06/10/14 – James Ridgeway – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, I'm Scott Horton here.
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All right, you guys.
Welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Our next guest is James Ridgeway.
Last we spoke with him, he'd written all about Jesse Trenadue and the Oklahoma bombing for Mother Jones Magazine.
But now he's working with this group, Solitary Watch.
The website is solitarywatch.com, news from a nation in lockdown.
Welcome back to the show, James.
How are you doing?
Yeah, hi.
How are you?
Pretty good.
I'm doing real good.
I appreciate you joining us today.
Glad to be here.
Yep.
All right.
So I guess, well, first of all, before we get to the news, just go ahead and tell us all about the project.
Well, Solitary Watch, a website and a project that I started several years ago and now run with my colleague, Gene Casella.
And the aim of it is to bring to public attention the details and the existence, even, of the 80,000 people in the United States who live in solitary confinement, that is, who are locked up in solitary confinement in prisons all over the place.
These are our black sites, and nobody knows much about them.
And they're secret, really.
The press can't get into them.
We've tried to get into them ourselves to look around, you know, see what they're like.
And we've been turned down.
And no lawyer wants a case because they think they'll come up against the Supreme Court and other courts or other courts and get turned down.
So it just remains these sort of secret little pockets, six by eight cells, that people can live in there from, what, a day, a week, a month, or in the case of some people in Louisiana, 40 years.
That's 40 years.
I think of it as 40 years living in a closet or in your bathroom.
Try it.
Go to your bathroom for the weekend and lock yourself in and see how long it takes before you go nuts.
So 40 years until you get out a couple times a week, maybe to have a shower, and once or twice a week to have recreation in a dog-cow run.
And each time you move, you're shackled by the feet, you're handcuffed, and you wear a belly chain, and you sort of go down in tears.
And other people are throwing feces at you and screaming and yelling.
And so you go down to your shower, and you're always watching in your shower to be sure somebody doesn't stab you.
Or you go to the recreation where you do the same thing, you know what, you're not going to get stabbed.
All right.
Now, James, I'm sorry to interrupt you here, but your phone is really kind of cutting out on me.
I wonder if you can maybe try to hold it with as little contact with your hand as possible, maybe stand near a window or something, because I really want to make sure that people can hear you well.
And you're kind of cutting out on us.
Okay.
But you sounded all right at first, so I think it should be okay, you know, if we can try to adjust there.
Yeah, just go, James.
I'm sorry to interrupt, because there's a very important point where you're at, where people are being driven crazy by being in solitary confinement, but then it's not like they get transferred to the mental hospital after that or anything.
Not like that would be all that much better, but then that just means that you just have, you know, a whole cell block full of madmen.
Yeah, exactly.
And right now I'm dealing with people like a guy who has cystic fibrosis, and they won't give him his medicine, and he said, you're going to die anyhow, but now he's dying quicker.
A guy who was a thalidomide baby, he's got one arm longer than the other, one leg shorter than the other, a couple of fingers on one hand, a few more fingers on the other hand, and he can't clean himself when he goes to the toilet, and he's being locked up and held in solitary for a lot of the time, because he's trying to get painkillers, and they won't give him painkillers, so he stole some painkillers, and he had a revolver.
I guess he was holding people up to get painkillers so he could ease the pain of this situation, which is pretty horrible.
So there's these guys all over the place.
Some of them are disabled, some of them are just crazy, I mean, they've been driven crazy.
There are people who are put in there who, I have another guy that I work with who is a young man who's tried to kill himself 50 times, and they got in a carjack situation.
They put him in jail, and so he immediately tried to electrocute himself.
He failed at that, so then he burned his cell down, or tried to burn his cell down.
So what do the prison people do?
They put him up in front of the grand jury in the city of Utica, and they indicted him, and found him guilty of arson.
So now he's stuck for many more years, and he's cutting himself every day.
He sends me a letter once a week or so, tells me how he's cutting himself, asks me please not to stress with mom, but he says, I'm going to go all the way as soon as I can, okay?
Now, James, I'm sorry, but I just want to make sure that people are on the same page here and understand it, because I have to admit that, you know, as you first started talking here, there's, you know, part of me is saying, but yeah, you know what though, we're talking about really bad guys, and you know, I'm not much of a true crime buff, that's more the wife's territory, but there are people who do, and I mean non-government employees, who do absolutely horrible things to people, to each other, to children, things where I don't mind seeing them hanged or locked in solitary.
Some of these guys, I just can't possibly feel sorry for them, but it sounds to me like my point is already moot, because what you're saying is the badness of the crimes is not the measure of what gets people locked in solitary confinement.
You might just have a distraught kid who set his own cell on fire in desperation, and that is his horrible crime, or somebody who, like you said, did a holdup out of desperation because the government wouldn't let him have a prescription for his pain medicine, so he's not a career criminal, he's not out there trying to, you know, enter into the drug black market, he's one guy who had a really, really bad day and took it out on other people in a way that there should be some mercy there, but instead, no, he goes to the hole.
