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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
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