*Note* Recently Dick Hall-Sizemore's wrote an article in the Bacon Rebellion: "Are Conclusions Pre-Ordained for Solitary Confinement study?" Mr. William Thorpe submitted an op-ed in response. It is in appreciation of Mr. James Bacon published this opposing view, Yes a prisoners view. "However You Define it, Solitary Confinement is Barbarous." Because this original piece was deemed too lengthy to publish, you can read the unedited version below.
Dick Hall-Sizemore confessed....."If I had asked, but did not always know enough to ask" and in one swoop discredited any legitimate observation he could have relative to the Virginia Department of Corrections practice of Solitary Confinement. The not knowing "enough to ask" is the imperative any reasonable and serious-minded person has to resolve and satisfy before hurling tropes that we have come to recognize as the mechanics of Intellectual-Liberalism of Conservatism and it's schizophrenia. So Mr. Hall Size-More is accord with his compatriot Mr. Bacon [who in an earlier work, "Are Conclusions Pre-Ordained for Solitary Confinement study?" expressed another thread opposing the very basic and fundamental need that conclusions should be fact-based and data driven] has given us another indulgence of the exercise of the indefensible.
In Mr. Hall-Size-More 3/13/19....."More on Solitary Confinement" we are hard-pressed to take it seriously. Because is Mr. Hall-Sizemore hectoring us that if Virginia's use of Solitary Confinement doesn't comport with Hollywood's depiction of prison i.e Cool Hand Luke, The Great Escape or Communist North Vietnam's practice of Solitary Confinement, then it is not Solitary Confinement and society should practically ignore what is being done by it's prison officials in its name irrespective and regardless of its depravity and barbarity. If this is Mr. Hall-Sizemore's position then it is the only reachable conclusion and its very means of dissemination BaconsRebellion.com sullies the very work and aspiration of Nathanial Bacon of 1676, but considering the reactionary and conservative worldview Mr. Hall-Sizemore's work intimates, it isn't surprising that Bacons Rebellion and it's ethos has been misappropriated and perverted.Mr. Hall-Sizemore lectures us in his Solitary Confinement 101 that "by its very terms," "Solitary Confinement" means being confined alone not having contact with other humans. That is not the case with Virginia prisons. Those inmates housed in DOC's version of "Solitary" confinement are in single cells, but can communicate with their guards, can leave their cells several times a week for showers and outdoor recreation, have regular visits from counselors and psychologist, and in some cases can participate in education or another programming - as a result DOC avoids the term "Solitary Confinement." "Instead, it uses other terms." So, in a nutshell, Mr. Hall-Sizemore's argument is with VADOC's "version" of Solitary Confinement which he recognizes is a type and form and I wonder how it's tongue and cheekiness and facetiousness could have eluded Mr. Hall-SizeMore's and it's highly improbable that it did and as such the only conclusion then is the sensibilities of Mr. Hall-Sizemore are quite at home with government sanctioned and perpetrated barbarity which as evidenced in Virginia Solitary Confinement practice and the ruling and finding by a Federal Judge in Porter vs. Clarke violates the U.S. Constitutions prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Mr. Hall-Sizemore writes ".....The ACLU and other advocacy groups could seize on the data [referencing data on Solitary Confinement] and make superficial conclusions." He continues with "the management of inmates is a complex business and each case needs to be examined on its own merits. It would be easy to draw misleading conclusions about the use or misuse of Restrictive Housing if one does not look at individual circumstances" [Mr. Size-More euphemistically refers to Solitary Confinement as Restrictive Housing] which in anticipation the federal judge in Porter vs. Clarke responded with and I paraphrase, Regardless of the label put on the Solitary Confinement practice, if prisoners are being warehoused and confined in cells for 20 hours or more it is Solitary Confinement.
Now what Mr. Hall-Sizemore and those of his inclination forget is the practice of imprisonment in the Commonwealth of Virginia is Rule of Law based and as such there has to be process. As the judge in the Madrid v. Gomez case dealing with the use of Solitary Confinement in California stated and I paraphrase, prison officials are not at liberty to act on their each and every impulse as they see fit and if Solitary Confinement with all it's attendant evils is the state's solution, that management of prisoners which Mr. Size-More proffers as mitigant. Then the logical conclusion would be, the state could Lobotomize prisoners, But the Constitution or rule of law will not permit it. So Mr. Hall Size-More's argument against the collection of data concerning the Virginia Department of Corrections use of Solitary Confinement, which is simply intended to make the practice transparent and prison officials accountable to society's will not only smells of the prison officials logic and apology but sadly to say, is the typical and classic assertion of the status quo when confronted with the inexorable progressive demand for transparency and accountability of state action and function done in the name of society and quite frankly it's high time we relegated such regurgitations to the ash heap of savagery and it's impunity which as ideal, the human condition and it's mind sought,
It would be quite simple and a cheap parlor trick to engage in the petty insidious turn of Mr. Hall-SizeMore's argument by responding in kind when he cites examples of alleged misdeeds of humans who are imprisoned as qualifications for whatever claim the Virginia Department of Corrections and it's Red Onion State Prison, actor has as cause for the extrajudicial logic of Solitary Confinement. But I will not because the historic facts and record are prima facie of not only Red Onion State Prison officials and guards but Wallens Ridge, Sussex l and ll, River North to name a few even going all the way back to the now-closed Richmond based, Virginia State Penitentiary and Mecklenburg Correctional Center, were the norm was the pure unbridled savagery and sadism of its prison employees acting above the law and beyond the pale of simple humaness in the treatment of prisoners which now law authorized and consequently gave cause to expose the rife criminality of the Virginia Prison Official which Mr. Hall-Sizemore pathetically labors to excuse and conveniently protect.It would have been and it will be a breath of fresh air when Messers Hall-Sizemore and Bacon recognize that transparency, accountability and the Due process of the rule of law exist as fact of the social and it's political-economy maturity as a fundamental construct of "no one is above the law" especially the prison officials who are sworn to uphold it and the transparency of data in the public domain on the practice of Solitary Confinement will only make Virginia society and its Governance a redeemed one.
William Thorpe is in Solitary Confinement at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison has been since its opening in 1998.
