(CN) - Prisoners in a New Mexico penitentiary filed a class action on Thursday, challenging the practice of long-term solitary confinement as a violation.

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, three prisoners say that New Mexico's Predatory Behavior Management Program violates the state constitution's protection against cruel and unusual punishment by subjecting prisoners to solitary confinement for up to 23 hours per day.

"Plaintiffs have lost years of their lives locked in filthy, tiny, 8 ft. x 10 ft. cells for 23 hours per day, where they experience social isolation, reduced visual and sensory stimulation, abhorrent living conditions, and restricted opportunities for mental health treatment, exercise, and programming," they say in their complaint. "Defendants hold individuals in such conditions for prolonged periods - on average, for 12 to 15 months or more."

Filing in state court, the plaintiffs name the New Mexico Corrections Department, the Penitentiary of New Mexico and 50 unnamed employees as defendants. 

"More than 95% of incarcerated people will eventually return to their communities," said Nick Goldberg, a partner at Keker, Van Nest & Peters representing the class. "We want them to come back healthy so they can successfully reenter their communities, not damaged by the torture of solitary confinement. We look forward to working on behalf of our brave clients to vindicate their rights and to put an end to these unlawful practices."  

That class asks that a state judge declare the department's practices unlawful and enjoin them from proceeding with the program.

The confinement program, established in 2015, purports to treat behavioral issues in those who require increased supervision. But the ACLU said in a press release on Thursday that the program does nothing to help prisoners reintegrate into society. 

Instead, the ACLU claims that long-term solitary confinement increases cognitive impairments and psychological distress, exacerbates preexisting mental and physical illnesses and multiplies suicide attempts both while in prison and during one's first year of release. 

In the complaint, the prisoners say their daily hour of recreation time is spent in outdoor cages no larger than their cells, in which they are often left in freezing temperatures to deter them from requesting recreation time in the future. 

To request that time, they say, the plaintiffs must be awake each day at 5 a.m. with their lights on, even though none own watches and some have no light switch in their cell. Furthermore, inmates are often forced to trade food and hygiene products for recreation time, they say.

"Long-term solitary confinement in no way deters predatory behavior," said plaintiff Mah-konce Hudson, who has spent nearly four years in the program. "It turns anger into hate, eliminates coping mechanisms, leaving only survival tactics, and exacerbates existing mental health issues into debilitating anxiety and paranoia. It teaches isolation rather than connection, leaving people ill-equipped for social environments, whether in the general population or upon release to society." 

Hudson, who has been diagnosed with PTSD because of his isolation, said he is denied meaningful mental health consultations and has been denied phone calls or other forms of contact with his family. 

O'Shay Toney, who says he was blinded in one eye by a pepper ball while protesting prison conditions in May 2024, said in the press release that he waited two months for medical treatment and still struggles to make follow-up appointments. He is in his fifth year in the program.

"No programming combined with long-term segregation in harsh conditions leads to an increase in mental health and behavioral issues," Toney said. "They call us problematic, but isn't it better to invest in the solution of a problem rather than burying it? Change comes with conviction, and we're asking for help."  

The ACLU estimates that the class is made up of 200 individuals currently confined in New Mexico and at least 400 who have been confined over the last three years. Within that class is a subclass of prisoners with serious mental illnesses.

The New Mexico Corrections Department has not replied to a request for comment. 

Source: Courthouse News Service