Prisoners say staffers at Oregon State Penitentiary are abusing the system and overusing solitary confinement
Solitary confinement in Oregon’s prison system is “overused, overly long and characterized by isolating conditions.” That’s the conclusion of the Vera Institute of Justice’s October 2016 assessment of the Oregon Department of Corrections’ use of confinement, often called segregation.
More than 150 years of research has shown the combination of boredom, isolation and sensory deprivation an inmate experiences in solitary confinement can cause extreme mental duress, exacerbate pre-existing mental conditions, and often drive inmates to self-harm.
In 2014, the United Nations Committee Against Torture found the United States’ excessive use of solitary confinement was a violation of a U.N. convention against torture and inhumane punishment.
Despite those findings, solitary confinement is still commonly used in Oregon’s state prisons as punishment for nonviolent infractions and to isolate inmates during the course of internal investigations.
Inmates say they can find themselves in solitary confinement for months on end with no physical evidence of wrongdoing and no real recourse for what they see as false imprisonment within the prison. Often additional penalties, such as loss of privileges and steep fines, accompany solitary confinement.
When the Vera Institute of Justice took a snapshot of Oregon prisons in April 2015, nearly 8 percent of the prison population, more than 1,100 inmates, was in some form of solitary confinement.
Street Roots has been in contact with several Oregon state inmates; obtained other inmates’ testimony collected by a private investigator; and reviewed inmate complaints and disciplinary hearings and documents.
What is revealed is a pattern of bad practices at Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem with regard to its use of solitary confinement and the internal investigations into inmate misconduct that lands prisoners in it.
Most inmates took issue with a specific employee. He’s a lieutenant with the Security Threat Management team at Oregon State Penitentiary, and he assists with internal investigations into prisoner misconduct.
While the private investigator was hired to inquire about him specifically, the problems inmates had with his conduct could be systemic. For this reason, and because to date no lawsuit has been brought against this employee, Streets Roots is withholding his name from this report.
According to prisoners, he coerces false statements from confidential informants to incriminate inmates he targets.
They’ve accused him of using racial slurs, threats, bribery and other questionable tactics to pressure inmates into becoming informants and submitting testimony that he designs.
Documents obtained through a public-records request for complaints filed against this lieutenant echoed many of these accusations and revealed how difficult it can be for prisoners to get due process within prison walls.
At the heart of the problem is an internal punitive system within the prisons that can send nonviolent inmates to solitary confinement based solely on the accusations of other inmates who have incentive to give testimony.
Inmate Enrique Bautista at Snake River Correctional Institution explained it like this:
“How does one become a confidential reliable informant? Well, if I know who’s been doing drugs, I can say so-and-so has meth. He gets tested and (it) comes back positive for meth. Now I’m reliable. Next time I need a cell move or job change or my contact visits back, I can even make shit up and they’ll believe it because I’ve proven myself to be reliable. … How can anyone dispute or disprove what an anonymous source says about you?”
Inspector General Craig Prins said investigators do not go on the word of one inmate alone and will continue to investigate until there is a “preponderance of evidence,” which in some cases is multiple confidential informants.
Why should we care if inmates aren’t getting a fair shake in prison and are sent to solitary confinement when they break prison rules? For one, 95 percent of Oregon’s prison inmates will, at some point, be released back into society, and if they’ve spent a long time in solitary, they will be more likely to re-offend.
This has been shown with data from correctional facilities in several states, including Texas and Connecticut. There is an especially high rate of recidivism if they are released directly from solitary to the streets, as is common practice in Oregon.
Second, given what we know about the effects of solitary confinement, it begs the question: Where is the line drawn between what’s acceptable and what qualifies as cruel, although not so unusual, punishment?
Solitary Shane
When inmate Shane Staggs was approved for a transfer from Snake River Correctional Institution in Eastern Oregon to work in the call center at Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, he was ecstatic. He could finally be closer to his 8-year-old son and fiancée who lives in Portland.
“I was one of the top three salesmen in all of OCE (Oregon Corrections Enterprises) call centers, so that was my ticket to OSP,” he said in a letter.
Six months after he arrived, his trouble began.
Staggs said he mailed money to someone outside of the prison for a pair of shoes that were no longer available in the canteen. According to prison investigators, it was an address inmates were known to send money to for drugs.
Up until that point, it would appear Staggs had been focused and doing well. He had reached the highest incentive level in the prison, was active in the Uhuru SaSa cultural club, held a good job and had earned high grades in the college courses he’d taken.
When he was brought in for questioning about the money he’d sent, he said the two investigators, one of whom was the lieutenant, hung his achievements over his head.
