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† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, is the Editor of CI. Kay Whitlock, co-author of Queer (In)Justice, is contributing editor of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm.
Isolation
Editors note by nancy a heitzeg
For Albert Woodfox, Kalief Browder, Millions more..
June is Torture Awareness Month. How ludicrous really to type these words – to imagine, in the 21st Century, that torture remains an issue here (or anywhere), or that we are unaware.
But of course it is an issue here. Our entire system of criminal injustice — from policing to prison to capital punishment – in built in varying degrees on torture. Built on a desire to control/cage, dehumanize/kill that is insatiable in its’ scope (due in part to the penchant for profit here) or in any limits to conditions of cruelty. The long-standing struggles of Albert Woodfox and Kalief Browder in isolation are but two of millions. They are not isolated cases.
And of course we are aware. Most of us have, in fact, cosigned this. Others claim condemnation. But tepid requests for “reform”, outrage over selected cases, hope that if we say enough names, click enough petitions, tweet/retweet enough egregious cases that something will magically change — all of these responses, in the end, solidify a system which is well-equipped to manage the predictable spectacle and script.
So connect all the stories to the level of structure, eschew the proposed quick fixes and the click-bait merchants. Go to the root – indict and dismantle the very system.
Only one word is relevant now and it is Abolition.
National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Breaking Down the Box
Produced by filmmaker Matthew Gossage, the film examines the mental health, racial justice and human rights implications of the systemic use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. It is a call to action for communities of faith to engage in the growing nationwide movement for restorative alternatives to isolated confinement that prioritize rehabilitation, therapeutic interventions, and recovery.
After watching the film, be sure to sign NRCAT’s Statement Against Prolonged Solitary Confinement and check out our state advocacy campaigns.
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Why has Albert Woodfox been in solitary for more than 40 years?
The United Nations, four U.S. congressmen and the New York Times editorial board are among those who have called for the release of Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox, who has spent more than four decades in solitary confinement.
At two Louisiana state prisons and now at a pretrial detention facility, Woodfox, 68, has been alone for approximately 23 hours a day in cells measuring roughly 6-by-9-feet, since he was 25 years old.
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Albert Woodfox’s Forty Years in Solitary Confinement, The New Yorker
Last Monday, U.S. District Judge James Brady ordered Woodfox’s immediate release and barred his retrial. But Louisiana has appealed Brady’s order, and last Friday the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stayed Woodfox’s release pending its ruling on the appeal…
Brady cited multiple reasons for his order, including Woodfox’s frail health (he has hypertension, hepatitis C, a weak heart, and renal disease), the length of time and harsh conditions of his ongoing incarceration, the fact that the state has already botched two attempts to convict him, and the difficulty of providing a fair trial more than forty years after the fact.
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Kalief Browde: Young Man Who Languished Three Years On Rikers Without A Trial Commits Suicide, The Gothamist
Kalief Browder of the Bronx, who spent three of his late teen years imprisoned on Rikers Island waiting to be tried for a petty robbery charge that was ultimately dismissed, committed suicide on Saturday, at the age of 22. He hung himself with an air conditioner cord at his Bronx home.
Browder, who suffered from bouts of depression and paranoia in the wake of his release from Rikers in the spring of 2013, was the subject of a harrowing profile in the New Yorker, published last fall. Jennifer Gonnerman, who spent months with Browder and documented the teenager’s refusal to plead guilty for a crime he did not commit, described a young man who was unwaveringly committed to his innocence, even when defending it meant more time behind bars.
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Before the Law, The New Yorker
….Browder’s story troubles him most deeply. “Kalief was deprived of his right to a fair and speedy trial, his education, and, I would even argue, his entire adolescence,” he says. “If you took a sixteen-year-old kid and locked him in a room for twenty-three hours, your son or daughter, you’d be arrested for endangering the welfare of a child.” Browder doesn’t know exactly how many days he was in solitary—and Rikers officials, citing pending litigation, won’t divulge any details about his stay—but he remembers that it was “about seven hundred, eight hundred.”…
In the case of Kalief Browder, he said, “When you go over the three years that he spent [in jail] and all the horrific details he endured, it’s unbelievable that this could happen to a teen-ager in New York City. He didn’t get tortured in some prison camp in another country. It was right here!”
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