We do it for the children … prison, solitary, torture, trauma, and beyond

June 26, 2023 by Leave a Comment

“In a democracy, we do not put children in cages. Period. There is no debating it. Nothing you can say to me will justify putting children in cages.”             Patricia Okoumou

Ethan Weinstein, a reporter for the VTDigger, covers southeastern Vermont. Of late, he’s had reason to cover the Vermont Department of Corrections. In a recent interview, speaking of the high and rising number of deaths, and particularly suicides, in Vermont’s prisons and jails, Weinstein noted, “There’s a belief that things are going to be messed up there, that you’re not going to be receiving adequate care. And so it has felt like, in order for something to be a story, someone has to die. You know, it’s not enough to hear that a person has a concussion, and they can’t see a doctor, or a person has been prescribed a medication their whole life and has been refused it once they’ve been incarcerated. It just seems as though our tolerance for issues within our prisons is so high that it can be hard to get people to care about this.” What if that person is a child? Does that matter? Does it matter to you? Recent news reports would suggest the answer is No.

For years, the United States has `struggled’ with an epidemic of seclusion rooms and physical restraints in schools. Time and again, one district or another has been forced to `discover’ its own alarming propensity for torture of children in the name of schooling. This past week, Alabama put a new twist on an old story by … doing absolutely nothing. Last week, Al.com, Alabama’s largest news site, reported that, after six years waiting, the state had still not provided any requested data on school seclusion and restraint incidents. In March 2017, Al.com requested data. Nothing came. In 2020, they tried again, and, again, no response. In June 2022, they tried again, and again received nothing. Public school districts are required to turn over information to the U.S. Department of Education every year. The last year Alabama reported on was 2017 – 2018. As far as Al.com can tell, Alabama’s state department doesn’t seem to care. The Alabama state department is supposed to collect information from every school district every year. It doesn’t, and what it does manage to get doesn’t seem to undergo any review.

In 2017 – 2018, Alabama reported nearly 600 incidents of seclusion, of putting a child in a locked room often for hours, and often for days, on end. The use of seclusion rooms in schools was outlawed by the Alabama legislature in 2011, but it’s not significant enough to warrant enforcement.

In 2021, an Aboriginal youth, Michael, was `referred’ to Cleveland Youth Detention Centre, in Queensland, Australia. Cleveland is almost always described as “troubled.” Michael, who lives with intellectual disability, was charged with a violent assault. He spent 744 days in detention, awaiting trial. On Friday, at trial, it was `discovered’ that Michael had spent 500 days in solitary confinement, “regularly locked in his cell for more than 20 hours a day.” The explanation for this was “staffing issues”. Rodney Dillon, a Palawa man and Indigenous rights advocate, has a better explanation, “This system is not about looking after human beings, this is about torture. It’s a torture chamber, that’s what it is. The effect this will have on this kid’s life is irreparable. That kid will be damaged for the rest of his life; that kid will never, ever move on from what’s happened. That is the worst thing you can do to any human being, is put them in solitary confinement … We need to change this system, the racism that’s in this system, and the hatred.”

What exactly are children meant to learn, the ones thrown into solitary, the ones watching their friends go into solitary? Why are we so invested in seclusion and restraint of children, generally, and of children living with disabilities, particularly? What terrible crime have these children committed that entire systems invest so much in maintaining practices that constitute torture?

What terrible crime have these children committed? Must they die to be a story, for us to care? Remember Alan Kurdi, the two-year child who drowned September 2015 and was famously photographed, dead, on the beach? Remember? In England, in 2018, ten-year-old Muhammad Amin entered and won a youth poetry contest. Rather than throwing children into solitary, rather than torturing them, rather than only hearing (of) them when they’ve died, we should listen to them. Listen to Muhammad Amin listening to Alan Kurdi:

Alan Kurdi
by Muhammad Amin

Alan Kurdi lies on the beach
Like autumn’s fallen leaf
Seagulls soar in the sky
Singing a song of grief

His eyes are bright pools
Swimming in the deep
Are forgotten faces full
Of pain, faces that weep

Alan Kurdi doesn’t breakfast
No sugar puffs or corn flakes
Snap, crackle and pop. Bombs
Fall like little earthquakes

He has never played nintendo
Nor xbox, truth or dare
Only hide-and-seek with IED’s
Landmines and the snipers stare

The water lapping at his feet
His body lies on the sand
Still, silent, frozen, frail
A ragdoll from another land

Alan Kurdi’s voice reaches me
“Amin, Amin listen to me
I was put into the sea
Like Moses. Don’t you see?”

