Letter of Support for AB 2632 (Holden): Ending Solitary Confinement

Read Letter PDF

March 29, 2022

Submitted electronically

RE: Support for AB 2632 (Holden)

Dear Assemblymember Jones-Sawyer,

On behalf of the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, I write in support of AB 2632 (Holden), the California Mandela Act on Solitary Confinement. AB 2632 is an important step in ending the use of solitary confinement in California. There is an established consensus among experts, advocates, and those who have first-hand experience on the issue: solitary confinement is torture and can have permanent deleterious effects on the health of an individual. Many states have passed laws to limit the use of solitary confinement, and it is important that California joins them, as well as the international community, in regulating this practice.

The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley is a legal services non-profit that advances the rights of historically excluded people through legal services, outreach, community lawyering, and strategic litigation and advocacy. Our Health Program serves communities who are historically excluded from health systems including Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian American Pacific Islander, other people of color, people who are LGBTQIA+, and people who are unhoused, focusing on health equity for all.

To be clear, the Law Foundation opposes the use of any confinement as punishment for alleged or committed crimes and vehemently supports allocating resources to implementing alternatives to incarceration. Solitary confinement serves no rehabilitative purpose and it should be abolished entirely. However, as an initial step, California must join the international community, and states like New York, New Jersey, Washington, and Colorado in setting clear standards and limits on the use of solitary confinement. This begins by recognizing that solitary confinement is torture, and setting uniform and consistent limits on how solitary is used in all detention facilities.

AB 2632 provides a clear definition of what constitutes solitary confinement across California prisons, jails, and detention centers, while also setting limits on how it can be used. Further, this bill ends the use of solitary confinement for special populations, including those with disabilities, pregnant women, youth, elderly, and other special populations. Through this legislation, California can protect vulnerable populations from torture, and provide a clear roadmap to end the use of solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement is one of the most severe and destructive practices found in carceral settings today. The World Health Organization, United Nations, and other international bodies have recognized solitary confinement as greatly harmful and potentially fatal. In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly ratified the Nelson Mandela Rules, prohibiting any period of segregation beyond 15 days and defining it as torture.(1)

Despite international demands to end the use of solitary confinement, the practice remains common in jails, prisons, and detention facilities in California. The misuse of solitary in California prisons led to a legal action filed in 2012, when California prisons held nearly 10,000 incarcerated individuals in solitary confinement, including 1,557 who had been there for 10 years or more.(2)

The destructive impact of solitary confinement can have disastrous effects on those who experience it. In a 2015 lawsuit filed against Santa Clara County, incarcerated individuals stated that they are locked in cells with very little human contact, sunlight, or exercise in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.(3) Those individuals shared that they experienced hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia while in solitary confinement.(4) In 2021, Santa Clara County incarcerated individuals went on a hunger strike to protest unsafe and cruel jail conditions such as placing the incarcerated individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 in solitary confinement.(5) The American Psychological Association says that solitary confinement causes a rise in prisoner anxiety, panic, paranoia, anger, and depression.(6) One California individual who was incarcerated, Lorenzo Mays, spent almost eight years in solitary confinement and experienced depression, suicidal thoughts, and a Vitamin D deficiency from lack of sunlight exposure.(7)

The impact of solitary confinement can be particularly tragic for those who belong to certain vulnerable populations such as the elderly, disabled, and pregnant women. For example, in 2018 a pregnant woman in the Santa Rita County Jail in Dublin gave birth alone in a solitary confinement cell.(8) Solitary confinement is often used as an alternative to treatment and accommodation for individuals with disabilities, at times exacerbating their conditions.

