Solitary Confinement Prompts Lawsuit in Massachusetts, Hunger Strike in Maine
A suit filed by six Massachusetts prisoners on July 1, 2024, alleges that conditions in what the state Department of Corrections (DOC) calls a “Secure Adjustment Unit” (SAU) are no different from solitary confinement—something state legislators outlawed in 2018. DOC also pledged to end the practice back in June 2021, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Dec. 2021, p.49.]
Prisoners Tykorie Evelyn, Jerome Meade, Emmitt Perry, Peter Bousleiman, Emmanuel Biaggi and Charles Miles filed the putative class-action in Suffolk County Superior Court, accusing DOC Acting Commissioner Shawn Jenkins and other officials of violating the state’s 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act.
That law limits reasons for placement in segregated housing and mandates placement reviews every 90 days. It also requires “the same access to visitation, telephone calls, canteen, property, programming, reading and writing materials, and good time credit as those in general population at the same facility consistent with the security of the unit,” the suit recalls.
Plaintiff Perry was held in a “Department Disciplinary Unit” (DDU) at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI) in Cedar Junction, the complaint notes, where he made similar allegations in an earlier suit that prompted DOC to abandon DDUs in June 2023. But other named plaintiffs remain in a “Behavioral Adjustment Unit” (BAU), where solitary conditions allegedly persist, as in SAUs.
Plaintiffs are represented by attorneys James R. Pingeon and Rachel C. Talamo of Prisoners Legal Services of Massachusetts in Boston, along with Boston College Law School Civil Rights Clinic Director Reena Parikh and attorneys from Holland & Knight in Portland and Boston. See: Evelyn v. Jenkins, Mass. Super. (Suffolk Cty.), Case No. 2484CV01746.
More “Solitary-Not-Solitary”
in Maine
The allegations of doublespeak in Massachusetts echo in nearby Maine, where the state DOC has also changed what isolation is called. In protest, prisoners initiated a hunger strike in C-pod, a higher-security section of Maine State Prison (MSP), on March 28, 2024, noting that no matter what it’s called, they get just one to two hours out of their cells daily in a “close custody unit” (CCU)—where placement is subject to a troubling lack of review. Prisoner Nicholas Gladu described the mental anguish of prolonged isolation, leaving him talking to himself as violent thoughts escalate. He called being locked in a cement cube for 22 hours a day “crazy-making.”
“I’ve seen peopleliterally unravel before my eyes and the scary thing is how many guys I’m seeing get released into the state from this pod,” Gladu said. “It’s mind boggling, and it’s a guarantee to come right back.”
DOC spokesman Samuel Prawer pushed back against their claims, insisting that “out-of-cell recreation and social time [are] available on a daily basis,” plus “additional time for those attending medical appointments, or pursuing work or programming, such as education.” Prisoners in CCU “also have access to visits, telephones, mail, and text messaging on tablets, so long as the tablets are not misused,” he added.
It was unclear how long the hunger strike lasted, but it was clearly a desperate effort to prompt change, after letters and grievances failed. Jan Collins of Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition said that Gladu’s complaint is not isolated. Nor was this strike the first, she added, pointing to prior strikes in 2014 and 2021.
The month after the latest strike, DOC Director Randall Liberty admitted on April 5, 2024, that not all CCU prisoners were getting the daily 2-1/2 hours out of cell that they were due. But he shrugged it off, blaming staffing shortages. Prawler fell in line, calling “solitary confinement” inaccurate to describe CCU “because it implies an absence of social contact.”
After state lawmakers failed to agree on a definition in 2022, state Rep. Grayson Lookner (D-Portland) introduced LD 1086 in 2023. Though his “ultimate goal” is to “limit and prohibit the use of solitary confinement,” he said, “first we have to define it.” His bill remains stalled.
Additional sources: Bolts Magazine, Maine Morning Star, Rhode Island Current