What happens to people in solitary confinement

Imagine living with no significant human contact for years, even decades, in a cell the size of a small bathroom. This is the reality for those in long-term solitary confinement, a form of imprisonment regularly imposed in US prisons. In this eye-opening talk, civil rights lawyer Laura Rovner takes us to ADX, the US federal government's only supermax prison, and describes the dehumanizing effects of long-term solitude on the mind, personality and sense of self. What emerges is an urgent case for abolishing solitary confinement -- and evidence for how our tax dollars, public safety and values are implicated in it. "Prisons are administered in our name and on our behalf," she says. "We have an obligation to bear witness."

The drive through the world's
most secure prison is beautiful.

The federal government's
only supermax prison, known as ADX,

is 90 miles south of Denver.

Standing outside the building,

ADX looks like a newish
suburban middle school.

(Laughter)

The lobby is clean and bright;

there's big windows
and clear views of the mountains;

and a polite front-desk attendant
with a kiosk selling travel mugs.

(Laughter)

On the wall is a large plaque that reads,

"The best prize that life offers
is the chance to work hard

at work worth doing."

Just past it is a huge
framed photo of Alcatraz.

And down the stairs,
at the end of a long hallway,

are 400 men decaying in isolation cells.

I work on cases involving
the constitutional rights of prisoners.

Now, people have differing views
about prisoners' rights.

But there's something
more people can agree on:

torture.

The US government
says it doesn't use torture,

and we condemn other countries,
like Iran and North Korea,

for their use of torture.

But some people think the so-called
worst of the worst deserve it:

terrorists, mass murderers,
the really "bad" people.

Now I personally believe
that no one deserves to be tortured

by the US government.

But that's me.

(Applause)

No matter where you fall,

there's a few things
I need you to understand

before I continue.

First, we do torture people
here in America,

tens of thousands of them every day.

It's called solitary confinement.

It's done in our names,
using our tax dollars,

behind closed doors.

And as a result,

we're undermining the core values
of our justice system.

Built with state-of-the-art technology,

ADX has nearly perfected
solitary confinement.

Each man spends 23 hours a day

alone in a cell
the size of a small bathroom.

Virtually every aspect of his life
occurs in that cell.

But aside from sleeping and eating,

which he does within
an arm's reach of his toilet,

there aren't many aspects of life.

Correctional officers push food trays
through slots in the doors

and take the men
to solitary exercise cages

that are referred to
by prisoners and staff alike,

without irony, as dog runs.

Other than that,

these men are locked in cement closets,

all day, every day.

Two steps forward, two steps back.

That's it.

They can't see the nearby
mountains or any trees --

"nothing living, not so much
as a blade of grass,"

is how one man in ADX described it.

Some people report that after years
of not looking at anything

further than 10 feet away,

their eyesight has deteriorated so much

that they can't focus
on faraway objects anymore.

The isolation is so deep and profound

that one of our clients would lie
on the floor of his cell for hours,

just hoping to catch a glimpse
of someone's feet

as they walked past the door of his cell.

Another befriended a wasp
that flew into his cell,

feeding it and talking to it
like a friend.

Some try to communicate
with fellow prisoners

by yelling through the shower drains.

Still though, many of these men
lost their voices

after talking with us for just an hour.

Their vocal cords were out of practice
speaking for that long.

We know the impact
of long-term isolation is devastating.

This borders on common sense.

It's why harsh prison systems
and torture regimes

routinely use solitary
as a form of severe punishment.

And why none of us would tolerate
having a loved one,

like a parent or a child,

locked alone in a small bathroom
for days, let alone years.

Or decades.

In the course of representing
that first client at ADX,

we learned about another man,
Tommy Silverstein,

who the Federal Bureau of Prisons
put in solitary confinement

under a "no human contact" order in 1983,

after he killed a corrections officer.

Tommy was 31 years old.

Now he's 66.

He's been in solitary
confinement for 35 years.

Struggling to find the words
to capture his experience of ADX,

Tommy, who has become
an accomplished artist,

drew it instead.

Unless we start to change
how we treat prisoners in this country,

he'll probably be there
for the rest of his life.

Both John McCain and Nelson Mandela

said that of all the horrors
they suffered in prison,

solitary confinement was the worst.

That's because solitary
puts people at risk

of losing their grasp on who they are,

of how and whether
they're connected to a larger world.

As psychologist Dr. Craig Haney explains,

that's because human identity
is socially created.

We understand ourselves through
our relationships with other people.

Solitary confinement can make you change
what you think about yourself.

It can make you doubt
whether you even have a self.

Some people in solitary
aren't even sure they exist,

so they'll mouth off
to a corrections officer

and end up getting shackled or beaten.

