In 2021, 32 states and the federal government introduced legislation to ban or restrict the use of solitary confinement. At least six states passed bans and major restrictions, including Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
In 2021, the Connecticut General Assembly passed legislation to greatly reduce the use of solitary confinement in its prisons and jails, but Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed the bill, claiming it would create unsafe conditions for both inmates and staff, although data shows reducing the use of solitary increases safety for all. Instead, Lamont issued an executive order to address some of the concerns of advocates, who say they don’t go far enough and aren’t uniformly enforced.
The group Stop Solitary Connecticut, along with the formerly incarcerated, their family members and community advocates, are now working to pass the bill again with the inclusion of an oversight commission, as Connecticut is one of just a few states without one. At a Feb. 9 rally at the state Capitol on opening day of the 2022 legislative session, speakers emphasized that as Lamont, a Democrat, is running for re-election, he’s counting on support from voters in communities of color in cities where most incarcerated people live. One of the speakers at the rally was Ramon Garcia, a formerly incarcerated prison reform activist who shared his harrowing personal story of spending time in solitary and why he’s working to transform the system.
RAMON GARCIA: Good morning. So, I’ve been working with Stop Solitary for going on my second year, and it really hits close to home. When I was 18, it was when the states were replicating the federal crime bill in order to get funding. In 1999, Connecticut was exploding with the prison population. I was 18 years old; I was incarcerated for a violation of probation – a nonviolent offense.
So, they chained me up. They brought me to Hartford County Correctional. After being there for about a week in the gym, I was called, brought to shipping and receiving and told that I was being transferred due to the overcrowding. I had no idea where I was going. They chained me up, put me in a red jumper, and brought me all the way to Uncasville, Connecticut, which is by the casino. They had about a hundred people there on the gymnasium floor. There were people having seizures. There were people sick. There were fights breaking out and they only had two bathrooms for about a hundred people.
I ended up catching the flu and I woke up after about 16 hours with chaos around me, and I was going to urinate on myself, so I ran to the bathroom. I used the bathroom, I relieved myself, and the corrections officer said I violated safety and security.
A couple days later was my birthday. They called me down and told me I was going to solitary confinement for using the bathroom. This is supposed to be the place where they put the worst of the worst. So, they stripped me naked; they chained me up. There was a corrections officer that was making sexual statements toward me. He was telling me – not to get graphic – but to grab my stuff and then stuff my fingers into my mouth. From what I last heard this guy’s a lieutenant now.
So, they chained me up; they put me in the elevator, facing the corner, about five guards, and they stuck me in a dark room with no windows. I had no idea where I was at in the building, and they left me there about a week without a shower. They took me out one time to their small courtyard area, which is on the roof overlooking the highway. And I’ve never been the same since; I don’t like being in dark places; my emotional well-being has never been the same.
They create these conditions. Any time someone has an issue with their cellmate and you ask for a cell change, most of them will tell you – the supervisors – the only cell change you’re going to is solitary confinement. If you fight, you go to solitary confinement. So they create these conditions to get killed in there. They don’t care. They’ll put you in a cell with someone who’s doing a hundred years – a serial killer. And this happened to me. And for defending myself I was given extra charges.
At one time I was sent to chronic discipline where they make you take showers with chains. I had to use the phone one time a week with chains. And when we would go out to rec at 7 in the morning, even in the freezing cold, for about 40 minutes, they would me and my cellmate in a kennel – a real kennel – and as we walked back and forth a couple of feet, you could hear the shackles dragging on the floor. And this was for defending myself after bringing to their attention that I was scared for my life. And they did nothing.
So they do it nonchalantly. They weaponize the correction system, the racists. Most of them are from these rural areas and they never been in contact with people of color like myself, and they weaponize it, just like they do out here. And the majority of the people that’s in solitary confinement and what have you, they look like me, brown and Black people. So thank you for all the work that you do. (Applause)
For more information, visit Stop Solitary Connecticut at stopsolitaryct.org, Unlock The Box National Campaign unlocktheboxcampaign.org, Together To End Solitary at togethertoendsolitary.org and Stop Solitary ACLU at aclu.org/issues/
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