Even 9 years after leaving jail, Evie Litwok continues to be haunted by the seven weeks she spent in solitary confinement. She suffers continuous complications, migraines, vertigo and claustrophobia. She can’t be in locations which can be too loud, too crowded or too small. The primary time she walked right into a crowded elevator after her launch from jail, she suffered a panic assault and fainted.
“Solitary assessments the bounds of your means to assume cohesively,” she instructed Truthout. “Bodily, mentally and emotionally, it destroyed me ceaselessly.”
A recent report by Solitary Watch and Unlock the Box reveals that, in response to the newest knowledge, over 11,000 individuals in federal prisons and one other 11,490 in federal jails are in some type of solitary or restrictive housing, the place they’re locked of their cells for not less than 22 hours every day.
Mixed with native jails and state prisons, a staggering 122,840 individuals are in isolation. Between 55,000 and 62,500 have been remoted for 15 days or extra. These figures don’t embody immigration detention services, which have additionally disproportionately meted out solitary confinement.
Final week, six federal lawmakers launched laws to remove the follow for individuals in federal prisons and jails in addition to these in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. The End Solitary Confinement Act (HR 4972) would remove 22-hour isolation except for a four-hour emergency deescalation interval. The invoice permits placement in different models for individuals who should be separated for longer intervals, however requires they be allowed out of their cells for not less than 14 hours every day, together with seven hours of group programming to deal with psychological well being, substance abuse and violence prevention. It could additionally implement due course of protections, together with entry to illustration, and require the federal authorities to frequently report the numbers of solitary placements, the demographic breakdowns and the variety of cases of self-harm, suicide makes an attempt and accomplished suicides in segregation.
Whereas the act solely applies to federal jails, prisons and immigration prisons, it additionally incentivizes states and municipalities to undertake related bans by reducing federal funding to any state or native entity that doesn’t enact them.
“It’s indeniable that solitary confinement is torture,” Rep. Cori Bush, the invoice’s lead sponsor, mentioned in a press convention saying the invoice. “It doesn’t matter what it’s known as, whether or not administrative segregation or restrictive housing or the rest. It results in self-mutilation, to suicide, coronary heart illness, nervousness, despair, psychosis, psychological and bodily deterioration and a considerably heightened threat of loss of life.”
“I Would Not Want These Circumstances on My Enemies”
In 1998, Samuel Wesley-El was accused of being insolent to employees on the federal jail in Cumberland, Maryland. For that, he spent seven days within the jail’s Particular Housing Unit (SHU), the time period for solitary confinement within the federal jail system. “I used to be locked down for 23 hours a day for 2 days,” he instructed Truthout in an e-message from jail. On these two days, employees allowed him out of his cell for an hour. On the opposite 5 days, they didn’t.
The subsequent yr, he was positioned in SHU pending an investigation. The investigation lasted 45 days, however he was by no means instructed what it was about. He was continually chilly, he recalled, and the lights had been stored on till 10 pm.
In 2021, Wesley-El was positioned in isolation twice. As soon as, he was despatched to medical isolation for 2 days in preparation for a process. Later, he was despatched to the SHU for six days as a result of he had a bag of books on his mattress. However, he recalled, the situations had been the identical whatever the motive. If he or anybody else acquired an incident report whereas in isolation, they might be “put in paper,” which he described as being positioned in a paper jumpsuit and underwear for every week. Folks put in paper had been additionally disadvantaged of their mattresses through the day. Whereas Wesley-El by no means incurred this penalty, he recollects that others did.
Reflecting on these experiences, he wrote, “I’d not want these situations on my enemies.”
Litwok isn’t the one one for whom the results of solitary prolong previous their launch date. Pamela Winn discovered that she was six weeks pregnant when she entered a federal jail. That was in 2008, years earlier than the federal Bureau of Prisons (and the vast majority of state prisons) handed rules proscribing the usage of leg irons, stomach chains or black containers on pregnant individuals. Winn skilled all three every time she was transported to and from her court docket dates.
Throughout a type of journeys, Winn fell whereas attempting to step into the van. Shortly after, she started bleeding, however her repeated requests for medical consideration had been ignored. At 20 weeks, she miscarried. As an alternative of being supplied grief counseling or remedy, she was positioned into medical remark which was, in impact, solitary confinement. When she was transferred to a special jail, employees positioned her in segregation, ostensibly for her safety towards different incarcerated individuals. She spent a complete of eight months in isolation.
“There isn’t a day, no evening, no time, simply your ideas,” she recounted. These ideas included a relentless replay of being in ache in her cell whereas ready for medical consideration, being shackled to the hospital mattress, and being instructed by a nurse that she had miscarried.
