text: Down in a hole: Imprisoned activist Alex Hundert on incarceration and solitary confinement | 4strugglemag
  Alex Hundert, writing from and about realities in a Provincial prison in Ontario, Canada, not only informs us about the harsh realities of segregation there, but his descriptions are strikingly similar to realities in seg/SHU units in u.s. prisons.
  Alex reports that he was thrown into seg as "administrative segregation", that is he wasn't even accused of violating some prison regulation. This is also done in prisons across the u.s. The unified hunger strikes in California seg units last year, were in part based exactly on this type of administrative segregation hold. Some men in that system have been in segregation for over 20 years, not for breaking rules, but for 'administrative reasons' – for being revolutionaries or gang affiliated.
  Alex also speaks of large numbers of mentally ill prisoners in Canadian seg units. This is also true throughout prisons in the u.s. These men and women rarely get any help and wind up doing most of their sentences in segregation.
  The ugly realities Alex informs us about are happening regularly in Canadian prisons and usa prisons. Prison is just one front of the overall Freedom Struggle, but it is a front where state repression, brutality and abuse are a daily reality. Staying informed about what is happening behind the walls in prisons in your area is important and can help prisoners and political prisoners.
  BY ALEX HUNDERT, briarpatchmagazine.com
  "They push you till you snap," a man imprisoned in these circumstances told me. Days later, the prison equivalent of a riot squad rushed his cell. Dressed in full stormtrooper gear, they dragged him off to a separate section of the unit – medical segregation – and threw him into "the rubber room."
  Guards are not mental health professionals, yet an alarmingly high percentage of prisoners in segregation units suffer from inadequate support for mental health conditions, ranging from PTSD and ADHD to severe dissociative disorders and schizophrenia. Many days the halls echo with cries of anguish.
  Postscript: This article was written between February 6 and 12, before I was returned to general population after a four-week security review in the segregation unit. Once out of the Hole, I had a chance to read a blog post by Nyki Kish, an activist imprisoned at Grand Valley Institute, where Ashley Smith died. Kish is a brilliant writer and advocate against the prison system and I strongly encourage people to read her blog post "The Unempowerable Prisoner.
  Alex Hundert was released on March 26, 2013 after serving nine months in the Central North Correctional Centre on charges related to the G20 protests in Toronto. He looks forward to rejoining community and continuing to organize against oppression in this settler-colonial society. Alex maintains a blog called Narrative Resistance.