Solitary Confinement Is Inhumane, Traumatizing, and Unnecessary. So Why Are We Still Doing It To People?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:04 Chris: Solitary is not benefiting anybody in any place in any way. Of a parking space and surrounded by concrete walls and a concrete block where you have this really thin pad for a mattress, a stainless steel toilet, you a light that never turns off um solitary confinement and

0:00:41 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1216. I'm Thomas Smith. And in a moment, I'm going to be joined by, of course, immigration attorney Matt Cameron and a very special guest. Name is Christopher Blackwell. Really proud to be bringing you. Been really interesting and thought-provoking to speak to incarcerated folks who also happen to be journalists, writers, activists. Activists, and something that I think is so perfect here in the new iteration of the show, to real people and emphasizing Emphasizing the human stories in all that. With his fellow co-authors, Ending Isolation, The Case Against Solitary Confinement. And look, I imagine most people listening to the show, if not all, are already going to be like, yeah, that's awful. But there's so much to learn from Christopher. It's also plenty of elements that I can almost guarantee you wouldn't have come across or been exposed to. I'm so excited for you you to hear it. Always, please support the show, conversations like this, patreon.com/law. a tough world out there these days, and support is more needed than ever. Thanks so much to those who support and we hope you enjoy not having to hear ads. We'll be on with Christopher Blackwell.

0:01:58 Matt: Happy to welcome incarcerated author, journalist, and advocate Christopher Blackwell to Opening Arguments. Thanks for joining us today. You just tell us a little bit about your surroundings, where you're at right now?

0:02:06 Chris: I'm sitting you know in my prison cell so I'm actually kind of blessed know to being located at one of the prisons that have tablets so we can use the phone on the tablet so just sitting here in the cell sitting at my desk where I pretty much live a very small metal desk that know you looks out into the fences in the woods that surround Shelton, Washington and the rainy Northwest.

0:02:28 Matt: I'm a up in Vancouver, Washington. I actually went to school in Tacoma, and you also grew up in Tacoma, different Tacoma. Not aware of the Felt Hilltop neighborhood because I went to college starting in 1998 in Tacoma, Pacific Lutheran. So tell us a little bit about where you grew up and sort of your surroundings starting out.

0:02:43 Chris: Was born in Oregon, but, pretty you early on moved up to Washington State when I was around seven years old with my mom. We moved to a city called Tacoma, Washington, as you mentioned, which grew up in the downtown part of Tacoma. The Hilltop neighborhood's in downtown Tacoma It was a pretty rough area. I at the time in the early 90s when I was growing up, it was actually one of the murder rate capitals in the country per capita person, considering the size of the town and city compared to other cities like Baltimore or Detroit or things like that. You it was a city that was especially our area that was, know, really you plagued with violence. You know It was over policed. Was when the crack epidemic had really, like, struck up in Washington, you of spilling up from California. And it was an interesting time for sure.

0:03:30 Matt: Some orientation here, you're co-author of this book about solitary confinement, The Case Against Solitary Confinement. And thing that struck me right away from your introduction, and we'll talk a a little bit more with the book in a moment here, but I just wanted to ask you up front, said that your first experience of solitary confinement was at the age of 12 years old. And shocked me. I've spent some time around the system, but I did not know that we were sending 12-year-olds to solitary. Can you tell us kind of the circumstances, what happened, and what that was like for you?

0:03:52 Chris: Don't grow up in a neighborhood like that. Obviously, it's pretty easy to get caught up within the system. I was actually arrested for the first time at 11 years old for, you coming back from school and me and a friend of mine, you had a stop and frisk where the police would stop you, you know, and basically harass you for anything at any time, you know, we were just two kids walking back from school and I had a gram of weed on me, you that led me to get arrested and then that put me on probation, you and from that point I never got out of the carceral system or out of the system, period. Period. And then at 12 years old, I received my first year for stealing a car and joyriding with some friends. Gave me a year of incarceration for it, which was pretty much unheard of at that time. Given that, the you neighborhood that I come from, like a lot of the people in my community were being given exceptional sentences at very young ages and doing that at young age, obviously, you Know, I get in the system and the juvenile system ought to act out quite a bit. Dealing with a very strong lack of structure. I was being raised by a single parent and I was in there and would staff kind of press you to do little things or micromanage our behavior, just wasn't accepting of that. And that led me to that first trip of solitary confinement, pretty mind -altering and excruciating experience that I've never forgotten. I

0:05:06 Matt: I can't imagine at the age of 12. How long were you in there?

0:05:09 Chris: Only in there that time for about a day and a half right it was the introduction, you it was being, you taken down and manhandled by grown men, you and then being taken to the cell. And then, of course, acting out the more and more, you know, because you're in that like survival mode sense. As I acted out out more, you the louder I yelled or the more I pushed back, know, you the know, more aggressive they got, which led me being stripped down to my boxers and eventually hogtied, you if a parent or a guardian or someone would have done something like that to me, they would have went to prison for, you kidnapping and assault and all kinds of things, you know, that this is happening and what's happening to our kids, you You You know, it still happens to a point in these systems because they often live in the shadows. I'll

0:05:55 Matt: Before we get into some of book the book here, but just trying to set the stage, get a sense of where you're coming from. Have a lot to say about solitary confinement. You have a lot of things in the system that you've been writing as a journalist for a while now. But for context here, if you could estimate, how many days of your life have you spent in solitary?

