Four days after I was released from federal prison, the New York Times posted an Op-Doc on Jack Powers documenting his first day as a free man after 33 years in prison.
I had not heard of Powers before, but much has been written on him and his odyssey in the federal penitentiary system.
The Times Op-Doc opens with Powers, covered from head to toe in tattoos and wearing a head covering that obscures the damage done when he cut off both earlobes. He’s seen talking on a cell phone, saying, “I’m freaking out” and making reference to “noise and busyness” that makes him feel disoriented. He says, this is so unlike “being in a cage.”.
Powers’ Story
Powers was convicted of bank robbery in 1990. He would enter the bank, unarmed, and pass notes to tellers. What led Powers to become a bank robber? Quite possibly the financial duress he experienced as the two businesses he founded began to fail.
Convicted, Powers began his 40-year sentence at the US Penitentiary in Atlanta. Living in prison lead to the onset of mental illness that only got worse over time. Powers began exhibiting all the signs Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after witnessing a murder. Looking for a way out of what amounted to a life sentence, Powers agreed to testify against the perpetrators in exchange for a sentence reduction. The sentence reduction never came and Powers was removed from the witness protection program.
As could be expected, Powers’ was branded a “snitch”, interactions with prisoners and guards became increasingly threatening, and his mental health worsened. His PTSD symptoms now included insomnia and panic attacks. Fearing for his life and seeing no other options, Powers decided to escape from prison in 1999.
Facilities for the “Worst of the Worst”
It wasn’t long before authorities captured Powers. This time, he was sent to United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado (ADX), the highest security federal prison in the nation. ADX was created to house the “worst of the worst”, those “too dangerous to be held anywhere else”. ADX, built in 1994, was designed to maximize institutional control. From the outside you can see 12 gun towers, razor wire, laser beams and guard dogs. Individuals at ADX spend 23 hours in their cells and live in conditions are generally described as to be the harshest allowable under federal law.
In addition to maximizing control, ADX was designed for punishment. A Bureau of Prison’s research report from 1993 declares:
“We still do not know what “works” in correctional treatment, but it really wouldn’t matter even if we knew, because the fundamental purpose of imprisonment is not the correction but the punishment of criminal behavior.”
Supermax Conditiosn and Mental Health
Shortly after arriving to ADX, Powers began to engage in extreme self-harming behaviors, that were so injurious he had to be transported for medical treatment. The psychiatrist at that federal medical center seemed to find Powers’ excessive self-mutilation normal. He determined that Powers was not in need of any psychiatric treatment, an opinion that is inconsistent with expert opinions about self-harming behaviors published by the Mayo Clinic, the National Alliance on Mental Health, and the American Psychological Association. Non-suicidal self-injury, or NSSI, is a condition classified in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (2013).
The longer Powers remained at ADX, the more his mental health deteriorated and his self-harming behaviors persisted. Prison officials were aware but Powers did not receive any treatment. Bureau of Prison (BOP) officials were also aware. In 2013, Powers was deposed in a lawsuit against the BOP; he detailed the negative effects of the conditions at ADX and his solitary confinement. Everyone knew and no one did anything about it.
Powers’ deposition was for a lawsuit alleging conditions at ADX violated prisoners’ Eigth Amendment rights. The Eighth Amendment protects citizens from being subject to cruel and unusual punishment. The courts have held, however, that as long as the prison administrators’ actions do not reflect “deliberate indifference” most punishment does not rise to the level of a violation. In order to win a claim, a prisoner must demonstrate that the maltreatment was the result of “a culpable state of mind on the part of prison officials”.
Solitary Confinement: Cruel and Unusual
The use of solitary confinement became common during the first half of the nineteenth century. A much-cited study by Francis Gray, in 1848 concludes:
[T]he system of constant separation . . . even when administered with the utmost humanity produces so many cases of insanity and of death as to indicate most clearly, that its general tendency is to enfeeble the body and the mind.”
In the nearly 200 years following Gray’s study, prisons continued to use solitary confinement and researchers continued to publish studies on its negative effects. In 2012, a member of the American Psychological Association, Craig Haney, Ph.D. testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Civil Rights and Human rights saying “inmates in solitary confinement are at grave risk of psychological harm”.
Five year later, there were around 80,000 individuals, including men, women and children, still in solitary confinement in federal, state and local prisons across the United States. Ten years later, nearly 8% of the federal prison population are still in solitary confinement.
Numerous studies have documented the effects of solitary confinement: hallucinations, hypersensitivity, insomnia, paranoia, distorted cognitions, suicidal tendencies and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yet American prisons continue to use this practice.
New Action to Embrace an the Concept of Human Dignity
Fortunately criminal justice reform organizations have made significant contributions to the movement to end solitary confinement. In 2021, the ACLU published a Blueprint for Ending Solitary Confinement by the Federal Government. The Vera Institute has published recommendations for state correctional agencies that include segregation reduction initiatives (2015) and safe alternatives to segregation (2019). The Prison Research and Innovation Initiative and Network is currently working with five states on an evidence-based approach to prison reform.
Thankfully, there has been a broadening of the base as more American citizens learn of the harms of solitary confinement and oppose the denigrating, dehumanizing and harmful conditions that characterize American prisons.
In 1948, the United Nations issued its Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first paragraph of its preamble reads:
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
The United States endorsed that declaration. Yet fifty years later, Jack Powers enters the federal corrections system, a system whose conditions violate the inherent dignity of human beings.
Raising Awareness and Accepting Responsibility
Reading the comments posted in response to the Op-Doc on Jack Powel, it’s clear that learning about the realities of prison and Powers’ story leaves Americans stunned and moved. But his story may not be reaching everyone who needs to learn about it. The Op-Doc had only 531 comments, where the most read New York Times article in 2021 had 1,352 comments.
But the sad reality is this: most Americans are unaware of the destructive, dangerous, and inhumane practices used in correctional institutions.
An even bigger problem, however, is that those responsible for policymaking, oversight and management of these American’s prisons are aware and allow these conditions to persist.
There is no reason why prisons in America cannot operate in a way that upholds human dignity. Redesigning federal, state, and local correctional systems that are predicated on punishment will take time, effort, resources, and commitment.
It will also take willingness on the part of individuals and organizations benefiting from the dysfunctionality of the current system to embrace change. I know all too well that any effort to challenge the status quo will translate into personal, professional and political costs.
But some costs are worth baring.
Conditions of confinement that violate individuals’ human rights are unjustifiable under any circumstances. And they have collateral effects for the society. If we remain silent in the face of human rights violations that makes us, as Ginetta Sagan said, complicit in the oppression.