Page 4 - Windowless Segregation Cell News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Most jail administrators we've talked to say they have no other resources besides segregation to prevent an inmate intent on harming himself or others. and while the behavior might be formed by years of outside influences or mental health issues, officers are not trained to grapple with problems best treated by psychiatrists. and mental health units are often underfunded and understaffed. at kent county jail in grand rapids, michigan, lansing hodges spent most of his stay in segregation, locked in a one-man cell 23 hours per day. >> i've been in administration segregation unit for four months ...

>> four years after our shoot trotter was still at wabash and in general population. >> imagine being buried alive in a windowless cell 23 1/2 hours a day. the sunlight hasn't touched your skin in years. you feel like you're living in darkness and humanity has been drained from your soul by the cruel and inhumane conditions being inflicted upon you. imagine being buried alive and being deprived of your basic senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. you're faced with extraordinary isolation. complete idleness. and limited environmental stimulation. which pushes you to acts of desperation...

Possibility that he could be out again. >> for hinkston, the window served another purpose, a way to meet women. >> one morning i noticed he had affixed toilet paper on to the window with toothpaste spelling out "big mark." this was at the front entry of the jail. all the administrative staff walked in. >> the plaza below hinkston's window was also used by civilians visiting the jail or doing business in county courthouses. >> and there's a lot of women that walk down there and mark said he was trying to look for somebody to come visit him and possibly start a relationship with. >> since i've ...

Remove their mattress, we remove everything from their cell except for a towel and a washcloth and one religious item. a bible, koran, whatever religious item they would like to read. they sit in that cell the entire day and at 9:30 at night we return the mattress with their sheets and blankets. >> the other part of what they do is the loaf. which is this vegetarian ball they bake. they make the inmates eat it three meals a day, six days a week. >> it is a nutritional loaf. it is vegetables, mixed with flour and yeast and oil to hold it together, baked in a loaf about four inches wide and six ...

>> imagine for the last nine years, being entombed in a windowless cell. held under sensory deprivation in isolation from human contact, and only human touch you feel is the unwanted touch of prison guards. the conditions are dehumanizing, demoralizing and every day is a struggle just to keep your mental liberty and self-respect, which are the last two things they haven't taken from you. how long are you going to imagine that i don't exist? this is my life. >> trotter was originally convicted in the mid 1980s for petty theft and sentence fod four years at another state prison. but with only a ...