Special King Day reading of 'If the Shoe Fits' — voices from solitary confinement

Does anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world? God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, You're too arrogant. If you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God. The promises of the great society have been shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam. Vietnam, making the poor, white, and Negro bear the heaviest burdens, both at the front and at home. Though the civil rights leaders, for various reasons, refuse or can't take a stand or have to go along with the administration, that's their business. But I'm afraid that I know that justice is indivisible. Injustice. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Dr. Martin Luther King, preaching about righteousness on this special King Day celebration, Monday, January the 22, 2014. Welcome to the Conran Report. May the peace and blessings of the life-giving creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. My name is Melvin Ishmael Johnson. Coming at you live from Skid Row Studios. And I'm in the studio with my co-host, Earlene Anthony. Our call in number is 800-893-9562. Listen to us live or download our show and any past show by googling in skidrow.la and hit Conran Report. Now this week on this special Conran Report, we will have a live reading of the 40-minute play, If the Shoe Falls. If it's voices from solitary confinement. The letters you will hear are in their original form from prisoners held in solitary confinement all over the United States of America. The reading is produced by Drama Stage Coombram, ICUJP, and the Peace Center on the campus of USC. I'm delighted to have with us in the studio some outstanding performers. And I would like to introduce the readers. And we will begin. Our performers. Andy Griggs, Adrian Ziegler, Anthony Tate, Carol Frances Likens, Olashay Banjo, Lee Beck, Andrea Ross, Earlene Anthony, and myself, Melvin Ishmael Johnson. Sit back, relax, and enjoy If the Shoe Fits, Voices from Solitary Confinement. Thank you. a All I have is this pen, this paper, and the truth. I write to you as a survivor of torture, soon to experience more, in hopes that you will use my account here as you see fit to shed a light on the use of torture in the United States. My name is Sean Swain, Mansfield Correctional Institute, Ohio. My name is J.R.F. Within a Cage. How can you lock me in a cage? Within a cage? For some misdeed done within a cage? All you can do is feed my rage. You can't teach me anything good within a cage. Except monsters control the locks. And in terror, I've lost the keys within a cage. I plead and pray, but it simply gets worse every day within a cage. Animosity worsens. Empathy is lost. And the days, turn into days within a cage. Solitary confinement is the practice of isolating inmates in closed cells for 22 to 24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades. In Oregon, long-term isolation units are called intensive management units, IMUs. In Pennsylvania, they are called restricted housing units, RHUs. In California and New York, they are security housing units, or SHUs. California and other states also use another euphorism, administrative segregation. Despite the variety of names, the general practice of incarceration in these units and facilities are solitary confinement. Let's see if the SHU fits. August 12, 2012. Sergeant Carter, the collective announces an agreement to end hostilities. Representative of the California Hunger Strike issued a statement calling for an end to all violence and hostility between different groups of prisoners throughout the state of California, from maximum security prisoners to county jails. The statement asks prisoners to unite beginning October 10, 2012. We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit, because the reality is that collectively we are an empowered, mighty force that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby the public as a whole. We simply cannot allow CDCR slash CCPOA, Prison Guards Union, IGI, IGU, OCS, and SSU to continue to get away with their constant form of warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners, including the 14,000 plus prisoners held in solitary confinement torture chambers for decades. The people have the power to change things now. Know this, our spirit and resolve remains strong, and we know we can count on you. Together we can make it happen, not only for ourselves, but more importantly, for the generations to come. Torture is unequivocally unacceptable under any circumstances, but what has been unfolding in the shoes is a systematic use of torture by the state for years and decades. Torture of both minds and bodies. Torture of many thousands of prisoners. To break them in. To either have them die in long-term solitary confinement, or be driven insane through the psychological torture of years and decades of isolation, with