24-hour lockup: California Youth

"When you leave 24-hour lockup you feel like an alien, like you just came out of your mother's womb and don't know how to use your limbs."
-Joaquin Diazdeleon, formerly incarcerated in the Division of Juvenile Justice

Dear Hayes,

Over the last several months, members of Families for Books Not Bars have shared horror stories of violence and extreme isolation within California's youth prison system. Now, a state audit1 has confirmed what we've been hearing - young people are routinely locked in their cells for 23 or more hours per day. This is unacceptable.

In 2004, the court required that the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) stop isolating youth in their cells. The DJJ's "improvement" was to require that youth receive 3 hours out of their cells per day.

Yet, years later, they can't even follow their own, insufficient policies. We have documents showing hundreds of cases where youth were isolated in their cells for up to 23 and even 24 hours a day, for weeks at a time. In one case, a youth was let out of his cell for only one hour over a period of 10 days.

Solitary confinement amounts to torture. It is has been shown to cause deep, long-term psychological problems in adults2, and makes it even harder to reintegrate into society. This is even more true for youth and the DJJ knows this. In fact, in 2005, Joseph Maldonado3 took his own life within the walls of Stark youth prison after spending months in solitary confinement.

These abusive practices must end. Send an email to Matthew Cate, the head of the California prison system, demanding that he immediately require DJJ to allow all youth out of their cells for a minimum of 8 hours per day.

The DJJ is charged with educating and rehabilitating the young people in its care, not inflicting additional damage on them. Act now with Books Not Bars -- our youth and their families cannot wait!

Books not bars, schools not jails.

Sumayyah Waheed
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

1. "Young Prisoners Faced 24-Hour Confinement, Classes in Closets," Bay Citizen, 6/6/2011
http://www.baycitizen.org/youth/story/young-prisoners-faced-24-hour-classes/