The SHU Laces Are Too Tight

By Leon Bensen

Psychological warfare of long term isolation " '' The only thing that constant human contact can not facilitate is thought. A busy life can make it impossible to think clearly about what is going on around you. As a temporary recourse, then, isolation can help you to gain perspective. Many serious thinkers have been produced in prisons where they have nothing to do but think.... The dangers is, however, that this kind isolation will stir all kinds of strange and perverted ideas. You may gain perspective on the large picture, but lose a sense of your own smallness and limitations '' - Robert Greene For one who plays and understand the game of chess know that the key in securing victory against their opponent over the realm of the spaces of 64 squares of the chess board, is to isolate the opponents King piece with your pieces aimed at the square their king piece sits upon placing him in check while your pieces cover every square around him, leaving him with no where to move to avoid your advance of attack. Check mate! is then said to proclaim victory.

And I feel like an isolated king in the real life chess game of my war for freedom wages against injustice, isolation, and time, as I've been held captive 6 yrs.

Within a security housing unit (SHU/SHOE) isolation cell with in Wabash Valley Correctional Facility located in Carlisle, Indiana. And the prison administration deemed me a threat to the security of the prison, staff, and other prisoners due to my alleged assault on a correctional officer (who later gave a statement that a white prisoner assaulted him) in a WVCF prison riot on August 20, 2001. By the powers of the (WVCF) superintendent Alan Finnan and the Indian Dept of corrections South Regional Director Rondle Anderson, I'm held within the SHU until they feel I'm no longer a threat! How long is too long? Every SHU prisoner lives alone in a 7 ft by 14 ft cell equipped with a stainless steel toilet built into a sink a steel desk and a molded stool, a steel platform molded in the walls to support a TV, and concrete sleeping platform covered by a thin mattress. The metal doors have (5714) see through holes across it (I counted them myself) fitted with solid metal stripes around the sides and bottom, super imposing every sound made by other prisoners conversations or verbal chaos into the cell. Three times a day a tray of food is delivered by prison guards through the cell door slot. The prisoners may spend 23 hours a day locked down, leaving only to exercise once a day in another cell with more space and partial exposure to the outdoors. The light in the cells never go off, although they may be dimmed a bit by a touch-sensitive metal ball molded in the wall of the cell at the prisoners disposal.

The isolation disciplinary methods are administered by penal officers as a means to deter prisoners from violence and other corrupt behaviors. However, the level of control maybe more counter productive. Penologists failed to calculate that 90% of prisoners subjected to long term isolation will be released back to society with destroyed sanity making them less able to cope as law abiding citizens. Here in the US there are about 2 million people locked up in prison, and 20,000 of them are held captive within one of the 31 supermax's operated by states and federal government. That's only 1% of the prisoner population but it is a vital 1%. Push any punishment too far and it causes mental break dawns and the claims of mental break down is sure to follow.

In February of 2006 a lawsuit was filed against the commissioner J. David Donahue of the Indiana D.O.C and the superintendent Alan Finnan of WVCF that challenged the housing of mentally ill prisoners in the SHU at WVCF. The case name is (Mast v. Donahue ( so.dist.of ind.no.2:05-cv-037 LJM-WGH). The case showed that the conditions of the SHU were unconstitutional to house prisoners if they were mentally ill.

The case headed by Kenneth J Falk of the Indiana ACLU, and David C. Fathi of National prison project of the ACLU, did not ask for any money damages, only for an order that confining the mentally ill in the SHU was unconstitutional and fined in the SHU. The an injunction preventing the mentally ill prisoners to be con case was certified as a class action on March 10, 2005.

The key point of the ACLU 's lawsuit is that for some of the mentally ill prisoners, the isolation of the SHU is simply a toxic environment that make mentally ill prisoners worse and will harm them, however, the two sides were not able to agree that the SHU is toxic for all prisoners with any diagnosis of metal illness instead, in our settlement we focused on those mental ill prisoners with an Axis I diagnosis as set out in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental disorder DSM-IV. This creates that mental health professionals use for the treatment of the mentally ill. In addition to Axis I disorder, the settlement also focuses on those prisoners who have a mental disorder that is worsened by confinement in the SHU, even if the prisoner is not.

Back

Home/Cover/Table of Contents