Staggs said they told him he wasn’t really a factor in their investigation and reminded him he could lose his good standing. They showed him three photos of inmates who Staggs said he didn’t know. He said he was asked to point to one of the three photos and write a confidential statement saying that person was bringing in drugs, but he refused.
“The next day, I had a disciplinary report for allegedly bringing drugs in to the prison, which resulted in a year of solitary confinement,” he wrote.
While it violates state ordinance to sentence an inmate to one year of solitary confinement, there’s a loophole. Once a prisoner hits the 180-day maximum allowed in disciplinary segregation, he can be shipped off to Snake River Correctional Institution to be housed indefinitely in the Intensive Management Unit (IMU), another version of solitary confinement.
According to one inmate, the IMU is known within the prison as the “fortress of solitude.”
During the course of an 18-month period tracked by the Vera Institute of Justice, 549 inmates statewide were moved from disciplinary segregation to an IMU. Nearly half had spent four or more months in segregation before the transfer.
The National Commission on Correctional Health Care’s most recent position states that to house anyone in solitary confinement for longer than 15 consecutive days is “cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, and harmful to an individual’s health.”
The main difference between IMU and disciplinary segregation is anger management and substance abuse programming. Inmates in both units spend the vast majority of their time alone in a cell the size of a parking space with little to occupy their minds.
While in the past this programming was “limited to packets that adults in custody were expected to complete alone in their cells,” according to the Vera Institute of Justice report, a more comprehensive and interactive program has been added.
But this was not available during Staggs’ first stint in IMU. He wrote, “In administration’s eyes ‘packets’ = ‘programs.’ I can assure you, a ‘program’ it is not. The packets consist of outdated, generic multiple-choice questions that never change, let alone make a difference in one’s way of thinking or ability to make healthier decisions.”
We obtained copies of all the current program packets and curriculum from the Department of Corrections and sent them to Nick Crapser, a licensed mental health and chemical dependency counselor who counsels former inmates at Sponsors Inc. re-entry services in Eugene.
Crapser gave us mixed reviews of the programming. One packet, a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration publication, he said, was an effective and evidence-based curriculum that he, himself, has taught from. However, he used it for facilitated groups, whereas in IMU, inmates work through it alone.
Another packet on anger management, Crapser said, was based on dated approaches and was not in an effective format.
Crapser said the most solid curriculum was the new Pathfinders of Oregon program, which incorporates actual classroom time and is facilitator driven. An instructor heads a classroom outfitted with chairs that allow for inmates to be cuffed and shackled into the seat.
After Staggs finished six months in IMU, he was returned to the general population at Oregon State Penitentiary in March 2016.
Because of his placements in segregation and IMU, he had lost his job, program placements and good standing.
His fiancée remembers visiting him there shortly after his release from the IMU. She said he was pale and had become so skinny it brought tears to her eyes. He had lost 40 pounds.
“I touched his arm, and his face changed,” she said. “He said it felt weird to be touched.”
She said his friends told her they had to be patient with him because he was anxious all the time and acting strangely. But he got better. He was able to buy food items from the commissary and gain back some weight, and he began to act like his old self again.
He soon completed a voluntary three-phase Substance Abuse Awareness group therapy program and rejoined his cultural club as newsletter editor. He completed an eight-week mentorship class, bought a guitar, enrolled in a music theory class and got a job in the laundry.
“I was doing more and accomplished more in seven months than many inmates have done in 10 years,” he wrote. “I was on track.”
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A product of severe child abuse growing up and a drug user since the age of 9, Staggs was on a better path than at most other points in his life.
One day in August 2016, while he was at work in the laundry, his cellmate was found with methamphetamine in their shared cell. On Nov. 17, Staggs was placed in segregation pending a 30-day investigation after confidential informants indicated he was receiving and selling meth, according to a misconduct report.
Before the 30-day investigation was completed, Staggs received notice that he’d been placed under administrative hold and would continue to stay in solitary confinement for “six months or until the investigation is complete.”
Charges weren’t issued until January.
He wrote that the investigators “are simply taking the word of other inmates who are under the influence of narcotics, who fail UA testing and then are offered a deal to avoid (segregation) themselves.”
He went on to say that his mental and emotional health were affected, and his reputation as a model inmate had been destroyed.
“Every prison official, program facilitator and educational teacher I’ve had, all the way down to the medication line nurses, keep me in question,” he wrote.
When his fiancée called the prison to find out what had happened, she said, the lieutenant told her that there was no physical evidence Staggs was involved but that he had a “hunch” he was going to continue to follow up on.