0:06:09 Chris: Probably spend a few years. I'm 45 years old now. I did about and a half years in the juvenile system by the age of 18 in and out of the system. And then I've been in consecutively for 23 years in that adult system. Almost 30 years of my life has been spent in incarceration. And I'd probably say, you close to around four years. Yeah,

0:06:30 Matt: Current sentence, just to kind of the story out and make sure we understand the context here is for a murder, for which you took immediate responsibility, as I understand it. Old were you then?

0:06:38 Chris: I was 22. I living in the lifestyle that I kind as my only way of success, given where I'd come from. So started selling drugs a lot. That led to robbing drug dealers. That lead to carrying guns. Guns, you I was shot and almost bled out and died in a parking lot, six you months before I was arrested for this, you know, I had taken someone's life in a drug robbery, you know, you carry a gun and you live in that world. I mean, things quickly spiral out of control and eventually a lot of bad things start to pile up and and they happen quite fast. Right. Um, like you said, you you know, I've been accountable and responsible for that. And I think that that's important because that's the first step to understanding extending remorse, and how we get to a place of true accountability. There's also, you the accountability on the side of the system and the structures that create our communities that lead us to live in this manner, what I call survival which really leaves people living, you know in a fight or flight mode in a constant state of their life, known, especially starting at young ages. So

0:07:34 Matt: Yeah. It, I think, very well in your writing about taking responsibility for what you've done and saying, at the end of the day, you're the person who's accountable for this. But I think you've also made some very good points about what happens when you throw kids into the kind of conditions you're talking about at the age of 12 and just being in and out of the system from that point. After that juvenile experience, when was your next sort of sustained experience of solitary confinement? When did you encounter it again or find you.

0:07:57 Chris: Often, as I was in the juvenile system, you I would go in and out out of solitary confinement for getting in fights, know, you getting in arguments with staff. I my structure and the way I looked at people and viewed anybody connected to the system in any way, you seen it as an enemy, right? Had never received any, you help or support or, you, know, a safety net from anything connected to the the government, you just constantly find yourself in conflict. I mean, I'd be in and out of solitary or what we call the hole, you know, quite often as a kid and, you even more growing up in the system as into an adult and in the adult system. And

0:08:34 Matt: And just for context, again, again, a lot of time in jails and prisons around New England as an immigration attorney and doing some criminal defense work as well. I've visited people are who being held in the hole, and I've seen the difference in my clients, just their mental state when they come out to visit me there versus just in the general population. And I guess just for those who haven't spent any time around the system or really don't know anything about it besides what they might've seen in TV, what are we talking about when we're talking about the hole solitary confinement? What does that look like in the facilities you've been

0:08:58 Chris: I describe that too, just to let people know, like a lot of people are in solitary for things that seem really inconsequential, right? We list a lot of that in the book where people can be sent there for yelling too loud, having a certain hairstyle, talking back, wearing a hat in a building when they're told not to, you not sitting up on their bunk during a count time and laying down, you solitary is often not full of the people that are like violent and scary and crazy. And that's more of a rarity than anything. About 80 plus percent of solitary is people that that are in there, for you a drug habit or just some of the other things I named. But when we talk about solitary, think of a parking space and think of that parking space being surrounded by concrete walls and a concrete block where you have this really thin pad for a mattress, a stainless steel toilet, you a metal desk with a concrete stool that's faceted to the floor and a light that never turns off um solitary confinement and think that you have this open concrete building that is in constant chaos it's always loud someone's always banging yelling people are screaming to talk through their doors with each other guards are arguing with people you just a place where you never get a break you never ever get reprieve from the environment that you're stuck in and you don't have anything to really distract your mind, you if you do have a window in your cell, often it faces a fence or a wall or something that has real no view or the windows blacked out. So you don'T have a view at all. You don'T Have a clock. You DON'T have A sense of time, you and you'RE just sitting there with your own thoughts and your own mind. Well,

0:10:42 Thomas: What's supposed to be the point of this? Cause always I thought it was like maybe who were not safe, like, people who are going to be maybe attacked or the, or maybe I guess if they were really dangerous, what'S supposed to BE the point OF this?

0:10:55 Chris: I think the point of it is, Know, is, When prisons got overcrowded in the 60s and mass incarceration started to really its peak as we moved on through the 70s, 80s, and 90s, prisons were overcrowding. So and guards had to have something that had to stick, right? They had to something to get people and oppress people to the populations in control because prisons were so overcrowded. You solitary started in the 1800s at Eastern State Penitentiary, better known as Cherry Hill, you know, by the Quakers, where it was meant to bring someone into solitude, where, it you was thought that they would having having that reflection time, they would be able to, like, bring themselves back into a more sustainable life as, you a productive member of society. But they quickly realized they didn't work. And it wasn't doing anything close to that. It was actually driving people mad and making them far worse off than, you when they entered solitary. So they abandoned using solitary confinement, Know, you and it wasn't around until, you the late 50s and 60s that we started to see a spike in solitary confinement. Again, this isn't something we've always had, you know, even over 200 years ago, there's Supreme Court cases where the US Supreme Court said that solitary is absolutely outright torture, you point is, is giving administrators and prison guards stick a to use against people in population. And that's why you don't see it for the most violent and using it as a form of protection. Think if you feel unsafe on the prison main line and only alternative is to go sit in a concrete box alone, isolated to yourself.