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Anna Vignet)

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Manitoba could be moving towards ending solitary confinement … finally

May 1, 2022 by 1 Comment

On May 21, 2021, two people incarcerated in Manitoba sued the province over their practice of solitary confinement. On plaintiff, Virgil Charles Gamblin, had been in solitary confinement from December 2020, or six straight months. The other, a juvenile, 17 years old, had been in solitary nine times since July 2020. The two argued that solitary confinement is torture, and, as such, is cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, “a dungeon inside a prison”. As their attorney, James Sayce, noted, “They’ve shown real courage in coming forward and putting their name down on this claim, and they’ve shown real courage.” This past week, their case was certified as a class action, meaning it now covers thousands of people who were tortured by the state.

Manitoba’s solitary confinement cells are often smaller than parking spaces, with no windows, sleeping mats on the floors. They are often covered in filth, blood and excrement. Junior Moar spent time in Manitoba’s dungeons: “It’s just not a place for a human being to be in there like that, not like a caged animal. An animal shouldn’t even be treated like that.”

Covid made, or better was used as an alibi, to make a terrible situation worse. For example, from 2019 to 2020, prolonged solitary confinement of incarcerated youth increased tenfold. Prolonged solitary confinement is 15 days or longer. Children were thrown into dungeons ostensibly for their own protection. As one child explained, “The way they do it, they’re not helping us.” These numbers came from a report that was an update of an earlier report two years prior. None of this is new, and yet it continues.

In province after province, case after case, the State’s use of solitary confinement has been successfully challenged. Ontario was successfully sued, as were the federal prisons. Class action suits in British Columbia, Alberta, and Nova Scotia are moving forward. Again and again, when presented with the evidence, the courts decide that solitary confinement is [a] unconstitutional and a violation of human and civil rights because [b] it’s torture. Solitary confinement is torture. Why is that so difficult to comprehend? What is our investment in this particular form of torture? Why do we need victim after victim, in the thousands and tens of thousands, having the courage to testify to the trauma imposed on them in the name of justice before we break the cycle of torture?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: “Solitary Confinement”, mural by David Alfaro Siquieros, completed 1961)

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No end to the torture: Throw the children into solitary, lock the door, walk away

December 23, 2021 by 29 Comments

A seclusion room in a Cedar Rapids elementary school: padded walls, a window, a door that locks from outside

Another year ends with stories of children, young children, being thrown into `seclusion rooms’, solitary confinement chambers, in schools across the country. What exactly are children meant to learn, the ones thrown into solitary, the ones watching their classmates and friends go into solitary? What’s the lesson plan, the educational goal? Why are we so invested in seclusion and restraint of children, generally, and of children living with disabilities, particularly? What terrible crime have these children committed that entire systems invest so much in maintaining practices that clearly constitute torture?

In November, U.S. Department of Justice investigators conducted on-site inspections of schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They also demanded thousands of documents. This story begins in 2017, when a parent complained at the abuse her daughter suffered. Apparently, the girl wouldn’t stop crying, and so she was placed in a seclusion room. In the 2019-2020 school year, elementary school children were tossed into seclusion 237 times. In October, 2020, the Department of Justice notified the Cedar Rapids School District that they were opening an investigation.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education released a report on school climate and safety for 2015 – 2016. It found that Iowa rates had doubled. For example, in 2013, 23 school districts in eastern Iowa had 2514 reported instances of seclusion or restraint. In 2015, that number rose to 4,904. A 2018 Iowa State report described Davenport as in “systemic non-compliance” of Federal laws concerning the education of students living with disabilities. According to the report, the situation for students of color in Davenport was particularly dire, systemically so. Both of Iowa’s U.S. Senators called for a Federal investigation into the use of seclusion rooms. Davenport’s U.S. Representative Dave Loebsack called for a ban on seclusion rooms.