Solitary confinement, long used to oppress incarcerated people of color, is also a racial justice issue. A 2015 report found that in California state prisons, Latinx men are 42 percent of the male population but 86 percent of the male population in solitary confinement. At the national level, Black men are disproportionately placed in solitary confinement despite already being massively overrepresented in the general population.9 Solitary confinement even serves as an instrument of modern penal incarceration and used as a threat to coerce prisoners during interrogations.(10)

This problem is not limited to jails and prisons alone, but also affects immigrants in private, for-profit detention facilities. In California, more than 90 percent of immigrants are held in for-profit detention facilities, run by corporations who routinely harm those that they are tasked with detaining. An investigation by the federal government into the Imperial Regional Detention Facility found that individuals were routinely placed in solitary confinement for 22 to 23 hours a day, with some being held in these conditions for more than 300 days.(11) In May of 2020, a 74- year-old Korean man took his own life after being placed in solitary confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, in violation of the facility's own protocols related to mental health and welfare(12). In 2021, an individual sued the private for-profit operator of an immigration detention facility after being held in solitary confinement for 15 months, despite repeated requests to be rehoused.(13) Thus, we must imagine a world without bars and isolation if humanity is a goal.

For the above reasons, we respectfully urge your “AYE” vote on AB 2632 (Holden) when it comes before you in the Assembly Public Safety Committee. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Abre’ Conner
Directing Attorney, Health Program

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Endnotes
1. The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) published in 2015. https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-Eebook.pdf

2. “Landmark Agreement Ends Indeterminate Long-Term Solitary Confinement in California,” (September 1, 2015), Center for Constitutional Rights, https://ccrjustice.org/home/press-center/press-releases/landmark-agreement-endsindeterminate-long-term-solitary

3. Hamed Aleaziz, “Suit Slams Santa Clara County Jail’s Use of Solitary Confinement,” (November 19, 2015), SF Gate, https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Suit-slams-Santa-Clara-County-Jail-s-use-of-6643822.php

4 Id.

5. “Santa Clara County Inmates Go on Hunger Strike as COVID-19 Cases Soar,” (January 17, 2021), NBC Bay Area, https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/south-bay/santa-clara-county-inmates-go-on-hunger-strike-as-covid-19- cases-soar/2447217/

6. Kirsten Weir, “Alone, in the ‘hole’,” (May 2012), American Psychological Association, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/05/solitary

7. “Settlement Reached in Class Action Challenging Conditions in Sacramento County Jail,” (June 2019), Prison Law Office, https://prisonlaw.com/news/settlement-reached-in-class-action-challenging-conditions-in-sacramentocounty-jail/

8. Angela Ruggiero, “Woman who gave birth alone in Alameda County Jail, screaming for hours, sues county,” (August 21, 2018), East Bay Times, https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/08/21/woman-who-gave-birth-alone-inalameda-county-jail-screaming-for-hours-sues-county/

9. Anna Flagg, Alex Tatusian, and Christie Thompson, “Who’s in Solitary Confinement?,” (November 30, 2016), The Marshall Project, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/11/30/a-new-report-gives-the-most-detailedbreakdown-yet-of-how-isolation-is-used-in-u-s-prisons

10. Penal Reform International, “Solitary confinement,” https://www.penalreform.org/issues/prison-conditions/keyfacts/solitary-confinement/

11. See report by the Office of the Inspector General - ICE Needs to Address Prolonged Administrative Segregation and Other Violations at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility, Published December 2020, https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2020-12/OIG-21-12-Dec20.pdf

12. Andrea Castillo, “ICE said a 74-year-old man was too dangerous to release. He died of apparent suicide,” (May 20, 2020), Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-20/immigrant-ice-detentionsuicide-coronavirus

13. Andrea Castillo, “ICE held a man in solitary confinement for more than a year. He’s suing under a new California law,” (October 14, 2021), Los Angeles Times, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-10-14/ice-lawsuitcalifornia-solitary-confinement-detention-citizen

Letter of Support to Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors: Improve Public Safety by Expanding Behavioral Health Care and Alternatives to Pretrial Incarceration

January 24, 2022

Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
70 W. Hedding Street San Jose, CA 95110

Via email only to: BoardOperations@cob.sccgov.org.