0:12:27 Chris: Mean, that seems like torture. That doesn't seem of a way that we would protect individuals in that environment. Right their safety is risk at and isn't that what they say solitary is for they have solitary they can keep people safe so why do you have to put people in there to keep them safe well

0:12:43 Thomas: I guess that was just where I was coming from is like not they say it's for some better purpose or is it truly just understood to be a basically a punishment tool I wasn't sure if like they justify it with some better some I don't know like fake purpose that they think it's serving right

0:12:55 Chris: Mean I'm sure the oc and you bop would come up with multiple ways they could try to fabricate that it's somehow beneficial but that's not what none of the numbers say that's what leading experts like dr terry coopers who wrote the book with us or Craig Dr. Craig Henny, these like experts that have studied solitary through and through, you they're the leading experts that are always called to testify at court hearings or any kind of proceedings around solitary. Like would all tell you that they've talked to thousands of individuals and not a single one of them have benefited from it. And they can't find the benefit for it by having it, right?

0:13:29 Matt: Book, The Case Against Solitary Confinement, as you mentioned, your co -authors are a doctor who is able to provide psychological perspective, and then law professor Deborah Zelezny is able able to provide some of the legal perspective, and then yourself and Quanetta Harris, another incarcerated person who's written extensively about solitary confinement as well. So I just want to say this is an incredible project, bringing together these voices in conversation, because thought about this subject a lot, and I certainly didn't need to be convinced of the case against solitary confinement.

0:13:53 Matt: But I think anybody who is even on the fence about it should read this book. But even if you're not, I mean, even to get energized about this project and to fully understand every angle, because I don't think anybody's put together something like this that has all these different voices and perspectives and expertise all in one place. And it would be incomplete without your voices, without yourself and Ms. Harris. Did this project come together?

0:13:53 Thomas: Matt

0:14:13 Chris: You know, there's two kinds of solitary books that I had seen before this one. There's the academic one, which, you always kind of say is like hard to read. It's dry if that's not really your expertise. You know it's not for the average person to really like dive into and like really soak up. You and then there's the sad puppy in the window story, you of anthologies where, you we just see these just heart -wrenching stories, right? There's nothing that really was a tool. And what we wanted to create is in the beginning stages of this. I had written a like 60 ,000 word manuscript about an experience in solitary. And these two kids I had watched like break down mentally, you while they were in there and watch like staff just like constantly attacking them. That was the driver, which eventually won the Narratively Memoir Prize in 2023. but I wanted to build that out. And Dr. Zalesny, you she also wanted to build that Out With Me. So wanted to talk about legal the angle of it, right? Like, how is this, you and unusual punishment? So we started building from there. And of course, I had been working with Terry, Dr. Coopers for a long time, you know, and it was natural to bring him in. And then Quinetta had just spent almost nine years in solitary for, quote unquote, her celebrity status in Texas prisons, which was ridiculous. She had never harmed a single person. She was sitting in this freaking box for all these years for nothing. You and it took a massive movement of people really pushing to even get her out, which Was just recent. This was just recent she was released out of solitary. Of course, we wanted to add her voice and perspectives. And then we worked with about 40 plus incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people who had experienced solitary to make sure that we could really craft all the different narratives. Right. Because it's different for every group every of person, people just whatever demographic people come from their background. Around. So we wanted to really highlight all those different ways. Throughout even immigration detention centers, it's used in certain ways, right? Wanted to create a tool for the movement to work to show people that solitary is not benefiting anybody in any place in any way. Instead of working on it in pockets and silos, is wanted to see people come together and fight against this, right, like could define solitary in one form. Anybody that spends more than 20 hours in a cell, isolated, away from people, without all these, you privileges of using the phone, of visits, and things like that, that's solitary confinement. I don't care what you call it, because you're seeing a lot of reforms in states where they're calling it all kinds of different stuff. We wanted to really have something to unite everybody and say, if you're working on juvenile solitary, solitary for for immigration, in the detention centers, in jails, in prisons, in the feds. We're all fighting the same battle, and we should be fighting it together.

0:17:00 Chris: Should have one united voice that's asking for the same thing, and that's the end of solitary confinement. Not only that, is a lot of people, even in our movements, that know about this stuff, like yourself, you need to be convinced, but it's good to have the tools, the language, and the actual bullet points of facts for talking points when we're all talking about this. So we're very educated and on the same page. And that was the goal of the book.

0:17:24 Chris: You know, know, the book is really built designed for stoppage you know, of solitary confinement period.

