Around 9/16/21, IDOC guards, Indiana State Police and other police forces carried out a major operation with over 100 heavily armed officers and K-9s on the solitary confinement Secure Housing Unit (SHU) at Wabash Valley CF designed to terrorize people incarcerated throughout the Indiana prison system.
The SHU houses people in both Disciplinary Segregation (DS) and Administrative Segregation (AS). People in DS, who are in solitary for a specific period of time as punishment for a specific conduct violation, are only allowed access to a small amount of their property and are not allowed to order commissary, must wear state-issue clothing, and only have access to the most basic hygiene products.
Those in AS, on the other hand, who have been held in solitary longer due to administrative order, are supposed to be held in “living conditions that approximate those of the general population,” other than being in solitary confinement, according to IDOC Policy 02-01-111, “Administrative Restrictive Status Housing,” Section IX: CONDITIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE RESTRICTIVE STATUS
HOUSING UNIT, p.19. Specifically, people in AS are required under policy to be allowed to order from commissary and have clothes and hygiene products like people in general population.
In the police action last week, many heavily armed police and guards descended on the SHU, violently confiscated the property of every person on the unit, and placed all 288 people on strip cell in frigid temperatures for at least two days – essentially robbing them at gunpoint. Then a small portion of each person’s property was returned, the same as would be allowed to a person in DS – in clear violation of IDOC Policy 02-01-111, “The Use and Operation of Adult Offender Administrative Restrictive Status Housing Units,” and Policy 02-04-101, “The Disciplinary Code for Adult Offenders,” long-established legal precedent, and the Constitutional rights of incarcerated people.
The police said that their objective with this action was to “turn the SHU back into the SHU,” referring to the 1990s, when people held in IDOC’s segregation units were forced to fight with litigation and physical rebellion for their most basic rights to be recognized.
Effectively, the police operation last week eliminated the distinction between AS and DS solitary confinement units, by making everyone in solitary subject to the same rules as normally apply only to those in DS, the most restrictive housing status. So de facto, everyone in solitary is now in DS, regardless of how long they have been there or the reasons they are there, in direct violation of IDOC Policy 02-04-102, “Disciplinary Restrictive Status Housing,” which clearly states, “An offender may not remain on disciplinary restrictive status housing longer than the given disciplinary sanction imposed by the Disciplinary Hearing Board in accordance with Policy and Administrative Procedure 02-04-101, “The Disciplinary Code for Adult Offenders.” (p 11)
Long-term solitary confinement is psychological torture that often drives people insane. The units are kept cold, and an overhead light is kept on throughout the day in each cell that the person caged there can’t turn off. IDOC has long held hundreds of people, especially those who resist being dehumanized, in solitary indefinitely, sometimes for years or decades. Further restricting their access to basic human needs like sufficient clothing and hygiene makes the experience of solitary confinement even more tortuous, and in the 24 hours after this recent police operation two people on the SHU had already hung themselves.
Similar repressive operations were carried out at Indiana State Prison, Pendleton CF, and Miami CF earlier this summer, and we expect more will take place in other facilities soon. The DOC is doing this because they can’t control the prisons. There have been several rebellions and attacks on staff recently in response to the brutal and inhumane conditions that IDOC imposes on the people in its cages, especially during the pandemic, but instead of improving conditions or releasing people as we have called for, IDOC chooses illegal terror and repression. Please reach out to us if you have a loved one who is facing repression in IDOC custody and you want to get involved in fighting back!
Please listen to the interview below with Kwame “Beans” Shakur discussing the ongoing Constitutional and human rights violations on the SHU.
