BY POLLY MANN
How can a class action lawsuit in California affect prisoners in Minnesota, while the suit affects California prisoners only? It could produce a change in the policies of Minnesota’s jails and prisons. It’s called Asker vs. Governor of California on behalf of prisoners held in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison who have spent a decade or more in solitary confinement. It charges that prolonged solitary confinement violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and that the absence of meaningful review for SHU placement violates the prisoners’ rights to due process.
SHU prisoners spend 22 to 24 hours every day in a cramped, concrete, windowless cell, denied telephone calls, contact visits, vocational training, recreation or educational programming.
Hundreds of Pelican Bay SHU prisoners have been isolated under these conditions for over 10 years and dozens for more than 20 years, causing harmful and predictable psychological deterioration. In fact, solitary confinement for as little as 15 days is now widely recognized to cause lasting psychological damage and can constitute torture under international law.
In addition, the suit charges that prisoners are denied any meaningful review of their SHU placement. California imposes extremely prolonged solitary confinement based merely on a prisoner’s alleged association with a prison gang. Gang affiliation is assessed without considering whether a prisoner is—or ever was—actually involved in gang activity.
In Minnesota alone, some 578 prisoners are in isolated segregation. “Use of segregation is an issue of constant concern and review,” said Minnesota Department of Corrections spokeswoman Sarah Latuseck. State corrections leaders across the country are re-evaluating their practices. Minnesota leaders in the criminal justice field should spend some time in Norway studying their system. There is no solitary confinement, or lifetime sentences, or executions and the country seems to be doing just fine.