0:17:32 Matt: A prison author, Gonzalez, who's very clear about the fact that your voices need to be included in this. And certainly in all social justice movements, we fall short all the time. Expression about nothing about us without us. Aren't usually represented when why I really wanted to talk to you today more than anything was to make sure that we had a chance to hear your direct perspective as somebody who has suffered this. Because I can't imagine that anyone who has not experienced years of solitary confinement could possibly understand what you're actually talking about. And been difficult to reflect on this and write about it this way.

0:17:59 Chris: Of course. Right. Definitely difficult. And I even have, Know, you a lot of comrades and friends across the country who are incarcerated that worked on this project and supported it. They couldn't read the finished project you because it is so traumatizing or people that were formerly incarcerated and have know like since tried to put this behind them you know and had dozens of hours of counseling they struggled to read the project right you know one of my close friends mom you she couldn't read the book she he bought the book to support the movement but was like I absolutely can't read this book my son is still sitting in solitary today you It's very difficult. And it's far more wide -reaching than we even understand. And another big thing I wanted people to realize, too, when we were talking about this is it just doesn't impact people who sit in solitary. Impacts, one, society as a whole, but also everybody connected to us. Our kids, our moms, our families, our loved ones, our wives, like, know, all these people are impacted. So the ripple effects of this are really extreme and just harming. So a hard thing to really get out there. It's a difficult subject to tackle, but that's kind of one of the things that I've always wanted to do in my writing and my journalism is just make sure that I'm tackling the things to educate people that will really kind of highlight this stuff. You use this saying, and people hear me say it all the time, it's when you humanize, it becomes hard to demonize. That's why I wanted to humanize the people. And that's what I like Dr. Cooper's, his expertise in this is so great. But when you talk about things in an academic sense, it is numbers, it data, it things like that. So our book was designed to have that for a couple of paragraphs, and then follow that by a real life story of a real person. Really humanize that data and show people like, hey, we're not just talking about percentages and numbers here. This is happening to people. You when we talked about one of our, you comrades in there who had literally bitten off his fingers and removed other parts of his body because he was psychologically breaking down in solitary confinement. This was someone that had never had any mental health diagnosis before ever. He was completely normal, functioned fine. And then, know, you after doing years in solitary confinement, psychologically and mentally broke down, completely broke down and started doing things that we would all say is impossible. You think about how hard it would be to bite off one of your fingers. Just wanted people to really see the human side and then we release people and really affects society right because you put someone in that state of mind you really deconstruct their thinking and then you expect them to function in society when they have all that ptsd I

0:20:36 Matt: Makes a point several times that I think 10 days or more of solitary confinement just in one instance can cause ongoing harm. And that's an easy data point to read, I guess, but it makes it so much more effective when you hear the stories attached to it. But would you say that it's played out in your own life with your own mental health?

0:20:53 Chris: Solitary, it's taken me quite a bit of time to function around large groups of people. Sensory deprivation that you experience because you're just looking at these four concrete, bland -colored walls, usually beige or gray or white. Struggle with things like that. You struggle with thing moving fast. Your mind doesn't work as fast because you've been in such a bogged -down state and one of the big things that people don't even think about is a lot of the times when people are sitting in those places is are forced to think about things that you have closed off in your mind that are harms or traumas that you've experienced in the past. None of that stays off limits when you sit in there and you don't have anything to distract yourself. Things rise to the surface like, like a buoy underwater, man, they just pop up. And then you don't have the tools to process and navigate those. You're just sitting in there and processing and thinking about these traumas, which are often, you physical, emotional abuses that you've experienced your entire life and all kinds of other areas. And you just don't have a way to think about or process it in a healthy way so it just sits there on the surface you like oil on water and it becomes extremely traumatic and harmful you do we do this yeah I couldn't think of a reason you the only reason I've ever heard well people say someone punches someone what do we doing well

0:22:16 Chris: We can put them in somewhere like that to calm them down, and then we address the issue. Is torturing them and then putting them back out in general population or the world and society in general, is that going to help? Because I've never seen where you can torture something out of somebody. Know, a lot of people my whole life would say I was a monster, right? You know, I had caused a lot of and conflict in my communities. You done just really terrible things, know, you but once I was able to understand my traumas, to understand remorse, to understand what that might feel like, to understand true accountability, I could never do any of those things now. They're unthinkable and know that prison is full of people that we can do that exact same thing with called

0:22:53 Matt: If had a system that was committed to rehabilitation, which I'm sure you'd agree we don't. Own story, I mean, you had a real transformative experience going through, actually, what was the name of the program that you were part of?

0:23:11 Chris: HEAL. And it was a program that was a trauma -informed program that helped you work for 18 months on addressing your own trauma and past experiences, what ultimately would lead you to understanding the remorse for the harm you'd caused. And then through that remorse, true accountability, you and that was really powerful experience, but often that's not even even offered inside prisons, right? That came from a nonprofit that came in and an incredible person, Martina Cartman and a bunch of other people that spent a lot of time like building that out and brought that in, you know, fundraised for it out there with foundations and private funders, or that would have never existed. Like that's not being created by the Department of Corrections. And when it is, it's never created through that lens or it's ever really an authentic cynic program. And to actually take a program like that and have it really be effective is really have to build a lot of trust. You have to work with facilitators you trust, you have to be in a group you really trust, and it takes time to develop that. It And really takes time to make that work. Not the anomaly neither. I see hundreds of guys change their lives in here through the mentorship and support of have outside organizations or guys on the inside that are usually serving life and long sentences that want to have, you some form of way to give back, right? Know, I call it a life of service because you can never give back for taking a life. Know? I could do a million things and it'll never bring that individual's life back. I took that, you can't fix it. What do we do for that? You

0:24:45 Chris: I, I owe a life that life of service is in action.

