Keep Oregon's Attention on Prisoner Deaths

Let’s Keep Oregon’s Attention on Prisoner Deaths

Beginning last week, the Salem Statesman Journal ran three articles examining the high number of suicides in the Department of Corrections and what the DOC is doing to reduce the number of suicides in prisons (the links to the articles are at the bottom of this page). We need to thank the Statesman Journal for focusing on such an important topic and educate the public that more must be done to prevent these deaths.

The Problem is Extreme Isolation
Over the past ten years, twenty-five people have killed themselves in Oregon’s prisons, and between 2001 and 2002, Oregon’s prison suicide rate was twice the national average. The Salem Statesman Journal noted several commonalities among the deaths. One of the most significant was that a majority of the people committed suicide in the Disciplinary Segregation Unit (DSU) or the Intensive Management Unit (IMU).

DSUs and IMUs keep a person in solitary lockdown for 23 hours a day. When a person leaves his or her cell, they are handcuffed and tied with a leash. People confined in IMUs spend weeks, months or even years in solitary confinement with very little other contact with people. Even the cells are intentionally designed to magnify the isolation through sensory deprivation. The conditions in the units make people sick. They have exacerbated the illness of people diagnosed with mental health concerns and have led to symptoms in people with no previous history of mental illness. A United Nations report said the conditions in IMUs across the country were a form of torture.

While the Department of Corrections lists several steps it is taking to decrease suicides, they do not list stopping the practice of extreme isolation in IMUs and DSUs.

Please write a Letter to the Editor of the Salem Statesman Journal.

Here are some points to consider in your letter:

• Thank the paper for investigating the suicides in Oregon’s prisons. This is an important topic to cover, and unfortunately incarcerated people too easily become an invisible and forgotten population.

• The stories single out the isolation of Disciplinary Segregation Units and Intensive Management Units as a very significant factor in the deaths, yet the Department of Corrections does not appear to take that fact into account in its prevention steps. If the Department of Corrections wants to stop suicides, it should end the practice of total isolation in prisons, particularly the long-term isolation of people in Intensive Management Units.

• Mentally ill people should not be confined in IMUs/DSUs. These units make them sick.
  

Here are some tips on writing letters to the editor:

• Letters will only get published if they are short and concise. No more than 150 words.

• Keep it to one main idea.

• Be sure to cite the story you are responding to (Sunday’s article about suicides in prison…).

• Introduce something personal or a key fact.

• Close with a strong statement.

• Sign your letter and be sure to include your phone number and address. Without contact info, they will not publish your letter.
  

Submit your letter to the editor through the Salem Statesman Journal’s website here: http://community.statesmanjournal.com/tools/sendmailforms/letters_to_the_editor.php .


The three Salem Statesman Journal articles are: Prison suicides linked to isolation, “Super max” suicides put vigilance at issue, and Prison officials consider several methods to curb suicides .

Thank you for all you do as a part of the Oregon Action Alert Network!