Prisoners of Pa.’s secret system of indefinite isolation sue for release and damages
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 10/03/23: “The request forms sometimes came in tidy block printing, other times in a desperate scrawl. But the men in solitary confinement in the Security Threat Group Management Unit at the state prison at Fayette, south of Pittsburgh, kept asking the same question: “Why am I here?”
The STGMU, as it’s known in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), is supposed to house about 40 gang members and others who pose a threat to the prison system.
“I wanted to know why am I going there,” said Kareem Mazyck, 42, who spent two years in the unit that he described as a torture chamber, “and why is it taking so long to get out.”
But the STGMU policies and procedures are confidential, unknown even to those living there.”