#257
Reply I.D. Blog4HR

Readers, please like & share this on your facebook pages with friends, media & jsonline.com/timetoheal

Solitary Confinement in WI Prisons: Still Crazy, After All These Years created 2 April 2017

by Nate A. Lindell #303724 W.S.P.F. P.O. Box 9900 Boscobel, WI 53805

Jamar Cunningham (D.O.C. $5700268) is 27 years old, 5'8"... and weighs 112 pounds. At the age of seven he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (B.P.D., a.k.a, manic-depression), Thus began his life of entering and exiting the revolving doors of the state's mental-health and juvenile-detention facilities.
He and his twin sister experienced severe childhood trauma. When I asked him to describe the trauma (we speak through the vent that connects our cells) he anxiously replied, "I don't wanna talk about it!" They were and are both diagnosed with acute and chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (P.T.S.D.).
Males, however, tend to respond to childhood trauma differently than females, (1) acting in anti-social ways that evoke little sympathy from a system as a whole in America that prefers to punish rather than heal people. Inevitably, Jamar wound up in prison, convicted of battering another prisoner while he was in jail for assaulting a psych-care tech (p.c.t.) in the WI Resource Center (W.R.C.), a psych. facility for solitary confinement, a.k.a "Restrictive Housing" (R.H.).
Despite WI Dept. of Corrections (W.D.O.C.) spokesman Tristan Cook's occasional announcements that the W.D.O.C. doesn't keep mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement and "cares" about prisoners' mental health, the facts reveal otherwise, (2) including the facts in Jamar's case.
While Jamar is clearly depressed (he only weighs 112 pounds
(signed authorization by Mr. Cunningham granting this use/publication of his information is attached.)
F.N. 1 As discussed in A Mother's Touch: Surviving Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse, by Julie A. Brand, Trafford: Victoria, B.C., pp. 154-55.
F.N. 2 See, e.g., "Supermax: Psychologist alleges Dept. of Corrections retaliation," a 2013 post on www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/
because he's too depressed to eat), he's also diagnosed with a schizophrenic personality disorder. He's prescribed five different psych. meds, but only takes three of them, refusing to take lithium for example, against his psychiatrist's advice.
Despite the W.D.O.C's supposed policy of not housing prisoners with serious mental illness(es) (s.m.i.c.(s)) in solitary confinement, Jamar has been held in such at the WI Secure Program Facility (W.S.P.F.) since Jan. 2015.
Three times he was found not guilty by reason of insanity (N.G.I.) for assaults on staff, twice for assaults on p.c.t.s. at W.R.C., once on a guard at the Waupun Correctional Institution (W.C.I.). The third time Jamar pled N.G.I., the D.A. didn't even go to trial: he agreed that Jamar was N.G.I. and dismissed the charges on the condition that Jamar went to therapy twice a month, which was half as often as he was seen by prison psych.
For years the W.D.O.C. has labeled Jamar as an M.H.I.A., meaning he has at least one s.m.i. and Pysch Services Unit (P.S.U.) staff must see him at least once a week. But here he is in solitary confinement, three cells down from me, on the most restrictive unit that W.S.P.F. has.
After hanging himself on Friday mid-January, he was held in "obs. status" (suicide watch), in a cold cell, without any clothing other than a kevlar "suicide-proof" smock, in a cell soiled with past residents' body wastes and food. They let him ou ton Monday. That Wednesday he severely cut open his left forearm with a sharpened washer he found, resulting in a trip to the hospital, 15 stitches, nerve damage, and continuing physical therapy. As punishment for cutting himself, P.S.U. kept him in obs status for 10 days. His assigned psychologist, Ms. Memieux, told him that every time he tried to or did hurt himself they'd keep him in obs. status longer.
"Sometimes I don't know if I'm real," Jamar recently told me through the vent that connects our cells, "I think I'm a cartoon character, that little Martian in Bugs Bunny cartoons."
When I asked him how he felt in that cell - approximately 6' x 12', gray concrete floor, white walls and ceiling, slit along the top of the back cell's wall with a window allowing us to see pipes and ductwork, (3) His response was, "This ain't real." After a couple moments he said, "They're lucky I'm not in my reincarnation phase."
He avoids even looking in guards; faces, as he's afraid he'll lose control and his 112-pound body will try to hurt them. This is something I've heard from other prisoners, who aren't diagnosed as s.m.i., yet sure seemed to be so. Guards are always taking something, whether it's a ketchup pack we saved from our tray to use with a later meal or a photo of our loved ones beyond the allowed limit (5), they are the puppets for the would-be Orwellian administration here, which is still - despite W.S.P.F. "no longer" being a "supermax" - striving to brainwash prisoners into being "compliant" by using Biderman's Coercion Techniques that are deemed to be "torture" (4_
P.S.U. staff told Jamar that if he does "the program: - i.e. the High-Risk-Offender Program (.H.R.O.P.), which applies all of Biderman's Coercion Techniques, they'll let him go back to W.R.C. after six months.
Even sane (ish) prisoners have difficulty doing the H.R.O.P., the standards in which are arbitrary, based on staffs' whims (and schemes - they always seem to put enemies around each other, who then fight get kicked out of the H.R.O.P., and must start the process again). Those in the H.R.O.P. must fill out over a dozen repetitive booklets and packets of paperwork, strictly obey hosts of petty rules (e.g. no taping a calendar or anything to your wall, keeping your shirt on while at outdoor rec., not saving condiments from meal trays for alter use), and not react to guards' efforts to rile you (e.g. by calling you a "bitch", slamming the hammer-head sized bolt that doubly secures the trapdoor in our doors through which meals, etc. are passed in/out.
Many sane(ish) prisoners have been in and out of the H.R.O.P. for years, some (e.g. James Terry) for over a decade. Staff put such prisoners

