Washington prisoners held in solitary confinement are not receiving basic quality-of-life care, such as frequent showers, health care, visitation, regular meals and enough toilet paper, according to a report from a state watchdog, Washington State Standard reports. The state’s independent investigations office for the Department of Corrections also describes “dehumanizing and traumatizing” restraint practices used by the department, including spit hoods, pepper spray, tasers and shock shields. “Oh, it’s horrible. I’ve watched people get ahold of a safety razor, slice their throats. Within days they’re unraveling, smearing feces, banging on. Some people cannot handle it,” said an incarcerated individual interviewed by investigators. “And even those who can, there’s no way you can go through eight months of solitary confinement or longer for many people, some people decades, and not be damaged in some way,” he said.
The report is the second in a three-part series the Office of the Corrections Ombuds is releasing at the request of state lawmakers, who are considering ways to reduce or end solitary confinement. Washington pledged to eliminate solitary confinement as a punishment in 2021, but the office’s first report found isolation is still widely used across state prisons for what the Department of Corrections calls “administrative purposes.” According to the first report released by the Office of the Corrections Ombuds, there are 3,000 currently incarcerated individuals in state prisons who had served more than 120 days in solitary confinement or were held in solitary for more than 45 days from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023. About 200 of those individuals were over 60 years old, the report found. Some people are in solitary confinement for years, said Angee Schrader, a senior corrections ombuds. In many cases, the Department of Corrections appears to disagree with the report’s definition of access to “quality-of-life” items. According to the report, prisoners held in solitary confinement commonly reported receiving three showers a week unless the schedule is impacted by a lockdown or the person is placed on hygiene restrictions. Three showers a week is the requirement under Department of Corrections policy, and Murphy said “folks are getting regular, traditional hygiene that is required.” But interviewees reported that those showers involved “pressing a button that turns the water on for about five seconds at a time and sometimes staff would cut the water before people finished showering.”
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