[00:00-01:30] COLOR BARS

ALONE: Teens in Solitary Confinement

FERNANDO GIRALDO, Chief of Probation, Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall:

[01:36] Imagine if your next-door neighbor was putting their child into a small room for five or six hours a day as a consequence for their behavior. And basically that's isolation. Now imagine the response of the neighbors around them or you, if that's what your neighbor was doing. I'm sure you would be calling police; you'd be calling protective services because that's abuse!

[02:02] Now, apply the same rule with the same response to institutions where that happens, frequently, not just five or six hours, but as we know, days, weeks, and months at a time. How come we don't apply that same value to the kids at juvenile hall? What's changed? They are still children. We're still isolating them...Those youth, they are still kids. No matter what they did, they are still kids.

TITLE CARD: ALONE: Teens in Solitary Confinement

TITLE CARD: Rikers Island, New York City

ROBERT COHEN, Former Medical Director, Rikers Island:

[03:00] The thought of having so many young men, particularly on Rikers Island in solitary confinement is extremely distressing to me...It is a remarkable fact that 27% of the adolescents on Rikers Island are in solitary confinement. It is more than 10 times what the various estimates are of the normal utilization in solitary confinement in the United States. I don't know if those numbers are reasonable, [03:30] but it is off the curve.

Most of these people have not been convicted anything or certainly sentenced, um, the reason that most of them are in jail is because they can't afford bail.

Some have said that this is not really segregation, it's not like the federal maximum security, but I've been to supermax prisons and I've been to Rikers Island and it is quite similar. [04:00]

The American Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry says you cannot put adolescents in solitary confinement. And there are prisons and jail systems throughout the world taking care of populations comparable to ours that don't use solitary confinement. But yet the first day ]as a board member I met with the warden at the adolescent facility. I said, "What are you doing? How can this be improved?" And they said, "More solitary confinement."

ISMAEL NAZARIO: Prison itself isn't a suitable living situation but solitary, the box, is far more worse.

ISMAEL NAZARIO: I had a Brooklyn robbery case I caught January 13, 2006...You're sixteen, up, you're going to Rikers. [04:50]

TITLE CARD: In New York state, all 16 year-olds are considered adults under state criminal law. If arrested, they can be housed in adult jails, no matter what the charge.

ISMAEL NAZARIO: Solitary confinement, the Box... I heard you know, people talking about coming out of the Box and saying that they're happy to be in population. And I was, I could never understand that. I could never understand that like, you're still in jail so how're you happy...? Couldn't understand that. Until I went, then I understood. [05:27]

TITLE CARD: As a teen, Ismael Nazario was sent to solitary for fighting and possessing tobacco. He spent more than 300 days in isolation before being convicted of any crime.

ISMAEL NAZARIO: Going in the Box, your mind just can't take it. Simply just can't take it. Some people do feel anxious. Some people just 'I gotta get outta here...I'm in here all day, I gotta get outta here, I gotta move around' Some people just can't take just sittin in a small space all day, everyday. That's a lot. [06:00] That's a lot and that's brutal on a person's mind also. That's brutal, brutal punishment.

Like your eyes start to play tricks on you. You know, like you you start seeing black dots and you like focus on them and it's kind of crazy, it looks crazy you know if I was to sit here and like demonstrate it how it used to look, it looks crazy. [06:30] It's like you see the black dots and you focus on the black dots and your eyes are just following them around in the cell all over. You're just looking and you know you're trying to escape seeing the black dots but you can't, the black dots is there. There's really no black dots there you know. It's crazy.

If there's like nobody to really talk to on the gate, you speak it out loud, start talking to yourself. You know, [07:00] speak it out loud, just start pacing back and forth like, "Yo this is crazy, yo word when I was in the street yo it was real yo, da da da da da. Yo damn son, look at me? I'm in the Box right now, this shit is crazy yo, what the fuck? Yo but damn though tomorrow though, on my visit, I can't wait until tomorrow, yo this is what I'm gonna say like, ‘Yeah, what's goin' on like ahh.." Like that. It's crazy. [07:32] You become loony. You become loony. There's no doubt about that.