0:24:50 Matt: Those who might not be familiar, just to close loop the here, when you're talking about trauma -informed programs, what does that mean? What's the difference?

0:24:56 Chris: Able to work back and understand your own trauma. People to understand the harm and trauma they cause and inflict on others is they need to understand their own trauma And what that feels like, because you don't have a chance to understand and process your trauma, you eventually kind of just numb up and you become, you more ostracized from feeling like you belong in society, feeling like, you you're a part of the people and things that you harm. And I think that was the big thing for me is like when I was growing up, you know, we were poor, you know, I was, know, you constantly in violent and, know, and, struggling situations, you never seen anything as, you someone trying to help or benefit outside of my immediate family. Everything seemed like a struggle, you know, when the police stopped me, they weren't there to help me. They were there to search me or find something on me, you when that happens, you immediately start to ostracize from your surroundings. And once you do that, you see yourself as an other. And it's pretty easy to cause harm when you see the people that you're harming as not part of you and your community. For people to really, you understand that trauma informed work is you have to be able to go back and integrate someone in to being a part of society. And I don't say reintegrate, because a lot of us never integrated into society in the first place. Know, I hear a lot of people say that word reintegration, always and has been a struggle for me, because I'm like, why I never felt like I was integrated into anything. Know, I felt like I was almost in survival mode from the very start. But when I was finally integrated into the society, it's a lot different, right? You don't want to harm the things that are important to you. But that that all starts by dealing with your own trauma and working through your own stuff. Because once you can understand and feel the pain of your own trauma, it's easy to understand and feel the possible harm that you could cause others or that you have caused others.

0:26:50 Matt: That seems like such a clear contrast between just throwing somebody in the hole and causing more trauma, just piling on additional trauma. And so obvious when you describe it or when you read about it. Do want to ask you about a piece you had in the New York Times a couple of years ago that was particularly interesting to me. Do a lot of work with immigration detention, and a lot of that looks like county jails around here. You've been in prison, as you said, for I think 23 years, but you did do a couple weeks in county jail while you were going through, resentencing? I guess, yeah, I'll let you tell the story. But just for people who aren't really familiar with the differences between prisons and county jails and that experience was like and what compelled you to write about it, because I was really struck by what you're describing. I just hadn't really thought of it that way.

0:27:27 Chris: County jails are pretty horrendous. My county is one of the worst in the state. So might be the worst in the state, Pierce County. About that experience, right? When I was going through that experience the first time I was young, like, I was scared. I was stressed. I was, know, fighting you a murder trial. All this stuff is going on. But then after years of know, doing doing all this trauma work, know, you on myself, after doing all this community work, and then having to go back and experience that environment was one of the most eye -opening things of my life, to immediately came back and wrote a piece and, I'd you pitched it to my editor at the New York Times and was like, hey, we have to expose this. Like, this is ludicrous. You honestly think for us to fix some of these systems, it would take that is to put normal people like journalists or, psychologists, you Psychologists, educators, a legislator in that system for a week and make them experience that because not a single one of them would come out and say, oh, yeah, this is functioning pretty well. This is how it should be. Not to mention everybody in there is they haven't been proven guilty. You know, these are still people that are just just citizens awaiting our court system because they can't afford bail. Right is another destructive system we could talk about forever but that whole experience was just extremely traumatizing and heart -wrenching you I just wanted people to know the exploitation you know around the commissary and phone calls that sold there I and people can read the article but the same exact phone company that functions and has a contract at the prison where I live has the same contract there, but the phone calls were five times more.

0:29:09 Chris: Allowed for that, right? At my prison, the same exact bag of copy that was $3 .30 here was $14 there. Thing. Why And is all this happening? Watching the misuse of people's speedy trial rights, And, know, I could just go on and on and on. You you're basically in solitary because in my county, you are locked down 30 hours and then you come out for four hours. You're locked down all the time. People are stressed out. You just a nightmare place. Of cleanliness, the whack of showers, you jails and, of them are different, but everyone I've experienced has been just straight horrendous. Guarantee if we stuck any person in there for a couple of days, they would be screaming at the top of their lungs that something has to change.

0:29:58 Matt: Important perspective because I think that so many people would assume that state prison was worse than a county jail. I think I a have pretty bunch across the board if you asked anyone out here.

0:30:07 Chris: And just to answer that too, people are actually taking deals for exceptionally long sentences because counties so bad, they just want out. I took my deal for that. Originally ended up with a 45 -year prison sentence and because I just wanted out of there. I

0:30:24 Matt: Is so important for people to hear because that is actually so much of immigration detention right now is just renting wings in county jails. And treated, as far as I know, exactly the same as anyone else in there. Rate of immigration incarceration and what's happening right now, I think that's such an important thing for people here. Here.