the utmost solidarity, love, and respect onward in struggle. Pelican Bay State Prison, Short Corridor Collective. Archero Castellanos, Short Corridor Collective. Antolian, Antonio Gajin, Short Corridor Collective. Sidiwag Ntombo Jamaa, slave name R.N. Dewberry. Todd Asker, Short Corridor Collective. My name is Todd Asker. They'll never let me out. I'm gonna die here. I know that. But I have a choice. I can slowly rot, or I can fight. Fight to change things. The road to isolation. My name is Sidiwag Ntombo Jamaa. Slave name R.N. Dewberry. By the time I reached age 22 in 1980, I was falsely convicted of a murder I did not commit. I was sentenced to serve life in prison for first-degree murder. A series of violent racial wars broke out within the California prison system, and numerous of my fellow black prisoners were being stabbed, shot, and killed on a regular basis. On June 19, 1982, I was arrested for murder. I was arrested for murder. On June 19, 1982, I was faced with the life-or-death situation to become a casualty of war during a racial riot, war, or become a beacon to my fellow African brothers, prisoners, and defend myself and my people. My name is DeAndre Williams. I am being held illegally in prison, solitary confinement, in Malone, New York. In 1997, I was arrested upon false charges brought by my ex-girlfriend. At the trial, I was sentenced to three years in prison, and sentenced to four years in prison. At the trial, I had seven-count indictment and was forced to represent myself against a biased judge and two district attorneys. The judge submitted over my objection, assault second degree, as a lesser, including offense after the evidence was closed and after closing arguments. I was acquitted of all seven counts and convicted of assault second degree and sentenced to 25 years to life. I was transferred out from the Westchester County Jail, to Rikers Island in New York City, where they had me jumped and my nose broken. I was then sent to Queens House of Detention, where I was stabbed in the eye and beat in the head with a phone by a CO, resulting in a loss of hearing in one ear and seizures. All of this was done to keep me isolated and in a state of hopelessness so that I would do what the authorities wanted. The hearing is adjourned. The heat inside the bus was as stifling as the tension which lingered in the surrounding atmosphere. As the bus roared angrily down Highway 101, the trance-inducing drone of the big diesel engine lulled me into reflections of my life. Memories that had soared past me, like the scenery flying by outside, the barred, tinted windows of anonymous gray goose, went by as swiftly as the life I had led thus far. The restless, dismal chimes of shackles and chains broke me away from the melancholy spell I'd fallen under, and there followed the sudden realization that the world of oceans, mountains, and landscapes would all soon be but a memory of another lifetime. Looking around me, I found not to be alone in this realization, for the other prisoners there seemed to be entertaining similar things. But no one dared speak of them. What awaited us at the Pelican Bay Shoe, with its eerily silent corridors, was a purgatory of sorts, a vacuum of uncertainty, sealed off from everything and everyone. A place where one is virtually entombed in a concrete vault, with scarred and pitted walls depicting the idleness, boredom, and in some cases, the lunacy of a previous occupant. It's a world of its own, where, for most, refuge can only be found through a dreamless state of slumber. There's a look in the shoe prisoner's eyes that's haunting, a foreboding look from eyes that have themselves stared into the eyes of madness and human cruelty, eyes that have looked far into the abyss, into the abyss of emptiness. Eyes belonging to a species of a lesser god. Hector Galejos, Pelican Bay State Prison. Pelican Bay Prison is a supermax prison in Crescent City, California, explicitly designed to keep California a large worst of the worst prisoners in long-term solitary confinement. It takes its name from a shallow bay on the Pacific coast, about two miles from the Pacific Ocean, about two miles to the west. The prison lies in a detached section of Crescent City that is several miles north of the main urban area. Prisoners in the shoe are there for varying lengths of time and are placed there for varying reasons. If one has committed a specific crime or breaking a prison rule, he is given a determined amount of time in administrative segregation. But for those who have been accused of gang affiliation, also known as validation, their sentence is open-ended or indeterminate. Often the only way for them to get out of the shoe is to debrief. Name others who have gang affiliations. My name is Sidawa Jamaa, slave name R.N. Dewberry. K.D.K. CDC has held me in solitary confinement for the past 28 years for my political beliefs and spiritual morality. I have been in solitary