In 2017, a complaint was filed against the Iowa City school district, charging that the district’s use of seclusion rooms violated Federal law, primarily because parents don’t know that the seclusions rooms existed and were being used and because the use of seclusion rooms is broader and more `ordinary’ than the law allows. During the 2013-14 school year, most of the students dumped into solitary confinement were students with diagnosed disabilities and individualized education plans. Half of the students with education plans who were sent to seclusion rooms were Black. Other than students with education plans, ALL of the students dumped into seclusion rooms in the 2013 – 2014 were Black. Black students comprised about 19% of the school population.

Cedar Rapids is no outlier, not in Iowa, not in the United States. December 31, 2020, the Department of Justice settled with North Gibson School Corporation in Princeton, Indiana, where “students as young as five years old were secluded and restrained improperly and repeatedly, resulting in days, and sometimes weeks, of lost instructional time.”

On October 24, 2021, the U.S. Department of Education and the Saco School District, in Saco, Maine, reached agreement to resolve restraint and seclusion compliance. Saco’s not a big school district, but it boasts big seclusion numbers. From 2017 to 2020, Saco schools engaged in 392 incidents of seclusion. Of that number, 324 involved children in K-2. 83% of those thrown into solitary were children 5 to 7 years old. After extensive investigation and negotiation, they `reached agreement.’

On November 24, 2021, Fairfax County Public Schools, in northern Virginia, reached a settlement with parents of children living with disabilities and advocacy groups to ban all seclusion in all its schools by the beginning of school year 2022 – 2023. This ends a suit that was filed in 2019, after a local news station reported that the county routinely put children with disabilities in seclusion rooms and routinely failed to report the incidents.

A week later, on December 1, the U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with the Frederick County Public School District “to address the discriminatory use of seclusion and restraint against students with disabilities …. The investigation, opened in October 2020, revealed thousands of incidents of seclusion and restraint in just two and a half school years. Although students with disabilities make up only 10.8% of students enrolled in the district, every single student the district secluded was a student with disabilities.” When the settlement was reported, many expressed shock, demanded answers, called for responsibility. The county’s school superintendent resigned quickly, and was given $800,000 in compensation. In 2017, that county superintendent was named Superintendent of the Year by the state association of school superintendents.

Every report, every agreement and settlement, evokes shock. How can people be shocked when there are thousands of incidents, as many as ten a day, in small towns and big counties? That the government has returned to some sort of vigilance concerning the systematic abuse and torture of children is welcome, inasmuch as it’s better than inaction. But the real need here is a soul searching, no holds barred transformation. We torture children. We cannot be shocked by that. We send children into days, weeks, of solitary confinement because … they can’t stop crying. And we call that education.

A seclusion room in another Cedar Rapids elementary school

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit 1:  KCCI / Liz Martin/The Gazette)) (Photo Credit 2: KCRG / (Josh Scheinblum)

 

 

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Missouri regulates the use of seclusion rooms and restraints … finally!

August 29, 2021 by 4 Comments

A “blue room” seclusion room in Missouri

American education remains haunted by inhumane treatment of children, especially those living with disabilities. Yesterday, Saturday, August 28, a new law went into effect in Missouri regulating and, in some instances, curtailing the use of seclusion rooms and physical restraints in all public, private and charter schools in the state. This is a welcome move, won by long hard struggle of children, parents, allies, advocates. Why is it so difficult to abandon practices that are clearly harmful and inhumane?

In May 2009, the Missouri state legislature passed a law giving school districts two years in which to devise written policies governing the use of seclusion rooms. Before that, there were no policies, only the practice of solitary confinement of school children without a single written guideline or rule. Nothing came of that. Nothing happened as a result of this non-compliance.

Eleven years later, in January 2020, 11-year-old Ryphath Knopp stood before a committee of the Missouri state legislature and described being put into solitary confinement in the Columbia, Missouri, school system. Knopp told the legislators he lives with autism, anxiety, and depression. He described beings placed in a small padded room “almost all day, every day” until his parents took him out of school and homeschooled him. Knopp called seclusion rooms “an adapted version of solitary confinement, which was a form of torture, may I remind you.”

Mothers of other children in the Columbia school district recounted similar experiences. Shawan Daniels described the room her fourth-grade child was locked into: “These rooms didn’t have vents in them, water, or anything.” Another mother said the isolation had caused her son emotional trauma, asthma attacks, and head injuries. Both used the same phrase to describe Columbia schools’ treatment of their children: being “thrown into a box.” At that point, Missouri had no rules and no oversight over the use of restraint or seclusion in its schools.