And that's the thing of it, is that we imagine, because we watch TV, we imagine that it's a Perry Mason, Matlock kind of a situation, there's fairness in all the process, if it was really, if what was happening to them in jail was really that wrong, they would get a court to address it, and the system works, and this kind of thing.
But that's what you're telling me, is no, Scott, when you read about the very worst child rapist murderer, he's not the guy in solitary, he's over there on cell block C, it's some other guy who really never did anything to anybody who's over there in solitary for basically what would seem to you and me to be arbitrary reasons.
Yeah, that's absolutely right, Scott, I mean, the thing is, we know a guy, for example, he had too many stamps, he was allowed a certain number of stamps, he had too many stamps, so he's put in the hole.
You know, another guy who was eating an apple, he ate an apple and he ate the core of the apple, put him in the hole because they said the core of the apple contained arsenic.
So he was trying to poison himself.
I mean, this stuff goes on all over the place, some of it's very small, but our general point is that no matter what happens, you know, what goes on, a human being is, okay, so he's taken, he has his liberty taken from him, but he should be treated as a human being at some basic level, you know?
And I don't mean to say that, you know, if somebody, I really don't care how someone who's a rapist or a torture type murderer is treated, because the fact is, no matter how bad they, I may think they deserve mistreatment, or I personally don't mind if something bad happens to them, no one has the authority, the legitimate authority to mistreat them in the first place, and so that is the much more important point, that the jailer's job is to protect their rights, to keep them confined, but to protect their rights other than that, as you say, and no one has the legitimate authority to treat them any less than that.
So now I'm sorry, because the music's playing, James, and we gotta go out and take this break, but hang tight right there, we'll be right back, everybody, with James Ridgeway from Solitary Watch, this very important project, 80,000 Americans, 80,000 Americans in Solitary right now, can you believe that?
Hey y'all, Scott here.
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Alright you guys, welcome back to the show here, I'm Scott Horton, this is my show, I'm on the Liberty Radio Network, weekdays, noon to three, eastern time, LRN.
FM, you can find all my interview archives and all the rest of my stuff at ScottHorton.org, follow me on Twitter, at Scott Horton Show, and I'm in the middle of talking with James Ridgeway from Solitary Watch, and this is such an important project, because this is just such a, I don't know, it's such a horrible part of our society, of what's going on in it, you know, I think it's sort of like the Bush slash Obama torture program too, when people justify this kind of thing, it ends up tainting their souls and making them worse people too, you know, it kind of poisons our whole society that we, and I mean that in a collective kind of way, that we allow these kinds of systems to exist, that this is the way that we deal with each other, locking people in solitary, and James, someone just sent me a tweet the other day that said, you know what's good about Guantanamo Bay, is it's not Pelican Bay, because you go to Pelican Bay, you spend your first 15 years in solitary, is that right?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, they say that people are talking now about how Guantanamo is better than places like Pelican Bay, and a lot of these other places.
That's amazing.
But you know, Scott, one of the things you haven't talked about, which is worth thinking about, is are these judges?
Because the judges set the terms on all this stuff, you know, they set the big terms, and then, you know, they're implemented by the corrections people, but the judges can make it possible, you know, to go down and look and see what's going on.
If you were able to actually go in and see what solitary confinement amounted to, what it was, it would begin to change it.
You know, the British have 40 people in solitary, and they have a system where you go into a community where there's a prison, and they can select almost at random a dozen people, townspeople, and they give each person a key to the jail, and they can go into that jail morning, noon, or night.
They talk to these guys, these inmates, three or four times a week, and they settle all the petty stuff.
You know, the guy with the apple red arsenic, they get him out immediately.
So you have townspeople being part of the whole thing.
Here it's all locked up, it's all tightened, it's run by these locals from big unions, big liberal unions, FCIU, AFSCME, they're in the forefront of this stuff, you know?
Nobody knows that, and nobody pays any attention to it.
Well, and it's such an important thing, because, you know, people want to just, you know, even right-wingers want to, they sort of kind of side with unions, if only because, you know, they don't really understand economics, and also because everybody likes the working man, and the lower middle class, and the upper lower class, and these kind of guys, we like, that's the salt of the earth, and the strength of America, and these kinds of things.
People want to side with them, and so they don't want to look critically at the fact that these guys are such rent-seekers, and I guess they're no worse than the iron bar manufacturers, or the quarries that dig up the concrete, or Anheuser-Busch, or whatever, but they just shamelessly, all these groups just shamelessly lobby for more criminalization of every kind of human behavior, for the enslavement of their own society, for their own narrow self-interest at the expense of the rest of us, like they just can't figure out anything else to build except prisons, or anything else to guard except other human beings being locked away from the rest of us, you know?