confinement for the past 24 years. As a new African Revolutionary Nationalist, N.A.R.N., if I undergo their debriefing, to which I have refused to do for the past 28 years, and shall not change my mind, I ask myself, what weight does customs hold under the law? For though it may be termed debriefing, using a euphemism does not change what it is. Betraying a confidence, committing an act of treachery for personal gain, considering how our community knows what the American Revolution in the U.S. was brought into being, and considering the command and control needs which existed from the get-go, if any community has a historical aversion to stoolies, toddlers, rats, and the like, isn't it ours? Therefore, I shall die before my tormentors. K.D.K. CDC. U.S. Government. Turn this freedom fighter into a debriefer. I shall never be found among the broken men of my era. This is the reality of isolation. It's so small until I can only make about four steps forward before I touch the door. And if I turn in an about place, at any place in this cell, I'm gonna bump into something. It's really smaller than anybody's bathroom. This is smaller than an outhouse. It's in the countryside somewhere. But, um, I'm used to it, and that's one of the bad things about it. From the unit that I'm on, the only thing that I can see outside of that window is a big hill with trees. So there's no life movement out there at all, you know? I'm in the cell for 23 hours a day, and a lot of times 24 hours, because I don't come out. I just spend a great deal of my time catching up, reading and writing so many people, hundreds of people that I communicate with here in the U.S. and abroad as well. It helps me to maintain what little sanity that I have left to maintain my humanity and dignity to fight back on what these people are attempting to do, to have what they're not, from a mental perspective. Herman Wallace was a courageous fighter for justice, a political prisoner who this system locked up in conditions of torture in solitary confinement for 41 years. On October the 1st, 2013, Herman Wallace was finally freed after a federal judge ruled that his original indictment in the killing of a prison guard has been unconstitutional. Three days later, on Friday morning, October the 4th, 2013, Herman Wallace died of cancer in New Orleans. He was 71 years old. My name is DeAndre Williams. Food for thought. Sometimes I feel as though I'm walking through a cemetery of lost souls, seeing as how almost everyone around me, is either already dead, in the process of dying, or simply withering away like a corpse left to rot away in some decrepit grave, with a name and epithet erased away. This is where I am forced to dwell, in the abyss of shame, weary and full of frustrated rage and soul-wrenching pains from prolonged battles that start anew, night after night, and day after day. The torment of isolation. I never seen the sky, or felt the warmth of the sun, or breeze pass by me, the trees and grass or a raindrop. I never knew how painful it could be to be denied nature itself. I had a small narrow window which does not open. But all I could see was brick walls and nothing more. I remember from those brick walls was a small plant growing from within the cracks of the brick. That was my only part of nature that gave me hope. As the wind would blow against the leaves of this plant, I would actually close my eyes and pretend this very wind was blowing against my face. I know it sounds crazy, but it was the only part of nature that I had. Then one day I could not stand it, and I so desperately needed to feel real air, so I started to scrape the seal from the window with my fingertips. I was determined to make an opening. For three months of every day I scraped and scraped, where my fingers bleeded. But I managed to make a very small opening, and I only had room to place one side of my nose against that opening at a time. And I would take such a deep breath, where I was finally able to inhale a very small amount of air. But it was all I needed in order to survive. The officers there, they felt sorry for me, and they would bring me a paper and pen to keep myself busy, with being I had nothing, and there is nothing a real a real a real a real pains on paper and before I knew it I had art. The author of this letter is a 45 year old mother of three who was housed in the segregation unit of a New Jersey prison. Over 80,000 prisoners languish daily in some form of segregation in U.S. prisons and 25,000 of these inmates are held in super max prisons, facilities made up solely or mostly of solitary cells. My name is Toby Chavez, New Mexico penitentiary. Living life in solitary confinement has been the most horrendous experience I've had to endure in all my 43 years on this earth. I have been in prison for 15 years. 