Voices from Solitary

On May 13, 2015, a film screening of Herman’s House was followed by panelists Tom Hastings, Phillip Gurule, Tammy Wilkins, and Gretchen Vala, who shared solitary confinement experiences. Although the United Nations calls it torture, 80,000 prisoners across the United States are in solitary confinement. This includes our youth, pregnant women, and people with mental illness locked in small, windowless cells with no contact for the major part of each day. The negative psychological effects of isolation are well documented. This event Voices from Solitary was organized by Corrine Fletcher and sponsored by PSU Students United for Nonviolence. Artwork is by Jaime Amaya.
Herman Wallace spent more than 40 years in a 6-by-9-foot cell in Louisiana’s Angola prison. Imprisoned in 1967 for a robbery he admits, he was subsequently sentenced to life for a killing he vehemently denies. Herman's House is a moving account of the remarkable expression his struggle found in an unusual project proposed by artist Jackie Sumell. Imagining Wallace's "dream home" began as a game and became an interrogation of justice and punishment in America. The film takes us inside the duo's unlikely 12-year friendship, revealing the transformative power of art. http://hermanshousethefilm.com/
SB739 Stop Solitary Confinement for Persons with Mental Illness in Oregon Prisons https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Measures/Overview/SB739
National Religious Campaign Against Torture http://nrcat.org/
ACLU https://action.aclu.org/secure/stop-abuse-solitary
Amnesty International http://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=32299