0:30:38 Chris: And it's to say it's Probably even far worse for immigration detention centers, right? Because they have even less rights as they're, know quote you -unquote not American citizens they can be oppressed even further right

0:30:49 Matt: And in my experience, they don't have access to even the very limited programs that are even available in county jails, which aren't very much to begin with. Really just there.

0:30:57 Thomas: Done a couple interviews with incarcerated people and it really does feel like society just wants to forget, you know, we just want to not see it. We just want this go away and not have to deal with any of the like hard work of trying to like, repair people, help, fix you people's trauma and all the kinds of things you're talking about. And it feels like when we don't want to know like we don't want to know we don'T want to have anything to do with it it's just ripe for abuse

0:31:21 Chris: Well that not to hit you guys with too much academia because you know I'm not big on that myself but know when I did get my college degree in prison I was forced to read a little bit of Foucault and isn't That What He Talks About in Crime and Punishment right you know in there he talks about we moved away from public executions because people didn't want to see it no more, It was too inhumane. You know, we moved away from letting society see what happens in the punishment system because people don't want to know about it. They don't wanna see it, but they wanna feel safe. So we have a government and a system that tells them, hey, you're gonna be safe. Just let us do this in the shadows. And everything happens in the shadows and then it's just horrendous, right.

0:31:33 Thomas: I don'T know hmm

0:32:03 Chris: The abuse is horrendous. You know no checks and balances. Things courts are cowards in a sense and will fall to the safety and security term by the Department of Corrections or BOP every time because they'll say, well, you guys are the professionals. We'll let you run it. You have presidents like Bill Clinton who did the Prison Litigation Reform Act where you can't sue without going through all the processes and checking off all the boxes. And basically that means going through grievance processes and systems that are set up by the system to stall you out and not let you get through them so you can't ever sue them so it's basically the oppressor that has their hand on the wheel that has all the control and why would they give you a right to a fair and just way to be treated right so you don't even have your actual constitutional rights a lot of the time

0:32:03 Thomas: When

0:32:49 Matt: The can't be missed throughout this book that this is cruel and unusual punishment. This is certainly an Eighth Amendment problem. It should be. And the Supreme Court, I was an ancient ruling about this a couple hundred years ago, but they have not taken it on directly. I don't know that they will anytime soon. I hope that they do. But striking to me when you're talking about the history of it with the Quakers and the early American Republic, it doesn't actually go back to the founding, right? As far as I know, it's not something that was widespread. So as an originalist constitutional thinker, you could actually come up with the idea that this has grown unusual, unlike execution even, in, right? That it's something that's developed in this country that way.

0:33:21 Chris: Quakers are they're the some ones of the leading experts in trying to fix it you because they feel guilty you that know they introduce this and you of that's at their hands right

0:33:33 Matt: Time now, you've been leading a nonprofit from prison with a substantial staff and mission. I'd just like to give you a chance to talk about that.

0:33:40 Chris: So I was blessed you with my amazing partner dr chelsea moore who's now a director at the aclu in washington state to create look to justice in 2020 um know we started it just to try to start a newsletter and keep people inside informed about what was going on with legislation you know, rumors and just things like that, but actually know what's actually happening on their behalf. Newsletter is quickly ballooned. I think we're at about almost 40 % of the Washington State prison population receives our newsletter. And that's at request. We could send it to the entire population, but we only do it with people that want to be a part of it. Thousands of people. You know, now we have a newsletter, We do civic education trainings on the inside in prisons with our lead organizers. We do it on the outside in impacted communities. We do in schools. We do and we're about to start doing in county jails. Really, we've expanded out in a way to where we do civic engagement and empowerment, where we teach people how to be engaged with the civic process, to write a bill, howto testify, howtocontactthelegislator. I didn't even know what a legislator was till I was about 30. You so that just lets you know in they're our communities. They're not teaching us. They are not helping us. We don't even know who's there doing that work on our behalf. This year in 2026, we're going to be, launching you what we're calling The Bridge, a narrative change project where we will be doing writers development programs and national writers cohorts incarcerated writers to teach them to get to the platform that myself, Quenetta Harris, John Lennon, like all of us have been, blessed you to achieve because of the massive levels of, you we have around us, right? We have, you structures and teams that allow us to be really out there so we're going to create that for more people. Our plan is that in five years we'll have a couple hundred incarcerated journalists writing and they'll be be exposing the system and really changing the narrative right tampering the fear -mongering that's going on and humanizing the situations and the people inside and how people end up here so we're going to be doing of narrative work we you also do that I've been doing that through a podcast my own which is broken is beautiful um a friend of mine who was uh attorney in was a public defender in los angeles county um and now she She does a lot of documentary film work, Katherine Hervey. You know, we're running a radio show, me and another incarcerated person in South Seattle called Through the Wire. You just like really reshaping and changing the narrative. So that's what Look to Justice does. We teach people that they need to know to be educated how to make change and how to do it themselves without being reliant on systems or big legal orgs and things like that. But where we can actually have a voice at the table. And we teach people how to do narrative how to tell their stories how to get involved how to tell the stories to others so we can start to control and shape the narrative how it should be right with a fair and balanced and that's what media should be media is not supposed to be one sided but it often is around you know the carceral systems yeah

0:36:35 Matt: Well, there wasn't this opportunity that you're creating here to, of writers you're talking about. Talked to John London last month, had a great conversation with him, just the perspectives you're bringing here. Describe Look to Justice as an inside -out organizing model. Can you talk about how that works and what the challenges are there?