13 of them in a solitary confinement. a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a into a black hole and completely forgotten. I haven't been able to hug, kiss, or hold a family member in over 14 years. I'm not able to receive visits from my wife or have any type of real quality time with my loved ones. I'm stuck, alone, and have very few words I can speak with other human beings. I'm forced to eat every meal, exercise, and play games by myself. I laugh at myself sometimes because it's the only voice I can hear. My own shadow has literally become my only friend. If and when I get the opportunity to speak with my wife, mom, or loved ones, I have to put on a mask with a smile because I never want them to see the monster I'm becoming. I live each day contemplating death, throwing in the towel and just calling it quits. A person can only take so much loneliness. My name is Martin Bibbs, Pelican Bay State Prison, a view from the SHU. The SHU on the mine is like drowning. Or being caught. Caught in quicksand when you first realize your plight. You fight fruitlessly with all your might to save yourself. But at some point you realize that your fate is irreversible and your ultimate demise only a matter of time, so you let it go. Hopelessness sets in. Believing no one can hear you. No one will help you. And no one cares. You're so mentally worn out and emotionally exhausted you can't even help yourself. That sense of helplessness is the final distress that befalls a long-term SHU prisoner before the cruel and stupid sadistic part of it all begins. The descent into madness. SHU syndrome now is when you begin to live and adapt to the distorted world of the SHU. In order to survive, exist, one must distort his mind to make an abnormal existence. Normal. It's the vision of reality as you must adjust your eyes to light to bring into focus that which is around you. So must the SHU prisoner distort his mind in order to bring into focus his new reality. One cannot hold on to normalcy. For normal in an abnormal world is craziness. The fact of this battle. The death grip of sanity. The irony of it all is that for the SHU prisoner to hold on to his sanity he must embrace, accept his insanity. It's been said for hundreds of years that those whom the gods wish to destroy, first they drive mad. That is the SHU objective. But there are no gods among mortal men. Only the spirit of Christ Jesus. So no one has the right to drive another human being to madness? Deliberately by any means. Yet the casualties of the SHU are numerous. Hundreds of SHU prisoners have been driven mad, stir crazy, by long term SHU isolation. And although not directly, but indirectly? All society has contributed to those who have been driven mad. All society has contributed to those atrocities. For it is your votes and your tax dollars that feed the SHU machine that destroys men's souls. Love, kindness, and compassion are the nutrients that feed to give more than the receiver. I, we, don't ask for reprieve of my prison sentence. Only for compassion and release of the mental torture of long term isolation. May your heart be full. May a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a decades does not define my identity or nor personhood. I reject the dehumanizing, demonizing, and degenerating labels of language that marginalize my worth as a human being to be no more valuable than a chimpanzee or other captive species imprisoned at the city zoo. While reading your four guiding principles that represent your core values and tradition, I could not help but think of the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King and the upcoming celebration to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. He once said, every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle, the tireless exertion and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. On many levels, Dr. King would be disappointed, especially with his own life and legacy has become so marginalized as if he has become a new age Santa Claus. He is only relegated to the I have a dream speech. He is portrayed as a less critical, less challenging, less provocative. He would probably feel betrayed by some of the men who stood shoulder to shoulder with him. But now I must use his name for personal gain and ambitions. No one ever speaks about the position on war, poverty, and hunger. He would be disappointed at the indifference, lack of tolerance, mistrust, fear mongering, economic inequalities, mass incarceration, economic disparities, hopelessness, homelessness, torture, senseless wars, racial profiling. I think we honor his legacy by continuing, by doing his unfinished work. What about the families of those locked up in these tombs for the living dead? How does being isolated from their loved ones affect them? Many of them do continue the work. My name is Irene Huerta, and I'm the wife of Gabriel Huerta. My husband has been in Pelican Bay prison for 28 years, and I stand here as the proud wife because he knows that he's a hero. He's a true hero because he endured all three hunger strikes. I told him that the CDC was not going to budge and let us continue the fight. Here we are continuing the fight. And I want to thank all the families. My name is Marie Levine. My brother is Sidhuwa Jemar, who is in the SHU in Pelican Bay. Today is Day 24 of the historic hunger strike of prisoners held in solitary confinement. He held in solitary confinement. The five core demands are just human things that you and I would respect. In-group punishment and administrative abuse. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify the gang statute criteria. Comply with the U.S. Commission recommendations to end long-term solitary confinement. Provide nutritious food. Create and expand constructive programs. Who would not want a person locked in solitary confinement to have a program that gets them acclimated to the public? We stand together on the outside as they stand together on the inside. My name is Alex Sanchez. Thank you to all the family's members who are here that have loved ones inside of the prison. I'd like to say that in 1993, there was a truce among the gangs. We know that getting people involved. To do violence prevention in our communities have to come from the people who used to be part of the problem. My name is Georgiana Williams. My oldest son was in the shoe at Pelican Bay. You worry day by day if your child is okay. You can't visit them because they're so far away. They can't call you. All you can do is write them. You wonder if they are alive or dead. And the only thing I can do is pray. In the top 50 of the 250 plus immigration detention facilities across the United States, on any given day, 300 immigrants are held in solitary confinement. Most of these detention centers are privately run. This is Anna's story. Anna is a victim of sex trafficking. And instead of protecting her, she was arrested for sexual assault. The U.S. government detained her in a county jail, contracting with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. She was unable to contact her daughter, and male guards abused her, taking away her mattress, and forcing her to sleep on the cement floor of her cell while she was in solitary confinement. Community initiatives for visiting immigrants in confinement. Anna's mother, who is a former U.S. citizen, or civic, ended her isolation and her abuse by connecting her with a volunteer visitor who visited her for a year and a half. Also with an attorney, her eight-year-old daughter. Anna eventually received a T visa for victims of human trafficking, was released after a year and a half, and now lives in the United States. U.S. immigration detention is built upon a system of isolation, not only because we rely on solitary confinement more than any other democratic nation in the world, but also because the system legally deprives immigrants of any connection to the outside world. Ending isolation starts with ending the prison. The practice of solitary confinement. This is the statement of Christina Fialho, co-founder and executive director of Civic. On Friday, October 11th, we drove 130 miles from our home in Newbury Park out into the desert. We were invited to tour a modern corporate prison and detention center located along the old 20-mule teen route to Death Valley. We turned off Highway 14 and headed to the California City Boulevard, somewhere north of Mojave. The landscape there is vast. Dry valley of sand, desert rock, and crested bush. We could see a dark patch of green, perhaps 20 miles away, which was the small town of California City. Further beyond the town, before the far ridges, were some long, white rectangular structures that stood out from the desert terrain. This was the California City Correctional Center, owned and operated by the CCA, Corrections Corporation of America. When we walked into the pond for solitary confinement, called the SHU, or Secure Housing Unit, we saw two tiers of locked cells behind a locked chain-link corridor. Instead of tables and stools, there was an open space for the desk for guards and one Lexus Nexus computer encased in its own cage. As the warden explained, the labels on some of the cells, Ed said, some of those locked up started whooping and yelling for attention. We weren't able to meet with any of them. We were told that some are in solitary for their own protection, and others, because they are a threat to other people, or the prison. They said that detainees in solitary confinement must be reviewed every 30 days. Overall, the massive infrastructure seems carefully designed to warehouse humans, separate them from their families, and deport them as a commodity in a very successful business model. According to Forbes.com, Corrections Corporation of America, CCA, earned $430 million in two years and $212 million in 2012 from contracts to imprison non-citizens. The total cost for immigration enforcement last year was $18 billion. All I have is this pen, this paper, and the truth. I