Wisconsin Hears that Solitary Confinement Is Torture
By Pam Gates
The North Hearing Room in the state Capitol was packed on April 23 to hear a powerful series of speakers on the inhumane practice of solitary confinement in Wisconsin prisons and jails. Among the 70-plus listeners were five legislators and about twice that many aides; on the panel were six people who had spent time in solitary, four clergy, and a woman who had recently lost her father to suicide in solitary.
Following an invocation by WISDOM President Marian Boyle-Rohloff, the first expert speaker was MOSES’s own Talib Akbar. Talib, who built a traveling solitary confinement cell that is currently on display on the UW campus, said that solitary changes a person, alters them in some way. He began his volunteer effort to wake people up about the realities of solitary in 2014, adding, “I’ll do this till the day I die.” Talib has taken the cell around Wisconsin and to other states; he has also written a play, “Like an Animal in a Cage,” performed by people who have spent time in solitary. Although the Wisconsin DOC has reduced maximum stints in solitary from 360 to 90 days, Talib said the practice needs to be ended entirely.
A Racine pastor explained that this issue matters to faith communities because solitary confinement is torture – the opposite of the peace, kindness, and human flourishing that all faiths aspire to.
“Incarceration is one of the social deterrents to public health,” said Melissa Ludin, who after imprisonment in her youth is now with the ACLU. She noted that a person who’s gone to prison is far more likely to die prematurely than one who hasn’t. “Incarceration causes PTSD, and solitary makes it even worse,” she said. Melissa herself spent 100 days in solitary during her imprisonment and still feels the long-term effects of that experience, although she’s been home since 2007.
Prince Rashad grew up in the early ‘80s and was sent to Green Bay Correctional at age 18. In solitary, he became suicidal. “The experience made me more dangerous,” he said. He was sent to solitary six times; each time it was devastating. “It brings no rehabilitation,” he said. “We need to align our criminal justice system with international human rights standards. Solitary confinement exacerbates existing psychological conditions and starts new ones.”
Randy Forsterling spent seven years in Supermax, 360 days of it in solitary. He had friends who spent 20 to 30 years “in the hole”; solitary confinement became almost routine. But, he said, the experience left him feeling stripped of his humanity. When his mom died, he couldn’t even cry. “People in solitary aren’t seen as human beings,” he said.
Politics is the root cause of problems with the prison system, he explained. The 1994 crime bill almost tripled Wisconsin’s prison population and is still causing damage, because it abolished most rehabilitation programs. No matter what the DOC’s Vision Statement says, it still doesn’t let people participate in the programs they need when they need them.
Megan Kolb tearfully related her father’s last days before he hanged himself in solitary confinement. He spent his final days begging for his prescribed psychiatric meds, which he had not received in over two months. He was given no paper, no pen, no books, and no compassion by the staff.
“Bobby”, now a member of EXPO and a certified peer-support specialist, said he was paroled three years ago by John Tate II (the crowd applauded this name), after 27 years of a 60-year sentence, over seven of which he spent in solitary. He went in with PTSD due to the loss of his parents, and while in solitary received notice via phone that his brother had died. He got no support beyond the silence of fellow prisoners when his phone call was announced. “Solitary is torture,” he said. “I survived by will alone.”
Jessica Jacobs works with FREE, advocating for incarcerated women. She described additional dehumanizing aspects of prison that she experienced: being known only by a number; being physically abused, completely at the mercy of the guards; and being put in solitary for no reason, even during the booking process. She said the main reasons people are imprisoned — PTSD, trauma, sexual assault, substance abuse — are all symptoms of poverty, and that’s what we need to address. We need to expand programming inside and outside the prison, and to offer trauma therapy, NOT solitary confinement!
What’s happening in other states? The Rev. Ron Stief, representing NRCAT, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, explained that NRCAT started 20 years ago, initially out of concern about what was happening in U.S.-run prisons during the Iraq war. Fifteen years ago, the campaign began to address the torture we do here. There have been successful campaigns in several states, starting with Maine, where the head of the Maine DOC rewrote policies for the juvenile system and expanded from there. In Colorado, DOC director Rick Raemisch eliminated solitary confinement after spending time in a solitary cell.
NRCAT currently has legislative campaigns underway in 23 states. Michigan has made progress. The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights is pushing a 10-day maximum on solitary in Illinois. California has passed a Mandela law, limiting solitary to 15 days at most, but the governor has threatened to veto it. That happened in New York too, but the legislature assembled a super-majority and forced Gov. Cuomo to sign the bill.
In Connecticut, Stief’s own state, legislators sat in a solitary cell replica, wrote a bill, and finally got it signed into law in 2022. In most states, it has taken six to eight years after the legislation was written to get it passed into law.
Stief said campaigns to limit the use of solitary by cities are ongoing too, and so is a campaign regarding the federal system. NRCAT has many resources available, including films, model legislation, and materials to combat the common fears and myths that have been used to justify this form of discipline. Working to end torture is a moral absolute, he said. The fight will be long, but it’s worth it. We need the voices of all of us working together.
Legislators respond. Reps. Darrin Madison and Ryan Clancy, two strong advocates for improving conditions of confinement in Wisconsin prisons, included a bill limiting the use of solitary in the package of legislation they introduced a few months ago. Rep. Clancy observed, “I never thought I’d be legislating ‘seeing the sky.’ The standard is so incredibly low in Wisconsin.”
Rep. Madison said the growing strength of this movement gives him hope. “When I see advocacy by people who’ve been transitioning back, with so much pain and such lack of resources, in a world that tells them they’re worth nothing – it gives me the will to sit in this space, which can be one of the most toxic in the state. I know that it can happen here, in a state that has a perverse relationship with incarceration.” He added, “A lot of folks just don’t know. They buy into building more prisons, giving more money to the police. . . They don’t know that improving conditions of confinement will improve public safety.”
The Rev. Willy Brisco of MICAH gave the closing blessing, prefaced by the observation that when God looked down on our institutions of slavery, prisons, and war, God said, “That’s not what I meant!” Then Rev. Brisco offered a prayer and sent us out with an imperative: “Tell someone what you heard today, and don’t be silent again.” The crowd responded with a firm “Amen!”
WISDOM arranged for informational packets to be delivered to all legislators’ offices after the event.