Oregon Prison Limits Solitary to 90 Days. This BLM Protester Has Been in the Hole for 250.

The man who received the harshest federal sentence in connection with 2020 protests against police brutality has been in solitary confinement for more than 250 days. Last Friday, Malik Muhammad ended a nine-day hunger strike undertaken in protest of his solitary confinement at Oregon State Penitentiary. 

At the height of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Muhammad, a disabled Army combat veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, had traveled from Indiana to protests in Kentucky and Oregon. 

According to court documents, Muhammad participated in firearms training in Kentucky and later threw a Molotov cocktail at police in Oregon. In 2022, at 25 years old, he pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and received a 10-year prison sentence. 

“This is the tier where they put the screamers and the shit smearers.”

“We are talking about a conditions-of-confinement issue,” said Muhammad’s attorney, Lauren Regan, director of litigation and advocacy at the Civil Liberties Defense Center. The group advocates for civil liberties for political prisoners and took on Muhammad’s case last month. “Malik is designated 100 percent disabled as a combat veteran because of extreme PTSD. And the Department of Corrections knows that.”

Despite his conditions, Muhammad has been in solitary confinement for more than 250 days.

Oregon State Penitentiary public information officer Stephanie Lane said she could not comment on many details of Muhammad’s hunger strike and other medical-related issues because of privacy laws, but added that for detainees with disabilities, the prison followed the Americans With Disabilities Act guidelines. She said Muhammad’s detention designation had changed in July, though both units are in the prison’s Special Management Housing.

His solitary confinement followed an incident where Regan said Muhammad asked to speak to a supervisor, and instead guards tased and beat him, then threw him in the hole. 

The officers moved Muhammad to another housing unit known as the “torture tier,” Regan said. “This is the tier where they put the screamers and the shit smearers.”

Sleight of Hand

The time in solitary has been part of Muhammad’s concurrent 10-year federal and state terms in Oregon state prison. The only comparable sentence to come out of 2020 protests in Portland was for Alan Swinney, a member of the far-right Proud Boys gang who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Swinney was convicted at trial for charges related to pulling a handgun on protesters and firing a paintball gun, injuring a demonstrator’s eye.

The use of solitary confinement has been shown to exacerbate mental health issues. Human rights organizations and civil liberties groups widely consider the prolonged use of solitary confinement as a form of torture. 

The Oregon Department of Corrections limits consecutive solitary confinement to 90 days — which is long compared to other states like California, which has a 10-day maximum, or New York, which caps use of solitary at 15 days. At least 17 other states have recently considered limits between 10 to 15 days. 

The Department of Corrections, however, restarts the clock when a person is transferred between different categories of housing, Regan said, which is why Muhammad has been kept in solitary for longer than the 90-day limit. 

“The way that the DOC is attempting to sort of sneak this under the radar is that they have multiple different segregation designations,” Regan said. 

Lane, the prison spokesperson, said Muhammad is currently in the Behavioral Health Unit of Special Management Housing. “The BHU is not the same as the Disciplinary Segregation Unit (DSU), although both units are within our Special Management Housing,” she said. “Muhammad was admitted to the BHU on 7/9/2024.”

The sleight of hand is belied by Muhammad’s actual location: His designation has jumped around from one segregated housing unit to another, Regan said, “but he’s literally staying in the same solitary confinement cell.”

Though Oregon’s Department of Corrections uses the term “disciplinary segregation,” not solitary confinement, the department has acknowledged the harms of the practice and encouraged using it as a last resort.

A state report last year found an “over-reliance on punitive sanctions” and overuse of solitary at a women’s prison in Wilsonville, Oregon, including locking people in their cells for 22 hours a day. 

State officials have since taken steps to address prison conditions, but the extreme duration of solitary confinement in Muhammad’s case shows those efforts falling short, Regan said. 

“Oregon is allegedly taking this seriously,” she said, “but it is basically business as usual, and basically hiding it from lawyers and the public.”

“Additional Mental Health Impacts”

Muhammad’s supporters announced in a blog post on Tuesday that he had ended his hunger strike late last week and that progress had been made toward his aim of returning to the prison’s general population housing. 

“Even after he is on the ground and completely incapacitated because he’s being electrocuted, they continue.”

Muhammad was first put in solitary confinement after an incident that led to prison staff tasing him through the door of his cell, Regan said. 

Muhammad was using the phone when a prison guard removed him so another detainee could use the phone. The guard put Muhammad back in his cell. After several rounds of Muhammad asking for explanations — the person placed on the phone after him was white, and Muhammad believes he was targeted on account of his race — Muhammad asked to speak to a superior officer.

When the higher-ranking official person showed up, according to Regan’s recollection of Muhammad’s story, they told the detainee he had to pack up his things and move to a new cell. 

“The next thing Malik knows is 10 corrections officers show up outside of his cell,” Regan said. “They stick two taser guns through the slot of the cell and start firing darts into the cell, and all of them strike him. He’s got nowhere to go. And they then just start repeatedly cycling the electric shocks of the taser over and over.”

“Even after he is on the ground and completely incapacitated because he’s being electrocuted, they continue,” Regan said. “They kick and punch him.”

Muhammad began his first hunger strike in May. He started the latest strike last month, after being held in solitary confinement for more than eight months. Prison regulations require corrections staff to bring in the medical team to do a baseline evaluation within 48 hours of learning that someone has started a hunger strike, Regan said. Six days into the strike, no one had come to evaluate Muhammad’s condition.

According to Regan and Chris Kuttruff, another of Muhammad’s supporters, at least eight incarcerated people filed grievances against corrections staff for their treatment of Muhammad during the incident. 

“There are several cases that have kind of been a bit overblown when Black people actually engage in more radical forms of protest,” Regan said. “That’s not to say it’s not a crime, but when you compare the punishments those folks got to what he got, it’s pretty stark and distinct.” 

As a veteran with PTSD, Muhammad’s treatment in prison will make it harder for him to reenter society, Regan said. 

“He served the country and he already really suffered through one episode of his life that has given him some of the mental health issues that may have contributed to the acts that he’s actually been convicted of,” she said.

“For the racist prison system to intentionally punish him in ways that are going to cause additional mental health impacts and just make it that much harder for him to come out and be a productive and lovely member of our community is the opposite of what the prison systems say they are doing.”