DDU Testimonials and Facts

Voices from the Departmental Disciplinary Unit

I spent 3 years in the DDU. It was for a drug-related offense concerning the alleged introduction of drugs through a corrections officer. There were no programs or ways for me to address any of my drug-using problems. DDU was just a warehouse where I lost significant weight. The 3 years in the DDU only seemed to affect me once I was released [back into] the prison's population. At least that is when it all came to the surface. I had a very difficult time adjusting to being in close contact with others. Paranoia maybe. Everything was just moving way too quickly. In some crazy way I wanted to go back [to DDU] because it was where I could be alone. Secure. I can only imagine what happens to the people who go home right from the DDU. I'm 29 years old and feel that I'm a pretty intelligent man but I couldn't even carry on a decent conversation once I was released from DDU. I've learned absolutely nothing from my stay in DDU. It only caused me psychological issues that I think I'm beyond at this time. Whether I've come to my senses or not is unknown because I'm not sure how I should feel. I forgot how I should feel.
-- B. J.

What effects has my confinement in DDU had on me? I'm sure several, yet I try not to overly think about the damage. I can't, because I don't want to think that my keepers are being successful, since it is their mission to break you down psychologically. I have not touched a loved one in years. What do I feel in a day? Many things, anger being the top one on my list, followed by symptoms of depression, detachment, stress, and the list goes on - don't let me exclude being powerless. The feelings are too many to write.
-- W. D.

I have been in DDU since 1997. Prior to that I did another year in DDU, making it 5 years in total. During my present time in isolation, I went [for a period of time] to a county jail on a motion, and I was released into the general population there. This is where I realized just how psychologically damaging segregation can be. I went to this county jail having been in seg for the past two years, and I became paranoid. Although I was now in an open institution, I remained in my cell for the first 3-4 weeks, irritated by the constant movement. I couldn't be amongst people, and so I shunned physical contact altogether. These are all symptoms of sensory deprivation. The visits over there were contact visits, and my family came to visit me, including my son whom I hadn't been able to hug or kiss in 6 years. I felt very awkward. So much that I couldn't even look into their eyes. It took me some time to adapt to the touch of my son. This broke my spirits. For those that claim this isolation does not affect the prisoners mentally, let them experience what I've experienced (even a bright light bothers me greatly). Segregation is causing mental illness(es) in those who entered these doors sane.
-- Y. A.

I was sentenced to 18 months in DDU in 1994. After living for a while amongst the day-to-day game of officers strip searching me, destroying my cell purposely, feeding me under-portioned meals, it started to wear on me. I started working out excessively to subside my rage, but soon I became too physically weak. I started talking to myself and daydreaming large parts of the day. All I looked forward to was mail, it didn't matter who, just from anyone to remind me that there was a world outside my cell, tier, unit. When no mail came I was emotionally upset but trying to convince myself that I wasn't. When it did come I was overwhelmed with smiles that someone cared about me or thought about me on this day. The DDU conditions affected everyone differently. One man would defecate in the shower stall and the guards wouldn't clean the stall until everyone else refused their showers. Another man, who was by all means mentally disturbed, deprived us all of sleep by taking his state-issued cup and banging it all night on top of yelling at the top of his lungs. No one did anything to him to make him do this, he was just disturbed like that and I guess DDU heightened his craziness. All these things you endure the first 30 to 60 days in DDU, and then what happens next is you become so immune or so enraged or both that it becomes your everyday reality. You think, well it's only them that's cracking up, but not me. What a person doesn't realize is that after this 30 to 60 day span he has had to adjust to these abnormalities by becoming abnormal himself. You develop a sense of paranoia that's obvious to everyone else except you. My paranoia heightened when I got back out into population. I wasn't used to being around so many people moving about at one time. I continued to pace my cell talking to myself or daydreaming for large parts of the day, for a year and a half afterwards. Other prisoners used to snap me back to consciousness when they visited me at my cell or would ask me who I was talking to. These things had become so normal to me that I forgot how abnormal they were to everyone else outside of DDU. Other men who came out of DDU immediately went back for stabbing someone, out of paranoia, or for fighting with the first officer they could actually get their hands on for the abuse that had been done over in DDU. Others end up in Bridgewater State Hospital or protective custody because they can't be around other humans any more. I have friends released from DDU that immediately got out and beat their girlfriends/wives up, committed new crimes including murder, and were back in custody in less than 60 days. There isn't one person I know who left DDU to go home that hasn't come back to prison or county jail. When I speak with them all the stories are similar, and they don't start off with "I'm innocent." But rather "I was lost, running mad, trying to stay high to keep from feeling, paranoid that he was about to do something so I moved first." Some of them have been able to decode their experience to link it with DDU, others aren't interested in knowing. Now I'm not saying these men don't hold individual accountability for their actions. What I'm saying is DDU is such a detrimental experience that it cripples a person's humanity, and without proper decompression time he will remain inhumane and do inhumane things to anyone including himself.
-- M. H.

