A former inmate shares his story of his time in jail: ‘Being isolated ... wears on your mind hard’

Andre Oliver still gets nervous when he’s around large groups of people.

It’s just one of the lingering effects of his time in jail and in solitary confinement — a practice some criminal justice advocates, both in the Lehigh Valley and nationwide, are calling on to end.

Oliver, of Whitehall Township, spent 60 days in solitary at George Hill Correctional Facility in Delaware County after he got caught fighting while serving time for a narcotics conviction in the early 2000s.

Oliver, 42, said during those 60 days, the lights were always on, even at night. Yet his cell had no access to natural light, so he lost the ability to keep track of the passage of time. He said the only way he was able to tell time had passed was by seeing that a new guard started their shift. He believes he wasn’t sleeping more than two hours at a time.

“Two or three days can pass and you think it’s a day and a half,” Oliver said. “Your senses [are messed up] because the light is on 24/7, it doesn’t get dim, none of that.”

Though inmates in solitary were supposed to get an hour out of their cell each day, Oliver said they were lucky if they spent three hours out of their cell in a week.

“Weekend is a complete lockdown,” Oliver said. “Usually about Friday afternoon, they would stop letting people out. It wouldn’t be until Monday morning that you would even be out of your [cell] at all.”

Oliver and others interviewed by The Morning Call about their experiences in solitary also said they constantly were worried about their food being tampered with.

Oliver said there were times he didn’t eat because he knew the inmate who brought him his meals did not like him.

“I didn’t eat for three or four whole days. I didn’t take a bite of nothing, I wouldn’t touch it. I got so hungry I bit soap. I was that hungry,” Oliver said. “That’s what happens when you’re in isolation and not eating right.”

He added that because he wasn’t eating or sleeping well, he was too tired to exercise.

“Even though you are sitting there, you aren’t doing anything. You feel drained,” Oliver said.

Oliver said to keep from falling apart, inmates resort to strategies and behaviors that they would have otherwise thought were unthinkable or ridiculous.

“Being isolated, not being able to talk to anybody wears on your mind hard,” Oliver said. “Believe it or not, it might sound crazy but having an imaginary friend as somebody to talk to when you’ve been isolated for a long time helps. Putting a snack out for them, just talking to them, I’ve done all that [expletive] — it helps. I thought the dude who told me that was out of his mind but it works.”

Oliver said even with these coping strategies, solitary still affected his mind. He would sometimes hallucinate having conversations with his mother or his dead father, something that never happened to him before or after his time in solitary. He added that when he could sleep, he often had vivid dreams.

“When I was in the hole in jail, I would constantly have a dream that I was out,” he said. “It would be so vivid that I was out at home that when I woke up and when I realized where I was at, it was like the most crushing thing possible.”

Oliver has been incarcerated several times since his stay in solitary. When he spoke to The Morning Call in May, he had been sober for seven months and was receiving mental health treatment. He said he doesn’t know if his two months in solitary confinement affected him or not, but he does get anxious when he is around lots of people.

“I don’t know if it’s for the hole or just jail, but I don’t particularly care for being around people. I get anxiety. People say that’s from jail but I’m sure that it’s worse for somebody who had to sit in a hole,” Oliver said. “When people are around me, walking around, I don’t like that. I’ve got to see everybody.”

Oliver said he doesn’t believe solitary is effective for disciplining inmates.

“If you ever really look at the people who go in the hole, it’s usually people who keep going to the hole,” Oliver said. “They’re just not the same, they spend so much time in the hole. People will fight and think it’s cool, then after a while you see them again and they’re going back to the hole. Something ain’t right with them anymore.”