As inmates in California prisons completed the first of a three-week hunger strike in protest of that state’s solitary confinement in Special Housing Units, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, today affirmed its solidarity with the strikers and reiterated its stance against the use of solitary confinement in American prisons and jails.
“Prisoners in solitary confinement are often held in a cell by themselves for 23 hours a day,” said Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, T’ruah’s Director of North American Programs. “Some prisoners are kept in these conditions for months, years or even decades. In California, of the 10,000 prisoners in solitary confinement, more than 500 inmates have been held for more than 10 years. The consensus of the human rights community is that prolonged solitary confinement is torture. The toll on the mentally ill and juveniles is particularly dire.”
The striking California prisoners are asking for several changes including: an end to prolonged solitary confinement, a ban on the practice of withholding food or providing inedible food as punishment to prisoners, allowing regular access to sunlight, permitting one photo a year from family or friends, granting one phone call per week, and allowing participation in correspondence courses. The state agreed to most of the demands during a 2011 hunger strike but failed to implement the measures.
Kahn-Troster continued:
“In Genesis, we read: ‘It is not good for a human to be alone.’ From the very beginning of human existence, there is an awareness that people are social creatures, designed to be in community with others. Genesis also teaches us that every human being – no matter what their behavior might be – is created in God’s image, b’tzelem elohim, and therefore to subject another human to mental or physical torture is degrading the divine. The use of solitary confinement in California violates both the American value of humane incarceration and the Jewish commandment against excessive or degrading punishment.”
T’ruah believes California and all other states must invest in humane alternatives that address the mental health needs of prisoners in a way that effectively contributes both to their rehabilitation and to their successful transition back into society. Holding prisoners in solitary confinement units is significantly more expensive than keeping them in the general prison population and instituting humane alternatives makes sense, both financially and morally.
“T’ruah calls on California, all other states and the federal prison system to end prolonged solitary confinement.” Kahn-Troster said. “It is costly, inhumane and ineffective; it harms prisoners and our communities.”