I mean you hear people screaming. You hear people screaming, "Get me the fuck out of here. Get me out of here!" Kickin' his cell door, "Get me out of here. I don't want to fuckin be in here! CO I'm gonna hang it up!" You become your own worst enemy in the Box.

TITLE CARD: Half of all suicides among detained teens happen while young inmates are in solitary confinement.

JUAN MÉNDEZ, United Nations Commission on Human Rights: [08:07] My main concern is the use of solitary confinement. I want to be able to see those facilities and I want to be able to talk to people who are in isolation.

The number of people in solitary confinement in the United States is by far the largest in in the world.

In legal terms, The Convention on the Rights of the Child [08:30] specifically says that solitary confinement for young offenders is prohibited. It's prohibited as a matter of international law. Uh and it's not capricious, it's because the medical and the psychiatric literature demonstrates that young offenders suffer isolation in very different and much worse forms than adults.

TITLE CARD: The U.N. considers the solitary confinement of young offenders torture.

ISMAEL NAZARIO: [09:14] You know they don't want certain things exposed, they don't want people to see how, you know, these folks are actually living inside. That's why they don't want -- probably more than likely they don't want anybody coming in is because they don't want to see -- you know, especially they don't want anybody to see the damage it's doing to the people as well.

TITLE CARD: The New York City Department of Correction declined all interview requests and refused to let cameras record the teen solitary confinement units.

NORMAN SEABROOK, President, NYC correction officers union: Until you've walked in the shoes of a correction officer inside the city's jail system, please don't pass judgment on us because you know what? [10:00] It's a tough job. Every day that you cross that bridge to come to work, you take your life in your hands. There is no second chance when you're a New York City correction officer. You go into the belly of the beast and you handle whatever comes your way.

Some people would say punitive segregation is barbaric. It's not barbaric when the inmate that is in punitive segregation took a cup of 190-degree water [10:30] that he was supposed to be using to make his coffee with and doused another inmate to where the inmate's skin is peeling off of his face. It's not barbaric on our part to put him in punitive segregation. We're putting him there to protect himself and others from the harm that he brings.

They have so much testosterone that they are just -- it's flying off the walls. And these guys are going at it. They're going and going and going and going like the Energizer rabbit [11:00] they just don't stop. And sometimes you have to use force. And when you use force, I instruct my officers, use whatever force is necessary to terminate that threat.

Punitive segregation, that is our only way to ensure that you follow rules and regulations in the jail because if we allow you to commit whatever infractions that you want, then it's okay for me just to [11:30] assault you every single day and nothing happens to you. We fought vigorously to ensure that those that commit infractions in the city's jail system are sentenced to punitive segregation time.

TITLE CARD: Teens at Rikers are routinely sent to solitary for "horseplay" or if they "annoy" guards.

LORENZO STEELE JR., Former Rikers correction officer: Those are the rules. You broke the rules, you could be placed in a solitary confinement unit. [12:00] So it's not like an inmate was just put there without a reason.

People knew I was a photographer, so you would have officers that retire. We'd have parties. I used to bring my camera.

These are actual pictures that I gathered while working on Rikers Island in C74 at the adolescent detention center. These are pictures that I've taken over 12 years of my life [12:30] and each picture tells a story and with this story my mission is to try to deter youth from going to jail.

Eight feet by 6 foot cell I could stick both hands out and actually touch both sides of the wall, so it's a very small space. And it gets smaller if you're locked in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. If you have that inmate that's abusive to staff, [13:00] he must be separated from everybody else. What if he's abusive to other inmates? What if he just can't survive in general population? There must be some areas like that, but to be locked in for 23 hours, [13:30] that's when it gets tricky. What are you really trying to do to me? Are you rehabilitating me, or are you trying to destroy me mentally. Twenty-three hours locked anywhere is, you know, not right.

My son violated probation and he actually went to the same prison that I used to work at. I forgot who the officer was but it was like, "Yo, your son is here." You know, how was he going to handle solitary confinement?

TITLE CARD: At 17, Steele's son spent two months in solitary confinement at Rikers.

