Solitary
confinement is often debated about whether it is to cruel of a punishment.
Cruel or not it’s often use as a form of punishment in prison where inmates are isolated
from any human contact.
They are isolated for 22-24 hours a day with sentencing ranging from days to even decades.
In a lot of cases inmates became a high risk of harming themselves, and will go even as
far as killing themselves in order to escape the punishment.
Some of these inmates are able to outlive there sentence but there are situations where
these inmates are just forgotten about.
So lets get right into this list, this is the top 10 convicts who were forgotten about
in solitary confinement.
And here to help us today is Kelly and shes from the top 5 scary videos channel here on
Youtube.
Landon: You guys should check out her channel its really good, just click right here they
do a ton of scary videos and the channel is gaining a ton of subscribers lately.
Kelly: Ok lets start of this list at number 10.
Adam Capay.
Adam was imprisoned in an Ontario prison in Canada and held in solitary for over four
years, completely isolated, without a trial.
The now 25 year old first nations man was kept in isolation in a window less Plexiglas
lined cell at the Thunder Bay jail with 24 hour a day artificial light.
In 2012, he was charged for the murder of another inmate; a crime he has yet to receive
a trial for, causing many activists to cause a stir, demanding action and shining light
on the issue with Ontario’s correction systems.
After 1,500 days in solitary, Adam reportedly began suffering from memory loss and had difficulty
speaking.
There has been a demand for the Ontario government to cap solitary confinement to a max of 15
days, and currently a petition is circulating online demanding for Adam’s release from
isolation.
Landon: Number 9.
That was Stephen Slevin who was actually rewarded 15.5 million dollars after he was put into
solitary confinement at the Dona Ana County Jail in New Mexico.
Slevin was 59 yrs old who spent up to 24 hours a day inside a tiny dark cell.
He was often denied his 1 hour out of cell time.
This cruel punishment caused him to have delirium.
His mental state was severely compromised, he wasn’t properly taken care of.
He wasn’t even allowed to see a dentist so he had to pull out one of his teeth.
The worst part of this whole case was Slevin was put into solitary confinement because
of his depression issues.
It makes no sense, he will just become way more depressed.
He is being set up for failure.
Slevin was put into prison for allegedly stealing a vehicle and being drunk but he claims he
his friend let him borrow the vehicle.
He was never seen by a judge for his sentencing.
He was just left in prison and forgotten about.
Moving into number 8.
The jail Kalief Browder stayed at was Rickers Island we have often talked about this prison
on this channel many times.
Its notorious for being a horrible prison for its violence and for mistreating its inmates.
At the age of just 16 yrs old Browder was accused of theft of a backpack I kid you not
he went to prison because of this.
Its crazy I know inside the backpack was $700, a camera, credit cred and an ipod touch.
While awaiting trial Browder was imprisoned for 3 years with significant time in solitary
confinement.
It took 3 years to finally have a court case and when the trial occurred the prosecutors
case was lacking in evidence and the main witness in the case couldn’t be located
so the case was dropped.
So why the heck did this teenager spend 3 years in prison.
This story gets really sad, just years after being released Browder couldn’t adopt to
the real world so he took his own life by hanging.
While in prison life was very hard for Browder.
Let me show you a clip of an officer attacking him for no apparent reason.
Kalief will be seen in the orange prison suit and he is handcuffed and is unable to
harm anyone.
Kelly: Number 7.
Dean Westwood.
Dean’s case is a really sad one.
For starters, when first arriving at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Oregon, prison
employees didn’t know how to properly handle an inmate with his disability; Dean is paralyzed
from the waist down, and was handled roughly.
He wasn’t provided with his anti-seizure medication.
And he was placed into an isolated medical cell for seven days.
His wheelchair was taken away from him, and he was left flat on his back in the cell,
and was not given any assistance to help move around.
He was forced into tight fitting clothing, causing irritation on his body below his waist,
and because he didn’t have his medication, he experienced severe convulsions.
According to the ACLU, despite the Americans with Disabilities Act laws, discrimination
against people with disabilities persists in prisons and jails nationwide.
Stories like Deans are more common across the Us than you’d think, and cases of neglect
have caused major physical and mental damage to prisoners nationwide.
Kelly: Number 6.
Thomas Silverstein.
Silverstein has been incarcerated since 1977 for four separate murders.
The alleged former leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang, he’s been in isolation since
1983 after killing a Corrections officer at the Marion Penitentiary in Illinois, and orchestrating
the death of another corrections officer via one of his gang members.
