DOC housing practices need to be monitored

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Department of Corrections (DOC) spokeswoman Lisa Kinney made several statements in response to the ACLU’s report on Virginia’s use of solitary confinement that are incompatible with the scores of firsthand accounts and documentation Interfaith Action for Human Rights (IAHR) has received from incarcerated men at Red Onion and Wallens Ridge State Prisons and their family members.

Here’s just a few things readers should know:

(1) Virginia still uses solitary confinement. Euphemisms like “restrictive housing” do not erase the reality that, although many men have moved out of long-term isolation through the step-down program, many still remain confined to their cells for 22 to 23 hours a day. Moreover, Kinney paints a very misleading picture of the access to phones, recreation, and classes these prisoners actually have.

(2) Prisoners deemed the worst of the worst remain in long-term solitary confinement for years, even after completing the step-down program. Others fail to advance in the program even without disciplinary infractions.

(3) Although the DOC contends that seriously mentally ill prisoners never spend more than 30 days in restrictive housing, IAHR has received reports of such individuals who have been in isolation for years. Those who enter solitary confinement with milder symptoms of mental illness are virtually certain to come out of prolonged isolation in even worse shape.

Even though short-term restrictive housing is supposed to be limited to 30 days, we know of many cases where it has lasted significantly longer. This problem cries out for scrutiny by an independent, impartial monitor. Most of these people will return to the community eventually. We should not tolerate a practice that makes them more dysfunctional by inflicting psychological torture.

Gay Gardner.
Springfield.