Original Article Posted 6/9/2005 12:18 AM After years in solitary, freedom hard to grasp By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY EDINBURG, Texas It's not unusual to find Angel Coronado outside his family's trailer here a few miles north of the Mexican border, staring blankly at a nearby hayfield. When he's among family and friends, he often recoils from physical contact. Conversations with him usually are brief, and then fade into an awkward silence. Coronado was always quiet, says his mother, Trinidad. But since he spent nearly two years in solitary confinement in a Texas state prison for an assault conviction, Coronado, 22, seems to have lost touch with much of the world around him, his mother says. Unemployed, addicted to cocaine and once again hanging out with members of a violent street gang, Coronado shows little of the optimism he had on a chilly day in November 2002 when he was released from a state prison in Huntsville and talked about getting a job in construction. A USA TODAY reporter joined Coronado that day on a 13-hour bus trip from prison to his South Texas home to begin chronicling how he would adjust to freedom after being in the extreme isolation of a windowless, 6-by-10-foot cell. Coronado is among tens of thousands of felons who have been released from U.S. prisons during the past decade after spending years in solitary confinement and receiving little or no rehabilitation. They make up less than 10% of the more than 600,000 felons released from state prisons each year, but they often are the most dangerous or troubled prisoners to be freed: murderers, rapists, gang members and others who have been kept in tiny cells for 23 hours a day with restrictions on visitors and little help in dealing with the psychological problems that can be caused by extreme isolation. This stream of felons is part of the legacy of get-tough policies that have become increasingly common in prisons in Texas and across the nation. Prison populations in isolation The nation's five largest state prison systems, and the number of inmates reported to be in solitary confinement this year: State Total inmates Inmates in isolation Pct. in isolation California 163,000 7,135 4.4% Texas 150,000 9,867 6.6% Florida 84,000 6,242 7.4% New York 63,242 4,292 6.8% Illinois 43,418 2,789 6.4% Source: Research by Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY During the past decade, state prisons determined to reduce violence among gang members and inmates who have gotten into fights behind bars have put record numbers of them in solitary confinement, or "administrative segregation," as it is called in Texas. The inmates typically are allowed out of their cells for no more than an hour a day to exercise alone; their exposure to TV and reading material also is limited. In the Justice Department's last census of U.S. jails and prisons in 2000, there were roughly 70,000 inmates in some form of isolation, up from about 48,000 in 1995. In Texas, the number of inmates in isolation has risen from 9,681 in 2001 to 9,867 this year. Each year, Texas releases 1,200 to 1,300 inmates directly from solitary confinement. Justice Department studies have indicated that about 67% of all felons who are released from state prisons commit new crimes within three years. No national studies have been done on the return-to-crime rate for those released from solitary confinement, but anecdotal evidence suggests the rate is higher among those felons. That was the case for Coronado and the eight other felons who were released from solitary confinement in Texas on Nov. 15, 2002. Thirty-one months later, seven of the nine including Coronado, who was caught breaking into a city-owned garage in the nearby border town of Donna, Texas have gotten into trouble again: Five are back in prison, including Adam Morales, 33, a gang member and convicted burglar who served 10 years in solitary confinement before his release in 2002. He now faces 35 more years in solitary for an incident last year in which he shot up his apartment while drunk, then tried to escape from a local jail the next day. Convicted killer Bruce Neil Butler was sent back to prison this year for violating the terms of his parole. He will be eligible for release in 2019. Coronado and another offender released from isolation on that November day have served additional prison time for additional crimes. They now are free again. Two of the released felons have avoided return trips to prison, including Silvestre Segovia, a convicted robber who spent 10 years in isolation because of his association with the Mexican Mafia prison gang. Segovia is barely beating the odds. He has been arrested twice on misdemeanor charges, but he has stayed out of serious trouble and has a job in construction in the central Texas town of Kerrville. Crime analysts say they're not surprised that most of the felons released from solitary confinement with Coronado have returned to crime. "When they do get out, they don't survive on the outside for very long," says Craig Haney, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has interviewed hundreds of prisoners held in isolation in Texas, Florida and California. "These environments require people to develop survival strategies to get them through the days, weeks and years" in isolation. "They are utterly dysfunctional when they get out." Haney says family members of just-released felons have asked him to treat relatives having difficulty adjusting to life outside prison. He says some of the ex-inmates had reconfigured their new living spaces at home to "recreate" the look and feel of their tiny cells. "The rooms were always small and dark," Haney says. "The beds were made in the same way. Shoes were always stacked by their bed, just like in prison." One of his clients slept in a bathtub during his first few nights out of prison, Haney says, because the "cold, solid tub felt most like his cell." Government help limited Government efforts to help released felons adjust to freedom were rare until 1999, when the Clinton administration formed "re-entry courts" to help thousands of felons each year get housing, jobs and mental health services. The program was created as the number of released felons nationwide topped 500,000 for the first time, largely because many offenders began completing long mandatory sentences imposed during the 1980s and early 1990s. The release of violent felons is widely thought to have helped to push national crime rates up slightly in three out of the past four years. Little of the federal assistance has been available to those in isolation and following their releases; states routinely ban rehabilitation services for such inmates as an additional punishment. Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials believe that isolation "continues to be the best way" to prevent violence among gang members who make up an estimated 10,000 of the state system's 150,000 inmates, department spokeswoman Michelle Lyons says. She says solitary confinement helped to reduce homicides in state prisons from 25 in 1985 to fewer than 10 in every year since. But Stuart Grassian, a Harvard University psychiatrist who has studied the long-term effects of isolation on offenders, says that "if the public understood what kind of condition these people are in when they (are freed), they would be appalled. It's set up for these folks to fail" and "create new victims." Texas officials realize that freeing felons from isolation can present "some difficulty" for the felons and the communities where they end up living, Lyons says. In a $1.9 million pilot project funded by the Justice Department, Texas is tracking 46 offenders who have been released from isolation since October. As part of the project, prisoners are shown instructional videos in their cells. The lessons in the videos include reacquainting prisoners with basic current events and hygiene. The program, which director Donna Gilbert says is the first of its kind in the nation, also provides felons freed from solitary confinement with mentors and case managers to help the felons find housing and jobs. An evaluation of the program is not scheduled until next year, but so far none of the offenders in it has returned to prison or been arrested again, Gilbert says. "Because of the extreme isolation, these people have a lot of basic needs," she says. "Computer technology and cell phones have passed them by. Some have been in segregation 10 to 15 years. It's like they walked into the mountains and suddenly returned years later." 'I thought it would be easier' After 10 years in solitary confinement, Silvestre Segovia was beginning to think that his release date would never come. When it finally did in November 2002, he couldn't get enough of the outside world. On his way home from prison, he stopped in a Houston convenience store and discovered something that had become popular during his years in isolation: wine coolers. He guzzled two bottles in the parking lot. At home in Edinburg, there was more alcohol and marijuana. "When I saw him (after his release), it was party, party, party," says Ortencia Rosales, 38, who married Segovia after he got out of prison. "It was like he was trying to catch up for all the time he lost." When the partying finally stopped, Segovia, 32, says he no longer could run from reality: He was broke, he had no prospects for a job, and the local police, aware of his criminal history, were watching him closely. He says he applied for at least 25 jobs, including cleanup work at Dairy Queen and McDonald's. He was rejected each time. Many of the rejections, Segovia believes, were because of his criminal record, which also included a separate conviction for involuntary manslaughter before his robbery conviction. "I wrote a note on one of the applications, saying the person who went into prison is not the same person now," he says. "I guess I thought it would be easier when I got out." Eventually, he says, he started "lying on the applications" to have a better chance of landing a job. He found construction work with a salary and health benefits last year with a firm in Kerrville, about 300 miles north of Edinburg. Segovia's employer knows about his past. "I knew he did some time," says Herb Jackson, one of Segovia's supervisors. "But the guy works hard." Steady employment is helping provide for Segovia's family, which now includes a 5-month-old daughter, Destinee. But he's still struggling with the effects of his decade in isolation. "I spent a long time in a room half the size of this living room," he says, gesturing to the modestly furnished space before him. "Sometimes, I have to leave the house just to remind myself I'm still free." Segovia says police have stopped him at least 10 times since he was released from prison, mostly for traffic violations. He has spent two nights in jail but hasn't been ordered back to prison. "I know I'm not going to do anything that will give (authorities) reason to send me back," Segovia says. His wife is wary. "I'm afraid," she says, that "he's gonna be in the wrong place at the wrong time." Released into the unknown When he was freed from solitary confinement that November day in 2002, Adam Morales planned a new life in the "free world." His goals: work hard and stay clean. What he did not anticipate, he says now, was his inability to adjust to life outside his cramped cell. "It was like being released to a dark room, knowing that there are steps in front of you and waiting to fall," Morales says. At a Wal-Mart store near his home in the West Texas town of Big Spring, Morales' niece noticed him walking with his back to the walls and avoiding other customers. "Being in isolation so long, it's hard to explain the feeling," Morales says. "When people get close to you in prison, it's usually because they want to hurt you." A string of failed jobs and a confrontation with his father set Morales on a path back to prison. In the spring of 2004, he got drunk and began firing a gun in his apartment. After he woke up in the local jail the next morning and learned that he had been charged with a new felony, Morales says he panicked and tried to escape from the jail's exercise yard. Convictions on the gun and escape charges earned him 35 more years in prison. He expects to serve all that time in solitary confinement because of his past association with a gang in prison. "I wake up today, and I can't believe it," Morales says during an interview at a state prison in Gatesville. "I had so many plans, but I guess it's all over now." Morales, whose most serious offense may have been the weapons case in which no one was injured, will be 68 when he is scheduled to be released in 2040. Counting his previous prison term, he will have spent 45 years in isolation. A mother's growing concern Like Morales, Coronado vowed to stay clean after he was released in 2002. At the time, Coronado had the look of an immature but well-meaning kid who had made some bad decisions. Now, he just looks tired. He perks up only when he offers to show the still-healing stab wounds to his chest and stomach that he suffered during his most recent time behind bars, a six-month term for burglary that ended in February. Coronado hasn't found work. His cocaine habit is "as bad as it gets," says Rosa Perez, his girlfriend. Coronado's slip into addiction, and his renewed association with a Rio Grande Valley gang known as the Tri-City Bombers, is no surprise to Fernando Mancias. Mancias, a lawyer in Mission, Texas, southwest of Edinburg, was the local judge who initially sent Coronado to state prison in 1999. When Coronado was released from isolation in 2002, Mancias said that without drug treatment or any other rehabilitation, Coronado was virtually assured of failure. Trinidad Coronado fears that things could get worse for her son. She believes he has begun to steal from her to get money to support his cocaine addiction. Recently, she noticed that the rifle she kept for protection had disappeared. She also says that her son is beginning to show "flashes of temper" when he doesn't get his way. Asked about his mother's concerns, Angel Coronado yawns. He routinely stays out most of the night and sleeps well past noon. "If he doesn't get help soon," Trinidad Coronado says, "there's no question he's gonna end up back in prison. Or someone's gonna kill him."