Administrative Confinement in WISCONSIN-a dirty little secret

atWhat is AC? How does it differ from regular segregation?

                      AC or administrative confinement is a non-punitive status that has no end date. There need be no rule violation and no conduct reports. The prisoners are reviewed every 6 months and the inmates say this is a formality, there is no real questioning en on AC in wisconsin for decades. In contrast, segregation is a punative status and has definite time limits and is in response to a rule infraction and resulting conduct report. In 2015,DOC segregation rules were amended and now, where rules are followed, prisoners spend less time than formerly in seg.

• Administrative Confinement( AC) is rules by DOC308. The changed rules in 2015 had no effect on AC prisoners 
• Segregation is ruled by DOC 303 and there are many levels.

  The two 308 sections that catch most prisoners are (2a) below And (2C).
                                                                 
The prisoner can be entombed in AC  has a "history of Violence"(2a below), it could be something that he did 30 plus years ago. We know the prisoner is not his/her crime. The DOC does not and will not take prisoners effort and changes made into consideration.
example: LaRon McKinley GBCI lock
  The other section that catches prisoners is (2c below)
"An inmate's activity gives a staff member reason to believe that his/her continued presence in general population will result in a riot or disturbance"

Politically savvy prisoners and natural leaders fall into this category, for other prisoners gravitate to  these leaders and  gravitate concerted actions ensue> an example is Inmate a. who went from AC to general population in GBCI and within a short time had organized a work stoppage, perfectly within the DOC rules, in order to get better conditions.

The DOC locked down the prison and using confidential informants (CI) racked up a long list of infractions and weapons and organizing prisoners were sent back to AC. C.I.s or confidential informants, are often used and prisoners think they are mostly made up, as they never can confront them nor see the accusation and they are  basic to AC placement. Through open records we asked for a list of weapons and other things found during GBCI lockdown. Even with lawyer help, we could not get the information...

Look at 2(a)and (c)

Above are confidential Informant (C.I.)rules

Before 2000, the opening  of Supermax and starting of Truth in Sentencing(TIS), Administrative Confinement rules were more restrictive and we had only about 12 prisoners on AC. With the prison boom and billions of federal dollars flooding the states, Wisconsin decided it needed a supermax too and this is the reason for the AC rule changes. Now they could fill the Supermax by simply sweeping the general population of anyone practically, provided they did not have strong advocates.Within a few years we have more than 350 prisoners on AC. Those rules are still in effect today and need to be changed.

" COMMON GROUND", A solution to long term isolation (AC)

 Brainchild of Uhuru, " COMMON GROUNDS"is a unique approach to ending AC-i.e. actual communication. FFUP proposed it to Warden Pollard in 2014(letter below). It was never even acknowledged. Maybe its time is coming.

Forum For Understanding Prisons(FFUP)

a 501c3 non profit

TO:                   Warden Pollard;Dr. Ingres;Dr. Ludigson;Toni Meli;WIDOC security Director;WIDOC health director

RE:     Longterm Seg./AC Programs WCI

September 29,2014Warden Pollard, et al:

Please find enclosed the CG (Common Grounds) longterm seg/AC program resolution that FFUP's "think tank" has put together and donated to Waupun to try to address the longterm seg/AC problems that exist there.

We believe a fresh look at the AC/longterm seg. problem is needed, and we believe common grounds can be part of that solution.Thank you for your attention to this matter.

We request feedback as to whether this program will be used or any comments on it.

Sincerely,

Peg Swan

 Member, FFUP

29631 Wild Rose Drive

Blue River, WI 53518

pgswan3@aol.com

1-608-536-3993

Web:prisonforum.org

Common Ground (CGS)

Logline: Transitioning Prisoners From AC and Longtime Seg.

Goals: Addressing conflict resolutions that prisoners in AC/longtime segregation have with prison staff and/or among themselves, resulting in the hopeful transitioning and release from AC/long time seg.

Premise of Program: CGS begins with the premise that if a prisoner has been placed and held in AC/long seg. status there has to be an existence of some kind of conflict between either staff or the prisoner and other prisoners that has lead to this long time segregation placement.

Unique Approach: Instead of placing blame or approaching the conflict from a subjective point of view, CGS is designed to not take a particular position in the conflict, but equalize the concerns voiced by both the prisoners/staff conflict or prisoner/prisoner conflict that led to the AC/long seg. placement, and focus on resolutions without placement of blame.

This unique approach is effective because, as in any conflict, resolution and all points of view must be aired and respected as part of the resolution discussion. No problem has ever been solved by one party in a given conflict being burdened with blame, while the other takes on a superiority complex.