RE: Board Referral 109221: Improve Public Safety by Expanding Behavioral Health Care and Alternatives to Pretrial Incarceration

I. Introduction
The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley strongly supports Referral 109221 to improve public safety by expanding behavioral health care and alternatives to pretrial incarceration. The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley is a legal services non-profit that advances the rights of historically excluded individuals and families through legal services, community lawyering, strategic litigation and advocacy, and outreach. Among our many services, we represent mental health consumers in civil commitment and capacity hearings and assist clients with accessing mental health treatment. We recognize that many systems play a role in health equity and social determinants of health, including jails, prisons, law enforcement, and other structures that uphold carceral systems. We believe that our legal and policy advocacy should support and advance health equity and reduce the likelihood that these systems cause barriers for communities.

As we previously shared with the Board of Supervisors in our November 15, 2021 letter (attached), jails and prisons fail to improve public safety or rehabilitate those accused of crimes.(1) Incarceration in our criminal legal system exacerbates racial inequities and interferes with opportunities to access meaningful treatment, especially for disproportionately criminalized individuals including communities of color, unhoused, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ people. The construction of any new jail facility in Santa Clara County fails to address racial disparities, public health concerns, and widespread opposition to criminal legal system expansion. We urge the Board of Supervisors to instead pursue the recommended actions in the Referral and support long-term, equitable public health and safety in SCC.

II. The expansion of community-based alternatives to incarceration is urgently necessary to mitigate the crisis of mental health and substance abuse in Santa Clara County

The Law Foundation urges the Board of Supervisors to implement the actions recommended in Referral 109221 to expand non-carceral, community-based behavioral health resources so that people can seek care and treatment within the context of their homes and lives. Without a variety of options, we will continue to fail the needs of mental health consumers in Santa Clara County.

It is imperative that Santa Clara County cease any plans to build a new jail or other carceral facility, especially given the deficiencies of the County Executive Office’s November report.(2) First, this report falsely conflated people under maximum security designations with dangerousness and mental health acuity. Santa Clara County jail houses mostly pre-trial residents held on non-felony charges. Even for those facing felony charges, the report’s data blurred being charged with a serious felony with being convicted of one, and ultimately, because of the District Attorney’s ability to charge an individual with multiple felonies, an individual may be found guilty of a non-serious (and non-violent) felony regardless of their original charges. Critically, the report also lacked any data combining the severity of one’s criminal charges with their mental health status, despite the fact that jail population data suggests that mental health consumers in the jail tend to cycle in and out relatively quickly on petty charges.(3) These people are not dangers to public safety, but rather, members of our communities themselves in need of support and compassionate care.

Next, the County still has not provided a cost analysis, a rationale for a locked behavioral health site, and a needs assessment for the existing space. The report neither analyzed the cost and benefits of improving existing facilities compared to constructing a new jail, nor the costs of renovating existing facilities and alternatives to incarceration that could eliminate the need for a new jail.(4) The report also lacked a rationale for why a behavioral health site should be constructed at the new jail, the numbers of jail detainees who would receive mental health services, or even the behavioral health services that would be offered. Furthermore, the County is preemptively deciding whether to proceed with a new jail before completing a foundational Needs Assessment regarding current jail conditions and “needs related to programming, treatment, medical and behavioral health treatment, through the lens of legal imperatives, statutes, rules, and limitations.”(5)

Investments in correctional mental health services perpetuate false perceptions of substance use and mental health issues as criminal matters. Instead of confining people in jails, the County should expand community-based diversion programs where people can receive access to restorative programs and mental health services of their choice. If our community reinvested the enormous sums needed to build a new facility into diversion programs in our community, the numbers of people being arrested, recidivating, and requiring jail beds would decline. Our county's resources should be redirected toward investment in proven diversion programs such as supportive housing and community-based mental health and drug treatment services.

