A new bill in Washington, DC seeks to end the district’s use of solitary confinement in jails. Rattling the Bars‘ Mansa Musa speaks with two formerly incarcerated organizers: Herbert Robinson and Cinquan Umar Muhammad of the Unlock the Box DC campaign, which advocates for an end to the barbaric practice of solitary confinement around the country and to pass the ERASE Bill.
Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.
Oftentimes we hear about Unlock the Box, and it’s almost becoming cliché. It’s an organization called Solitary Watch that monitors solitary confinement throughout the world and the United States in particular, and they’re real strategic in highlighting the torture and abuse that solitary confinement is.
What we have with us today, people that’s in this space right today. And guess where they’re operating out of? Our nation’s capital. They’re operating out of Washington DC, and they’re organizing to Unlock the Box. But guess where they’re trying to Unlock the Box at? In DC jail.
So why would you have solitary confinement in an environment where the nature of the environment is a transitory environment? The people in that environment, they’re pending conviction, they haven’t got convicted, they’ve only been charged, but yet they’re being treated like they’re doing severe time, and they’re being subjected to solitary confinement.
Joining me today is Herbert Robinson and Cinquan Umar Muhammad. Welcome, men.
Cinquan “Umar” Muhammad:
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. How you doing today?
Herbert Robinson:
Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us.
Mansa Musa:
I’m doing all right. So let’s start with you, Herbert, because we had you on before talking about Unlock the Box. I was recently at an activity that y’all was doing, y’all sponsored, about Unlock the Box. That’s where I met brother Umar. And y’all was talking about some of the things that y’all was doing, some of your initiatives y’all was taking, but more importantly, y’all was in the space of educating people about Unlock the Box and what exactly that is.
Tell our audience what exactly is Unlock the Box, and where y’all staying at right now in terms of the coalition that y’all building to Unlock the Box.
Herbert Robinson:
Got you. Again, I thank you for letting me be on and appreciate you, Umar, for joining. The Unlock the Box DC is the coalition here in DC that’s trying to end solitary confinement. It’s built up of transformative justice advocates and a lot of the organizations in DC that look at solitary confinement as torture, along with the United Nations. United Nations had what they brought about as the Mandela rule that says 15 days or more in solitary confinement is torture.
And solitary confinement is often described as torture, and involves isolating individuals for 22 to 24 hours a day inside of a cell.
So the Unlock the Box campaign is here to end that. And we are offering a different change into the community. Because it’s in DC jail, it’s being looked at as a judicial issue, but we’re looking at it as a public health issue.
Mansa Musa:
And one of the things that y’all, I recall at the conference that y’all was having on it, y’all had got someone to introduce a bill to do what?
Herbert Robinson:
Yes. So that bill was introduced by a champion, and that’s council member Brianne Nadeau.
Mansa Musa:
From Washington DC?
Herbert Robinson:
From Washington DC. Yes. Brianne Nadeau introduced the bill for us, and the bill is to abolish solitary confinement. We are seeking the in solitary confinement, and we’re asking that each person housed in DC jail is entitled to eight hours a day outside of their cell.
DC jail uses solitary confinement, but they have named it with different names. They have a mental unit that they use for solitary confinement, they have protective custody, they have safe cells, they have disciplinary. They house the LGBT community in solitary confinement because they don’t have nowhere else to put them. And they do the juveniles like that at times on different units.
So with this being said, it’s like the jail that’s lacking the programs and the resources, and that’s what we seek, to figure out how to implement these programs and resources inside the jail. Because there’s a lot that could be done, man, to help the people adjust and better themselves under them conditions, especially when it comes to social and emotional learning and cognitive thinking and things like that to deal with problem solving and be aware of their anger and how they respond and react to certain situations.
And these are things that’s stripped away from you when you locked in that cell by yourself. You become possessive of your own material and things like that. And then the dignity of rewashing clothes that the whole unit then wore and then giving back to you to put on. These things, they take away from you, they strip you down.
Mansa Musa:
Right. Yeah. And I did 48 years before I got out, but I did four-and-a-half of them years in the super max, which was solitary confinement. I did a lot of time on segregation, which is solitary confinement, but I never looked at it like that.
But when I got to super max, I really realized that the impact that isolation had, because sometimes it was like 24 and none, 23 and one, or 24 and none for the most part. And everything was designed around how you would do your due diligence with yourself in your cell.
Umar, talk about your experience. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and some of your experience and your experience dealing with solitary confinement. I recall your speech at the conference that the Unlock the Box Coalition was having, and I’ve been in this space for a minute, but I was really impressed. That’s what made me approach you about coming on and educating our audience about solitary confinement.