0:36:49 Chris: There's quite a bit of challenges but you know we've we've built it up over years and gets stronger every year and we keep filling the gaps but when I say inside out that means it's led from prison out you Not only am I the co -founder, but I'm also the executive director of an organization that has almost 30 staff and contracts. Funded very strongly. We have strong support. We always need more funding, though. So if anybody wants to donate, you can go to our website at look2justice .org. completely led from the inside out. Have other incarcerated people that work here, directors that work there. We have multiple contractors that are incarcerated. So we make sure that impacted people are not exploited, you know, for their creative property and the work that they put into these spaces, but they're leading these spaces and being respected as such. Doing that has been extremely successful. I think we're the only organization with thissizeandnature doing this work in the United States. So gift and a curse, right? One, that means it's heavy on your shoulders because you want to make sure that you're doing it right because we want to set the trend for other organizations and places to do this kind of work in this way. Also train a lot of organizations in a lot OF states when they reach out. We've worked with people in Louisiana, in Montana, in New York to try to teach them how to hire incarcerated people and put them in leadership roles in their organization and been incredibly rewarding, and something that I want to see built out. There should be 100 organizations like this doing this work.

0:38:12 Chris: It gives people a chance when they're incarcerated to start building their life now. They get to start belonging now. And they get to help pay for their family now because they're making money. And there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to do that.

0:38:24 Matt: Yeah, for sure.

0:38:25 Chris: Setting the stage for recidivism rates to drop for sure by offering these opportunities. And we're showing people that they belong, you know, and that they don't have to wait till they go home to get everything figured out. Staff

0:38:38 Matt: Just curious about the logistical challenges. For regular organizers around the country, they can jump on a Zoom call or a conference call or a group email chain. I guess you are able to email obviously from your tablet inside, but how do you connect with people in other facilities, other places,

0:38:51 Chris: That run all my emails. So my poor staff have to do administrative tasks that they naturally shouldn't have to do. And like you see today, KJ, my director of programs, is facilitating this Zoom for us, which he shouldn't be doing. He shouldn't do that because he's a director at our organization. And facilitating Zooms is not in his responsibilities. But he's so committed to this work that on Sunday you'll see him right here doing this work. How our whole team is, is everybody's impacted in some way. So they all believe in the mission they do and they know how important the work is that we're doing and they're fully committed but

0:39:26 Thomas: You discover you kind of had like much aptitude for this kind of thing I mean I can't imagine growing up in the situation you did that you had much opportunity to kind of utilize what'S very clearly gifts that you have

0:39:38 Chris: I would say this called transferable skills I was a semi-successful drug dealer that was good at making connections and getting connections and selling drugs and what I quickly realized is that all those things are transferable and if people are given the right opportunities and that seeds needs water, people will be successful. And I see it all the time in prison. Again, I'm not the anomaly. We see people like John Lennon who just received a massive book contract with one of the top five publishers. We're seeing Quenetta Harris pump out hundreds of articles. One of the most successful writers in the country, I know. And, I got tons of people that I work with that are all the same. It's just really giving people an opportunity, a place to belong, and then letting them flourish into who they were always meant to be anyway. I mean, these are things that would have happened from the start, right? If I would have got to go to Princeton or Harvard and I would've grown up around those kinds of environments and places, I'd probably be running a big company. You know, I would be running that kind of capability, you know, and I really believe that in my mind and I have that confidence now, but we don't have that because we don' t have those opportunities. Only successful person I've seen that wasn't struggling when I was growing up was the drug dealer on the corner He was the only one that had a nice car he was only one that wasn't hungry. And then I watched my mom work two jobs just like all my friends parents you know I got duct tape on my shoes we got you know food in our house but you not like stocked with anything that we want you know my mom's always driving a piece of shit car you she's never got a car that runs good and I'm like well why are the people that are working the hardest have nothing. This guy over here that's selling drugs has everything. It quickly showed me, well, that's my only opportunity. I got to do what he's doing or we're fucked. And I didn't want my family to be in that situation no more. Unfortunately, when you start traveling down that path, it gets really nasty, really fast. It starts with nonviolent stuff. It starts with small petty crimes, you next thing you know you're carrying a gun next thing you know you got you and drugs to defend next thing you know people are trying to rob you you're robbing people you know it's just a nasty gross mean world that's steeped in toxic masculinity and you know a bunch of other things. It's just not healthy for us as a society. But we would have just helped people from the front end we wouldn't have that you know I think about going to school I was one of the dumbest kids in school. Because my school had a metal detector, police walk in the hallways, and 35 plus kids in the class. And the teacher was trying to manage our behavior because they didn't know what else to do. They didn't have the capacity or resources to actually educate us. Most of us were just in that and eventually ended up in special ed classes where you just get worse and worse and worst and fall further behind. And soon you can't even participate in none of that. Then I get to prison I eventually get myself in college by you know the grace of some extremely awesome men in here that mentored me and encouraged me to try education again. And I'm passing my classes with all A's. You know, I'm doing great I'm in finite math solving quadratic equations and things I never even thought of in my life reading books like Foucault, like Crime and Punishment and all these other things right that I didn't even think were possible, but they were possible and they're possible for people today. And those very same people are being pushed down into the mud even further. And they're just going to follow the same cycle that we've seen over and over, just like I followed. And we can fix that. And we know that. We're not idiots. You know, the data's there. Other countries do it. Know, we can do it actually

