By James Pinkerton
Houston Chronicle
HUNTSVILLE — Jesse “Bumpy” Hernandez is serving 99 years for setting up the murder of a fellow Hispanic gang member who disrespected a gang higher-up. He has been in solitary for 15 years since entering prison in late 1999.
Sitting next to him in a classroom at the maximum-security Ellis Unit at Huntsville was Aaron Cavallin, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas gang. The heavily-tattooed white supremacist is nearly through a five-year sentence for kidnapping his wife from a drug dealer’s house.
Both men have spent every day of their prison time in a solitary cell, but not because they were disciplinary problems or exhibited violence. Hernandez’ membership in the Raza Unida gang, and Cavallin’s in the ABT’s, earned them a solitary cell solely because they were members of eight gangs whose members Texas officials have designated as security threats. Now they are in group counseling, part of a lengthy program that lets them out of solitary in exchange for quitting their gangs.
The Texas prison system has more than 7,100 inmates in solitary including 2,400 who are mentally ill, among the highest in a nation. The practice is being questioned by legislative leaders, civil right groups and even the union representing Texas prison guards, who all say the policy is too harsh, expensive and dangerous to the public since many inmates are released directly from solitary.
Lawmaker’s warning
State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said he warned Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials this month if the agency does not rein in the use of solitary - known as administrative segregation - a federal judge may end up overseeing reforms as the result of a civil rights suit. Whitmire said defending the policy of putting mentally ill inmates in solitary confinement, which courts in other states have found to be unconstitutional, would be difficult.
“They’ve reduced their numbers,” said Whitmire, a Houston attorney who chairs the Senate’s criminal justice committee, “but they still are not good enough.”
TDJC officials provided statistics to the Houston Chronicle showing the inmate population in solitary has dropped by 25 percent since 2006. Today, 7,136 inmates remain in solitary and of those, a little more than 2,400 have a serious mental illness or have documented mental retardation, according to the state agency.
“Consistent with our commitment to public safety, we are committed to continue reducing the number of offenders in administrative segregation by expanding effective programs that offer pathways for offenders to leave segregation,” according to a statement from Brad Livingston, the TDCJ executive director.
In most circumstances, solitary is used to remove inmates who assault prisoners and guards or pose a risk of escape.
For Hernandez and Cavallin, prison life exists in a small, white-washed, 9-by-10-foot cell a little larger than a walk-in closet. The cell contains a bunk, a writing desk built into the wall, and it is furnished with a metal stool, a sink, a toilet and a small shelf for belongings. Food is delivered through a small slot on the cell door.
Time outside is limited to an hour a day in a small exercise yard a quarter the size of a basketball court. The amenities are sparse: an exercise mat, a bar to do pull-ups and basketball hoop.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s a rough place to be,” says the 31-year-old Cavallin. “It robs you of your senses, and it breaks some people down mentally. You see guys snap all the time, they just go.”
National scrutiny
The use of solitary is increasingly under scrutiny nationwide. Some prison systems, including New York, Colorado, Washington, and Mississippi, have made dramatic changes to their practices. And a handful of states have successfully challenged or are challenging solitary confinement practices, said Amy Fettig, senior staff counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s national prison project.
“What we’re seeing is unprecedented scrutiny of the practices of solitary confinement in the country, and a real sense that we have gone too far and created civil rights situations in our prisons that are untenable and inhumane,” said Fettig.
Linda Foglia,a spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in Albany, confirmed a class action suit was settled last month in an agreement to end solitary for youths under 18, pregnant inmates and developmental and intellectually challenged inmates. Two experts will now help develop guidelines to reduce the 3,800 inmates in solitary.
The lead plaintiff in that lawsuit spent 780 days in solitary for falsifying legal documents.
Last March, Colorado prison director Tom Clements was killed by a white supremacist who had been paroled directly from solitary confinement to the streets. Gang member Evan Ebel was later killed by Texas authorities in a shootout near Dallas.
Danger to public
Members of Gov. John Hickenlooper’s staff said Clements frequently warned them of the danger to the public of releasing so many inmates from solitary to the community, a percentage Clements reduced from 47 to 23 before he was murdered, according to the (Denver) Colorado Independent.
Clements was succeeded by Rick Raemisch, who not only continued Clement’s campaign to reduce solitary confinement, but spent nearly 24 hours in an isolation cell. Raemisch later told reporters only “four or five” inmates should be housed in solitary indefinitely.
Since then, Colorado prison officials have further reduced the numbers of inmates in isolation to 492 , down from a high of 1,500 in January 2011, confirmed prison spokesman Roger Hudson.
In Texas, 1,200 inmates are discharged directly from solitary each year, said Lance Lowry, president of the 5,000-member Texas prison worker’s union. He says that’s a public safety issue.
“If these guys are too dangerous for prison but were releasing them right out into the community, that’s not a positive thing,” Lowry said.
Lowry said isolation cells mushroomed from a few hundred to more than 8,000 after lawmakers reacted to prison violence in the late 1980s and the subsequent prison-building spree.
“There is definitely a need to maintain ad seg for violent inmates, however the state of Texas overuses segregation compared to other states,” said Lowry, president of the AFSCME local 3807 in Huntsville. And solitary confinement, he said, has not translated into safer conditions, noting that assaults on guards has more than doubled since 2003.
The prison union boss notes that liberal and conservative groups want reforms to solitary confinement.
Matt Simpson, a policy analyst the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said his and other groups are working with prison leaders, as well as state legislators, to study how solitary is used in Texas prisons. Two recent laws require an internal TDCJ study and an independent assessment of solitary.
“We think it’s clear that there are too many people with mental health issues in solitary, and the remainder of those housed there should absolutely have their cases reviewed and be provided an opportunity to be moved out of that setting,” Simpson said.
Marc Levin, with the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, was “skeptical” about the need to assign members of eight gangs to solitary based only on their membership.
“If someone is an international gang leader, maybe,” said Levin. “But there is a lot of rank-and-file people in gangs, who are 18 and joined for protection. Solitary confinement should be for people who commit violence, or threatened it, or did it before.”
That’s the view of Cavallin, the former gang member.
Texas prison allows gang members to get out of solitary only if they quit their gangs, part of a nine-month program that includes group counseling. Of the 3,797 gang members who have completed the program, 19 have returned to their gangs, TDCJ officials said.
Cavallin says the policy to designate some gangs as security threats is unjust, arguing an inmate’s disciplinary record should determine if solitary is necessary.
Cavallin entered the G.R.A.D program _ Gang Renouncement and Disassociation Process - after he decided to leave the Aryan Brotherhood.
Could become target
Cavallin says he knows that could make him a target when he gets of out prison later this year, but he plans to work hard and stay out of trouble.
“It’s gonna be a bad night if I get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time,’' he said.
But the toughest part of leaving a gang is cutting ties to a band of men who have become like a family, he said.
“You’ve got all these guys you call your brothers, that you committed crimes with, you slept with their sisters, grew up with, went to the same school with, a lot of individuals you built a bond with,” Cavallin explained.
“And for you to get up one day and say,`You know what, I don’t want to be a part of this no more.’ It’s not that I don’t love ya’ll no more, its that I love myself and my family more than I do y’all, and you have to accept it.”