Cinquan “Umar” Muhammad:
Yes sir. Well, first I want to thank you, brother Mansa Musa, for having me here today. I also want to thank my brother Herbert Robinson for always bringing me along. Brother Herbert is my mentor, has been my mentor for some time, so I always try to get in any space that I can with him and get involved with any campaign he’s a part of because we both have some of these shared experience.
At the age of 16, I was sentenced to juvenile life in DC Superior Court, and I was fortunate that at some point in time, roughly around 2017, 2018, the DC Council came up what’s called the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act. What the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act does it affords our juveniles who committed crimes before the age of 18, the first version, second version, the age of 25 and under who have served a minimum of 20 years or 15 years to petition the court for release.
And everything is predicated on your conduct while you’ve been incarcerated throughout these years since you were a juvenile. I petitioned the court for release after 29 years, 10 months, and I was released. I was released back into society.
And I made it my top priority because while I was incarcerated, I knew that if I should ever be released, the one thing that I wanted to work on and I wanted to dedicate the rest of my life to was working first and foremost just criminal justice reform in general, but more importantly in this solitary confinement period. But it has to be a starting point. There had to be a starting point. And I’m from Washington, DC, so what better place to start but in Washington, DC?
But over 29 years and 10 months, I roughly spent about six years, six-and-a-half years consecutively in solitary confinement. And one thing that I always say, and I shout it from the rooftop, solitary confinement is 100%, make no mistake about it, torture.
Mansa Musa:
Come on.
Cinquan “Umar” Muhammad:
It’s mental torture. It’s physical torture, it’s psychological torture. It’s emotional torture.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Cinquan “Umar” Muhammad:
This is torture that needs to be ended because these are the same citizens that will be returning back to the community at some point in time. Who do you want living next door to you: Somebody who has been reformed, who has spent years in incarceration, who has reformed himself, bettered himself when he’s coming back out, back into society as someone who’s a better person.
Or do you want someone who is batshit crazy? Who has practically lost his mind because he’s been sitting inside of a cell alone counting bricks on a wall? I mean, this is a public safety issue. And if this is a public safety issue, then we got to treat this in a manner where this is an emergency in solitary confinement. Who would want to lock somebody in a room the size of your bathroom and leave them in there for years on top of years on top of years, but expecting them to still come out in the same conditions that they went in? That’s insanity. That’s insanity.
So Unlock the Box. I’m involved with a lot of organizations, Free Minds writing workshop and book club, building communities in our prisons. Currently, I’m a BreakFree Education hour 2024 fellow. I’m a fellow, that’s where I’m working at right now. But I just was hired for a job with Dreaming Out Loud, which is an organization that works to end the food inequities in the greater Washington DC area.
But whatever my brother Herbert Robinson is involved in because we are passionate about these same issues. But the top one being, the top one being, first and foremost, is erasing solitary confinement, unlocking the box. And that’s what I’m here to talk about.
Mansa Musa:
Okay. Hey Herbert, because Umar made a good point. And this is his mantra. That’s his mantra. He said it at the conference, the coalition, that solitary confinement is 100% torture. When we think of torture and we see the forms of torture that take place in the movies, we see torture as more physical. Why are y’all saying that solitary confinement?
And he outlined the different reasons what’s behind, emotional, social, physical, mental. But why do you say it’s torture, and how do you get people to understand it being torture? Because when you say someone is being tortured, they waterboard people they falsely accused, they locked up in Iraq, named them illegal combatants. They waterboarded them and the US say, well, that’s torture. They did a lot of physical things to them and they claim that’s torture.
So most people might think say, well, when you say torture and it ain’t got no physical element to it, you just putting somebody in a cell, feeding them, giving them a shower, some food, break them out maybe once in a while and give them some rec, how is that torture?
Herbert Robinson:
So as the brother spoke, because when he said torture, he broke it down from psychological, emotional, mental, physical. This torture happens on every level. You come from being in society with your family to being incarcerated. Now if you’re incarcerated on population, you might have access to the phone and things at a regular basis.
In solitary confinement, you don’t get that. You might be put in a position where you can only send one letter a month, have one 15-minute phone call a month. That’s torture. Sitting there wondering what your family doing for 30 days before you could send your next letter or receive your next letter or get your next phone call.