I had served 30 years of my prison sentence before I was sent to DDU for 5 years. In 30 years I had spent considerable time in various segregation units and isolation units and I wasn't overly concerned about going into the DDU. [After I was there a few months] I saw that there was a specific intent to be mean-spirited, to inflict pain and suffering. You were being continually punished simply for the sake of punishment. It was not directed at any particular individual or particular form of behavior - punishment was the status quo. You were in DDU to be punished, in every possible way, for any reason or no reason at all. Prisoners responded to DDU in a variety of ways. Some guys went right out of their minds. Because they couldn't reach the guards who were mistreating them, they misplaced the aggression toward other prisoners and/or themselves. In my travels throughout DDU (it was policy to move us every 30 days so I got to see 9 of the 12 tiers), I would estimate that there were between a dozen and two dozen prisoners that were so mentally dysfunctional before they came into DDU that there was absolutely no penological justification for placing them in the harsh punitive environment of DDU. Other "normal" individuals were driven clinically insane and then released directly to the streets from DDU with no type of supervision whatesover. There are numerous stories of guys coming right back to prison, telling friends, "Man, I was totally out of control," "I was out there just hurting anything I could get my hands on." I've spent over 2/3 of my life in some form of confinement, and I had erroneously believed that DDU wouldn't have any real effect on me. I slept in the daytime and stayed awake throughout the night doing my reading, writing, and studying. I observed DDU's effects on other guys and made sure I kept things in their proper perspective. Then one day I had an attorney visit and I found it completely disorienting. I couldn't focus on the conversation, I couldn't follow what was going on - in fact, I wasn't even sure if I was the listener or the speaker. When I finally got back to my cell, I was totally befuddled by the experience. I had a physical, as well as mental, sense of unbalancedness. Was I losing my mind? Slowly, I started to make sense out of it. I began to realize and grasp that isolation had caused a breakdown in my verbal language skills and my body language skills - ordinarily, we use them simultaneously in communications, but I had lost the ability to do that. It's too long an explanation to attempt here, but I wrote about this experience and had it published in several local papers and prison magazines. I was amazed at how many prisoners in DDU grabbed me about the article, saying, "Man, that was exactly what happened to me on my visit (with family and/or attorneys). I thought I was losing my mind, then I read that article and it all made sense to me." In spite of my years of experience, DDU had, in fact, gotten to me. It had surreptitiously reached inside my being and touched the very essence of my soul. I was losing sight of my humanity; my compassion and understanding were becoming blurred by the anger, hate, and rage at how we were treated. Terrifying thoughts played in my mind. What have I become, who am I? It wasn't until many months after I left DDU that I could actually begin to get a handle on these issues. I had difficulty with my memory and focusing my attention. Reading was difficult. In writing, I tended to leave out words or complete sentences. And I was sort of an emotional basket case. I've now been out of DDU two years and I still feel the anger, hate, and rage. Though I have readjusted to population, I still sense in the background of my mind a monster lurking in the shadows, now and again attempting to raise its ugly head seeking expression … or satisfaction. Seven years later and DDU is still a struggle in my mind.
-- R. D.

Overuse of Solitary Confinement in the Departmental Disciplinary Unit (DDU) Presents Public Safety Threat

Long DDU sentences put correctional officers and other inmates at risk
· Prisoners report that they have seen men come out after serving long DDU sentences and "immediately [get sent] back for stabbing someone, out of paranoia, or for fighting with the first officer they could actually get their hands on for the abuse that had been done over in DDU."

DDU harms prisoners' mental health
· Dr. Stuart Grassian of the Harvard Medical School found that the DDU leads to "severe psychiatric harm." His examination of inmates in the DDU found high levels of paranoia, inability to relate to others, difficulty concentrating and focusing, symptoms of depression, rage, disorientation, and other forms of mental disturbance, sometimes inc luding self-mutilating and suicidal behaviors.

DDU punishes rather than treats the mentally ill
· According to Dr. Grassian, it's not the most ruthless or calculating who end up in DDU, but "ironically and tragically, one often [finds] those who are emotionally fragile and, often, severely mentally ill."

Research about the DDU has been kept from the public
· In 1997 the Department of Correction funded a four-phase study to evaluate the DDU. This study was terminated without cause by Commissioner Maloney when it was only half completed. "Look, we don't run this place based on research findings," the Commissioner told the researchers. · The DOC has failed to release the reports that were produced in this study

For more information and more reports from prisoners: www.cjpc.org

B 3975 - An Act Concerning Isolation Units.

Background:
The Departmental Disciplinary Unit (DDU) opened in 1992 at MCI-Cedar Junction (Walpole), ostensibly to remove from the general prison population those inmates who were found guilty of major disciplinary violations. It was designed to be a more restrictive environment than the old Departmental Segregation Unit (10 Block) and was believed to be a more effective means of deterring disciplinary problems. DDU is modeled on the harshest and most restrictive supermax prisons in the United States.
Today, the truth is that DDU is more restrictive - but it is NOT making prisons, or our communities, safer. In fact, it is putting us all more at risk.
We urge you to support HB 3975 - lessen harm, reduce violence.