write to you as a survivor of torture, soon to experience more, in hopes that you will use my account here as you see fit to shed a light on the use of torture in the United States. My name is Sean Swain. The fact is, when you give your passive consent for your government to torture anyone, you have relinquished power to your government to torture everyone. Your government subjected me to torture. I'm first. You're next. During one retaliatory stint in segregation, I learned of Torture Cell 182. I do not know the name of the man who was in that cell. The cell next to mine. He spoke only broken English. His cell had no bedding. He had no clothes, no toothbrush, no soap. The temperature was uncomfortably cold for me with all my clothing and wrapped in a blanket. So the victim in Torture Cell 182, to keep from experiencing hyperthymia, had to pace 24 hours a day, all night, all day, for days. 18 months later, I was punitively transferred to Toledo Correctional where I was harassed from the moment I arrived. Within months, in retaliation for documenting, retaliating, and contacting the appropriate authorities, I was placed in segregation, under investigation. I was knocked unconscious when handcuffed and defenceless. I was used as a battering ram to open the steel door leading to segregation. I was left unconscious, my clothes cut off with a X-Acto knife, naked in a suicide cell. I came back to Mansfield Correctional in 2009 and was placed on the gang list for my religious belief. I was not taken to segregation. Instead, I was taken to a row of cells hidden behind the medical clinic. The cell I was placed in had no bed, no mattress. I had no pencil nor pen to notify the outside world of my treatment. No toothbrush, no shower, no recreation. My food was served in small styrofoam containers that held only starvation rations. The cell was used as a shelter for the homeless. The cell had no heat, and I could see the breath in the early morning, just like my neighbor long ago in Torture Cell 182. I had to pace 24 hours a day to stay warm. I could not sleep. I survived. Since September, two other of the state's victims have died on Torture Cell Row. I know their names, but two prisoners have died on Torture Cell Row since I was fortunate to be removed from there. They died, perhaps pacing the same cold cement floor that I paced hour after hour, day after day, filling 10,000 miles in the mouth of a graveyard. Their deaths were investigated by the same officials who were responsible for the death of the other prisoners. I now face the rest of my life at Supermax, locked in a concrete tomb, dying in complete isolation. I have been approved to be transferred to this torture facility by psychological professionals who affirm that I am sane enough to be driven crazy. I shall not die. I shall not die a thousand deaths of compromise, giving up names, in exchange for food or blanket. I will bite my own arm to smother my screams and rob you of the satisfaction when you disassemble me. I shall not die shamefully, my chin against my chest, kneeling before the humiliating hole I dug for myself, waiting upon the pistol shot. I will always refuse the blindfold. I shall not die, abandoned and alone, obliterated from the memories of those I love. My fate never questioned. Someone will always stand in the rain outside your office window, my name on a cardboard sign. No matter how many times you cut my throat or hang me from my own bed sheet, bludgeon me with your nightstick, or fire your bullets into my brain, whether you encircle me in a South African banjo stand or a Coca-Cola factory in Bolivia, or alley behind a stone wall, or a prison in the heart of it all, I shall not die. A million times, I shall not die. You only get my corpse. Because I spoke out against injustice, my government, your government, is going to purposely and methodically destroy my mind and disassemble my personality, over the course of years and decades. My name is Shawn Swain. All I have is this pen, this paper, and the truth. Please remember that I lived. Over 80,000 prisoners languish daily in some form of segregation in the U.S. prison. And 25,000 of these inmates are held in supermax prison facilities made up solely or mostly of solitary cells. U.S. prisoners hold more than three times as many men and women with mental illnesses as are held in mental health hospitals. 