LORENZO STEELE JR.: [14:06] Adults may know how to handle certain situations mentally, but imagine a young child that is locked in the area sometimes the size of a bathroom. How does he mentally cope with that, being in that cell sometimes for two months, three months, four months.

Sometimes they don't lock dogs up for that period of time. Could you imagine somebody locking a dog up for 23 hours? [14:30] Could you imagine PETA and all those people protesting? But we can't do that for a human being that's locked up for 23 hours, something is wrong

TITLE CARD: Santa Cruz, CA

ANONYMOUS TEEN: [15:14] I'm seventeen years old and we're in room 13 of B Unit, in Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall. The first time I was here it was for assault with a deadly weapon, the second time I was here it was for a probation violation.

SARA RYAN, Superintendent, Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall: The last time he was here there was an incident where he was assaultive toward staff and he had flooded his room and so there's water on the floor, he had thrown his tray.

ANONYMOUS TEEN: I was pissed off, so I pushed a staff and I kinda slipped and then I got tackled and like landed in like they had to hold me and I was like in a face of water you know.

SARA RYAN: [16:00] Out of that he was placed in solitary confinement, he was in the isolation room. He could have been in and out of there for 30 days. We were struggling with him...

[GUITAR MUSIC]

SARA RYAN: The goal is always to get the youth back into full program, and so how can we do that? And how can we do it safely?

SPENCER: the ability to treat somebody like a human and to really work with them on a personal level, [16:30] of course you are going to get better. You are going to build a better relationship, and you are going to avoid more incidents than if you treat somebody like an anonymous face. We don't treat people just like they are inmates. We treat them how we'd like to be treated. Respect goes a very long way.

SARA RYAN: I was concerned, you're taking a kid who has a history of violence, he's strong, we've had issues and basically, you're handing him a weapon, [17:00] you're handing him a big tool. But staff gave me feedback in terms of, no, this is his passion and he's not going to harm a musical instrument. And so I had to trust staff that what they were saying to me, that they knew this person, that they'd gotten to know this individual and that was true.

I am getting his compliance. I mean, he's got something to work toward, I have that a little bit of trust and out of that [17:30] my staff aren't being injured, we're not having to restrain him. It's easy, it's a win-win for me as a superintendent

KELSEY: The staff are really supportive of it actually it's they're always saying "Oh you should put put whatever" and I'm watching TV and they say "oh you should play the acoustics, get back here and get practicing" and I'm like, it's nice because they support me in music.

SARA RYAN: You have to be able to give a little bit and trust a little bit and give the youth some space and see if they're going to, you know, step up.

FERNANDO: [18:00] The idea that isolation is a time to think or a timeout, I think it's a myth. I think it's only in the most extreme cases that you use that and again that has to have checks and balances and that would be when someone's really violent, hurt themselves to the point of possible serious injury or serious injury on others. But that would be the exception. Anything else would be just the wrong thing to do.

TITLE CARD: Teens placed in isolation here are usually out in fewer than three days. Santa Cruz Juvenile Hall is considered a national model.

TITLE CARD: New York City

TITLE CARD: Nazario is now a case manager for teens and adults coming out of Rikers.

ISMAEL NAZARIO: [19:02] You've got to work your way up to where they're at all right? This is your first time every being in this group. You gotta work your way up there, all right?

Being in the Box as a teenager you know going through all of this, it took a toll on me mentally, only because it's like damn, I'm a teenager, I shouldn't have to be dealing with all of this. I'm a kid. Like, I'm a kid. [19:30] Like, yeah, I don't care how grown I may think I am, but I'm still a kid. You know, like, why would you want to put a kid through this?

I'll explain my experience with my daughter. Especially my experiences of being incarcerated being in the Box, you know, what did, how it looked. You know. Also to put them in the, [20:00] mindset, you know, this is where you all don't need to land yourself, daddy already did that, I was there, you know. I saw it first hand. I witnessed it, I've been through it. Go this way. That way is better. That way? No good.

TITLE CARD: There are currently thousands of teens in solitary confinement nationwide.

TITLE CARD: New York state prisons recently agreed to ban solitary confinement for inmates younger than 18. But this doesn't apply to Rikers or other New York jails. [20:35]

(Credits)