For Immediate Release

Please post as an Op Ed piece or Letter to the Editor

February 21, 2010

Contact: Robert Bothen

207-776-4695 rokinrobbie@hotmail.com

MAINE PRISONER ADVOCACY COALITION (M-PAC) POSITION STATEMENT

LD 1611: An Act to Ensure Humane Treatment of Special Management Unit Prisoners 

Following is the M-PAC position statement presented to the Maine Legislative Criminal Justice Committee at their hearing on February 17, 2010 for LD 1611.
                                                                                                                  

Robert Bothen                                                 Pat Finn

Northern Regional MPAC Coordinator           Southern Regional MPAC Coordinator

                                               _____________________                                                           

In 1973 a consent decree was issued by Federal Justice Gignoux addressing issues of access to mail, disciplinary procedural rights, and conditions of solitary confinement or segregation. Inmates were receiving months of arbitrary isolation in segregation, often six months to nearly a year.  Justice Gignoux placed limits upon those placed in segregation from 10 days for misdemeanors and 30 days for felonies.  The inmate charged was entitled to be heard by the disciplinary committee at his request and be allowed up to 48 hrs to prepare for the disciplinary matter.  He was allowed to choose an inmate or staff member to assist him in his preparations, a person approved by the warden, and who would serve voluntarily. 

                The Inmate Council of the time was recognized by judge Gignoux and specifically designated to provide names of volunteers approved by the Council to the warden of Council Substitutes and staff to advocate and assist the inmates in their preparations and presentation.  In the later seventies another Federal Court order stated that all inmate organizations, be they elected inmate representatives or the Jaycees, Alcoholics Anonymous or religious groups, were subject to the approval of prison administrations, and thus could be denied were the administration to deem them a "Security Risk"  In 1980, Director of Corrections Donald Allen led a "Lockdown" of the Thomaston prison and disbanded the council, sending by "Punitive Transfer" to SuperMax prisons elsewhere in the country three members of the Inmates Council.  Warden Richard Oliver at Thomaston resigned in protest of the Augusta led assault.  This was the largest State Police action in the history of the State of Maine.    

            When the Department of Corrections was separated from the Commission of Mental Health and Corrections to become its own Commission, Donald Allen appeared before the Governor’s committee as the designated choice for the position of Commissioner by then Governor Brennan.  Despite testimony of former Boys Training Center clients of abuse directly at the hands of Don Allen in the early days of his career and as Superintendent, and his documented abuse in newspapers of the sixties, he was crowned the Corrections Czar, continuing to direct repressive policies and denial of inmates’ rights, many who were now adults having already been subjected to his abuse earlier at the Boys Training Center.      
            About 1985 the Commission of Corrections sought to have the Judge Gignoux’s restrictions regarding Segregation practices "vacated."  With no existing Inmate Council or representative legal counsel in behalf of the aggrieved parties – the prisoners – this was easily given approval by the Justice system.  In the early nineties, the segregation unit at the Maine State Prison of Thomaston was relocated to the forest of Warren in a new 150 bed facility entitled the Special Management Unit, six miles away from the prison and well removed from tourist Route 1. Segregation sentences returned again not to be measured in simply months, but years.      
            Before the entire prison was relocated alongside the Special Management unit within ten years, prisoner Kenny Moore had been in segregation for approximately 18 months.  Ken managed to get hold of a razor, broke it open and deeply cut the word "PAIN" across his chest.  Months after that he requested law books, which had to be provided, only to tear out the pages and somehow he possessed a lighter and attempted self-immolation.  He lives but is scarred for life.       
            Michael James was in segregation over a year when he started backing up the length of his cell and running to ram his head into the food slot of the door repeatedly, often knocking himself out and causing bald spots and permanent deep indentations in his skull.  Following this he would show his contempt for the guards by defecating in his milk cartons and tossing his excrement out the slot whenever he could smear a passing officer. Guards would deliberately go by to receive this and then have pictures taken.  They charged him with nearly ten counts of assault having him tried in Rockland to receive an additional twelve years.  He is now in the Augusta Mental Health unit probably never to again regain sanity     
            Guards continue to manipulate prisoners often threatening them with SMU to "Rat," inform on other prisoners, a coercion that faces inmates with the dishonor among the prisoner population guaranteed to bring reprisals and harm.  Denial of Good Time and participation in programs to receive earlier release are constantly used against prisoners by guards to achieve control and arbitrary manipulation.  None of these opportunities (i.e. Good Time and Programs) are available to those suffering segregation, no radios or TVs and limited or no social contact.

            We of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition (M-PAC) request that the simple compassion of the standards as decreed by Justice Gignoux once again be enacted.  The Disciplinary rights of the Consent Decree should again be resumed to assure due process with – if not by a reestablished Inmate Council – members of staff or inmates chosen to serve as assistants and advocates by the currently established Long Timers Group, the NAACP, and The Prisoner Veterans organization.  We recommend that the Prison Board of Visitors review disciplinary cases and be mandated to review by appeal of those inmates aggrieved to investigate charges of system abuse and mistaken segregation measures. Time in Solitary is damaging and counter to the role of "Corrections."   The limits established under the Gignoux Consent Decree should resume.
            It was Senator John McCain who claimed that of all the tortures he received by those running the "Hanoi Hilton," including the beatings, the starvation and broken bones, water tortures, and sleep deprivation; the worse was the unknowing of his time in Solitary Confinement,  wondering when and if he would ever have human contact again.
            Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of the classic Russian novel, Crime and Punishment stated, "The degree of civilization in a society can be measured by viewing its prisons."  The civility of our Maine State Prison System measures very poorly.


Suggested reading: The U.S. Congress House Committee on Crime; "Reform of our Correctional Systems: A Report by the Select Committee on Crime."  U.S. Govt.1973
           

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