By Enceno Macy | Illustration by Sergei Chepik
Editor’s Note: In April, we began posting the work of Enceno Macy, an inmate in a US prison. Enceno’s articles are sent handwritten, then typed and edited by a trusted editor. Comments typed into the response area will be sent directly to Enceno. Thanks for reading and for the warm response he received last time –efc
Three years ago, the Federal Bureau of Prisons secretly built two experimental “Communication Management Unit” prisons, one in Terre Haute, Indiana, and the other in Marion, Illinois. These secret prisons were ostensibly designed to prevent terrorists from communicating with each other or with anyone inside or outside the federal prison system. In reality, information leaked out through lawsuits and prisoners’ families reveals that inmates are sent to the secret facilities for their religious beliefs, unpopular political views, environmental activism, or in retaliation for challenging other rights violations within the federal prison system.
The Communication Management Units severely restrict all inmate contact or communication with each other or with family, friends, or other outsiders. No physical contact whatsoever is allowed. Phone calls are also severely restricted, as is access to educational and employment programs. Inmates are transferred to the units with no explanation, no due process, and no recourse; the only avenue to complain or appeal is to the authority that placed them there.
Thanks to a [lawsuit brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights], the federal Communication Management Units are no longer a secret. What is disturbing is that the picture that has emerged is little different from your average state prison.
It is in human nature to desire interaction and/or companionship with another living, breathing being. Some humans find it in other humans, some find it in animals and/or nature, and others can substitute the living, breathing part with spiritual comfort. But many can’t, as is evident in those who have been isolated from all human contact. This is a common punishment in prison. They call it segregation, “seg,” which is a form of solitary confinement.
Those who are at all familiar with jail know about segregation, or “the hole,” as it’s often called. There are varying degrees of segregation, from total to partial isolation, all involving deprivations of mail, visits, telephone, television, radio, companions, reading material, exercise, or communication. Inmates are routinely sent to the hole for anything from petty infractions, like taking four books from the library cart instead of three, to serious assaults and volatile behavior. They can be kept there for as little as a few days to months or even years. Regardless of what a person has done to deserve such treatment, the longer the isolation the higher the possibility of psychosis or serious mental damage occurring.