Meanwhile, Staggs sat in isolation while the investigation continued.
At Staggs’ request, fellow inmate Jason Ellis submitted what he called a “declaration of truth.” It stated that in January 2017, the lieutenant offered him a “G-Shock watch with large metal buttons” in exchange for testimony that would incriminate Staggs.
Ellis wrote that during the exchange, the lieutenant insisted Staggs had shown Ellis that he had meth.
“I denied this, as it was untrue,” Ellis wrote, adding that the lieutenant again told him that if he would just fill out the form saying Staggs showed him drugs, the watch would be his for free.
Ellis did not sign a statement, but others reportedly did.
According to Staggs’ disciplinary hearing order, he was found guilty of introduction and distribution of meth into Oregon State Penitentiary because “a large amount of confidential informant testimony was submitted in this case and deemed to be believable.”
There was no physical evidence.
Whether any of the testimony is true is questionable, but the result was another long stint in segregation, followed by another move to the IMU at Snake River. This time, however, he was able to participate in the newer program, which got him out of his cell and shackled to a seat in a classroom for about four hours each week.
He found the new program far more beneficial than the packets, and he signed up to be a teacher’s aide in future classes.
He was released back into general population this past week. He had just spent another 10 months in segregation.
Sarah Radcliffe, an attorney with Disability Rights Oregon, said her office constantly receives complaints about conditions in Oregon prisons’ special segregation units.
“Imagine a hotel bathroom,” she said. “That’s about the size of an individual cell. Now imagine that you are confined to a hotel bathroom for any period of time. It’s not a condition that supports human life.”
Even though he’s six hours away from family and friends, Staggs and his fiancée are relieved that it appears he will remain in Eastern Oregon. They figure the farther away from the lieutenant he is, the better.
Another inmate’s story bears striking similarity to Staggs. Like Staggs, Rafael Mora-Contreras was a model inmate before he began to have problems with the lieutenant.
He was president of the Latino Club at Oregon State Penitentiary for nine years, and staying out of trouble was a requirement for that position. He created his own niche at the prison, photographing inmate weddings and fundraisers and advocating for Hispanic inmates.
When there was a large-scale investigation into drugs, Mora-Contreras was placed into solitary confinement for more than two months. Documents indicate there were reports that he was involved in bringing drugs into the prison, but Mora-Contreras indicated in a letter to an attorney that he believed prison staff was targeting him because he advocates for the rights of Hispanic inmates.
“If you go into a disciplinary segregation unit,” Mora-Contreras told Street Roots, “most of the population there is of minority – blacks, Hispanics.”
The Vera Institute of Justice study found black and Hispanic inmates were overrepresented in segregated populations. While black inmates make up 10 percent of the total prison population, they made up 17 percent of the IMU population. And while Hispanic inmates represent 13 percent of prisoners, they account for 18 percent of both IMU and administrative segregation populations.
In addition, black and Hispanic inmates often received longer segregation sanctions per incident than white inmates.
Another inmate, Jose Maciel, was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks following a fight. He has since been released from prison, but he wrote a notarized statement on Mora-Contreras’ behalf.
Maciel said that before he was moved out of solitary, the lieutenant pulled him into his office and told him that if he would submit testimony saying Mora-Contreras had been an enabler of the fight, he would give him soda and popcorn tickets along with other privileges, and he said he would make Maciel’s disciplinary report disappear.
He said that because it wasn’t true, he refused.
“Refusing to blame Rafael for the fight, (the lieutenant) became upset, called me degrading and racist names, and insulted me. He took me back to my cell, in the hole. He took away my blanket, pillow and toilet paper for 5 days and on August 24 sent me to Snake River Correctional (Institution),” he wrote.
Ultimately, Mora-Contreras was cleared of all charges but was also transferred to Snake River, far away from his family. In July, after months of advocacy from his friends and family, he was transferred back to Salem and is now at Oregon State Correctional Institution.
Due process?
A review of disciplinary hearing audio recordings involving another inmate, Jaime Ramirez, showed just how little defense an inmate has when facing charges.
In May 2016, after guards found Suboxone, commonly used to treat opioid addiction, in Ramirez’s socks, he had a disciplinary hearing in which he pleaded guilty.
“It’s a shameful thing, having a drug addiction, obviously, but it’s something that I won’t deny,” he said at the hearing.
He was sentenced to two months in solitary confinement, two weeks’ loss of privileges and a $100 fine.
He took issue with the fine.