Furthermore, recent COVID-19 surges have illustrated that jails and prisons do not bolster public safety; they fundamentally undermine it. Jails and prisons are incubators for infectious disease. Confinement, poor facilities, close quarters, and shared living conditions mean that it is impossible to control the spread of COVID-19 within jails and prisons without implementation of active decarceration strategies. SCC Jail reported its first COVID-19 death in November 2021 despite urging from health officials to bring the jail population down significantly to allow or quarantine and isolation protocols.(6) Amnesty and early release measures implemented in the beginning of the pandemic reduced SCC jail populations somewhat and did not correlate with an increase in violence or crime. In fact, since 2006, California’s prison population has been dropping steadily without putting public safety at risk.(7)

III. Alternatives to incarceration are essential to address racial disparities in SCC and root causes of systemic inequities

The recommendations in Referral 109221 are also urgently necessary to address pervasive racial disparities in Santa Clara County’s jail system. As the Board of Supervisors noted in prior meetings, Latinx residents are overrepresented in the County jail by nearly twofold, and Black residents are overrepresented by nearly four-fold compared to their percentage in the County overall.(8) Black individuals are 6.5 times and Latinx individuals are 3 times more likely to be booked in County jails compared with white individuals.9 Furthermore, the discriminatory treatment of Black and brown communities in jail is compounded by injustice across the criminal legal system, including racial profiling, police misconduct, higher bail amounts, and longer sentencing.(10)

Rather than providing services, rehabilitation, and public protection, incarceration exacerbates racial disparities by causing loss of jobs and housing, disconnection from families and communities, trauma, and adverse health impacts.(11) This impacts not only the incarcerated individuals themselves, but also their children, families, neighbors, coworkers, and Santa Clara County as a whole.

Communities of color in Santa Clara County deserve to feel safe and to thrive. By building a new jail and expanding punitive approaches to public safety, the County would just increase the numbers of incarcerated people of color and people with disabilities. Research from the Vera Institute has demonstrated that when jail capacity expands, law enforcement officials prosecute more crimes and detain people accused of crimes for longer durations.(12) A new jail would perpetuate the disproportionate incarceration of Black and Latinx individuals in Santa Clara and undermine efforts to make Santa Clara a more racially equitable environment for everyone.

Resources should be focused on public health prevention and intervention rather than punitive measures that would further criminalize communities of color in the criminal legal system. This includes the recently launched community-based mobile response team and other entry points, social services, and interventions for responding to mental health beyond law enforcement. Alternatives to incarceration, including those within Referral 109221, are vital towards beginning to undo the inequities within Santa Clara County and meaningfully improve public health and safety.

IV. Impacted communities in Santa Clara County overwhelmingly support community-based and non-carceral treatment services

Finally, the Law Foundation urges the Board of Supervisors to take direction from Santa Clara County residents themselves, who have consistently called for non-carceral solutions to address the root causes of crime and violence.(13) In particular, voter surveys and focus groups conducted by the W. Haywood Burns Institute in 2021, in collaboration with the County, indicated strong support for providing more mental health and substance use treatment rather than incarceration.(14) These community engagement sessions reflected voices from across Santa Clara County, including a diversity of race, class, language, and direct and indirect connections to the carceral system.(15) The participants emphasized that jail, as a place designed to restrain and punish people, could never be therapeutic. After a rigorous community engagement process, the Haywood Burns Institute’s findings recommended diversionary measures focused on mental health therapy, sobering centers, rehabilitation centers, peer respite homes, and other preventative measures to address the impacts of structural racism.(16)

Moreover, in recent years, popular support for alternatives to jail has accelerated across California in tandem with critical racial and social equity movements, and Santa Clara County is well-positioned to join these statewide efforts in addressing the failures of our jail systems. These include county initiatives to reduce jail populations, avoid jail expansion, expand rehabilitative treatments, and pursue alternatives to jail.(17) By redirecting public safety and public health resources towards alternatives to incarceration instead of building new jails, Santa Clara County can similarly demonstrate its leadership in pursuing non-punitive and equity-driven solutions to community safety.