Fifteen years later, that point in isolation continues to paint her every day life. She is now the grandmother of a toddler, however has hassle connecting along with her granddaughter or different members of the family and mates.
Regardless of these difficulties, Winn is decided to make sure that no different girl goes by way of what she skilled. After her launch from jail in 2013, she based RestoreHER, a coverage advocacy group in her dwelling state of Georgia.
Since then, RestoreHER spearheaded Georgia’s HB 345, which handed in 2019 and now prohibits the state’s prisons and jails from shackling pregnant individuals. Winn and the group at the moment are working with lawmakers to ban solitary for pregnant individuals in federal custody, and he or she was a part of the press convention to announce the introduction of the Finish Solitary Confinement Act.
Surviving Solitary and Advocating for Its Finish
In 2014, Litwok was weeks from being launched from the federal jail in Tallahassee, Florida. Then, she discovered concerning the loss of life of a lady who had lengthy been complaining of excruciating abdomen pains. Medical employees refused to take her complaints significantly, telling her that she was fats and that she wanted to stroll on the monitor and drink water. It was the identical recommendation they allotted to each girl, together with Litwok, no matter their signs.
Two weeks later, the lady’s gallbladder burst. She died.
Infuriated, Litwok despatched a narrative blasting the jail’s lack of medical care to a pal, who was sustaining her web site. It wasn’t the primary time that Litwok had written about jail situations, however it was the primary time she despatched it through the jail’s e-messaging system, which is monitored by employees.
Inside an hour, employees handcuffed and introduced her to the SHU. She would spend the subsequent seven weeks confined almost 24 hours a day to her cell bathed in fluorescent lights that had been by no means turned off.
On her first day, the lights triggered a extreme migraine. Litwok had by no means earlier than had migraines, however this grew to become the primary of many. “My blood stress needed to be off the charts as a result of I used to be shaking,” she mentioned. Her household has a historical past of coronary heart illness — her father died of a sudden coronary heart assault — and Litwok repeatedly requested the physician who made his rounds every morning to verify her blood stress. When he lastly did, it was 200/100, indicating a hypertensive crisis, or medical emergency, which may result in a coronary heart assault, stroke, organ injury, or different life-threatening well being issues. However Litwok was not supplied follow-up care.
Then there was the fixed cacophony of 60 girls screaming in any respect hours. “Even now, I hear it in my head,” she mentioned. “It was an echo chamber of individuals screaming, ‘Get me the fuck out of right here.’”
Suicides and tried suicides occur disproportionately in solitary confinement. Litwok remembers a number of girls making an attempt suicide throughout her seven weeks in isolation. “You wouldn’t see it,” she defined, noting that the cells had been offset in order that one particular person couldn’t see instantly into the cell throughout from them. “You’ll hear it. It seemed like somebody altering their sheets. However in solitary, you solely had one sheet.” When a lady heard that sound, she would start yelling, hoping that employees would arrive in time to cease the try.
“I didn’t need to commit suicide,” Litwok recalled, including that her Jewish religion prohibited suicide. However when she heard that another person had tried, she would ask God to let her die.
Litwok didn’t die. She was launched in 2014 and returned to New York Metropolis the place she joined the Jails Motion Coalition, an area advocacy group combating to enhance situations in New York’s infamous Rikers Island. At the moment, jail officers positioned 1 in every 10 people in segregation. The coalition’s efforts included urgent the Board of Correction, the company which establishes and oversees minimal requirements within the metropolis’s jails, to drastically restrict solitary confinement. Litwok was a part of the group that met with particular person board members to advocate for change. She additionally repeated her story at their public hearings. Finally, the Board of Correction handed a rule limiting segregation to not more than 30 consecutive days or, inside any six-month interval, 60 days.
Recounting her time in solitary, even years later, nonetheless makes Litwok need to cry. However, she mentioned, because the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, she grew up watching her dad and mom repeatedly speak about their childhood experiences at excessive colleges and faculties. “Each time they spoke, it bothered them, however they taught me one factor — you have to testify. You could always remember. You could memorialize your experiences as a result of nobody else will.” In 2016, she based Witness to Mass Incarceration to problem and alter narratives round incarceration.
“Solitary confinement is a wicked and sadistic follow,” Congresswoman Bush said when she launched the act, including that, in 2011 and once more in 2020, United Nations consultants have condemned extended solitary, outlined as 15 days or extra, as psychological torture. “Collectively we’ll save lives by ending this heinous and immoral follow as soon as and for all,” she mentioned.
“Solitary is such a violation of your thoughts,” Litwok mentioned, reflecting on these trauma-filled seven weeks and her life afterwards. “You’re combating the sunshine, the noise, the whole makes an attempt at dehumanization. You’re by no means proper once more.”