He was briefly released during the 1987 Atlanta Prison Riots by Cuban detainees; officials
were worried he would orchestrate the murders of more correctional officers, but luckily
that didn’t happen.
The cell he’s been confined to is a specially designed cell called Range 13 at the ADX Florence
federal prison in Colorado, and he’s currently the longest held prisoner in solitary confinement
within the Bureau of Prisons.
He’s also considered to be the most dangerous prisoner in the US federal prison system,
and has no human contact; something that Silverstein still argues to this day is a form of torture.
Landon: Number 5.
That is Damon Thibodeaux who spent the past 15 yrs on death row.
Because he was a death row inmate it was automatic solitary confinement for him.
I don’t even think I can last 1 week in solitary confinement this guy was innocent
of his crime and had to spend 15 yrs forgotten about in confinement.
When Damon was just 22 yrs old he was sentenced to death for sexually assaulted a 14 yr old
girl back in 1997.
Damon always maintained his innocents but the justice system never believed him.
In an interview when asked about how did he pass the time in solitary confinement this
is what he said and I quote.
I didn’t pass the days the days passed me.
Damon had to sleep on the hard floor at it was hot all the time.
He felt defeated and his freedom was gone.
Damon also said, after a while it gets to be one long day.
Everyday you wake up and hope you have the mental strength to survive another day.
Often times he thought of suicide but he was some how able to hang on till he was proven
to be innocent and finally he was released from prison.
Kelly: Number 4 Arthur Johnson.
Arthur Johnson spent 37 years in solitary confinement.
That’s over half of his life in various prisons across the state of Pennsylvania.
He was initially confined to solitary after he made a series of attempts to escape prison
in the 70s and 80s.
Johnson has been awarded a 325,000 dollar settlement after launching a lawsuit, stating
that his time in isolation in a tiny cell was cruel and unusual punishment, violating
his right to due process.
Those 37 years were spent in a cell for at least 23 hours a day, with Johnson only being
able to go outside in a metal cage for an hour each weekday if the weather permitted.
He was not allowed any visits, and had not being able to make any physical contact with
other prisoners since 1979.
Johnson is still in prison, but his lawyers are attempting to appeal his life sentence
under the argument that he was a little over 18 years of age when first indicted, and that
he has a documented intellectual disability.
Landon: Number 3.
We have this guy right here who I feel so so bad for.
This is Juan Navarro and I actually can’t give you an age or how long exactly he has
been in prison for but we have guesses.
Navarros age is between 76 and 78 years old, and he has probably been in prison for almost
40 years.
The reason why we don’t have a ton of information about this guy is because he suffers from
dementia and schizophrenia.
He might have been in prison way back since 1976 and he was suspected for killing his
mother, but there hasn’t been any trial dates or anything.
Navarro was just simply forgotten about in the justice system.
Kelly: Number 2.
Albert Woodfox!
He’s the US’s longest standing solitary confinement prisoner, who after over 4 decades
was finally set free in Louisana.
43 years.
That’s absolutely insane.
So his story is that he was put into a 6 by 9 cell after he was put into jail for a murder
he allegedly committed back in 1972.
Woodfox has always proclaimed his innocence, might I add.
He was held in his cell for 23 hours of the day, with only a single hour each day to go
out to the exercise yard, which was a small fenced off area of concrete, all while being
shackled and pretty much entirely alone while there.
He was released in 2016 at the age of 69.
Now that he’s out, he’s committed his time to campaigning against the use of solitary
confinement on prisoners, saying, I quote, “I can now direct all my efforts to ending
the barbarous use of solitary confinement and will continue my work on that issue here
in the free world.”
Woodfox is also known for being one of the Angola 3; three prisoners who were originally
held in Louisiana’s Angola prison who, because of their affiliation with the Black Panthers,
believed they were framed for the murder of a prison guard a year after Woodfox had been
imprisoned there.
They collectively spent 113 years in solitary.
Landon: Finally at number 1 we have 23 yr old Daniel Chong who was at a 420 party with
his friend when the police crashed the party, and raided the event.
Daniel Chong was arrested along with 8 of his friends.
A DEA agent released a statement saying that they seized 18,000 ecstasy pills, marijuana,
hallucinogenic mushrooms, a Russian rifle, two handguns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Is this real life right now what kind of party is this?
Well while in jail Daniel was actually forgotten about for 5 days with no water and no food.
Daniel Chong was forced to drink his own pee and fight for survival.
You would think this can only be a movie.
Well there you guys have it thanks so much for watching, and thanks so much Kelly for
helping
us with this video today.