Visitor Commentary written by
Jack Morris
Jack Morris is a program director at St. John’s Group Well being serving to previously incarcerated individuals re-enter society.
There’s an historical saying in politics that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
It seems that Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken this motto to coronary heart with regards to the problem of solitary confinement in California. Regardless of his supposed commitments to prison justice reformNewsom has demonstrated a callous disregard for the darkish historical past of this downside in our state, and even undermined prospects for true reform.
I’m a survivor of solitary confinement. I spent many years in isolation on the infamous Pelican Bay State Jail, not removed from the Oregon border.
There are few types of torture worse for the human soul than isolation. Solitary confinement is used to interrupt individuals, and lots of who’re uncovered to it endure everlasting harms. It has been discovered to be damaging to the physique, and the thoughtsand in the end ends in broader societal harms which were documented.
That’s the reason solitary survivors like myself have been advocating for this challenge for greater than a decade, relationship again to the large jail starvation strikes in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Our organizing and advocacy efforts helped expose the lengthy historical past of solitary confinement in California, and resulted within the landmark Ashker authorized settlement that imposed new restrictions.
However the struggle was not over.
Whereas California inched ahead, many different states took vital steps. The perfect instance is New York, the place the HALT Act abolished using solitary confinement for particular populations. The regulation additionally supplied trauma-informed options that assist scale back violence and assist rehabilitation.
Two years in the past, impressed by New York and different states, the California Mandela Marketing campaign fashioned as a coalition of advocates, solitary survivors and civil rights organizations. In partnership with Assemblymember Chris Holdenthe California Mandela Act was launched, aiming to put clear limits on using solitary confinement — in keeping with worldwide requirements — and emulate efficient insurance policies from different states.
The invoice included a 15-day restrict on using solitary and a whole ban on the apply for particular populations, equivalent to pregnant individuals and the aged.
Regardless of receiving broad assist within the Legislature, Newsom killed the California Mandela Act twice — as soon as with a veto and the second time this yr, earlier than it even reached his desk.
Whereas Newsom blocked Meeting Invoice 280the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which he oversees, was quietly gutting AB 2527a separate reform by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. AB 2527 initially began out as a invoice to ban using solitary confinement towards pregnant individuals in jails and prisons. Simply days earlier than it was amended, she informed Politico that, “To be pregnant, to stay wholesome, I actually, really imagine that restrictive housing shouldn’t be part of the equation.”
Nevertheless, solitary confinement was added to the equation within the type of eleventh hour amendments that befell within the Senate Appropriations Committee, with no debate or transparency. The invoice modified from defending pregnant individuals in jails and prisons, to solely masking individuals in CDCR custody, which by some estimates is lower than 10 individuals. Shockingly, the amendments included a loophole that mentioned that CDCR might unilaterally select to put a pregnant individual in solitary for 5 days if there’s a safety concern.
To be clear, that implies that CDCR can place a pregnant individual in solitary confinement if they’re threatened by another person. There isn’t any requirement for consent. No oversight by a medical supplier. No course of for documentation, appeals or due course of. Nothing within the invoice prevents somebody from being cycled out and in of solitary after a five-day restrict.
Seemingly in a single day, the invoice went from an abolition of solitary to carte blanche for CDCR.
Study extra about legislators talked about on this story.
A coalition of advocates, together with myself, met with Bauer-Kahan’s places of work and reiterated that the amendments moved California backward on a problem that ought to be easy. One staffer informed us that the “community does not have power” on this challenge.
That is the sentiment we face. However that’s not true.
Within the quick time since AB 2527 was quietly amended, individuals have organized and mobilized. A letter of opposition with greater than 60 organizations has been circulated to the governor, and continues to get longer. Solitary survivors who have been remoted whereas pregnant have spoken out. One of many major sponsors of AB 2527 additionally withdrew assist and issued a sharp rebuke.
Newsom and the legislature won’t dishearten us with backroom offers or the facade of reform. They need to be held accountable for his or her coverage selections and challenged for blocking actual change.