V. Conclusion

As patient advocates and attorneys, we believe that building a new jail in Santa Clara County would be extremely detrimental to the safety, health, and well-being of our clients and their communities. We strongly urge the Board of Supervisors to pursue the recommended actions listed in Referral 109221 and support the expansion of community-based alternatives to incarceration instead.

Sincerely,
Abre’ Conner Rebecca Basson Joanna Xing
Directing Attorney Staff Attorney Staff Attorney

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Endnotes

1) Kevin Bliss, “California Prison Rehabilitation Programs Costly and Ineffective,” Prison Daily News, Jan. 2020, https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/jan/7/california-prison-rehabilitation-programs-costly-and-ineffective

2) See the attached November 15, 2021 letter to the Board of Supervisors for a more detailed analysis of the November report.

3) Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Agenda Packet (“BOS Packet”), Nov. 16, 2021, pg. 103-4.

4) BOS Packet, pg. 124.

5) BOS Packet, pg. 115.

6) Robert Salonga, “Santa Clara County records first jail death from Covid-19,” The Mercury News, https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/12/02/santa-clara-county-records-first-jail-death-from-covid-19/.

7) Peter Wagner, Prison Policy Initiative, “Large scale releases and public safety,” Apr. 9, 2020, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/04/09/large-scale-releases/.

8) BOS Packet pg. 202.

9) Id.

10) Wendy Sawyer, Prison Policy Initiative, “How race impacts who is detained pretrial,” (Oct. 9, 2019), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2019/10/09/pretrial_race/; Vilissa Thompson, “Understanding the Policing of Black, Disabled Bodies,” Center for American Progress, (Feb. 10, 2021), https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/disability/news/2021/02/10/495668/understandingpolicing-black-disabledbodies/;

11) Lucius Couloute and Daniel Kopf, Prison Policy Initiative, “Out of Prison & Out of Work: Unemployment Among Formerly Incarcerated People,” Jul. 2018. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/outofwork.html; Nick Gerda, “Job Losses Amid Jail Stints Are a Key Factor in Family Homelessness,” Voice of OC, Oct. 22, 2021 https://voiceofoc.org/2021/10/job-losses-amid-jail-stints-are-a-key-factor-in-family-homelessness-da-says/; Katie Rose Quandt and Alexi Jones, Prison Policy Initiative, “Research Roundup: Incarceration can cause lasting damage to mental health,” May 13, 2021, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/05/13/mentalhealthimpacts/.

12) Chris Mai, Mikelina Belaineh, Ram Subramanian, and Jacob Kang-Brown. “Broken Ground: Why America Keeps Building More Jails and What It Can Do Instead.” New York: Vera Institute of Justice, (2019).

13) Tran Nguyen, “Coalition pushes for alternatives to new Santa Clara County jail,” San Jose Spotlight, Jan. 20, 2022, https://sanjosespotlight.com/coalition-pushes-for-alternatives-to-new-santa-clara-county-jail-silicon-valleysan-jose/; Special to San Jose Spotlight, “Cordell: Rejecting a new county jail,” San Jose Spotlight, Jan. 18, 2022, https://sanjosespotlight.com/cordell-rejecting-a-new-county-jail/; Robert Salonga, “Santa Clara County: Pitch to resume jail project riles activists who pushed treatment center,“ The Mercury News, Nov. 15, 2021, https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/11/15/santa-clara-county-pitch-to-resume-jail-project-riles-activists-whopushed-treatment-center/; Tran Nguyen, “San Jose residents protest jail plans, call for sheriff to step down,” San Jose Spotlight, Aug. 27, 2021, https://sanjosespotlight.com/san-jose-residents-protest-plans-to-build-new-jail-callfor-sheriff-to-step-down/.

14) BOS Packet, pgs. 116-17; Silicon Valley De-Bug, “Decarceration Report,” Jan. 20, 2022, https://www.siliconvalleydebug.org/stories/decarceration-report.

15) Id.

16) BOS Packet pg. 119.

