Inmates Sue State Over Use Of Solitary Confinement
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A group of prison inmates has sued the Illinois Department of Corrections, seeking what they say is a more reasonable use of solitary confinement.
According to the federal lawsuit, on any given day, 2,300 of the state's 48,000 inmates are held in isolation, some for years.
"That means you're in a cell between 22 and 24 hours a day, without meaningful social contact," said Alan Mills, executive director of the Uptown People's Law Center, which filed the lawsuit along with attorneys from the Winston & Strawn law firm.
Those who have been in isolation have said a perfectly sane person will go crazy in isolation, and the mentally ill just get worse.
"No one I know has come out of long-term isolation without being severely mentally injured," Mills said.
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Brian Nelson, a convicted murderer, said he spent 23 years in solitary confinement at the now-shuttered Tamms Correctional Center, and it messed him up pretty bad.
"I never saw a psychiatrist. I had never needed psychotropic medication. I had never thought about suicide. By the time I left Tamms, I was on five different types of psychotropic medication. I had paced – from what they audited or monitored – 18 hours every day, and they had to cut blood blisters off my feet," he said.
Nelson was released from prison five years ago, but he said he still often hides out in a small dark room in his basement.
"We all have a little closet somewhere. I've got a place in the basement where I go hide. It's pitch black, and I just sit there, and I cry," he said.