In March 2020, Missouri legislators passed House Bill (HB 1568) that would establish a ban on seclusion and restraint rooms “except in cases where there is imminent danger to the student or others”. Who decides the exception? No guidelines were provided, and besides, it didn’t really matter. Apart from completely discretionary guidelines, Missouri still had neither rules nor oversight concerning the use of restraint or seclusion in schools.

All that changed, for the better, yesterday. In its latest session, the Missouri legislature passed House Bill 432, which regulates and codifies the use of restraint and seclusion in schools. Missouri now has actual guidelines for the use, and not, of restraint and seclusion rooms. The guidelines include rules on documentation of any use of seclusion or restraint, annual uniform training of faculty and staff concerning the use of seclusion or restraint, and new protection for whistleblowers.

Ryphath Knopp attended school in Columbus, Missouri. Frankie Bono attended school in St. Charles, Missouri. According to his mother, “My son was locked in a closet. He didn’t have the skills and ability to appropriately communicate what was really happening at school. We were driving in the car recently and a song came on the radio, and he just started sobbing. That was a song that had been playing in the room, one of the times they had tackled him, held his face against the cold floor, grabbed him by the hair and dragged him into the seclusion room.” Frankie called it “the blue room”.

According to the most recent federal data, in school year 2017 – 2018, 50.9 million students were enrolled in public schools. 101,990 were subjected to physical or mechanical constraint or seclusion. 27,538 were subjected to seclusion. In that school year, 13% of the students enrolled were classified as living with disabilities. Of those subjected to physical restraint, 80% were living with disabilities. Of those subjected to mechanical constraint, 41% were living with disabilities. Of those subjected to seclusion, 77% were students living with disabilities.

This is a war against children, and exactly what crime have these children committed? Why do we routinely send children into solitary confinement? What are we teaching children, all the children in all the schools, when we torture their classmates and then call it “seclusion” and “restraint”? How many more children must suffer the “blue rooms” of torture? Perhaps Missouri will shed a light on that cold floor.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit: Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune / ProPublica)

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In Cornton Vale, Scotland’s one women’s prison, women with complex mental health needs are routinely thrown into solitary for days on end

July 8, 2021 by 8 Comments

Today, Scotland’s Mental Welfare Commission released the findings of their investigation into the treatment of women with complex mental health needs who have the great misfortune of ending up in Scotland’s one all-women’s prison. The Commission reports that women with mental health needs were sent into solitary confinement, euphemistically called Separation and Reintegration Units, for anywhere from a day to 82 days. The cells are described as “sparse and lacking in comfort. The narratives in women’s notes suggested there was little in the way of positive sensory stimulation in the environment of the SRU. There was limited human contact and if other women in the SRU were distressed or unwell, their vocalisations were likely to be audible, disturbing and distressing. When women’s self-care deteriorated, they may also have experienced physical and sensory discomfort in this context.”

The report goes on to note, “Part of the ethos, and indeed the name of SRUs, is that offenders are reintegrated into the mainstream environment after a period of time. Reintegration did not appear to feature in the majority of cases we reviewed …. For women who were floridly unwell with acute psychosis or manic psychosis, the severity of their symptoms and level of disturbance significantly worsened in the SRU.”

None of this is surprising or new. That solitary confinement, for anyone, is torture is not new. That solitary confinement as a response to women’s health needs is torture is not new. That solitary confinement as a response to women in need is, nevertheless, altogether ordinary also is not new. That solitary confinement worsens everything is also not new. That Cornton Vale is a toxic hot mess, with high levels of suicide and self-harm is also not new. Due to its high rates of suicide and self-harm, Cornton Vale has been called the “vale of death”. None of this is new or surprising.

In 2018, the European Commission on the Prevention of Torture visited Cornton Vale: “The CPT raises serious concerns about the treatment of women prisoners held in segregation at Cornton Vale Prison …. The CPT found women who clearly were in need of urgent care and treatment in a psychiatric facility, and should not have been in a prison environment, let alone segregated for extended periods in solitary confinement under Rules 95 and 41 (accommodation in specified conditions for health or welfare reasons). Prison staff were not trained to manage the highly disturbed women.” When they returned, in 2019, they found that the situation was somewhat improved, in some senses, but that the use of segregation, and in particular long-term isolation, persisted. None of this is new or surprising.

