Expert says solitary confinement is most severe in Arizona

The landmark trial Jensen v. Shinn began Monday in Phoenix, the latest chapter in an almost decade-long struggle to determine whether Arizona’s prisoners are getting the basic health care they are entitled to under the law.

Nov. 4: Who testified on Day 4 of the trial

Dr. Craig Haney

Haney is a witness for the plaintiffs. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies the impact of solitary confinement and isolation in prisons. Haney was a lead researcher on the Stanford Prison Experiment. What did he say?

Haney called Arizona’s extensive use of solitary confinement and isolation “very harsh” and “among the most severe in the country.”

Haney said mentally ill patients are especially at risk when subjected to isolation.

Haney told the court that human beings are “wired to connect. Our connections with others provide us with a sense of identity; a sense of self.”

“Isolated confinement is painful and it causes suffering. It can be damaging, irreversible and life-threatening because it can lead to self-harm and suicide.” He said that more than half of the suicides he reviewed from 2015 to 2021 took place in isolation housing units.

Haney testified about recent tours of Arizona prisons and described isolation units at the Lewis and Eyman prisons with no windows and solid steel doors that prevent prisoners from communicating. He said prisoners live in these cells “more or less around the clock.” He documented that prisoners living in isolation at the Eyman prison had made “peanut butter traps” to catch roaches and rats in their cells.

Haney described cages that prisoners are locked in while wearing restraints during sessions with mental health counselors at Eyman prison. He said prisoners often decline counseling sessions because they don’t want to be locked in the cage.

Haney said prisoners refer to the brief mental health care encounters they receive as “drive-bys.” They told him counselors will often quickly pass their cell and ask for a thumbs up instead of spending time evaluating them.

He said he spoke to juveniles committed to the Department of Corrections. They told him they had not been allowed to go outside for recreation for three weeks: “The Arizona Department of Corrections’ isolations practices create a very substantial risk of harm to juveniles ... One told me he couldn’t sleep, another told me all he does is sleep. This is taking enormous risks with a young person’s psychological well-being.”

Haney testified that most prisoners held in isolation units are not given much recreation time. When they are, it’s usually in a small concrete block pen.

Haney said Arizona should adopt limits on the amount of time prisoners can be held in isolation. He found that many incarcerated people had been held in isolation for months or even years.

Haney said prisoners who are seriously mentally ill, juveniles or pregnant should be completely excluded from isolation practices except in only emergency situations.

Cross examination

Defendant attorneys accused Haney of conflating custody classification levels and detention status levels in his discussion of conditions in the prisons.

When attorneys asked Haney about the Stanford Prison Experiment, he said the study would not be done today because it would be deemed unethical.

Defendant attorneys claimed the number of prisoners held in maximum custody has declined in recent years and faulted Haney for not reviewing that data.

Defendant attorneys said prisoners in isolation can watch TV, use tablets and purchase commissary items, and they disputed the amount of outof-cell time prisoners are given.

Rahim Muhammad

Muhammad is a witness for the plaintiffs and is currently incarcerated at the Tucson prison. He has been diagnosed with PTSD and schizophrenia.

What did he say?

When asked how has living in a maximum custody unit impacted his mental health, Muhammad replied: “I’m all screwed up.” He told the court the conditions he lived in were “appalling and inhumane. I feel less than.”

Muhammad told the court he has been at the highest, most restrictive custody level since 2014, despite good behavior. He said in some prisons he was only allowed to have recreation time once a week and allowed to shower twice a week.

Muhammad has spent most of his time in prison in isolation, which he says has had a negative impact on his mental health: “If I can’t interact and socialize with anyone, I can’t keep the voices in my head away.”

Muhammad told the court he’s spent more than $200 requesting mental health treatment, because Arizona prisons charge incarcerated people $4 to submit a “health needs request” to receive health care.

Testifying to the brutality of his treatment in isolation cells, Muhammad says he was pepper-sprayed more than 40 times. He accused COs of beating him, holding him down with a knee on his throat, making profane comments to him and saying things about the size of his genitalia.

Plaintiff attorneys showed the court a video where correctional officers threatened to pepper spray Muhammad if he continued to self-harm while he was on constant mental health watch: “Muhammad if you bang your head again I’m going to spray you.” The video showed the COs pepper spraying him. Muhammad said he remembered none of what transpired in that video, telling the court he was “blacked out” and “very distraught.”

Plaintiff attorneys presented another video of a different incident where correctional officers shot Muhammad with pepper balls at very close range through the food slot of his constant watch cell after ordering him to stop harming himself. In the video, Muhammad tells the officers that voices in his head tell him he has to hurt himself to prevent someone from raping his daughter. The officer responds: “You are choosing to bang your head against the wall. We will keep shooting you. We will gas you every day. These are behavioral choices you are making.”