for male and female students,” said Shenna Bellows, Executive Director of the ACLU of Maine Foundation. “Unfortunately, the program in Sanford includes exercise for boys but hot chocolate for girls, which only reinforces the stereotypes the school should be attempting to eradicate.” Many gender-segregated school programs across the country are based on the ideas of Dr. Leonard Sax and other proponents of single-sex education, whose discredited theories on the supposed differences between boys’ and girls’ brains are rooted in archaic stereotypes. For example, Sax says that girls do badly under stress, so they should not be given time limits on a test; and that boys who like to read, do not enjoy contact sports and do not have a lot of close male friends should be firmly disciplined, required to spend time with “normal males” and made to play sports.

"ACLU Asks Sanford School District To Halt Single-Sex Programs Rooted In Stereotypes," Demand Letter Sent to Sanford School District (Maine) As Part Of ACLU’s “Teach Kids, Not Stereotypes” Campaign

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Meet Jill Barkley, the ACLU of Maine's new Marriage Project Coordinator. E-mail her at JBarkley@aclumaine.org to sign up for weekly updates on the campaign for marriage fairness in Maine, or visit MainersUnited.org to find out how you can get involved with the campaign.