F.N.3 A very accurate drawing of one of the larger cells at W.S..F. can be seen at Em Daer, Vol. 1, pg. 10, on HTTP://prisoninmates.com/NateLindell303724
F.N. 4 Go to HTTP://www.afsc.org, find their survivors manual: Surviving in Solitary, which at pages 57-58 has a chart explaining how Biderman's Coercion Techniques are applied to prisoners.

in a lose-lose situation, as they did with me in 2010 (5). Then they kick the prisoner out and make him beg to be allowed back in their torture program.
These are all Biderman's Coercion Tactics, described as torture in a 1973 Amnesty International Report (see source in F.N.4, above and ar used by abusive spouses (see HTTP://www.refocus.org/coerchrt.html).
After Jamar cut his arm open, on the 2nd of March 2017, someone from W.R.C. came to see him. That official upgraded Jamar's M.H.I.A. to an M.H.I.B., meaning Jamar was deemed to have severe mental illnesses, needed to be seen twice a week by P.S.U. staff. That official said the warden here and the security director agreed to fast-track Jamar out to go to W.R.C. ... if W.R.C. staff agreed to that, the three p.c.t.s Jamar battered - with his anorexic body - several years ago.
Apparently those p.c.t.s. did not agree, because the recently arrived current and former head of P.S.U. here (the guy who did my I.Q. test) dropped Jamar's mental-health classification down to M.H.I.A. again, which still requires that Jamar be set out of W.S.P.F., but it hints that what happened in the article noted in F.N.2, above, is afoot.
The returned P.S.U. head - Dr. Scott Rubin-Asch - told Jamar, however, that he (Dr. Rubin-Asch) was arranging for Jamar to be sent either to W.R.C. or "another institution."
You can't believe what prison psych staff say, as exemplified in these two posts on my blog:
* posted 3 May 2016, "An Example of a Wisconsin D.O.C. Psychologist Deliberately Misdiagnosing a PRisoner to Justify Denying Treatment for P.T.S.D.," and;
* posted July 2016, "WI Prison Psychologists Falsely Accused Me of Misconduct & Diagnosed Me As Narcissistic to Punish Me for Helping Mistreated Inmates File Complaints & Lawsuits."
Keep in mind that the P.S.U. staff Jamar was dealing with here.

F.N.5 That situation is detailed in Em Daer, vol. 1, too. See F.N.3 It is why I will never again even try to do the H.R.O.P.

wanted him to participate in a torture program, for six months, before they'd provide psychologically appropriate housing, which would be mandatory if he was still deemed M.H.I.B.
Jamar's story could be lifted from the pages of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's series "A Time to Heal" (see HTTP://www.jsonline.com/timetoheal), except he's male, not photo - and lithogenic enough to have his story told by them. Our prison system is geared to punish, to degrade, and W.R.C. too is tainted with that mentality, (6) which does not work with someone like Kamar, who's already been severely abused/punished and recognizes and lashes out at it immediately (hence his assaults on W.R.C. staff).
For reasons similar to Jamar, I too have P.T.S.D., which leads me to boil over at any abuse. No surprise then that I've spent over 14 years at W.S.P.F., in solitary confinement.
Farther down the hall, on range two of Alpha unit, where Jamar and I reside, there's another prisoner with s.m.i. Well, he was deemed M.H.I.A when he arrived here. Then the same P.S.U. staff (i.e. Dr. Stacey Hoem) who insisted Jamar do the H.R.O.P. dropped this guy's M.H.I.A. down to M.H.1. The guy is Michael Hormon (D.O.C. #267028), and he takes three potent psych meds: Wellbutrin, Seroquel and just switched Haldol for Abilify. Mike told em that "From the time I wake up until I go to sleep I hear voices telling me to 'Kill yourself!" "Kill! Kill! Kill!" and that he's constantly punching himself in his head to try and silence the voices.
"You're not crazy," Dr. Hoem told him, smiling, Mike told me. "You just wanna be crazy."
Folks, san people would be unconscious taking the meds these guys take.
Seems that not only the captives here go crazy.
There's only a couple hundred beds at W.R.C., by the way, and they're always full. So, if Jaar is sent there, he'll need to strap on his straight-jacket, rock back and forth while he waits for his turn.

F.N.6 As revealed in "Supervisor was hired despite troubled past," by Jason Stein, A1, A10 of the 27 April 2017 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI's pysch.-care facilities habitually hire former prison staff as supervisors

If he's sent to "another institution," there's a fair chance he'll be kept in solitary confinement there,e possibly in worse conditions than those here, (7) because the punitive mentality of prison staff will lead to violent conflicts with Jamar.
The moral stupidity and evil of this scenario should bother you, but, if not, think of all the money spent for medical expenses alone (for Jamar and those he's assaulted) due to this sick yearning to punish and degrade humans who need... a time to heal too.

Readers: please like & share this on your facebook pages. Let these media outlets know about it too:

info@adoptaninmate.org / facebook.com/AdoptAnInmate
Jana@cjt.inc.org
cgrueskin@themarshallproject.org
facebook.com/PrisonReformMovement
letters@time.com
wsjcity@madison.com
support@actionnetwork.org
jsmetro@jrn.com
editor@prisonlegalnews.org
wisconsinwatch.org
wisdomforjustice@gmail.com

Please help me by ordering postage-embossed envelopes & paper from WIinmatepackage.com 855-247-6093
items #6501017 $2.25 (only one)
& #6515453 $2.95 (up to six)
My debts form using don't allow me to buy my own.
Thanks!