Well, that's right, that's absolutely right, and it's true that political conservatives are, in an odd sort of way, or unexpected way, are beginning to take, you know, a real interest in this subject, but you know, the liberals always just say, well, let's tinker with the edges of it, and we'll get it fixed, and nothing ever changes, but some of the conservative Republicans who are big in Congress have actually taken, you know, a serious interest in, you know, who knows, maybe they'll be able to get things changed, but I think the judges are a big, big, big problem.
Yeah, I think that's a very important point, because they really do have a lot of discretion when it comes to dictating the terms of confinement here, don't they?
Yeah, because, look, a judge could go down and look at these places, walk in any time he felt like it.
And I remember just William Katzenbach, you know, the former Attorney General under Johnson, just before he died, he wrote this thing, and he said, I've got some suggestions on the solitary.
The first thing is get law professors to take their classes down there, you know, all the time, and the second thing is to get the judge to walk down and take a look at it, and you know, maybe if the judges all went down and saw what they're doing, what happens?
You know, when you get on a jury, they always say, you know, they say, well, you just convict a guy, and you say, well, what's he going to get, and they say, that's none of your business.
Don't talk about it.
Well, it is your business.
You've got a right to know what's going to happen to these people.
I mean, if a guy's got 22 stamps instead of 20, and he's going to be locked in a hole, of course it's your business.
So I don't know what, I really feel strongly that somehow or other the judges ought to be questioned.
Right.
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, the thing of it is, too, is it's, people so often, they can excuse things and deflect responsibility just by, you know, kind of turns of phrase, like, well, he knew that that would be what happens, right?
People say that about if you want to quit the Army.
Hey, you knew that you're not allowed to quit when you signed up.
Yeah, but so what?
Still, you should still be able to quit.
Anyway, it's still right that you should be able to quit if you want, right?
But people just kind of, they figure out kind of a cliche to deploy or whatever.
Well, he knew the rule was 20 stamps, and so blah, blah, blah.
And a judge, especially, you know, has no problem rationalizing stuff like that away.
And I think the best example of this that I know of from recently, James, would be this documentary about the drug war, the house I live in, where he has an extended interview with this federal judge who talks about basically what an evil criminal conspirator he is in mass kidnapping of innocent people.
And he just sits there saying, yes, that's right.
I know it's wrong.
And I don't care.
I get up every day and I put people in prison for decades for stupid drug crimes that should not be crimes.
And and it's wrong that Congress won't give me enough discretion, because if they would give me discretion, I might give a guy a year.
But instead, I happily give him 30 years each and every day, day in, day out.
And hey, if you don't like it, talk to your legislature, basically, is his attitude.
He can rationalize this away, destroying human beings.
You might as well be murdering them.
And yet to him, well, you know, whatever.
Hey, man, this is my job.
And look at my black robe.
Isn't it official and justified, self-justifying even?
Yeah, well, all the judge has to do is quit.
I mean, you didn't have to do that.
I mean, you know, that's the whole thing with the Nazis and stuff.
I mean, you know, you don't have to do any of this stuff.
You can walk off the job any time you feel like it.
These judges never walk off for anything because they get a lot of money.
A lot of them are elected in elections.
You know, it's just another part of the political machine.
All right, now, so talk to me more about the psychological effects of solitary confinement.
Because, and this is basically sensory deprivation, right?
Yeah, well, you can talk to, I told you about the guy who was trying to kill himself, okay?
Right.
And so he's up there, right now he's up there, he's trying to kill himself.
And sooner or later, you know, you say, so his mother said, you know, she went up to see him and she saw all these marks on his arm, you know, cut marks on his arms and stuff.
She finally called up the head shrink.
He's in a mental unit.
He's locked into a mental unit.
People don't understand that in these mental units, they're solitary.
You know, you can get locked into a hospital room.
So she calls him up and says, you know, my son is going crazy, he's going to kill himself.
And the head guy says, and she says, put him in, he's got to go to a psychiatric hospital, he's got to be examined, you know?
Maybe there's a way to help him.
And the head guy says, he's not going anywhere.
So, you know, what are you supposed to do?
Yeah, again, it's just like you said earlier.
Anyone can imagine, just go in your closet and now imagine spending decades in there.
Or even a year, even a month in there.
And how would you feel in that situation?
It's crazy.
All right, now, I'm sorry, in the very last short amount of time we have here, can you talk about some of the activism, how people can help support, how they can get involved in Solitary Watch?
Yeah, I mean, the single best thing is to talk to the prisoners.
Stop talking to all these organizations and stop talking to their officials.
You know, try to make contact with the actual prisoners.
They're the ones that actually know what's going on.
They're the reporters on the front lines.
And then to their families.
The more people do that, the better the thing will get, because then more people will know about it.
But right now, it's just a sealed up, it's like a tomb.
You can't find out anything about it.
You don't know anything about it.
Whatever you hear might be hearsay, might be wrong, might be right.
You don't know, you don't have a clue.
So the more you talk to the prisoners, the better off you are.
Right, yeah, this has got to go to the top of the list of priorities for the human rights types in this country immediately.
SolitaryWatch.com, James Ridgeway, thank you so much, sir.
Thank you.
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