What is new is that this is not new. On July 10, 2017, Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party, wrote, “Tomorrow sees a major milestone in the transformation of our justice system. We will begin the demolition of Cornton Vale women’s prison, a move that marks the next stage in our plans to ensure Scotland’s penal policy doesn’t just punish people who’ve committed crimes – important though that is – but helps deliver safer communities in the long term.” What happened? Why, four years later, is Cornton Vale still standing? What happened to the alternatives — an 80-bed prison, five regional 20-bed facilities, community sentencing and service, and much greater funding for mental health, drug abuse, counseling? What is the investment in Cornton Vale’s catastrophic failure, such that, four years later, the vale of death, the vale of women’s slow and painful death and deaths? Haven’t there been enough inquiries and enough `discoveries’, enough corpses and enough ruined lives?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

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American school seclusion rooms continue to form a landscape of atrocity

May 29, 2021 by 7 Comments

Just another seclusion room somewhere in the United States

On Wednesday, June 2, Senators Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, and Patty Murray, of Washington State, will introduce, or more precisely re-introduce, the Keeping All Students Safe Act, “To prohibit and prevent seclusion, mechanical restraint, chemical restraint, and dangerous restraints that restrict breathing, and to prevent and reduce the use of physical restraint in schools, and for other purposes.” In 2009, the Government Accounting Office released a major study documenting the severe harm rendered by seclusion rooms in schools, especially for students living with disabilities. In the same year, National Disability Rights Network released a major study, School is not supposed to hurt: Investigative Report on Abusive Restraint and Seclusion in Schools. Since 2009, versions of the Keeping All Students Safe Act have been introduced, all to no avail.  And so here we are: “There are no federal laws governing how seclusion and restraints can be used in schools, and there are no sweeping federal laws with specific guidelines for police use of force on children in general.” Loaded with evidence and good intention … and completely stalled in place for twelve years and counting. What is the U.S. investment in torturing and damaging children, and in particular children living with disability? Why is the United States so committed to an endless war on children living with disabilities?

Three years ago, the U.S. Department of Education released data that showed that students living with disabilities constituted 12% of all students enrolled. 12 percent. That very small sector of students living with disabilities constituted 71% of all students restrained and 66% of all students “secluded.” This year, the most update study shows that students living with disabilities make up 13% of all students enrolled and constitute 80% of those physically restrained, 41% of those `mechanically’ restrained, and 77% of students subjected to seclusion: “Physical restraint is a personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a student to move his or her torso, arms, legs, or head freely. Mechanical restraint is the use of any device or equipment to restrict a student’s freedom of movement. Seclusion is the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room or area from which the student is physically prevented from leaving.” These are the numbers and key words of education for children in the United States. 

While restraint and seclusion directly assault children living with disabilities, it impairs all those children who are forced to stand as helpless, and themselves restrained, witnesses. Why is there no federal law, why is there no national will to end this torture of the innocents? Why is this left to the discretion of individual states, counties and cities? Three years ago, almost to the day, we asked, “What crime have these children committed? What is their terrible sin? Why do we continue to send these children into solitary confinement? Why do we continue to torture those who are most vulnerable? When will we stop this practice? What do you think we’re teaching children, all the children in all the schools, when we torture their classmates and then call it `seclusion’ and `restraint’?” Why has there been no answer? American school seclusion rooms continue to form a landscape of atrocity. Where is the outrage? Where is the action?

 

An eleven-year-old describes how it feels to be in class (left) and how it feels to be in seclusion (right)

 

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo, Image Credit: ProPublica)

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What happened to Lisa Adams? Just another 16-day torture ordeal in Canada’s Nova Institution for Women

November 9, 2020 by 13 Comments

Lisa Adams

Canada routinely tortures women in prison by throwing them into so-called “dry cells”. Today, Lisa Adams, 33 years old and about to end a two-year sentence in the hellhole that is Nova Institution for Women, and advocates from the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia, are challenging that practice in court. Some will ask, “What happened to Lisa Adams?” The real question is, “What happened to Canada?”

