Between The Lines - Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster: U.S. Senate Hearing Examines Solitary Confinement in American Prisons (Week Ending July 6, 2012)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Between The Lines on Stitcher

Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Listen to Scott Harris Live on WPKN Radio

Between The Lines' Executive Producer Scott Harris hosts a live, weekly talk show, Counterpoint, from which some of Between The Lines' interviews are excerpted. Listen every Monday evening from 8 to 10 p.m. EDT at www.WPKN.org (Follows the 5-7 minute White Rose Calendar.)

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Senate Hears Testimony that Prolonged Prison Solitary Confinement is Torture

RealAudio MP3

Posted June 27, 2012

Interview with Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, Rabbis for Human Rights, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., held a first-of-its-kind congressional hearing June 19 on the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons – a practice many human rights advocates assert is torture. The hearing took testimony from prison officials, relatives of prisoners and former inmates on ways to reduce the damaging effect of the practice. The hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights followed the filing of a class-action federal lawsuit by the Center for Constitutional Rights May 31 on behalf of prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison in California who have spent between 10 and 28 years in solitary confinement.

Under solitary confinement, prisoners are held by themselves in small cells for up to 23 hours per day with one hour set aside for exercise. According to the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, studies have documented the detrimental psychological effects of solitary confinement, such as hallucinations, paranoia, and panic attacks. The United States leads the world in the number of prisoners held in prolonged solitary confinement, with at least 80,000 inmates subjected to the conditions on any given day.

Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, who was at the hearing, is the director of North American programs for the group Rabbis for Human Rights -North America, and serves on the board of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Rabbi Troster, who describes the significance of the hearing, how solitary confinement came to be seen as torture, and how congressional attention on the practice could help improve conditions for death row inmates and others.

RABBI RACHEL KAHN-TROSTER: It was a one-day hearing and what was significant about it was (that it was) the first time the Senate in any way had looked at solitary confinement as an issue in American prisons. It really felt like an exciting and significant moment for the human rights community. The hearing room was packed; the overflow room was packed. There were human rights activists, civil liberties activists, religious leaders, prison reform advocates. That really underscored how significant it was that the Senate decided to investigate the use of solitary confinement.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Can you share some of the highlights from the hearing?

RABBI RACHEL KAHN-TROSTER: I think there were several highlights. I think the really significant highlight was hearing from Anthony Graves. He was a former death row prisoner from Texas. He was exonerated two years ago. He spent 18 years in solitary confinement in Texas, since he was a prisoner on death row. Many prisoners on death row are by definition in solitary confinement, and he was exonerated two years ago and released from prison, and he spoke about what it was like for him to be on death row and in solitary confinement and the way it still affects him. He said he still cries every night from the effects of his incarceration. He said he saw people go mad, people who weren't mentally ill before they were put in solitary confinement. He talked in a very shocking moment about one prisoner gouging out his own eye.

I also thought it was really critical that we heard from Christopher Epps, who is the state Commissioner for Mississippi and he's the longest-serving state prison commissioner in the country. And Mississippi is not known for being soft on crime, so the fact that he was able to speak about how he had reduced solitary confinement in Mississippi prisons, and he had closed one of their super-max prisons, and how effective that had been in making the prison population safer.

He spoke about the fact that many of the people in his prisons are mentally ill, and that what we needed was to deal with the mentally ill before they end up in prison. To hear him say that was incredibly significant just because of the constituency he represents. And it highlights the fact that solitary confinement is not a left-right issue, it's a bipartisan issue, and different states with different political persuasions are beginning to take this on, and understand that we as Americans have to reduce the use of solitary confinement for all kinds of reasons – whether it's cost, human rights, or sheer efficacy in keeping prison guards safe, because violence is often reduced in prisons that reduce the use of solitary confinement. For all those reasons, this is an important issue.

We also heard from the head of the federal bureau of prisons, who spoke about conditions in federal prisons, and he largely denied that solitary confinement was causing mental illness, which I know is the subject of a federal lawsuit, so he was somewhat constrained in what he could say. I think he was speaking from the side that this wasn't such a significant issue. Then we heard from other activists and experts – psychologists who were speaking to the fact that this is such an important prison reform issue.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Rabbi Kahn-Troster, many people might consider solitary confinement a relatively safe and relaxing way to spend one's time in prison. But in recent years, the human rights community has moved to calling it torture, at least under certain circumstances. How did that come about?

RABBI RACHEL KAHN-TROSTER: It is pretty extreme, but I think there's a growing psychological consensus that it is torture, that it makes people insane. It's mental torture and the effects are very long-lasting. We're starting to see studies from psychologists who've been speaking for a long time about how this creates long-lasting effects. Last year, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, released a report on solitary confinement as a form of torture, and I think that galvanized everyone into beginning to think of this not just as cruel, but actually as a form of torture, that it actually does rise to the level of torture.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What do you think might result from the hearing Sen. Durbin held?

RABBI RACHEL KAHN-TROSTER: I think he could introduce federal legislation to study prisons and the use of solitary confinement in prisons run by the federal Bureau of Prisons. There's hope that the hearing will galvanize state efforts to close supermax prisons. The governor of Illinois just announced that he's going to be closing the Tams supermax prison in Illinois and encourage other states like Mississippi and Maine are out there to follow their lead and that this will become a national trend. So I think there's a lot of work to be done. For 23 hours prior to the hearing, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture held a solidarity fast, and we fasted for 23 hours to symbolize the 23 hours a day that prisoners spend alone, and also because there have been hunger strikes in Virginia and California among prisoners in solitary confinement because a hunger strike is often one of the only ways a prisoner has to protest their condition.

So clearly a lot more attention has to be paid. People don't know this is a problem. They don't know it's out there. They don't understand that many people are released directly from solitary confinement directly into the community; that's part of the federal lawsuit, that there are federal prisoners who are mentally ill who are in solitary confinement who are not being treated for their mental illness because prisoners in the federal supermax prisons don't receive psychiatric medication.

Find information Rabbis for Human Rights North America at rhrna.org and National Religious Campaign Against Torture at nrcat.org.