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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 25, 2017)
Page 4 News Street Roots • August 25-31, 2017 STREET R O O T S ILL U S T R A T IO N EMILY GREEN snapshot of Oregon prisons in April 2015, nearly 8 percent of the prison population, olitary confinement in Oregon’s prison more than 1,100 inmates, was in some form of solitary confinement. system is “overused, overly long and Street Roots has been in contact with characterized by isolating conditions.” That’s the conclusion of the Vera Institute several Oregon state inmates; obtained other inmates’ testimony collected by a of Justice’s October 2016 assessment of the Oregon Department of Corrections’ use of private investigator; and reviewed inmate confinement, often called segregation. complaints and disciplinary hearings and documents. More than 150 years of research has shown the combination of boredom, What is revealed is a pattern of bad isolation and sensory deprivation an inmate practices at Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem with regard to its use of solitary experiences in solitary confinement can confinement and the internal investigations cause extreme mental duress, exacerbate into inmate misconduct that lands prisoners pre-existing mental conditions, and often in it. drive inmates to self-harm. In 2014, the United Nations Committee Most inmates took issue with a specific Against Torture found the United States’ employee. He’s a lieutenant with the Security Threat Management team at excessive use of solitary confinement was a Oregon State Penitentiary, and he assists violation of a U.N. convention against with internal investigations into prisoner torture and inhumane punishment. misconduct. Despite those findings, solitary While the private investigator was hired confinement is still commonly used in Oregon’s state prisons as punishment for to inquire about him specifically, the problems inmates had with his conduct nonviolent infractions and to isolate inmates could be systemic. For this reason, and during the course of internal investigations. because to date no lawsuit has been brought Inmates say they can find themselves in solitary confinement for months on end with against this employee, Streets Roots is withholding his name from this report. no physical evidence of wrongdoing and no According to prisoners, he coerces false real recourse for what they see as false imprisonment within the prison. Often statements from confidential informants to incriminate inmates he targets. additional penalties, such as loss of They ve accused him of using racial slurs, privileges and steep fines, accompany threats, bribery and other questionable solitary confinement. tactics to pressure inmates into becoming When the Vera Institute of Justice took a S T A F F W R IT E R S informants and submitting testimony that he designs. Documents obtained through a public- records request for complaints filed against this lieutenant echoed many of these accusations and revealed how difficult it can be for prisoners to get due process within prison walls. At the heart of the problem is an internal punitive system within the prisons that can send nonviolent inmates to solitary confinement based solely on the accusations of other inmates who have incentive to give testimony. Inmate Enrique Bautista at Snake River Correctional Institution explained it like this: reliable informant? Well, if I know who’s been doing drugs, I can say so-and-so ha meth. He gets tested and (it) comes bac positive for meth. Now I’m reliable. Nex time I need a cell move or job change or contact visits back, I can even make shit and they’ll believe it because I’ve proven myself to be reliable.... How can anyone ispute or disprove what an anonymous source says about you?” Inspector General Craig Prins said investigators do not go on the word of or inmate alone and will continue to invests until there is a “preponderance of evidence,” which in some cases is multip confidential informants. Why should we care if inmates aren’t getting a fair shake in prison and are sent to solitary confinement when they break prison rules? For one, 95 percent of Oregon s prison inmates will, at some point, be released back into society, and if they’ve ’ spent a long time in solitary, they will be more likely to re-offend. This has been shown with data from correctional facilities in several states, including Texas and Connecticut. There is an especially high rate of recidivism if they are released directly from solitary to the streets, as is common practice in Oregon. Second, given what we know about the effects of solitary confinement, it begs the question: Where is the line drawn between what’s acceptable and what qualifies as cruel, although not so unusual, punishment? Solitary Shane When inmate Shane Staggs was approved or a transfer from Snake River Correctional Institution in Eastern Oregon to work in the call center at Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, he was ecstatic. He could finally be closer to his 8-year-old son and fiancée who lives m Portland. . - z o u L lld l W dS E ticket to OSP,” he said in a letter. Six months after he arrived, his trou See SOLITARY, page 5
