Sensory Deprivation is Depravity
by Ronald Epps

From within and beyond the one hundred thousand dollar 8 by 14 sq. ft. steel and stone Sensory Deprivation cell that is designed for my mental, physical, and social de-humanization, I bring to you this letter of concern regarding the adverse effects of long-term Sensory Deprivation.

After spending over a year in the Supermax undergoing long-term intensive solitary confinement, denied and deprived of direct human contact, i was transferred back to the Maryland Penitentiary. Upon seeing me for the first time in over a year, a fellow prisoner shook my hand and then proceeded to put both arms around me to embrace me and I became visibly shaken and cringed up as if I had been physically violated. I had not had any physical contact with another human being in so long that I wasn't used to being touched. I had become super-sensitive to one of the basic human senses - the sense of human touch.

Welcome to the "Sensory Deprivation Experience." Definition: self-explanatory - the deliberate and intentional stripping of the cell down to an isolation cell, then the stripping of the individaul down to the basic necessities, even down to the personal effects. Then locked within this cell twenty-three hours a day with barely the bare essentials, where the wall-mounted stainless steel mirror in the segregation cells is removed from the walls so that even the sight of one's own image is denied. This is Sensory Deprivation. And no matter how strong a person is, Sensory Deprivation is depravity at its worst. All five basic human senses - sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste - are severely suppressed - when one is slowly, but surely, and very subtly stripped of all the common sentiments of humanity.

Under these adverse conditions of confinement, one tends to crave a change of scenery, location, atmosphere, and environment just so s/he can see new sights instead of the same ole, everyday, mind-deadening routine and faceless faces ... hear new and different sounds other than the quiet, indescribable silence that seems to speak louder than noise ... smell different scents besides the foul, stale, contemptible odor so common to everyday existence in this bottomless pit .. one seeks to touch base with, feel and embrace another human in an intimate, sensitive, humane, compassionate, personal way as opposed to the impersonal, inhumane, insensitive, degrading manner ... one develops a strong, intense desire to taste various foods besides the same ole, tasteless, non-variety, everyday, recycled meals. One is served just enough food to have a bowel movement, just enough to stay alive. This is Sensory Deprivation where even ones sense of taste, appetite, and taste buds is denied and deprived.

All of the aforementioned increased, heightened senses are common among convicted persons held in prisons, but such senses are magnified one hundred times in Control Unit Sensory Deprivation Prisons. Steel and stone torture chambers where, absent various forms of social stimuli, the human mind can become so debased, so de-humanized, and sink so low that if one isn't careful, there is a tendency to adjust, conform, and accustom oneself to a standard of living that is lower than that which exists within the animal kingdom. This is the adverse effect of long-term Sensory Deprivation. It is a form of physical, social, and psychological torture, and it pushes many self-respecting, rational thinking, decent-minded men and women to a quest for excitement, acts of desperation, and to the most extreme points of paranoia.

After spending over a year in the Supermax, I was transferred back to the Maryland Penitentiary without any consideration given to the desocialization process I had undergone. Nor was any provision made to resocialize me back into a general population setting. Upon having difficulty adjusting into general population, it became necessary for me to be placed on punitive segregation for refusing to be housed in a cell with another human being. There was a time when I could tolerate double-cell housing on a temporary, short-term, voluntary basis, but after my experience with Sensory Deprivation, I have now become more anti-social than ever before and I now have a zero-degree tolerance level for double-celling and general population settings.

As a result, for the past five years that I have been out of the Supermax, I have spent a total of only seven months in a general population setting.

In addition, on two occasions, I have had official street charges pressed against me. This never before happened to me in the entire history of my imprisonment. I am currently waiting to go to trial for the latest charge. I have not received, encouraged, nor welcomed any outside contact by way of visits from family members, loved ones, or friends in the past five years since leaving Supermax. This entire experience is uncharacteristic of me, but I believe the underlying root cause is the social dislocation I have suffered from my first encounter with Supermax's Sensory Deprivation. I am only now beginning to question and understand what has happened to me.

Now that I am back in the Supermax for a second time, armed with this overstanding of what Sensory Deprivation actually is, I am less likely to leave Supermax no better off for my experience than when I first arrived. My concern now is with controlling and reversing the ill-effects of my first encounter with Sensory Deprivation. Otherwise, I am concerned that my social dislocation will in all likelihood go from bad to worse, and ruin me to the extent that not only would I not be mentally, physically, or socially fit for a general population setting, but society in general.

Ronald Epps
Maryland