Exploring Post
Traumatic Stress Syndrome and Sensory Deprivation is only me
revisiting the post on my blog entitled, Numbers v. Letters on a more
precise explanation of the inner workings of the criminal justice system, and A Person Misunderstood that explored the
mind of why a young man with promise became a cold blooded killer. Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi
Freedom, and 22-hour lockdown, all show a relationship of new forms of
perceptual isolation. Post-Traumatic
Stress Syndrome and Sensory Deprivation have been in existence since
the late 1800s. In WWII, there was a
profound connection between soldiers at war and inmates incarcerated in the nation’s
prisons. The wounded warrior project of
today embodies a breed of orthodox soldiers that proves a very insightful connection
with the convicted felons of present day.
Post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) is a type of anxiety disorder.
It can occur after you have gone through an extreme emotional trauma that involved
the threat of injury or death, or something that has shocked the senses. Most soldiers in the armed forces have
experienced some traumatic event that has altered their state of being. In U.S. v. Ferguson, 2013 WL
627145; February 20, 2013.
“The charge was
based on Ferguson's involvement in a scheme to secure lines of credit through
unauthorized use of the retail store Coldwater Creek's banking account. At
sentencing, Ferguson requested a downward “variance” from the advisory
10–to–16-month term of custody calculated pursuant to the United States
Sentencing Guidelines. More specifically, while the government urged the government
to impose a sentence within the guidelines range of 10–to–16 months custody,
Ferguson asked the court to sentence her to probation only. The court found a
variance was warranted in light of, among other things, a recent and substantial
redirection from the United States Sentencing Commission on the sentencing of
mentally ill criminal defendants. The court thus imposed a sentence of
probation with the special condition of eight months of home confinement along
with mental-health treatment specifically tailored for Ferguson. This opinion
sets forth in detail the court's reasons for the sentence imposed.
Ferguson told Dr. Lokken that she hallucinates on a regular
basis, approximately every other day. She hears voices telling her to hurt herself,
and she hears the voice of a man speaking in a language she does not
understand. She sees dead relatives standing at the foot of her bed and a tall,
strange man who wears all black.
In Clark v. Colvin, Slip Copy
2013 WL 787127, the Administrative Law Judge, after following a five-step
sequential inquiry, ruled that Mark Clark was not disabled due to his severe
impairments. Perceptual Isolation
is more obvious in a prison environment because it is the goal of penological
objectives. Inmates languish, typically alone, in a cramped cell, for 22 and one-half
to 24 hours a day. Lock-up in most
prisons are designed for the purpose to house those inmates with disciplinary problems,
Disciplinary segregation; Administrative segregation is where inmates are kept
until the committee decides to allow them back into population. The primary objective of the maintenance of governmental and
corporate entities and institutions within the free world system, is to provide
quality accessible education, training and consulting services for a globally
competitive diverse workforce with community relationships with secondary and
post secondary institutions, businesses, industry, community organizations, government
agencies, and individuals to foster community pride and unity, the ‘primary
objectives’ are not penological objectives.
The stressors inherent in a prison environment would frustrate the goals
of rehabilitation. In a secular environment
these same stressors would cause a normal person to turn to some form of
‘criminal activity’ eventually leading them to prison, as in the case of
Kaitlin Michelle Ferguson. One inmate at
Pelican Bay prison states:
“I’ve seen guys lose
their minds back here,…”
How many
contacts do you have in your cellphone right now? How many of those are personal contacts or
business contacts? How many jobs have
you held in the past 5 years? Are you
still doing the same exact thing that you were doing last year? Are you being targeted on social media? Are
you being targeted everywhere you go?
“The solitary
confinement regime at Pelican Bay, which renders California an outlier in this
country and in the civilized world, violates the United States Constitution’s
requirement of due process and prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, as
well as the most basic human rights prohibitions against cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment. Indeed, the prolonged conditions of brutal confinement and
isolation at Pelican Bay cross over from having any valid penological purpose into
a system rightly condemned as torture by the international community.”
Rio de Janeiro
beat Chicago out for the 2016 Summer Olympics because of politics and
controversies, but most importantly it beat Chicago out because it is a city
ripe for great spiritual development.
Pope Francis just left Rio, and had the whole 4-kilometers of Copacabana
beach covered with people and parishioners alike, as he spoke at the World
Youth Day:
“Nearly the entire 4 kilometer (2.5 mile) crescent of Copacabana's broad
beach overflowed…”
In the London Summer games Lolo
Jones placed fourth in the100 meter hurdles, she was hurt and devastated at the
fact that she did not win first place.
This was a traumatic experience for her because there was all this hype;
she had all these endorsements because she was the favorite to win the gold
medal in the 100 meter hurdles. Will she
win her gold medal in the100 meter hurdles in 2016? Ariel Castro is the first person, since the
term was coined in the 1930s, to actually have the book thrown at him with a
576 page indictment, containing 977- counts.
He will actually spend the rest of his life experiencing what those
three girls felt for 10 years in his basement, Sensory Deprivation. Improvement in our world does not always mean
better, just improvement from the old. In my unpublished novel, The Day of the Mongoose, I speak of how the United States has been
let out of solitaire confinement of the 20th century, and released
back to population in the 21st century and new millennium, because
we as a country have gone whole. With the
U.S. Supreme court making landmark decisions on cases like Edith Windsor (2013 WL 3196927) and Dennis
Hollingsworth (2013 WL 3196928) that
deal with DOMA and Proposition eight, we have come to see now what was once
shunned and outcast in the 20th century is now normal everyday living. Are we going down the same path as Sodom and
Gomorrah? Or have we created a new normal that raises our level of tolerance
and forbearance preparing us for a new, stronger, and more powerful enemy, one
unlike Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Pope Francis asked this question:
"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who
am I to judge?"
God is the best of planners, and
whatever use he has for homosexuality, I am not the one to question what he
plans. I only hope I am here to see it
come to fruition.
Primary Objectives
are more deadly because they perceptually isolate individuals in an uncontrolled
environment, as in the case of Jared Lee Loughner. They cause more damage and more collateral
damage to civilian life and property than penological objectives. It is primary
objectives at work when four out of five U.S. adults struggle with joblessness,
near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives. It is
primary objectives at work when babies are the intended victims of murder; this
is a sign of a deteriorating economy and society. When
men commit murder because they have a desire or urge, and are acquitted of it
at trial because the evidence, in relation to the law, says that they are not
guilty; it is primary objectives at work.
PTSD and Sensory Deprivation are the working tools of Primary Objectives. Juror B29 gave a right and exact answer to
what was going on in the Zimmerman case:
"You can't put the man in
jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty," she said. "But
we had to grab our hearts and put it aside and look at the evidence."
When we begin to do
this on a regular basis, then will more innocent men be acquitted, and guilty
men be sentenced to long prison terms.
"The church needs you, your enthusiasm, your creativity and the joy
that is so characteristic of you!" he said to applause in his final homily
of World Youth Day.
May Allah bless you all!