Lisa Adams lives with an addiction to methamphetamines and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. In March, Lisa Adams was released on day parole. In May, she was picked up on for methamphetamine usage and was taken back to Nova Institution for Women, where she was strip searched and passed through a body scanner. Authorities found nothing in Lisa Adams’ body. A few days later, authorities reconsidered the scan and felt they could perhaps see something, small and round, somewhere in her vagina. Authorities then did a scan of Lisa Adams’ cell and found traces of methamphetamine. They then gave Lisa Adams a urine test, which came back positive. Lisa Adams protested her innocence, explaining that the meth was from her earlier pre-arrest usage and that she did not have any methamphetamine with her. Authorities did not believe her.

At that point, Lisa Adams was dumped into a dry cell, where she stayed for 16 days, from May 6 to May 22. A dry cell is a cell without running water or toilets. The thinking is that by placing someone in a dry cell, authorities can sift through their waste – feces, urine, vomit – and locate the concealed drugs. The prisoner is kept in segregation in that cell, without any water, under 24-hour-a-day surveillance. Lisa Adams stayed in a dry cell for 16 days. She started to tremble, became incoherent, threatened self- harm and suicide. Remember Nova Institution, the hellhole prison where, in 2015, Camille Strickland-Murphy and Veronica Park were effectively executed by the state? That’s where Lisa Adams spent 16 days of hell, and for what?

Lisa Adams only got out of the dry cell when she finally persuaded the authorities to let an actual doctor examine her. The doctor found nothing in her vagina or anywhere else. What the doctor did find was a severely injured woman, who had been battered and abused by the state.

Lisa Adams and her allies went to court today to argue that dry celling is a form of torture. Last year, Canada effectively outlawed solitary confinement, after the court declared keeping anyone in solitary for more than 15 days was cruel, unusual, and torture. Somehow, dry celling does not count as solitary confinement. The segregation is total and absolute, the conditions are nothing short of evil. In fact, the actual material facility of the dry cell is worse than that of solitary confinement. Lisa Adams spent 16 days in dry cell and, again, was only released when she begged for a doctor to perform a real examination.

Lisa Adams explains, “”For me, on a base level, I’d like to have the idea of dry celling removed from female institutions. Because I’m not naive to the fact that drugs are an issue, and there has to be a means to prevent that, I’m hoping that potentially there could be an overhaul throughout all of CSC to find a new way to prevent this from happening. A way that’s less invasive, that’s more trauma-informed and that takes into account the value of the individual as well as the security of the institution … I want the public to see that we are individuals. What happens to us in here is important. People wouldn’t want it to happen to their mother, daughter, sister, wife. They need to keep an eye on that.”  

I want the public to see that we are all humans, that what happens in prisons and jails and immigrant detention centers and juvenile detention centers, that what happens “in here”, not only in `correctional institutions’ but in here in our hearts, matters. What happened to Lisa Adams? She was tortured, traumatized.. What happened to Canada, and by extension to all of us? 

 

(Photo Credit: CBC/ Elizabeth Fry Society)

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Seclusion rooms, prisons, jails: The empire strikes back

March 18, 2020 by Leave a Comment

In schools across the United States, seclusion rooms exist as a “last resort” practice for educators to restrain and lock “misbehaving” children in isolated rooms. This practice criminalizes behavior at an early age and normalizes the use of solitary confinement. Data on the use of seclusion rooms is often underreported or nonexistent, making them hard to regulate. In Wilmington, North Carolina, for example, there were over 930 reported instances of seclusion reported in Hanover County in 2019. The school district failed to include protocols for these seclusion rooms as well as a crisis management plan on how to meet the needs of children in their yearly handbook. A lack of accountability accompanies these failures. How often does absence of data excuse action? 

With seclusion rooms currently under the spotlight, there have been efforts across the United States to control their use through legislation. On March 4th, Missouri legislature made strides in a House Bill (HB 1568) that would establish a ban on seclusion and restraint rooms “except in cases where there is imminent danger to the student or others”. Who decides the exception?

Recently, it was reported that high schools in Leeds, England place students in isolation rooms for doing as little as forgetting books or wearing earrings. How does punishment for actions as minor as this in the education system set a precedent for how individuals are treated by the state as adults? 