Objective: The objective is to find common grounds that everyone can respect each other’s security and classification concerns without placing blame and the use of inferiority labels that makes one party feel the need to be defensive, which is what most prisoners who are held in AC/long seg. feel. This defensiveness has been the main reason no previous administration/ clinical programs have successfully led to the prisoners transitioning and eventually being released from AC/long seg.

Designed: This is what makes CGS unique and effective. It was designed specifically with AC/long seg. prisoners in mind after careful review of complaints, court cases, and other view points of prisoners held in these statuses. The CGS think tank recognized the fault lines that kept the prison officials security claims and goals from registering with the prisoners and the prisoners’ views being considered by the prison officials. Both sides took a "my way or the highway" approach. Resulting in the stalemate with the prisoner stuck in AC/long seg. for indefinite years and the prison officials having to pay the cost of these prisoners becoming more defensive and in the more extreme cases, psychologically damaged beyond the objective penological goal of the status. And a psychologically damaged prisoner is not in anyone’s best interest. It is certainly not in the best interests of society, where some, if not most, of the prisoners will be freed to; nor the tax payers, who now have to pay extra to staff special housing units to police segregated mental units that are in fact disciplinary segregation units, which only exacerbate the original conflict.

Workshops: The CGS is organized in six workshop sessions:

Session One: Begins with both the prison official and prisoner reducing to written word what each feels is the contributory problems.

CGS freedom of expression: in order for the workshops to be effective there has to be a certain level of free expression. CGS believes all participants must be allowed to state their views free of punishment. Free expression does not entitle abusive language used to provoke or disrespect the other participants, or create more problems.

Session Two: begins with the prison official recitation of the prisoner's point of view and the prisoner recitation of the prison officials. Or, in case of prisoner/prisoner, each would recite the other's views. The participant must defend each other's view point as if it was their original view to examine and experience the difference in each other's views.

Session Three: begins with each participant putting forth prospective resolutions to the conflict, with discussion.

Session Four: begins with the mediator of CGS - a neutral and independent person - putting forth resolutions that participants should consider. The participants can accept or alter these resolutions and stipulate.

Session Five: begins with the participants pointing out what issues of concern that the other one has. They can agree these are ones to be dealt with and agreements to resolve them.

Session Six: begins with all participants putting forth future resolution commitments to prevent and stop future problems and incidents.

Completion of CGS: Upon completion of CGS, which is a six week session workshop, the prisoner participant should be placed in a transition housing to be phased back to general prison population.

Homework Assignments: After each workshop the participant should take a story of real life conflict (past and present, over the span of the workshops) and write a report stating now both sides to that real life conflict could resolve the matter. Also, what might be the fault line problems preventing the current resolutions. The reports should also point out valid points that each side has that should be taken more serious by the other side.

Final Report: At the completion of CGS, the participant should write a one hundred word essay
on how the examination of the report conflicts has impacted their opinion, and if so, made a change in view point.

Disclaimer: The reports written should be permitted some freedom of expression and not be used to continue AC/Seg. placement, nor future placement. The reports will be either read at sessions or by the mediator who will return them to the participant.

Rights: CGS was created by FFUP in house pro se legal consult, R. U. and FFUP reserves all rights.

Donation: FFUP waives the rights to WI DOC to use CGS as part of the prisoner AC/long time seg. remedy.

Uhuru: Stronger than a Rat/Surviving Long Term isolation Confinement

Stronger Than a Rat

Skinners Rats

         By Ras Uhuru

                                          Surviving Long Term Isolation Confinement

1) it is not surprising for human beings to have been thrust into isolation holes to start exhibiting psychological and emotional affects. These are conditions contrary to human nature. Even monks or other hermits who went into elective “eremos” (Greek, Solitary) had to struggle and strive to maintain some sense of stimulus.

2) But human beings having a supportive mind, have the ability to maintain a stong mind despite the “breaking men’s mind”  tactics being employed in supermaxes, SHU units or any other seg environment.

3) I offer to you the anecdote of Skinner's Rats to use as the barometer of strength. Considering all the constructs and puns of the term “rat”, one should find it easy to be as strong as any kind of rat. But we deal specifically with psychology. In the early developments of the foundations of American Psychology, one of its pioneers, Burrhus Frederick Skinner ( 1904-90) employed a “hope and hopeless “ experiment *in which he placed a rat in a pool of water and the rat could not get out of it. The rat was forced to keep swimming around in circles as it searched hopelessly for a way to get out. Because the pool construct was designed to prevent such, the rats continued to tread water.