17) Alameda County Board of Supervisors, “Resolution Adopting a ‘Care First, Jails Last’ Policy in Alameda County and Establishing a ‘Care First, Jails Last Committee’,” https://www.afsc.org/sites/default/files/documents/Care%20First%2C%20Jails%20Last%20Draft%20Resolution%2 02April2021.pdf, October 2021; Work Group to Re-envision the Jail Replacement Project, “Work Group to Reenvision the Jail Replacement Project Final Report,” https://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/jrp/WorkGroupRe-envisionJailReplacement.pdf, October 2016; Sacramento County Board of Supervisors Agenda Packet, Mar. 10, 2021; Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, “Cancellation of Design-Build Contract with McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.’, Aug. 13, 2019, http://file.lacounty.gov/SDSInter/bos/supdocs/139739.pdf; San Diego County Board of Supervisors Agenda, Oct. 19, 2021.

Rosa's Story - 2021 Annual Appeal

Dear Law Foundation Supporter,  

The past year has continued to be difficult for so many of us as we adjust our lives to the reality of a longer pandemic.  

With so much uncertainty, what we do know is that COVID and its economic impact still disproportionately affect our client communities–our unhoused neighbors, communities of color, and working-class families, many of whom have carried us through this pandemic as essential workers. 

Though it’s been a tough year, we are grateful for a few things: the resiliency of our clients in the face of extreme circumstances, our community partners and volunteers who use their expertise to help us reach even more people across our region, the incredible dedication of our staff, and you–our supporters who help make our work possible.  

With your continued support, we’re able to help families like the Gonzalezes who were suddenly faced with the possibility of needing to find a new home in the middle of a pandemic.  

Rosa* raised her two daughters in a rental property in downtown San José that they called home for over 20 years. Rosa’s daughters had started college and moved closer to school, but returned home when COVID hit, like many other students. The family felt safe, secure, and stable in their home until Rosa began to ask for needed repairs.  

During an inspection of the property to address the repairs, the landlord spotted Rosa’s two teenage daughters. Adamant that Rosa’s daughters were now unauthorized guests in the home since they were over the age of 18, the landlord demanded additional fees and deposits.   

Rosa was stunned to learn that she would be charged $9,000 in new fees and her rent would go from $1,905 per month to $2,250 per month, an 18% increase. Although Rosa was fortunate to remain steadily employed during the pandemic, such a sharp increase in rent would make it nearly impossible for her to make ends meet and provide for her daughters.  

She knew what was happening to her and her family wasn’t right so she called the Law Foundation.  

Our community advocates get calls like Rosa’s every day from people across Silicon Valley needing someone in their corner to help fight injustices that can have life-changing consequences. 

For Rosa and her family, leaving their home would mean leaving their community. “We love it here. We feel safe here being that we have been here for so long,” she told us.  

When Rosa called us with her urgent need, our community advocate quickly stepped into action and explained housing laws and tenant protections that safeguarded Rosa’s family. Our advocate sent a letter to the landlord explaining that the proposed 18% increase in rent was unlawful and the two teens didn’t need to submit additional deposits that they couldn’t afford.  

Rosa and her family can now rest easy knowing that the place they’ve called home for 20 years will continue to be a place of refuge in these difficult times. The family feels empowered to know their housing rights and is sharing those rights with neighbors who may be in need.  

Now that the eviction ban has ended, many more families will need our help in the next year.  

Your support helped us quickly mobilize to advocate for families and individuals across our community facing life-changing legal issues during the height of the pandemic– but many more of our neighbors are still facing urgent needs.  

Please make a tax-deductible donation to the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley today. Your investment means more families will get to stay in their homes, more individuals will get access to the healthcare they need, and more children and youth will get the support they need when dealing with serious issues like neglect or abuse.  

Thank you for your continued investment towards building a more equitable and just Silicon Valley. We are grateful to have you on our side. 

With gratitude,  

Alison Brunner, Esq. 

CEO

*Name changed to protect identity.