While legislation to address the use of seclusion rooms is a step in the right direction in terms of initiating conversations and setting precedent, it does not ensure they won’t continue to be used and abused. This exception is seen in cases facing the courts in the United States right now that impact women, such as the recent prosecution of Harvey Weinstein. His sentencing may have shed light on the issues of sexual harassment and misconduct, but it isn’t a cure-all for the deep rooted problem of why it exists and persists. Loopholes and justifications of abuse will continue, especially against women and people of color. How can we make sense of that and move forward knowing that most women behind bars have been victims of physical and sexual violence or other trauma? 

How much persistence does it take to dismantle structures and systems? 

The Atlanta City Detention Center, a Georgia jail for minor violations such as walking in the roadways or shoplifting, was shut down in May 2019 following years of organizing efforts by Women on the Rise. Led by women impacted by the criminal justice system, Women on the Rise spent years organizing to prevent and repeal legislation that funneled many into the jail. Built in 1996, the jail was intended to hide undesirable residents including the homeless during the Olympics, a testament to how individuals in the city were/are grouped and deemed disposable. 

Across the country, 75% of people housed in jails aren’t convicted of a crime and are awaiting trial. If women are the fastest growing populations behind bars, and women of color make up approximately two-thirds of that population, what impact does that have?

The prison system doesn’t function like a recycling center, but a garbage dump. Actions and behaviors of individuals are not assessed for mitigation but deemed unworthy of salvaging. Even short jail time puts individuals, particularly women of color, at risk of losing the security of their jobs and their homes both in the present and the future. It’s a branding that lingers through the presence of the checkbox on job applications and federal documents that accompanies the question: “Do you have a criminal record?”

Why is it okay to uproot someone from their community without justifiable means, assuming their life is expendable? So many individuals with low income jobs worked their way to be where they are. They can’t afford to spend time in jail, and they can’t afford to miss work. 

Now in a sudden global health crisis with the novel coronavirus outbreak, it is predicted that the lack of paid sick leave in the United States will make the epidemic even worse. What happens to single moms with multiple jobs and lower incomes that can’t work remotely or afford to take off work? These systemic issues are manifesting into health concerns, but it isn’t anything new. Roughly 25 percent of workers in the United States do not have paid sick leave. On top of that, no federal legislation has ever been passed for paid family leave. What impact does that have on women? Job security in the hands of the employer leaves workers with little or no choice.

It’s almost as if these issues are being brought to light not out of concern for those impacted by them, but out of concern for the well-being of the rest of the population. They are a threat. It’s as if the argument is being raised that in a wealthy democracy, there should be a mandate for paid leave…but not because it’s the right thing to do, but for the public safety of everyone else. It’s a protection of the empire. 

(Photo Credit: Workers World / Women on the Rise) (Image Credit: Communities Over Cages: Close the Jail Atlanta)

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England’s school seclusion rooms still form a landscape of atrocity and shame

January 18, 2020 by 9 Comments

A primary school seclusion room

England learned this week that, across England, schools are converting toilet stalls into “isolation booths”. Other English schools use portable isolation booths. That means a cardboard box is brought to the classroom and placed over the child. Educators like to point out that there are isolation rooms and there are confined booths, and they’re not the same. Isolation rooms are solitary confinement. Confined booths are stalls where children face the wall in perfect silence, often for hours on end, often for days and even weeks at a time. These are the distinctions that are meant to prove the humanity and educative function of time spent in school. At least your six- or eight- or ten-year-old child is not spending hours in a cardboard box. A salient problem in this narrative is that England learned this lesson last year, and the year before, and the year before that. Meanwhile, sales of isolation booths to schools are booming.  

Last week, another report alerted the nation to the widespread use of seclusion rooms. The Centre for Mental Health published Trauma, challenging behaviour and restrictive interventions in schools. Though disturbing the findings are not surprising, are in fact altogether familiar: “Exposure to trauma is relatively common among young people … Challenging behaviour and trauma are associated. Young people who show challenging behaviour are more likely than average to have been exposed to trauma … Thousands of young people are subject to some form of restrictive intervention in schools in England every year for challenging behaviour. There is reason to believe that these interventions have a negative impact on mental health, irrespective of previous trauma exposure. Young people who have experienced trauma in the past are especially at risk of experiencing psychological harm from restrictive interventions. For example, exclusion and seclusion can echo relational trauma and systemic trauma …As a result, these interventions may cause harm and potentially drive even more challenging behaviour.”