Again, having them collect everybody’s under clothes off of the tier and wash them in the same laundry basket and then come and pass them back out. Not you, your personal stuff, but just, this your size, this yours. This the stuff the man next to you could have just, man, shitted in in or whatever the day before. But this is what you got to wear now because they feel as though it’s clean enough for you to wear, that you still see hairballs and stuff in it. Like this is torture.
Mansa Musa:
Yeah, that’s torture.
Herbert Robinson:
But on the flip side, just imagine being trapped in your bathroom, but there’s COVID. For the people that was trapped in their house during COVID felt as though they was being tortured. They couldn’t handle being stuck in their own home. But just imagine people that’s incarcerated as being trapped inside of something the size of a bathroom, that is considered a bathroom because they have a toilet and sink in it as well. Some have showers too.
Mansa Musa:
Right there in the cell.
Herbert Robinson:
And you’re being trapped in it. So you have some that complain about that, say it’s not solitary confinement because in some locations you have a celly. But I think at times that make it worse because now when this person has to relieve themselves or go take care of any personal hygiene or washing themselves, you are within arm’s reach at all times.
I don’t feel comfortable and could never get comfortable being trapped in a cell with a man right there that’s washing his complete body naked in the shower. But this is what you’re forced under. These are the things you want to know about torture. I call that torture, sir. That’s torture to me.
Mansa Musa:
That would be torture. Umar, how did you deal with solitary confinement? Because you say you did six in all years. And like I said, I was regimented. I was real regimented in everything I did. But when I came out of that space, when I got released from the super max in Baltimore and they send me to Jessup, which was known as the cut, and I was standing in what they call center hall, which is where all the traffic goes.
And the whole time, this was my first time ever being out and about and around people. And I knew a lot of people in that institution, and they was coming by hollering at me and everything. They hadn’t seen me in long. But I was paralyzed. My back was against the wall and I was paralyzed. Literally I was paralyzed. And a friend of mine seen it and said, come on man, let’s go outside. No one recognized that I was paralyzed from not being around people.
Umar, how did you deal with it?
Cinquan “Umar” Muhammad:
No, you was traumatized because you were tortured for the period of time that you was in solitary confinement. That’s called trauma, brother. That was psychological trauma that paralyzed your limbs.
Listen, listen, it’s like being sick. It’s like being sick. And you become so ill and sick that your limbs won’t even function properly no matter how much you want to move those limbs. Brother, that’s trauma.
And see, the thing is this when you ask the brother, well, some people going not see it as torture. Okay, well, go lock yourself in your bathroom without no food. Go lock yourself in your bathroom without no clothes, no TV, and no phone, no radio. And then somebody bring you what they want to give you as food three times a day. You stay in there for three, four, five, or six years and then tell me, still tell that that ain’t torture inside of your bathroom.
Tell me that ain’t torture. Somebody to come around and, at will when they want to, yank you off your cell and beat on you with not only their fists, but with instruments. Tell me that ain’t torture. Somebody that come around where you trying to sleep and hawk spitting through your tray slot or kicking your door won’t allow you to sleep every time they see you falling asleep. Tell me that ain’t torture.
Because if I’m not mistaken, what they have in the Geneva Convention also deems torture is that at a certain period of time when they continuously turn on lights and when they continuously try to, it’s called sleep deprivation. That, sir, is what torture is. And that is what’s going on not only in Washington, DC, not only in Baltimore County, but in the state prisons across the United States and in federal rural prisons.
Now you ask the question in specific, how did I deal with it? See, I dealt with it because I knew I didn’t have any other choice but to deal with it because I’m a resilient young man, first and foremost. I had already suffered so much emotional loss, so much physical loss because I’m an only child. My mother and father already died. I didn’t have brothers and sisters. So all I had was myself.
So I knew that if I wasn’t strong for me, who was going to be strong for me? So what I would do is I would get up in the morning and I would offer salat. I would offer the early morning fajr prayer. Bright and early before breakfast even came around, I would pace the floor a little bit, read the Quran, and then I wait for breakfast to come, eat my breakfast, straight back out to the salat.
Then I would work out. I work out to the zuhr prayer, which is the midday prayer. I will work out to that time, pray, get back to working out after prayer and get my food at lunch. After lunch, get back to working out again.
And I’m giving you this regimen because here’s what it entailed. It entailed every hour that I was awake that I had to be doing something that my mind could grasp onto. That I wouldn’t be looking at these walls, that I wouldn’t be trying to count the bricks on the walls or trying to count the spots on the floor. Or I may see a stain on the floor and I’m saying, oh, that look like Jesus on the floor.
