Mental Health Consequences Following Release from Long-Term Solitary Confinement in California: Consultative Report Prepared for the Center for Constitutional Rights:
Stanford Lab Final SHU Report 10.11.17
Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Lab, Stanford University
October 2017
Upon leaving Pelican Bay SHU Solitary Confinement: My Firsts (of Many 🙂 )
Baridi Williamson in 2016
By Brutha Baridi Williamson
Leaving out of Pelican Bay Solitary Confinement Torture Prison-Facilities/Units-Cages for the first time on Jan. 23rd, 2015 (after arriving there Nov. 29, 1990), I remember witnessing my first sunrise as the CDCr [CA Dept. of Corrections and rehabilitation] “gray goose” transportation bus travelled up the mountainside along Highway 101. Staring out the window at the skyline as it transformed into a mixture of blended orange-red-violet-blue colors, I sat there in deep silence just appreciating the beauty of Nature … It would be the first of many first time experiences of using my natural senses again after being buried alive in that concrete box deprived of the natural use of those senses for the last twenty five (25) years . . . a quarter century.
My next First was at the San Quentin Receiving and Release Center where our bus stopped over. And while we was standing in small holding cages waiting to get back on the bus, another of the men (in another cage) asked to use the restroom across the hall. I was surprised when the guard walked over to the cage, unlocked the door, and let the guy walk out and across the hall (around other staff) unhandcuffed! I knew that I had to experience this after years/decades being chained and cuffed (like a 19th century slave). I asked to use the restroom and the guard let me out to walk freely across the hall uncuffed. It was not far, but just the absence of cuffs made a world of difference between being treated like a (chained) animal and feeling Humyn!
My next First may seem small to many outside hearing this, but for me it was special for my humanity. On January 28th, 2015 I arrived at SVSP (Salinas Valley State Prison) general population and was housed with a fellow human being named Malik. He gave me a brand new toothbrush (that he was allowed to purchase from an outside quarterly package vendor.) This was not the 2″ miniature size toothbrush (normally for brushing pet animals’ teeth) I had been using since the 1990s. This was the normal regular-size toothbrush used for brushing humans’ teeth. And each time (twice in the morning, afternoon and evening-night) I use it. The feel of being human is always at the front of my mind. With each stroke of the brush I humbly give in to the use of this part of my deprived senses.
There has been many more Firsts since then over the course of this first year, but the one that is so close and dear to heart was my first visit (contact) with my family in my thirty-plus (30+) years of confinement in CDCr, when I was able to visit my sister Donnita Benson, when she flew out from Oklahoma City and we hugged/kissed for the first time since 1980. It was a memorable experience to go from tears of hurtful pain and suffering (that dates back to our childhood struggles – domestic violence, being separated at ages 10 [me] and 14 [her], as “survivors” -she survived breast cancer and I survived being lost to the street jungles at age 15, then these concrete prison jungles, including decades in solitary confinement) then went to tears of joy, laughter, and happiness as we enjoyed those two days together. She said I squeezed her hand so tight and would not let it go that it went numb … Oops, my bad. I guess I subconsciously was that little child back home walking everywhere holding securely to my older sister’s hand.
I will close this off with a solidarity salute of respect, appreciation, and honor to all of the PHSS-PHRM outside supporters who believe in our cause enough to keep the spotlight upon both this states’ massive dysfunctional system of mass incarceration, its evil solitary confinement torture use, non-rehabilitative and social re-entry parole opportunities, and their contributions for helping those released from long-term solitary confinement and its own unique post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome (PTSD-solitary confinement) identi[ty], cope-heal, etc. from its effects. Thank you/Asante to each and all.
In solidarity with all oppressed peoples struggles, Brutha Baridi
Baridi Williamson in 1994
J. Baridi Williamson, D34288
SVSP C1-118
P.O. Box 1050
Soledad, CA 93960-1050
Stop Mass-Incarceration, Solitary Confinement, Police-Brutality, Racism, art by Baridi J. Williamson, illustration originally published here
Baridi was one of the original signers of the Agreement to End Hostilities. Read Baridi’s profile seeking correspondence on webpage Bruthas of Consciousness and Universal Humanity
From Center for Constitutional Rights
May 23, 2016
By Todd Ashker
At the beginning of this first meeting, it became clear that there was a misunderstanding about its function. CDCR thought the meeting was for us to listen to them. Why would we put a term into our Settlement that would have us listen to them? We listen to them every second of our lives. We see the purpose of these calls as an opportunity for us to be heard and to have a discussion with people in authority.
Despite this initial confusion, we were able to lead the meeting. CDCR got unfiltered information from prisoners who know what is going on in their prison cells and yards. We are a leadership group the CDCR knows. They know we have integrity. The information we shared at the meeting came not only from the experiences of us four main reps, but also from the other veterans of the SHU, members of our class who have written and met with our attorneys.
We raised in strong terms that some of us who have made it to General Population yards are essentially in modified SHUs (Security Housing Units), in some respects worse than Pelican Bay SHU, although in some respects better. Conditions, policies and practices that we are experiencing in some of the General Population yards are not what we expected when we settled our case. After spending decades in solitary we cannot accept many of these conditions. Too many prisoners are simply warehoused, and there are not enough jobs or programs to give us skills, engage our minds and prepare us to return to our communities. Guards need training in ‘professional’ behavior. Bullying and humiliation should never be tolerated.