Solitary confinement harms children. Solitary confinement is infinitely and measurably worse for vulnerable children. Solitary confinement creates a cycle that begins in trauma and then cycles, repeatedly, through trauma, each time more deeply felt and each time more damaging. Isolation booth sales are booming.

Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, says she has heard “horror stories” of children in isolation for days, weeks, months on end. What qualifies as “challenging” behavior. One school website boasts, “Students with inappropriate hairstyles will be placed in isolation.” In another instance, a child was placed in isolation because she forgot to bring her planner. Her father was told either bring the planner or bring £5: “The school said bring in £5 for a new planner and she can come out. It’s ridiculous, having to pay a ransom to get your daughter out of ‘prison’ just because she forgot her planner for the first time ever.”

These isolation rooms and booths and boxes are not some underground, hidden, clandestine practice. They’re widespread, on websites, in official policy. They are and they have been, and they form today as they have formed a landscape of atrocity and shame. While research reports are important, the last five years of reports demonstrates that that is not enough. How many more times must we “discover” that throwing children into seclusion rooms, no matter what they’re called, is wrong? Why do we need to discuss whether the rooms “work” or are too “costly”? What about the cost to children’s lives? What about the cost, as well, to the very concept of education? What does a child learn when exclusion is called inclusion, terror is called calm, and a war on children is called education? But there is a flickering light. Later this month, advocates are holding a Lose the Booth conference. Another school is possible.

 

(Photo Credit: BBC) (Image Credit: Centre for Mental Health)

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Being a trans woman in a men’s prison means solitary confinement

May 28, 2019 by Leave a Comment

At least 61,000 people on any given day are in solitary confinement in the United States. Every day, they spend 22-23 hours in a cell the size of an elevator. Most prisoners in solitary confinement spend months in solitary, with some spending years. This torturous practice leaves long-lasting damage and increases the likelihood of re-offending. The practice also disproportionately affects Latinx and African American populations.  

There are few studies about this, as prisoners are constantly left out of research; they are a population that remains invisible to the eyes of the public. There are serious problems with lack of data transparency and the fact that many prisons are closed off to observers. Many researchers are denied access to data and prisons, which allows for the extent of the use of solitary confinement and its impact on prisoners to remain understudied. 

The few studies that have been conducted show that solitary confinement doesn’t make prisoners more dangerous to other prisoners or guards, but it is more likely to make them a danger to themselves. A study conducted by the American Public Health Association reports that suicide is a major concern. The population studied includes 4,699 incarcerations between January 1, 2010, through January 31, 2013. The study found evidence of self-harm associated with solitary confinement even when put in confinement only once. 

Trans women in men’s prisons are continuously abused and face humiliation. Being sent to an all-male-detention center as a female often means automatic solitary confinement. They are dumped, alone, into tiny cells because they can’t be sent to women’s prisons. Prison systems are unsuitable for women and for trans women and men. 

Sonya Calico, a Latinx trans woman, was put in solitary confinement “for her protection.” She spent 9 months, 23 hours a day, in solitary. She began questioning her life, doubting herself, doubting everything, doubting her identity, doubting her sanity, doubting whether she would survive. Why was Sonya Calico in solitary? For the crime of being a trans woman.

A trans person should be able to enter the prison that most accurately represents their gender identity. While trans identity is increasingly recognized as a human right, in prisons it is still a managing tool. When prisoners are intentionally degraded and stripped of their humanity, the prison is only a site of punishment without any pretense of rehabilitation. 

By punishing trans women for being trans women, prisons further enforce discrimination and persecution. By keeping prison seclusion practices hidden, activists and scholars find it more than difficult to design evidence-based policies. Advocacy groups who want to address the enormity of this abuse find little to no evidence and data. The issue demands attention. Since it goes understudied, the public doesn’t know what’s going on in prisons, and especially in segregation units. Using a petition, reaching out to local politicians or even just using social medias to bring attention to the abuse is a step we can take, as an initial response. Data matters. Transparency matters. Trans women matter. 

(Image Credit: Buzzfeed)

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