Dehumanized Nation

Public - Dehumanized Nation

By Lee Savage

The following is an excerpt from a letter I penned shortly after being placed on restrictive status (also known as “strip status”) for the infraction of “participating in a disturbance.” My crime was giving a speech to my quad (housing unit) on the insidious “psychological reprogramming” of the women being held captive in “CM”. The initials CM stand for Close Management, which is the highest classification of custody below Death Row. CM is also the name of the Special Housing Unit (SHU) in which these particular women are forced to live in conditions that may include 24 or 23 hour isolation.

I am one such female living in 24 hour solitary confinement 4 days per week and 23 hrs. 45 min. the other 3 days. The fifteen minutes out of my cell is for a shower, if given to me, for even showers can be denied at the officer’s discretion. I am now, due to this and other speeches, a “Level II”. My custody has been increased and I will be confined to my cell without any privileges until February 9th 2009 (I was given 120 more days added onto my original October date). This form of torture includes but is not limited to, severe restriction of movement, the removal of personal and state issued property (in varying degrees), alienation—the inability to socially interact with others, the denial of access to the phone and revoking visitation privileges with family members, educational programs and materials being withheld, and no canteen privileges. All these tactics combined, plus others not mentioned, are used to break one’s spirit and self-will so conformity can be achieved. Also so there will be no cohesion to other inmates, no acts of free-thinking, and to instill fear of greater repercussions for continued non-compliance.

Public - Dehumanized Nation

By Sean Swain with additions by Abigail D.

Stanley Milgram, a Harvard Psychology intern working on his master’s degree, could not accept conventional wisdom. After the trial for Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961, Milgram wondered if it was fair to hold people accountable who were just following orders. Were they truly accomplices or just obeying authority? Twenty years earlier, the Nazis had turned Europe into one large mass grave--and not just the Nazi party and the German military. The German people had participated to some lesser or greater degree. Gypsies, Jews, Slavs, Poles, homosexuals, and others, marched to death camps and were coldly exterminated under the noses of the German people with little more than a peep of protest. The process of serial, wholesale murder had been kept about as secret as the weather. Germans could look out their windows and see it in its full technicolor reality. But few lifted a finger to oppose it. Most participated, if not actively, then with passive cooperation, sweeping the ashes of the dead off their proverbial doorsteps.

Public - Dehumanized Nation

by Eric Jensen

The first thing necessary to begin any day in the clink is a fun dose of reality. For instance, let’s assume you had been having a pleasant dream about life, love and liberty, or perhaps just eating a cheeseburger. Upon waking, you would initially question the veracity of your surroundings. Surely you are not actually in a cell. Surely you are not destined to remain in a cell for the rest of your so-called life... Ok. Turns out you are.

The second thing you must do is convince yourself that your cement bed is not an adequate place to burn daylight. Or is it? Perhaps in ten minutes you’ll feel differently. Nope. The dull roar you hear ­outside your matchbox coincides annoyingly with the vibrations threatening to shake you from your sheets. You stumble forth, mentally preparing yourself to deal with the idiot circus without. This is best accomplished with a cup of coffee and a gallon of patience in hand.

Public - Dehumanized Nation

by Robert Saleem Holbrook

When I was a child I used to often walk past the old Eastern State Penitentiary on Fairmount Avenue in North Philadelphia and stare in awe at its high walls and ramparts seemingly towering into the sky believing naivety that the old prison was an ancient castle from the days of knights and kings. There were times myself and other kids my age used to try and scale the walls to get a glimpse of what was inside, how ironic it is that now for the past 18 years I’ve been trying to figure out how to scale out of the numerous prisons I’ve been imprisoned in since the age of 16.

I’ve often sat in my cell in total isolation and solitude attempting to figure out what bought me to this point in my life where at the age of 34 I’ve been imprisoned for 18 years with the rest of my life destined for the same thing. During three years of confinement in the state’s control unit (Special Management Unit) at SCI-Greene I had the unique opportunity to actually back track practically every poor decision. I made in my life that eventually culminated in my imprisonment. When you are locked down for 23 hours a day seven days a week you have the ability to engage in such personal adventures in discovery.