NEW YORK, JULY 16 (RIA Novosti) – The US routinely flouts international law by subjecting convicts to “callous and dehumanizing” bouts of solitary confinement in its only federal high security prison, the rights group Amnesty International said.
The group’s new study Entombed: Isolation in the US Federal Prison System, highlights harsh conditions for prisoners at the US Penitentiary Administrative Maximum facility near Florence, Colorado, known as ADX Florence.
“You cannot overestimate the devastating impact long periods of solitary confinement can have on the mental and physical well-being of a prisoner,” said the right’s group’s regional director Erika Guevara-Rosas on Wednesday. “Such harsh treatment is happening as a daily practice in the US, and it is in breach of international law.”
Inmates at ADX Florence spend their first 12 months in solitary confinement before becoming eligible for an easing of restrictions. Lawyers have calculated that the average time spent in solitary there is 8.2 years.
Its 490 mail inmates live in bare cells with metal doors and small, slit-shaped windows to view outside. Such treatment amounts to illegal “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” and can lead to depression and suicide, the group warned.
