From Truthout:
Risking understatement, I am buried alive inside Michigan's Marquette Maximum Security Prison. I am locked in a windowless cell measuring 10x8 feet, 24 hours per day. For one hour every other day, I am handcuffed, chained around the waist and allowed exercise and a shower in a small cage. I am not allowed to interact with others, or to participate in any educational, vocational, or employment programs. All meals are delivered to the cell. I have no access to a phone. And while I am permitted two, one hour non-contact visits per month -- always conducted through glass -- Marquette is 455 miles away from my hometown of Detroit. Opportunities to visit family and friends are rare.
For all intents and purposes, I am dead to everything but melancholic anxieties and horrible despair. This is torture.
I have existed under these conditions for over seven months with no prospect of release in the near future. The system here is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement. It is not natural or humane to be isolated like this day after day, month after month. Actually, it has long been known by those who research and labor to abolish solitary confinement that even a relatively brief exposure of time to severe environmental restrictions and social interactions has a profoundly deleterious -- often catastrophic -- effect on mental functioning. In such situations people often descend into a mental torpor or "fog," in which alertness, attention and concentration all become impaired. Continue reading >>>
|
|
|
|
