A high-risk prisoner explained how a ferocious isolation system works in US jails

Rarely convicted of rape, Timothy Gumm did not imagine he was going to live the worst of his life in a prison in Jackson, Georgia. After trying to escape in 2010, he spent almost five years in an isolation cell 2 meters by 4, without windows. From there, he rarely came out one day. Stunned, he decided to write a letter to Judge Charles Weigle, who decided to open an investigation.

Timothy lost nearly 25 pounds, lost all contact with his family and was about to believe that I would stay there indefinitely. In this place, according to what he himself claimed in the manuscript, he was "deprived of almost any human touch"

At the request of a human rights organization, one of the leading cell-confinement experts in the United States, social psychologist Craig Haney, has agreed to badyze the Timothy's case. "In this jail, I saw things I had never seen before"insured NBC News.

The specialist with 40 years of experience in the subject, was surprised to discover that the prison had a pavilion "Very similar to an asylum". In fact, he said that there were 40% of people with mental illness instead. Many of them without diagnosis, but in a state of very degraded mental health: they self-flagellated, they poured blood into their cells, they ate their stools or they swallowed sharp elements to commit suicide.

His report, published in 2017, resulted in a clbad action suit. The aim was "to prevent prison guards from keeping people in an extreme form of solitary confinement for many years without significant supervision and no prospect of departure. "

The lawsuit claims that Georgia's Special Control Unit (USM), a building of 192 inmates, is the prison "more restrictive and the only one of its kind "in this state." In the legal document, it was pointed out that isolation has always been used as a "torture technique".

The state of Georgia has recently ordered SMU to allow at least every detainee four hours a day outside the cells (except weekends and holidays). In addition, in the context of the termination agreement, it imposed that such hours could not be removed as a penalty for misconduct. They also agreed that, except in a few circumstances, a person could not be held in isolation for more than 24 months.

"Some researchers say that practice causes psychological damage while others argue that it is more likely that the prisoner will have problems again by being released, "said Haney, explaining that self-harm is clear proof of this.

Only in 2017, the situation of Timothy, it was repeated in 61,000 cases in 38 states of the United States and federal prison administration prisons that use isolation, according to a survey by the Arthur Liman Center on the public interest laws of Yale University. In the report, they pointed out that among the people punished with this method were minors, pregnant women and people with mental disorders.