0:43:15 Matt: It seems to me, just from knowing what I know of your story, that along with the program we're talking about, that yourself as a writer and sort of really learning to write really seemed, I mean, obviously it's why you have the career you have now. Did that start and what was that like?

0:43:27 Chris: I wanted to publish a single piece. I just got my college degree. I wrote the Marshall Project. And I was like, man, I just want to write a piece. I just wanted to publish a piece just to say I'd accomplished that. Never planned on being a writer, I promise. I don't even know how this actually happened in the end. But, I started writing this piece. I wanted to help people understand. I had a friend that grew up with me. You know, we grew up in an all-Black community. Obviously, I have white skin, and he does, you got to closed custody prison, which is a maximum security prison when I first fell and was a white supremacist.

0:44:00 Chris: We didn't have any friends that weren't black or brown or from that community, right? Like all our girlfriends were not white. So I was like, how is he a white supremacist? Like blew my mind. But, then I started to quickly learn about the structures and politics of prison, and right when you go to a maximum security you're in prison, you have to choose somewhere to belong, or you become a target and a victim. I was raised in a mixed, Native you American wife family. So I was very lucky, you know that I had a family so I could easily I just went, into Native American groups and circles where I belong, because I was ready that way my whole life. But he didn't have that because he was just white. White and hanging out with other people who are not white can make you a quick target in prison so he chose that you know out of desperation and that became his life and I wanted people to see that and then it just so happened when I was writing that piece COVID hit in Washington we were the first state and asked the editor I said hey man they're locking down our prison they're taking a visit they're about to do some crazy stuff here and I was scared you know like a lot of us were inside we didn't know what the hell was going on, and I was like, do you want me to write about this? And he was like yes. It turned out I was the first incarcerated person to actually publish a piece about what was going on with COVID inside prisons, and it just took off. And, you know, from there, I probably wrote 40 pieces on COVID over a couple year period, really, highlighting what people were experiencing, what was going on, how it was playing out, don't you really help people understand because no journalist could do it. Know, they didn't know what was going on, like often, we could barely even get to a phone half the time, you know I started that way. And then quickly realized like, hey, hey, like this could actually become something better. I quit writing about COVID and I started writing about conditions. I started reading about everything, good things, bad things that were going on in my life, and you exposing, you know, parts of my life that, know, you I know, would have rather kept private, but I didn't because I thought if I could humanize, you know, our situation, maybe people would see things through another way, you and then we started the org and started doing legislative work and stuff like that. And it just, you know, quickly just took off, man. And, you know, I guess, you know, you uh, a little bit of tenacity on me. So I, I kind of just take off and run. I don't, I like to slow down once I see something can actually help and benefit. Know, from there it's offered me and afforded me the opportunity to really often offer a lot of opportunities to other people I know deserve them and could do exactly what I do if they had it, became you know like an addiction of like you we can build something here and I'm gonna make sure we do that oh

0:46:35 Matt: You take any writing classes along with a college degree or is that all just part of your college program that you worked in your writing?

0:46:40 Chris: Yeah a couple of creative writing classes nothing big though you small stuff I'm dead serious I never would have thought I would be a writer it's it wasn't in the cards for me at all if you asked me five years ten years ago I told you you're out of your mind if you think I'd be a writer no

0:46:54 Matt: You really are. You have quite a body of work. We'll link to some of it in the notes. We're also going to link, of course, to Look2Justice. That's number2.org, where you can read more about the work and donate, of course. And the book is Ending Isolation, the Case Against Solitary Confinement. Is there anything else you want to talk about on the way out here?

0:47:08 Chris: Man, I just, you know, I appreciate the opportunity and I hope people get involved because there's always a way for them to get involved. You know, I think they'd be surprised on the different ways. So, you know, reach out, you're always free to reach out to me. I respond to every single email I get, no matter what. Sometimes it's a grandma who is dealing with her grandson in prison or in solitary confinement. Sometimes it's, you know, a big funder, or sometimes it'S just someone that has some questions, but make it a point to make those connections because we never know how and what those ripple effects can look like when we spend a little bit of time, feel free to reach out and email is christopherwilliamblackwell at gmail.com first

0:47:45 Thomas: Excellent.

0:47:45 Matt: Great.

0:47:46 Thomas: Thank you so much. We really appreciate your time.

0:47:49 Chris: Guys thank you man keep up the good work

0:47:51 Matt: Thank you. A great conversation. Great book. Thanks again.

0:47:57 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon .com slash law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments at gmail .com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.