‘Your brain starts turning against itself’

Amos Caley, 35, is associate pastor of the Reformed Church of Highland Park and the state organizer for the New Jersey Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (NJ-CAIC). He works vigorously to advocate for the eradication of solitary confinement in New Jersey, especially for vulnerable populations.

Taylor Davis: Can you please define solitary confinement for people who do not know what it is? What are the conditions and why is it used?

Amos Caley: It has a wide range of uses in terms of how it’s justified. But the similarities for all these different housing procedures is that an incarcerated person will be placed in a cell that’s roughly 7-by-9 foot, or 6-by-10 foot or 6-by-9 foot. If you can just think of a small bathroom, alone or with another person, for an average of 23 hours a day. In some cases, people are placed in isolation for an entire week and then given a multiple hour [recreational] time. Rec time might mean a courtyard kind of situation. In some cases, it’s literally a cage outside.

Its uses are justified as institutional safety. So if someone is proving to be a risk or threatening other people; they can be placed in there for swearing at an officer. They can be placed in there for trying to kill someone. The range is pretty far.

But we know that the majority of people who are incarcerated suffer some form of mental illness. We are also talking about using the procedure to treat mental illness. It actually exacerbates mental illness.

TD: When did you become interested in the issue of solitary confinement?

AC: For a long time, I’ve been interested in issues of racial justice and justice for immigrants. That’s what in many ways led me to this position at this church, which is a church that is a really strong advocate for all issues related to racialized oppression. In grad school I was studying a lot of things related to U.S. involvement in suppressing liberation movements, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. I was also working with people who were returning citizens coming out of jail and immigrants who had been detained in the state.

It became sort of manifestly obvious that people were not returning better than they had been. I like to call our system not a justice system, but a punishment system. We have a criminal punishment system. That as a general approach to public health or criminal justice is ineffective.

TD: How have you been an activist for the issue of solitary confinement?

AC: I’m an activist in the way that I work on contract with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, which is based in Washington D.C. They fund grassroots organizations or movements to end torture everywhere.

For the last five years I’ve been the state organizer for the New Jersey Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, which is actually a self-made coalition. My job is to convene that group and do a lot of the administrative work.

TD: Do you know anyone personally that has been held in solitary confinement? If so, how has it affected the person?

AC: Yeah, I know a bunch of people. Some of them have said it has hurt them irreparably. Some of them have said they basically have the symptoms of PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].

TD: Why should people look at solitary confinement as a threat to health?

AC: Well, many people don’t regard incarceration in general as a threat to health. We don’t care as a society what happens in prison.

When people are placed in solitary confinement they have limited access to everything. All of their access to medical health, mental health, and follow-up screenings are severed. So if you have a persistent mental health issue and you end up in solitary confinement, the likelihood of you having the ability to access mental health screenings and services is minimized if not completely destroyed.

It’s very much a health issue when you have people who are old and need a lot more constant mental health attention and medical attention.

The large majority of suicides that happen in prisons happen in solitary confinement. People find ways to kill themselves.

Our bill, A-314, the features of that bill is that for vulnerable populations, as in people with exacerbated mental health issues, chronic medical conditions, developmental disabilities, variant gender or sexual identities, pregnant women, if they’re over the age of 65 or over the age of 25, none of them can be placed in solitary confinement. There is a complete prohibition for placing these people in solitary confinement for more than 24 hours.

TD: Why is solitary confinement considered torture?

AC: The U.N.’s special rapporteur on torture in 2011, his name is Juan Mendez, he did an exhaustive study of solitary confinement not just in the United States but in the world. And his findings were completely conclusive and actually led to a convention against torture by the United Nations. The U.S. has yet to sign on to that convention.

Juan Mendez has basically said that the United States conducts torture. He says beyond 15 days the irreparable harm on a human being amounts to torture. Because your brain starts turning against itself.

TD: Under what conditions should solitary confinement be used if at all?

AC: I would say emergency situations. I wouldn’t call it solitary confinement because I always think of solitary confinement as some punitive, excessive thing. I don’t think it should ever be used. Because it’s ineffective.

TD: What do you think will work?

AC: There are other alternatives that are being explored in many cases. Like in Colorado they’re upping the amount of money they’re spending on mental health and they’re decreasing the amount of time they’re putting people in isolation and they’re decreasing the amount of units that they’re using for isolation. And they’re finding that it’s very effective.

TD: How can people help to end solitary confinement and what actions should they take?

AC: The things that people can do if you’re not in New Jersey is to engage in culture-shaping movements. Talking about the racial history of mass incarceration and linking that to the torture of certain bodies that are disposable while other bodies are very valuable. We would never put a certain type of affluent white person in long-term solitary confinement. Why is that?

In New Jersey, we have a bill that we were able to pass through both houses of the legislator last cycle. The name of the bill is the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act. We got it all the way to Christie’s desk. And that’s when he vetoed it, which we assumed it would. But the new governor, Phil Murphy, said that he will sign the bill if we can get it to his desk.

If you’re in New Jersey, call your legislator.