“I don’t have a Social Security number or IT number,” Ramirez said. “Therefore when I work, I don’t qualify for an industries job, for one, and any other job that I get, I am not allowed to make anywhere above $49, so that’s my max, and my income is really low.”
Undocumented immigrants housed in Oregon’s prisons cannot obtain employment with the higher-paying Oregon Corrections Enterprises operations without a tax identification (IT) number, which can be difficult to obtain while in prison.
“You have a current balance of $321,” Hearings Officer Jeremy Nofziger said.
“I’ve saved that. That’s taken me years to save,” he said.
The fine was not dropped.
FURTHER READING: How the justice system comes down harder on people in poverty
Three months later, Ramirez had another hearing, this time for his involvement in a large-scale fight. It began Aug. 5 and lasted three days, involving 200 inmates. Many inmates were swiftly investigated for their involvement.
After reviewing the evidence, the charges against Ramirez were all dismissed. The video evidence appeared to match Ramirez’s version of events.
But then in October, he was tried again for the same altercation based on a new memo added by the lieutenant. He now said Ramirez had confessed to him shortly after the fight.
Ramirez questioned why this evidence wasn’t mentioned at the first hearing when the lieutenant was present.
“Not for one second did I say to him that I fought. That is untrue,” he pleaded. “If you think about it, during the first hearing, my case was investigated for 30 days. How come just now (the lieutenant) decides to come up with a memo saying this? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and it’s really, really unnerving to tell you the truth. I’ve been incarcerated 13 years. I have never had this kind of experience before, and far as the system goes, I mean it’s never done me wrong.”
Ramirez received three months in solitary confinement, with the cost of restitution to be determined at a later date.
Another inmate, Arturo Mora, told Pendleton-based private investigator Carlos Vega that he spent six months in IMU after he refused to tell the lieutenant where he got the drugs found in his possession. He was charged with disobedience, uprising and disturbance as a result, he said.
“I’ve only been in one fight since I was locked up, and that was 20 years ago,” Mora said. “Been here since 1984. I am a 55-year-old man.”
He went on to say that the lieutenant has verbally threatened him and is known to regularly abuse his power. “(The lieutenant) has always accused you of things with no facts.”
He said he tried to complain about the lieutenant by writing to the DOC’s inspector general who is charged with investigating staff misconduct, he said.
But it was the lieutenant who answered the complaint.
Inmate Roderick Griggs also told Vega that the lieutenant had threatened him.
“If you don’t cooperate with them,” Griggs said, “especially (the lieutenant), they will threaten you and let you know that things can happen to you. Never physically, but they have threatened me verbally.”
Griggs was transferred in September from the prison in Salem to Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla – 230 miles away. He told Vega he believed it was retaliation for not cooperating with the lieutenant’s investigations.
“Now I’m so far away, I can’t even see my son now,” he said.
Snake River inmate Frederick Myles said he spent two years and six months in Snake River’s IMU.
“The funny part about it is all they have to do is listen to us and try to help us,” he told Vega. “You go to them for help, and they send you to segregation.”
He said investigators sometimes give confidential informants items they’ve collected during shakedowns.
He said that with the lieutenant, “it’s his way or the highway, basically. You’ve got one of two options: You can do what he say or you can just get ready to get put under investigation and shipped to other institutions. … They can do whatever they want to you. You’re at the mercy of them.”
In a letter to Street Roots, another inmate, Arturo Ruiz, stated that he’s been in prison since 1984 “and I never met an officer like (the lieutenant).”
He said that after he was caught with drugs, the lieutenant told him that he could cooperate and his disciplinary report would disappear, or if he refused, then he would use everything in his power to make sure that Ruiz stayed locked up in IMU.
During an interview, Prins, the inspector general, refused to disclose whether the lieutenant is under any internal investigation for misconduct.
Of 17 official grievances inmates filed against the lieutenant over the past four years, 10 were denied outright, mainly because inmates failed to correctly follow the complicated set of rules for filling out such complaints.
In cases where a grievance against the lieutenant had been accepted, the subsequent investigation appeared to consist of little more than asking the lieutenant for his version of events and taking him at his word.
Prins also declined to comment on whether bribery and threats are appropriate tools for gathering information from informants, stating that he was unprepared to answer those questions.
Prins’ office is responsible for investigatin-g the misconduct of inspectors, including the lieutenant.
According to a spokesperson for the corrections department, the lieutenant was unavailable for an interview.
Email staff reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @GreenWrites.
Related coverage:
• Shane's story: Solitary confinement in an inmate's words
• Reforms to solitary confinement in Oregon uncertain
• Little recourse for Oregon prisoners