CDCR may have been surprised at the tenor, strength and substance of our approach. We expect at the next meeting, we will all understand the agenda and purpose well ahead of time. We also think a longer meeting will allow for a full discussion and useful interaction. We hope CDCR officials come to welcome these historic meetings as useful because they will be if prisoners’ perspectives are heard, used and received by them.
BLUE PRINT
The declaration on protection of all persons from being subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 3452 (XXX) of December 9, 1975. The Declaration contains 12 Articles, the first of which defines the term “torture” as:
“Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining his or a third person’s information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons.”
FREEDOM OUTREACH PRODUCTION
December 1, 2015
PRISONER HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT
#1 Blue Print Overview
California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (“CDCr”) has systemic and dysfunctional problems that run rampant state-wide (within both Cal.’s Women and Men prisons), which demand this California government to take immediate action and institute measures to effect genuine tangible changes throughout CDCr on all levels.
The entire state government was notified and made aware of this “Dysfunctional” CDCr prison system in 2004 when its own governmental CIRP blue ribbon commission (authorized by then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger) reported this finding and fact. (See http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/CAGOV_US/C040600D.pdf; also see Prison Legal News article, “CA Corrections System Officially Declared Dysfuntional.”)
However, this CDCr state of “dysfunction” was not new to the massive number of women, men and youth being kept warehoused in CDCr, because they face it daily. (See Cal. Prison Focus News, 1990s-Present, Prisoner Reports/Investigation and Findings; San Francisco Bay View News Articles; ROCK & PHSS Newsletters, etc.)
During the historic California Prisoners’ Hunger Strikes (2011-2013), tens of thousands of men and women prisoners in CDCr’s solitary confinement torture prisons, as well as a third of the general population prisoners, united in solidarity in a peaceful protest to expose this dysfunctional system officially reported in 2004 by the CIRP.
The Prisoner Human Right’s Movement (PHRM) Blue Print is essentially designed to deal with identifying and resolving primary contradictions by focusing on the various problems of CDCr’s dysfunction, including (but not limited to) the following areas… [read full OVERVIEW Here]
TABLE OF CONTENTS for Blue Print
• OVERVIEW by Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa
• Prisoner Human Rights Movement BLUE PRINT
Prisoner Human Rights Movement (“PHRM”)
PHRM Principle Negotiators, Reps, Plaintiffs, Local Councils
I. Monitoring Reports on 33 State Prisons
II. Monitoring Implementation of the Ashker v. Brown Settlement Agreement
III. Instituting the Agreement to End Hostilities
IV. Legal PHRM Political Education
V. Freedom Outreach
Conclusion
• APPENDIX
All Appendices can be found at www.prisonerhumanrightsmovement.org
#1 – (A) Five Core Demands; &
(B) Agreement to End Hostilities
#2 – Second Amended Complaint, Ashker v. Brown
#3 – Supplemental Complaint, Ashker v. Brown
#4 – Settlement Agreement, Ashker v. Brown
#5 – PHRM’s Principle Negotiators’ Statements on 2nd Anniversary of the Agreement to End Hostilities
#6 – (A) Example Monitoring Report w/ Exhibit; &
(B) Example Monitoring Record
#7 – (A) CA Assembly Public Safety Committee Legislative Hearing on CDCr SHU policy, 8/23/2011
(B) CA Joint Legislative Hearing on CA Solitary Confinement, 10/9/2013
#8 – Mediation team publications
(A) Mediation Team Memorandum on Meetings with CDCr Officials, (3/26/12)
(B) Mediation Team Memorandum on Meetings with CDCr Officials, (3/15/13)
(C) Mediation Team Memorandum on meetings with CDCr Officials, (2/20/15)
#9 – PHRM LEGAL PRISON ACTIVISM EDUCATION Packets*:
(A) LEARN TO PROTECT YOUR RIGHTS
(B) MEMORANDUM ON UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF CDCR’s STG/SDP (Feb. 2015)
* To receive Educational Materials (Appendix #9), please write and send, for the cost of the mailing, either eleven dollars and fifty cents ($11.50) or the equivalent in postage stamps to:
Freedom Outreach/PHRM
Fruitvale Station
PO Box 7359
Oakland, CA 94601-3023
PRISONER HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT
We are beacons of collective building, while clearly understanding that We, the beacons, must take a protracted internal and external retrospective analysis of our present-day prisons’ concrete conditions to forge our Prisoner Human Rights Movement (PHRM) onward into the next stage of development, thereby exposing California Department of Corruption and Repression (CDCr)/United States Prison System of Cultural Discrimination against our Prisoner Class. This is why our lives must be embedded in our determined human rights laws, based on our constructive development of the continuous liberation struggle via our scientific methods and laws. Therefore, through our Prisoner Class, the concrete conditions in each prison/U.S. prisons shall be constructed through our Prisoner Human Rights Movement.
Prisoner Human Rights Movement 
You must be logged in to post a comment.