Basim Floro was 19 when he first entered the Oregon prison system, and was sent to the “disciplinary segregation unit” due to structural code infractions. A code infraction had occurred due to his untreated and undiagnosed high-functioning schizophrenia. “This section felt more like a zoo, you were a caged animal, and everybody was watching you,” Floro said.
Solitary confinement conditions vary from prison to prison in Oregon, but in general, solitary confinement has been used as a punitive measure rather than a mechanism of rehabilitation. Solitary confinement is used in relation to institutional violations, rather than to the severity of one’s initial crime.
Institutional violations are violations of prison rules by incarcerated individuals that go against established norms. Violations can range from physical harm to a correctional officer to not following orders fast enough.
Floro was charged with an initial 180 days in solitary confinement due to the minor assault of a staff person, but this initial charge was dropped due to insufficient evidence; he was later moved to a different facility, which charged him with 120 days in solitary confinement for the same infraction.
The most deplorable conditions were reported at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, according to Floro. “They would treat us inhumanely, like animals… you can see some of these (inmates) were hopeless, you could see their souls literally being damaged day by day.”
Floro mentioned that this particular institution had walls that constantly leaked, the place would smell disgusting and many had to sleep on the floor by the door to get fresh air through the night. Floro recounted that the guards had thrown their food into the cells, and if they couldn’t grab it quickly enough, they wouldn’t be able to eat for the day.
In Oregon, inmates within solitary confinement are kept in small cells for 23 – 24 hours a day, with the total time spent in a singular restrictive housing facility being restricted to 90 days; however, inmates can be moved to other restrictive units, extending the total time.
In 2015, the United Nations adopted the Mandela Rules, which were based on Nelson Mandela’s six years in solitary confinement and revised to align with global human rights standards. They defined solitary confinement as 22-plus-hour days with no meaningful human contact and prohibited prolonged solitary confinement over 15 days as torture.
Prolonged solitary confinement has been documented to worsen mental health. In 1993, Dr. Stuart Grassian found that solitary confinement induced hypersensitivity to external stimuli, panic attacks, cognitive deficits, obsessive thinking and other physical and psychological problems. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Raymond Patterson reported that those people kept in California’s Security Housing Unit had a 33 times greater chance of committing suicide, with studies in New York and Texas citing similarly high results.
Human rights advocates are pushing for domestic pressure to end prolonged solitary confinement and adhere to the Mandela Rules. Meaningful human contact is often overlooked, and advocates emphasize its importance in solitary confinement.
In an interview with Sara Vogel, the editorial and project manager at Solitary Watch, she expanded on the current organizing work surrounding solitary confinement.
Solitary Watch is sponsoring an initiative for individuals in solitary confinement to report on prison conditions, and their team publishes these testimonial accounts online; another initiative to improve human contact is the prison penpal program, called Lifelines to Solitary.
“There’s a very serious connection between solitary confinement and the impact on people’s mental health, especially people with pre-existing conditions,” Vogel said. “It creates this cycle of internal recidivism, where a person who might have bipolar disorder might be experiencing psychosis and lashes out, and then gets sent to solitary confinement for a disciplinary infraction.”