Because I had almost got to that point, make no mistake about it. You see a spill on the floor, but the spill may have been on the floor so long that it takes a certain design of somebody that you may have known, right? That’s when you know you’re losing your damn mind. That’s when you know that what you are experiencing is torture. Because now what it does is it’s starting to alter your perspective on how you see the world. That’s torture, brother.
So I had to do things, man, that my mind could physically identify with, that I could grasp onto and that would keep me sane, which is prayer, which is working out, but also which was getting inside of the vents, the vent that blows out, they controls the air to the cell. And I would talk to other people in the other cells because I wanted to make sure that they was all right.
Here I am damn near losing my mind, but I wanted to make sure other brothers was all right. Why? Because we all in the same struggle. We all in the same fight and I don’t want to be the only one up here sitting like, I’m all right. But then that’s what was giving me a peace of mind, so I wouldn’t lose my mind, talking to somebody else. So I know that they needed it too.
Mansa Musa:
And Umar, that’s real succinct. And I’ve been in that space. Like I told, I said earlier, I was regimented. So I had a regimen that I had set up and everything was based on whatever I wanted to do that day. But it was a regimen. I worked out, studied law, read books, went to sleep, woke up, ate, boom, bam, boom, bam, boom.
That was a regimen to keep me from going crazy, keep me from pacing the floor, keep me from looking on the floor and seeing something down there and saying, oh look, that’s Michael Jordan shooting a jump shot. Or keep me from wanting to cut my wrist with a spoon.
But Herbert, talk about where y’all at right now, what the campaign look like in terms of, one, trying to get the legislation passed at the DC City Council. That’s what you’re talking about when you say the councilwoman, that was the councilwoman at the DC City Council. Talk about where y’all at with the Unlock the Box campaign and what’s y’all upcoming initiative around Unlock the Box.
Herbert Robinson:
So right now with the Unlock the Box campaign, the fiscal year is ending. So we have a push till December to try to get a hearing this year, but if not, we’ll be looking to secure a hearing next year, the beginning of next year. And that task is through the judiciary chair, Councilmember Brooke Pinto here in Washington DC. Right now we have nine councilmembers that have signed on in support of the bill.
Mansa Musa:
For the benefit of our audience, what’s the bill number?
Herbert Robinson:
It’s the ERASE Act 2023. I will have to go…
Mansa Musa:
That’s good enough. Just so let them know that when you say the bill, they know it is an actual bill.
Herbert Robinson:
Yeah, it’s ERASE Act 2023. And so out of the nine that we have signed on, it’s only 13. One is being voted into office next month. But we do have, throughout one of his campaign forums, we had him actually verbally say that he agrees that solitary confinement is torture and he wants to support us ending it.
So in that sense, we have 10, we are only missing three. And that’s the chairman, Brooke Pinto, the ex-chairman, Mendelsohn, and Trayon White. Trayon White asked us to set up a conversation with him so we can explain a little bit more about the bill, and that’s where we at with that step and the process of scheduling meetings with Mendelsohn as well as Brooke Pinto.
Mansa Musa:
In terms of work, because y’all did a nice thing with organizing the coalition. So in terms of getting people involved with the coalition, what are y’all doing around that?
Herbert Robinson:
So ERASESolitary.com is the website and you can go on, there’s links on there to ask for those that want to join the coalition, want to do any volunteer work for the coalition, bring in your organizations, and we take individuals. We go out and do canvassing. It’s always something that can be done, especially when it comes to social media posts and editing, things like that, website work. We always got a space where we can find help and need help. So one could go onto the website, ERASESolitary.com, and check that out.
Mansa Musa:
And Umar, you have to answer this question. Why you think they so resistant to recognizing this torture and doing something about it? When I say they, I’m talking about the system, the state, the government, the powers that be. Why you think it’s such a resistance on their part to recognize this is torture and enact legislation to eliminate it?
Cinquan “Umar” Muhammad:
I’ll give you a scenario better. I give it to you in the form of a scenario to help you understand it. I kill somebody in the street, but the state that got the death penalty want to kill me. That’s retaliatory in nature. But this is supposed to be a government for the people and by the people.
But now somebody killed one of my brothers in the street, I go back and kill them and they give me life. I mean what makes it right for them to kill me for killing somebody, the state, but then I kill somebody for killing somebody, the same thing they done, and you give me a life sentence? It’s retaliatory in nature.
