Inside prisons
Panelists discuss solitary confinement from academic and personal perspectives
9:32 a.m., April 20, 2016--A panel discussion about solitary confinement and other issues related to prisons in Delaware and around the country included the firsthand perspective of an older former inmate who now advocates for criminal justice reform.
The discussion, held on the University of Delaware campus on April 18, was hosted by UD’s Legal Studies program in conjunction with the departments of Sociology and Criminal Justice and of Women and Gender Studies.
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Panelist Evie Litwok, who first went to federal prison at age 60, has written about incarceration related to feminism, the LGBT community and criminal justice reform for older inmates.
She described her experiences as psychologically scarring. Her advice to other prisoners? “If you are new here, don’t make yourself known for anything. When everyone knows you are new, people are out to get you.”
Litwok documented prison conditions, conducted interviews and recorded inmates’ stories, describing the poor health care, insignificant nutrition and little human contact prisoners received. After her release from prison, she publicized the conditions in maximum-security facilities through a blog and, she said, has dedicated her life to “exposing the nightmares of prisoners living in maximum detention.”
Also speaking on the panel was Keramet Reiter, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and an international expert on solitary confinement, who presented research on the use of solitary confinement in California prisons.
Reiter spoke about what are known as “supermax” prison conditions, where inmates are kept in 8-by-10-foot concrete cells with no windows for over 20 hours a day. These prisoners, she explained, have minimal human interaction and rarely socialize or experience the outdoors.
“These prisoners are [held in supermax prisons] for two reasons,” Reiter explained. “They either broke an in-prison rule … or are ‘validated’ as dangerous gangsters or high-profile criminals.” Reiter shared data showing that the majority of inmates in supermax prisons were either African American or Hispanic.
The third panelist, 2014 UD graduate Abby Samuels who focuses on legal advocacy for women and other marginalized groups, presented research on the use of solitary confinement in Delaware state prisons.
A paralegal for Delaware’s Community Legal Aid Society Inc. (CLASI), which provides free legal services to senior citizens, people with disabilities, those in poverty and victims of domestic violence, Samuels spoke about her research in investigating conditions of solitary confinement in Delaware. Her work contributes to a federal lawsuit filed against the Delaware Department of Correction in August 2015.
Article by Christopher Razzano