But at least then, they know they exist.

Over time, some of the men in ADX
break down in obvious ways,

like banging their heads
on the walls of their cells

or smearing themselves with feces.

Or attempting suicide,
some of them successfully.

Many people cut themselves

just to feel the pain that keeps them
tethered to the real world.

Others adjust,

showing no outward sign of mental illness.

But there's grave harm
in the adjustment itself.

That's because the experience
of long-term isolation

can paradoxically lead
to social withdrawal.

At first, people are starved
for human contact,

but over time,

it becomes disorienting, even frightening.

They can't handle it anymore.

All of this amounts
to a prolonged social death.

The men in ADX are stuck
in suspended animation.

Not really part of this world,

they're not really part of any world
that's fully and tangibly human.

It's for all of these reasons
that international human rights law

prohibits the use
of long-term solitary confinement.

In fact, the UN has called on governments
to ban the use of solitary

for more than 15 days.

As of today,

Tommy Silverstein has been
in solitary for 12,815 days.

Now in judging other countries'
human rights records,

the US State Department has called
the use of long-term solitary

a human rights violation.

In 2009, for example,

State Department condemned
Israel, Iran, Indonesia and Yemen

for their use of solitary.

But we allow it to happen on our own soil.

When a prison is located in the US
instead of China,

when it's run by the federal government
and not some rogue sheriff,

when it has state-of-the-art technology
and gleaming floors,

not overcrowded cells
and decrepit facilities,

it's harder to believe
that torture happens there.

But it's important to entertain the idea
that, sometimes, this too

is what torture looks like.

As a civil rights lawyer,

I believe it's important
to ensure that people,

even those convicted of terrible crimes,

aren't tortured by our government.

And if this talk were a movie,

I'd tell you next about how we fought
and fought and eventually won.

But this isn't a movie.

So I'll tell you, instead,
about how deeply this injustice is hidden.

How difficult it is to expose it,

and why it's important that we do.

You'd think that lawyers,
people who work in the justice system,

would know what happens in our prisons.

But I'm a lawyer, and I live
less than two hours away from ADX.

And until we went
to see that first client,

I didn't know anything about it.

I don't think that's an accident.

ADX walls itself off from public scrutiny.

In the 25 years since it opened,

it's allowed only a single visit
by human rights organizations.

Journalists are routinely denied entry.

Mail is censored.

And even when rare family visits occur,

they're monitored
by an unseen government official

who can cut the visit off without notice

if he thinks that the prisoner
is talking in too much detail

about the conditions in ADX.

In China, in Russia,
they keep out the human rights observers,

keep out the media, keep out the UN.

And so do we.

ADX is, in the words of one journalist,

"a black site on American soil."

We know that secrecy is a hallmark
of places that torture.

But after years of shining a light,

we now know more about
the conditions in Guantanamo

than we do at ADX.

Five years ago,

when there was a hunger strike
and force-feeding at Guantanamo,

the same thing was happening at ADX.

But you probably didn't hear about it

because the government
gagged family members and lawyers

from talking about it.

But here's the thing:

the American criminal justice system
is supposed to be transparent.

And before someone gets sent to prison,

that's largely true.

Legislators meet in public
to debate and define the laws

that prohibit criminal conduct.

Citizens in our community
serve as jurors on criminal trials.

And if you want to watch a trial,

the courtroom doors are wide open.

After the trial, though,
our commitment to transparency ends.

With the prison door securely shut,

what happens behind prison walls

stays behind prison walls.

And without the scrutiny
of the public gaze,

the darkness festers.

Other than execution,

incarceration is the most
intrusive power of the state:

the deprivation of citizens' liberty.

But no government institution

is more opaque and less
accountable than prison.

Even though prisons
are supported by tax payers

and return 95 percent
of their residents to our communities.

It's that secrecy that allows
the ADX to disappear people.

And so we have an obligation,
said Justice Kennedy,

as a democracy and as a people,

"we should know what happens
after the prisoner is taken away."

The prison system is the concern
and responsibility of every citizen.

This is your justice system.

These are your prisons.

Torture happens in the dark.

And so we need to embrace the admonition
that sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Not only because we need to know
what happens inside ADX,

but because the knowing itself
can create change.

There's an axiom in physics
called the uncertainty principle.

It teaches that the mere
fact of observation

can alter, will alter,

the subatomic reaction being observed.

In other words,

watching something affects its course.

In a democracy like the US,

prisons are administered in our name
and on our behalf.

The conditions in ADX
implicate our tax dollars,

public safety

and, most of all,

our shared belief in the inherent dignity
of every human being.

We have an obligation to bear witness.

Thank you.

(Applause)