4) Skinner and his assistants would keep time of how long the rats would tread water until they gave up and started to drown. They would then place a small stand in the pool so the rat could get out of the water.

5) What Skinner’s repetitious observations showed was that the rats who experienced the “hopeless experiment” would tread water longer than those rats who had not experienced receiving the life preserve stand. The rats who had not, would allow hopelessness to set in and would give up and drown and the rats that had been pushed to the drowning point in the past and had received the stand would keep on treading for minutes longer than they previously had in hope that Skinner would put the life preserve stand in the pool at some point. This showed the rat would never give up of if he thought that there was a chance to get out and stand. *

6) So what I gain from this , and what I believe is that a humana are capable , even in the most deplorable circumstances to create their own hope (stand) and change the circumstances of their percieved hoplessness into real true hope. We don’t have to be rats or take a rats false sense of hope or hopelessness as our fate. We are and can be “stronger that skinners rats” or any other variety anthromorphized.

                                             UNDROWNED. 

·      *   A lot of his experiments with infants would not be permitted in modern psychology.like scaring infants with loud noises while pacing rabbits and other animals in front of them to induce fear of the animals or to teach fear.

·          Even for those rats Skinner trained to have hope,the false sense of hope only lasted so long- Even those would finally give up and drown too if the stand failed to appear.

Kamau, Raynell Morgan :"it's time to Stand up!"

"IT'S TIME TO STAND UP!"

Dedicated to Kamua
TZ.Damali(little brother) who is
near death after fourteen years in
solitary confinement

The current crisis in the Black community is absolutely horrifying; 45.2% of incarcerated people in Amerika are of Alkebulanian (African) descent. 94.5%of Black homicide victims are murdered by fellow Blacks. What these statistics illustrate is that too many people of Alkebulanian descent, particularly Black men, are in prison, and too many, particularly Black men, are dying/killing each other.

The Black community needs to seriously ask itself how many more of its people have to perish before it realizes it's in a crisis and do something about the terrible reality of Black on Black homicide and incarceration, which is taking a catastrophic toll on it socially, politically,' educationally, economically, emotionally, and spiritually.

When we were being lynched and brutalized by racist sectors of white Amenka aforetime we marched, protested, resisted and demanded to be treated like human beings Someof us even took up arms to combat the oppression. Now that we are lynching each other the energy pf protest, resistance and struggle appears to have withered drastically. Why is it that when others oppress us we become outraged and demand for it to stop, but when we oppress each other its seemingly accepted with open arms? The passive attitude we seem to have when it comes to black on black homicide is not only hypocritical; its also cowardly, embarrassing and morally inexcusable. This attitude needs to be obliterated outright.

I understand that most of the social evils and causes behind the dysfunction in the Black community ar a result of poverty, unemployment, institutional racism and a failed educational system However, we have minds of our own and we need to cease blaming white Amerika for our short comings, mishaps and laziness We need to start blaming ourselves and being accountable for our actions Once we accomplish that, we'll be able to move to the next stage, which is togetherness. Togetherness (unity) for all intents and purposes, will enable us to work on and address the critical issues tearing at the core of our peoples existence It (togetherness) will also enable us to merge our ideas to create incentives that cure poverty, unemployment and a failed education system For instance, we fight/cure poverty by establishing committees that organize community clean up drives and educates the community about the importance of a clean and safe community, and how trash and pollution tragically impacts the health and welfare of the community. If a member of the community is old or disabled and cannot clean their own yard or house, then we must be willing to do it for them.

As for unemployment, the steps needed to solve it are to pool our resources together and invest in businesses that will create employment for us and the community collectively Indeed, it will require a lot of-research time-and-devotion-to  achieve this goal, but if we are sincere about being self-reliant and

self-sufficient, the hard work will be well worth it As for the failed education system, this problem can't be solved overnight, because it's a century old problem. However, one of the best ways to remedy it is home schooling and formulating an educational system of our own. This can take place in the local churches, community centers and in the comfort of our own homes. We are responsible for our children's education and learning abilities. Acquiring former teachers as well as present ones is paramount. Resolving most of the issues in our community will be, without question, a massive task, but very possible.

We need to start being positive examples for our children and we need to reclaim our communities and rescue them from its current destruction, so that our young men and women can be successful members of society instead of murder victims and captives in every prison throughout Amerika.

Simply put: IT'S TIME TO STAND UP Respectfully Submitted

Mr. KarnauT.Z Damali #279380 Wisconsin Secure Program Facility 1101 Morrison Drive

P.O. Box 9900

Boscobel, Wisconsin 53805