8 to 19% of U.S. prisoners have psychiatric disorders that result in significant functional disabilities, while 45% of supermax residents have serious mental illnesses marked by symptoms of psychological breakdowns. In October, 2011, Juan Mendez, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel Inhuman Degrading Treatment, presented a written report on solitary confinement to the U.N. General Assembly's Human Rights Commission, which singled out for criticism the routine use of supermax isolation in the United States. Mendez stated, I am of the view that juveniles should be treated as a means of social security. I am of the view that juveniles, given their physical and mental immaturity, should never be subjected to solitary confinement. Equally, in order not to exacerbate a previously existing mental condition, individuals with mental disabilities should be provided with proper medical or psychiatric care, and under no circumstances should they ever be subjected to solitary confinement. I am of the view that the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel Inhuman Degrading Treatment, presented a written report on solitary confinement, which singled out the routine use of supermax isolation in the United States. Mendez said, I am of the view that juveniles, given their physical and mental immaturity, should never be subjected to solitary confinement. In other words, if a person is subjected to solitary confinement, what can we do right now? We can begin the Mississippi model where the reform of the classification system led to the significant reduction of Mississippi's solitary confinement population, including the transferring out of approximately 800 supermax inmates at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchment. Rather than leading to an increase in problems, there was a significant increase in violence. Support mental health alternatives to solitary confinement in jails and prisons, including individuals and group therapy, regular access to psychiatrists, substance abuse counseling, specialized psychiatric service units, discharge planning, and community reentry assistance. Implement training for correctional officers on how to respond to individuals experiencing psychiatric crisis in a way that de-escalates rather than escalates these crises. Inmates not be placed in isolation longer than 72 hours. Impose a seven-day limit on supermax stays for inmates being investigated for in-prison crimes. Stop the brutal cell extractions of uncooperative and often mentally ill inmates. Use informal sanctions to dismantle the prison system. Stop the use of unlawful means to discipline unruly prisoners like taking away commissary or recreation privileges as alternatives to solitary confinement. Create an independent monitoring board, IMB, consisting of local volunteers who perform inspections of the facilities and submit an annual report. A quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky on the role of civil society in the criminal justice system. The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. My name is Robert Stockton. This is my poem, Living Tomb. Suddenly we found ourselves without the world's care where the cold and desolate embrace our stare. Through endless mazes we walk in chains and with each passing day, we're less strange. With the wheel not broken, only tested with time, we send words to our loved ones, we're doing just fine. There's nothing to compare it to, but small personal lies. We do anything to keep away needless tears in their eyes. New rehabilitation as a castaway, whether young or old, means we're tossed into a place with no hope to hold. To escape, we walk circles under a steel screen, trying to find a way to kiss the sun's beam. We stand alone, arguing what to do. No one really knows the pressures we've to do. Rules come and go, changing direction like the winds. When you think you've found comfort, a new struggle begins. Some stand agitated at the back of their cells. Some scream out! Insane and broken up yell. You may have a glimpse of what we all see. Or a mental picture of a soul who's not free. But no one can really see behind the gray walls that gloom. Or walk where we walk. Embraced by a living tomb. Okay, let's take a break for our community camera, and then we'll come back with some important information from Antling Grids of Iowa. I'll see you, JP, and maybe some comments from the cast members. This is the community calendar for January. Tuesday, January the 28th, 2014, at 7 p.m. The Nasana Zone open mic. Calling all poets, spoken word artists, musicians, and anyone who want to showcase their talent, or announce an upcoming event, or just to come out and network. The event begins at 6 p.m. and you get five minutes. Your host for the evening will be Andrea Ross and Willis Boyd. This is a free event, and all are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be served. The location of the event is the Vortex 2341 East Olympic Boulevard. For more information, contact Drama Stage 1 at yahoo.com or 213-908-6587. Wednesday, January the 29th, 2014, The Roby Theatre Company will begin their celebration of 20 years of black theatre from 1994 to 2014. And on Wednesday, January the 29th, 1.30 to 3.30 p.m. at the SoCal Library, 6120 South Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles. This is just one of the ways that the theater can be a part of the community. This is a great opportunity to be part of the community. There will be more workshops scheduled. There will be more workshops and times available. And for more information, you can contact the Roby Theatre Company 626-486-2460 or go to roby at gmail.com or their website www.robytheatrecompany.com www.robytheatrecompany.com www.robytheatrecompany.com If you have a community event that you would like announced on our show, please send an invitation to Drama Stage 1 at yahoo.com Attention Erlene Anthony. Now back to our host. Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Erlene Anthony Andy Griggs, ICUJP. Thanks, Melvin, and thanks to all the cast for this. It was really an amazing event. And I want to tell you a little about the history of this, is that a couple of years ago, Drama Stage Qumran and Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace teamed together to do a reader's theater that was called Reckoning with Torture and dealt with testimony and emails about what had been happening at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. What we realized in the process of that and as people's thoughts were evolving is that there was just as much torture going on within our own system, within the U.S. system, and it wasn't just across the waves that we were doing this. So we contacted the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and they gave us a grant to develop the script. Melvin and I developed it initially, but it's gone through some changes already. It's been done all over the country. You can get a copy of the script at www.nercat.org. That's N-R-C-A-T dot org. And we will have this streaming. Of course, I mean, this will be live. This reading. And if you are interested in Southern California in having a performance of this to be followed by a discussion afterwards, please contact us at ICUJP at pacbell.net. And we'll see if we can arrange a performance in your own space and then have a discussion with the California Families Against Solitary Confinement, who we quoted here, with perhaps some of the... prisoners who have been released from solitary confinement and their real-life stories about what goes on there. The idea is that we've got to fight against it. You know about the three hunger strikes that happened over the last several years? Well, right now we're fighting to stop the retaliation, as was mentioned in here, against those who led the hunger strike. So look that up and we'll be here to help out. And we'll support that struggle. Okay, thank you, Annie Griggs of ICUJP. And I would like to extend a special thanks to the cast of If the Shoe Fits, Voices from Solitary Confinement. Annie Griggs, Adrian Ziegler, Anthony Tate, Carol Frances Likins, Ola Shea Banjo, Lee Beck, Andrea Roth, Erwin L. Darlene Anthony, and I guess I was included in the reading also, Melvin Ishmael Johnson. Please listen to past shows of the QMRIM Report on iTunes, Facebook, Stitcher, Tumblr, Googler, and Skid Row.LA. Thank you for tuning in to the QMRIM Report and from your host, Melvin Ishmael Johnson, may the peace and blessings of the life-giving creative spirit be upon you and upon your family, and on this King holiday, January the 20th, 2014, I leave you with some wise words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I come here tonight and plead with you. Believe in yourself and believe that you're somebody. I said to a group last night, nobody else can do this for us. No document can do this for us. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation can do this for us. No Tennysonian or Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill can do this for us. If the Negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pen and ink of self-procited manhood his own emancipation. His own emancipation. I won't let anybody take your manhood. Be proud of our heritage, as somebody said earlier tonight. We don't have anything to be ashamed of. Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black, ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word black. There's always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word white. There's always something pure. Ah, please. But I want to get the language right tonight. I want to get the language so right that everybody here will cry out, yes, I'm black, I'm proud of it, I'm black and beautiful. SKIDROW. From the wall to the door. What you want to do? Do you want some hardcore? Do you like it raw? South Island, downtown LA. Skid Row Studios, motherfucker. Hello, this is Melvin Ishmael Johnson inviting you to listen to the Code Round Report Monday at 8 to 9 p.m. Pacific time at www.skidrowstudios.com. We discuss issues that's relevant to the Skid Row and downtown community. Tune in and check us out. Hello, this is Dark Mark of the Dark Mark Show and here's my sexy co-host Josie Katz. Hello, Dark Minions. Katz, the lighter side of the dark side, your weekly freak show every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Pacific time only on Skid Row Studios.com. Thanks for watching.