“Ban Solitary” produced by AVID, Rooted in Rights, and the ACLU of Washington [audio description]: A small cell with a barred window. - Solitary. - Isolation. - Medical isolation. - Maximum security. - IMU. - ITU. - AB tier. - Administrative segregation. - Suicide watch. - The hole. [NARRATOR]: Ban solitary. DANIEL: My name is Daniel Perez, and I'm calling from Monroe Correctional Complex. [audio description]: Daniel sits in his prison khakis. DANIEL: I am one out of hundreds of incarcerated individuals in Washington State who has experienced solitary confinement. Most of us are here because the Department of Corrections has abandoned us and withheld some of the most basic human necessities. [audio description]: Small concrete cells with barred windows. DANIEL: We spend the vast majority of our time locked in a cell by ourselves with nothing to do. Some of us housed in this environment have a mental health condition, made worse by isolation. Most of us will return to our communities, communities both inside the prison system, and eventually the community on the outside. Those of us still in solitary confinement and those who have survived it want to share our stories and ask for necessary changes to the laws in Washington State. [NARRATOR]: The problem of solitary confinement. DOLPHY: My name is Dolphy Jordan and I am 48 years old. STEVE: My name is Steve Henderson and I'm 46. JOSEPH: My name is Joseph Wolf and I'm 29 years old. VICTOR: my name is Victor Sauceda and I'm 31 years old. [audio description]: Phone call from solitary over a black screen. (STERLING): My name is Sterling Jarnagin, I'm 49 years old. DOLPHY: If I was gonna say anything to anybody about solitary confinement, I would say it's a modern-- modern-day torture. STEVE: Long-term solitary confinement will make you want to brave physical violence or anything like that, just to be out of that cell and to have the opportunity for human contact. JOSEPH: The hardest part of being isolated, for me, is losing sense with reality. I had this inability to really verify anything because I didn't have anybody to talk to. (STERLING): The most accurate description of a solitary confinement cell would be locking yourself in your bathroom at home, remaining in there for a minimum of 23 hours a day, eating in there, sleeping in there. DOLPHY: What I remember about my cell is probably every brick, every crack, every piece of dust. STEVE: You know, you get into these routines where you get up and you make your bed, and you work out, and then you walk back and forth until you're tired, and then you take a nap, and then you get up and do it again. You only get out to use the phone, and that's only for one hour, five days a week. You only get to take a shower for 10 minutes, three days a week. DOPLHY: You have to take off all your clothes, you know, go through a strip search procedure and show your genitals, and turn around and bend over, and you go through this process every time you leave your cell. VICTOR: I had my hands tied behind my back with some handcuffs, and on this handcuff was a leash. They were walking me with that leash. At that point I felt like I was a dog. (JOSEPH): And I would go into a grated dog kennel essentially, that had a shower in it, which-- I was in full view of all the staff walking by, and that's where I would bathe three days a week. And three times a day there's a little hole in the door that opens and it passes the food through. The same hole that my laundry-- my dirty laundry, my clean laundry, my blankets, my cleaning supplies, so like a dirty toilet brush, everything passes in and out of that cell, through that trap door. DANIEL: When you're isolated and there's-- you already have a mental illness to begin with, then you're trying to feel something other than what you are. In my case, I wanted to feel physical pain rather than emotional pain, and-- because the emotional pain of being locked up in a cell by yourself is really bad. I self-harm, right, to numb the emotional pain. There's more that could be done, at least in this environment here, because they don't even respond to self harm, they just, "Okay, keep on doing it." DOLPHY: You can't meet trauma with trauma. You can't meet violence with violence, and being placed in segregation is violent, it's traumatizing. [audio description]: An automatic door inside a prison facility closes. (STERLING): It's extreme loneliness. You just-- there's nothing positive. You never know if you're getting out of solitary confinement or not, and there's no guarantee, you could be here forever. [NARRATOR]: The solution. DAVID: My name is David Fathi, I'm the director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. We think that Washington, like all states, should be progressively moving toward a system without long-term solitary confinement, where people are not placed in solitary for any more than 15 days as an absolute maximum, as provided for in the Nelson Mandela Rules. This is the global consensus on what minimum standards should be for incarcerated people. (DOLPHY): I went to the hole on New Year's Eve and was let out the day after Christmas. (VICTOR): I spent a year in solitary confinement. (DANIEL): Out of the entire time that I've been locked up, which is 10 years, I've only spent a year and eight months outside of an IMU setting. (STERLING): I've spent roughly 26 years in solitary confinement. JESSICA: My name is Jessica Sandoval, and I lead the Unlock the Box campaign. And we're a 10-year campaign to end solitary confinement in U.S. jails and prisons and youth facilities, and bring the U.S. into full compliance with the Nelson Mandela Rules. I think the misconception around who is in solitary is that it's kind of reserved for the worst of the worst, and that is simply a myth. DAVID: Colorado has ended solitary confinement lasting longer than 15 days, and it's actually been a very positive development. The prison staff will tell you, the prison administrators will tell you, it's a good thing, the prisons are safer. JESSICA: There is momentum in this country to end solitary confinement, and we stand with and for the survivors of solitary confinement and their families, who are leading this work. (STERLING): It's one of these situations where if you take away everything from a person, and from every sight sound and smell, and then after months and years, you say, "Go interact with people, you know, on a positive level." [audio description]: A person on a cell floor, visible through small dirty windows on a metal door. (STERLING): You're almost-- you almost have anxiety, like an anxiety attack, just being around people. VICTOR: Getting out to the streets straight from solitary confinement was-- it was something I'll never forget, because we're not used to dealing with humans, we're not used to touching, we're not used to opening doors, or just the simple things that you take for granted in life. DOLPHY: You know I've been-- I was released in 2010, so I've been out 10 years. I'm an active member in the community, and yet I still have a feeling of isolation. JOSEPH: If i had the ability to change solitary confinement, I would put drastic limits on how long they can keep people in there. I believe that by reducing-- by reducing the way that we use isolation, we can further make a safer community by making people better and not worse. [NARRATOR]: Ban long term solitary confinement in Washington State. Produced by AVID and Rooted in Rights, programs of Disability Rights Washington, and the ACLU of Washington. End of Transcript.