And that’s the way that the Americans judicial system functions. You do something we don’t like… Because listen, you know, Herbert know, and many people that been in solitary confinement that hear this know, and those that haven’t been that need to be educated need to know this. Do you know that you could be put in solitary confinement because you got an extra tray out the chow hall line because you was hungry? You were hungry, so you wanted seconds, and you got in the line to get seconds, and they locked you up and put you in solitary confinement because you were hungry.
Do you know that the officer can not like you and shake your cell down because they can anytime they want to do what’s called random searches, but they’re not so random. Search in your cell and plant a knife, drugs, or whatever they want to plan in your cell just to get you in solitary confinement so that when he does his overtime mandated shift, he can be working in solitary confinement so that he can physically abuse you outside of the purview of the camera.
So what we need to do more is we need to not only educate people about solitary confinement, what solitary confinement really is, we need to educate them about how they get people into solitary confinement and for what reasons they get them in solitary confinement, so they can do torturous things to them that they couldn’t do within the sight of the camera. But when you put them in solitary confinement, they say, oh, they got a camera on the hall. I don’t live in the hall. I live on a cell in the hall where there’s no camera at. And this is where the torturous activities go on at.
Mansa Musa:
You rattled the bars that time, Umar. Took a tray. Somebody hungry, they put him in solitary confinement. Police say man disrespected him, put him in solitary confinement. Man walking too slow, solitary confinement. Oh, better still, look. Got a tray, torture you. You talk back, torture. Not walking fast enough, torture.
Herbert, you got the last word on this here. Tell our audience how they can get in touch with you and how they become involved in the campaign, and some of your other initiatives that you might be involved with.
Herbert Robinson:
Got you. So again, ERASESolitary.com is a way to get in touch with the Unlock the Box campaign and you go on there and there’s links to sign up and join the coalition and all that.
As far as me, I have a website, and on my website you could check out a lot of what I’m into, from Growing Pain Solutions to AGG transportation. I’m trying to build out one in the transportation industry and the other is in this advocacy sector.
But I have what I call Building Inclusive Communities, where I try to bring in brothers like Umar and a lot of those that I’ve worked with. And we sharing our voice, we trying to be heard, we trying to fight for what we believe in and what we feel as though the community needs and what we feel as though, when we go out into the community and talk to the community, what they tell us they need. We ain’t just doing this for ourselves and we ain’t just bringing the information that we feel, but nah, this is stuff we bringing out from the community. We out here, we in the community, we do these rallies, as you seen, and we engaging all those around us.
Mansa Musa:
Umar, how can people get in touch with you and some of the things that you’re doing, some of your initiatives you’re taking, as we close out?
Cinquan “Umar” Muhammad:
I’m actually, excuse me. Yes, sir. I’m actually on Facebook and I’m on Instagram ,and my Instagram and Facebook is basically tied together. Cinquan815, and Cinquan is spelled with a C. C-I-N-Q-U-A-N 815. You can find me on Facebook or you can find me on Instagram, the same thing.
You can see what I’m into on a daily basis. You can see the type of work that I advocate for. You can see pictures of different conferences and canvassing that we have done, and you can find out how to get involved also.
But thank you for having me, brother. I really appreciate this. This really needed to get out. People need to understand what solitary confinement is, what’s really going on. You know what I mean? And how they can help the movement. And man, anytime you need me, brother, anytime, and I know Herbert feel the same, call on us, and we going to be there because this a fight that we got to keep on fighting as long as we walking this earth.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. This is a fight that we got to keep on fighting. Y’all rattled the bars.
And we want to encourage our listeners and our viewers to look at this particular episode of Rattling the Bars and ask yourself, just ask yourself when you get your plate, you take your plate to the bathroom, sit on top of the toilet stool, wash your hands, sit on the toilet, and start eating it. Then you wait for somebody to open the door and take it out.
Ask yourself, did you wait for them to come open your door and tell you that you got 15 minutes to take a shower? And then on top of that, they tell you that the laundry is coming back and they’re giving you some underwear that you got pick of the litter, doodoo stains in them, nut balls in them. And then they tell you that at the end of the day when you get up out of there, after doing six years in that environment, oh, you all right. Ain’t nothing wrong with you. And by the way, you wasn’t being tortured.
Y’all rattled the bars, and we thank you for y’all coming on today. And we ask our listeners to understand this and understand this real clearly. It’s only from The Real News and Rattling the Bars, you get this kind of information. All three of us have been in solitary confinement. We’re not talking about this as a theory. We’re talking about this from actual practical. We all lived this experience and we are campaigning against it. And this is why these men are on here today to talk about it.
Thank y’all for joining us, and we ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars, because guess what? We really are the news.
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