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"I want to know who we're sending back to the streets:" A state House committee takes up solitary confinement
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"I want to know who we're sending back to the streets:" A state House committee takes up solitary confinement
Ed. note: In this week's ballbuster of a cover story, CP contributor Matt Stroud tackles the allegedly horrific conditions inside the solitary confinement wing of the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, out near Wilkes-Barre, which, according to a lawsuit and written statements from a number of inmates, may have driven one severely mentally ill man to commit suicide. It's a good read, and you should check it out. On Monday, Stroud headed out to a state House Judiciary Committee hearing on solitary confinement in Yeadon, and filed this report.
The Pa. House Judiciary Committee held a public hearing Monday in Yeadon, a suburb just southwest of Baltimore Avenue in West Philly, and the topic was solitary confinement. State Rep. Ronald Waters, D-Phila./Delaware County, announced during his opening remarks that his primary objective was to speak with prison officials and former inmates about how prisoners are treated during their stays in solitary confinement, and to understand more about why some prisoners end up spending years in the hole, while others end up being released from the prison system — and into the general public — after serving long periods of time in potentially psychically disturbing isolation.
âI want to know who we're sending back to the streets,â Waters said.
The speakers were Michael Klopotoski, Deputy Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Correction's (DOC) Eastern Region (and former superintendent of SCI Dallas, the prison examined in this week's cover story); William DiMasico, executive director of the Pennsylvania Prison Society; Nathaniel Lee and LuQman Abdullah, who spoke as former prisoners who had experienced solitary confinement; and Bret Grote, an investigator with the Human Rights Coalition.
Klopotoski said DOC is âcommitted to maintaining a safe and secure prison system for both the offender population and DOC staff.â He explained DOC's solitary confinement policy at length — and the different circumstances that can land a prisoner in the hole — and concluded that while it costs the state about 16 percent more to incarcerate a person in solitary confinement than it does to incarcerate them in general population (the state pays about $31,000 per year to incarcerate an inmate), that price is worthwhile because solitary confinement is ânecessary to ensure our prisons are safe and secure for the public's safety and for the safety of the offender population ⦠as well as the staff that work in our prisons.â
Most of the 30 or so in attendance were either related to people currently incarcerated, affiliated with civil rights groups working to abolish solitary confinement or former inmates who had done time in the hole. Thus, it's not entirely surprising that Klopotoski received a unified scoff from the crowd when he ended his statement with, âIt is my hope through the testimony offered today that the myths and misconceptions associated with specialized housing units have been dispelled.â
The other speakers read from prepared statements, arguing that policy doesn't necessarily dictate actions — but the most telling interactions were unscripted.
After Klopotoski spoke, for example, Waters took issue with Klopotoski's insistence that, while all grievances against correctional officers (COs) in solitary confinement are investigated, many of those grievances are âfrivolousâ and crafted to unfairly tar COs. Waters spotted a problem with DOC's handling these complaints: Because inmates are confined between and 23 and 24 hours per day alone in a concrete cell, they need to rely on corrections officers to file their grievances.
âThe person who's being complained about now has to turn over the complaint against himself,â Waters pointed out.
Klopotoski replied that this wasn't a problem at all, because inmates can drop their grievances in a specific mailbox meant specifically for filing grievances against COs or other staff. They can do this when they're walking to take a shower three times per week, Klopotoski said, or when they're on their way to the exercise yard. A man sitting next to me — a former inmate who did not want to be quoted — countered that two COs generally escort inmates to showers and the yard, and that dropping a grievance into one of these special grievance boxes in their presence often invited further harassment.
Waters didn't go there; instead, he drifted toward the idea that if these grievance boxes were ever used, then certainly at least a handful of COs must have been removed from their position — or at the very least disciplined — as a result of the accusations. âHow many officers are removed as a result of these grievances?â Waters asked.
âTo my knowledge there may have been a few, minimal — but that isn't really a good practice to get yourself involved with, because if offenders know they can get a certain officer removed by filing an abundance of grievances, then offenders might be encouraged to file a number of false or frivolous grievances,â Klopotoski replied.
âI'm trying to picture it as though I'm in the hole,â Waters responded. âIf someone is treating me fairly and treating me humanely, that's not a person I would want to be removed from their position. I would probably have a problem with someone who was not treating me fairly and not treating me humanely.â
Waters did not ask for a response; Klopotoski did not give one.
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