I spent one year in solitary confinement once, and I made it my goal not to ever go back there again!
Solitary confinement is a form of incarceration in which a person is kept alone in a cell, isolated from the general prison population (GP), with limited to no privileges. For 12 consecutive months, in 2013 and 2014, I was imprisoned in this way.
My path to this punishment began on Sept. 14, 2013, when my cell, on unit 3c of the North compound at New Jersey State Prison, was searched by two officers. One of those officers claimed that the letters found inside my cell (including correspondence from my mother) were Security Threat Group (STG) material, a violation of prison rules.
The officer claimed that the mail from my mother and portions of a legal court document, a portion of a witness statement, contained gang-related references within them. I knew this was bogus because there were no gang references in the letters from my mother, and the portion of the legal court document was a part of someone’s case I was helping them with. And any certified legal court documents are supposed to be exempt from the rules for STG material anyway.
I was handcuffed and escorted to a cell on unit 1-Left while I waited to see court line, which is our prison court system, where a Disciplinary Hearing Officer (DHO) reviews your institutional charges. The DHO is assigned by the Attorney General’s office and is supposed to review each institutional charge from an impartial stance, while we’re represented by an inmate paralegal if we choose. Court line hearings are held from Monday to Friday every week between 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. My paralegal and I both conveyed I was innocent of these allegations, so for this reason I would plead innocent and not guilty of the violations.
After my second appearance to court line, I was found guilty for the legal court document being that it was in my possession. I received 15 days in detention (1-Left), 365 days of administrative segregation (Adseg), and 365 days of lost communication credits (comp time). When you lose comp time, it can ultimately affect your overall actual sentence of being in prison. This change can alter your release date by pushing it back from the original date, but it does not have anything to do with your Adseg time.
7 wing (Adseg) consisted of 7up, 7down, and 7right. There are five tiers on both sides of 7 wing, and each tier has 33 cells that are about 5 feet by 9 feet (equivalent to a parking lot space). The walls are made of metal painted grey, and your toilet is inside the wall (literally). It’s a metal box about 18 inches wide, 36 inches in length, 18 inches in depth, and with a 10 inch in diameter circular hole right in the middle of the base, where you sit down to use the bathroom (a small fridge sitting inside the wall). During my year long stay, I would always see mice and rats roaming as if it was their territory, and they will come in your cell at night being that the doors were open bars, like a gate.
There’s a two level system you were placed on, Level one and Level two, depending on your behavior. Everyone started off on Level one for 120 days before you were promoted to Level two if you didn’t get into any trouble. On Level one you were not permitted to have a TV, radio, or walkman, and you were allowed one visit per month as well as only $15 for commissary once a month. On Level two you were allowed to have a TV, radio, or walkman, and you were allowed one visit per week as well as $40 for commissary once a month. Tiers 1-6 were used for all Level ones, and tiers 7-10 were for all Level two prisoners.
When I became a resident of Adseg (7 wing), I was housed in cell 16 on 4 tier, and began on Level one. You still received three meals per day like General Population, but you eat a little earlier, so having commissary in Adseg is essential to not starve. We were fed at 6 a.m. for breakfast, 10 a.m. for lunch, and 3 p.m. for dinner, compared to the times in GP between 6:30 a.m.-7:30 a.m. for breakfast, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. for lunch, and 4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. for dinner.
In GP, we were allowed to order up to $150 for commissary twice a month, with really no limitations on any items we could order. In Adseg, we were limited to only a few items total: chips, cookies, peanut butter jar, jelly jar, honeybuns, and cosmetics. Also, with these items we could only order a maximum of six apiece, but in GP there’s no limit on 99% of the commissary’s catalogue.
Regardless of what level of Adseg you’re on, we were given a shower two times within five days, whereas in GP you are able to get a shower every day if you choose. I was afforded to go to yard (recreation) every five days if I was lucky, because a lot of the time it would get cancelled for no reason at all. You had to be up at the 5:30 a.m. count time walk through to let the officer know you wanted to go outside to the yard, because if you did not then you were beat. I don’t personally know if the administration knew this was the way the yard list was taken in Adseg, but it happened all of the time.
Count time is when an officer working a unit walks by each cell and calls your name to see if you’re alive, unless they can visibly see you up moving around. During count time, you do not have to be fully dressed nor standing at the cell door, you can still be in bed, because all they want from you is a verbal response so they know you’re alive.
Outside of working out and working on my appeal for my case, I started to format my business plans as an entrepreneur in Adseg. My family and friends would research certain business information I needed on how to start and run a business whenever I asked them, and then send it to me in the mail. I don’t ever remember having any problems with receiving those materials, and I took that as God helping me to obtain what I needed to have in order to fulfill the purpose of my entrepreneurial drive. Even though there were no restrictions when I was in Adseg, nowadays their mail is being photocopied before they receive it.
I took a stocks and bonds course and a graphic design course. And prior to prison, in 2006, I was certified in Microsoft programs, but I never incorporated those skills I learned into my life.
Growing up, I always had that entrepreneurial spirit in me because I would search for business information on the computer at home and set up little jobs for my friends and me, where I delegated everyone’s job. Now, with the information I was receiving, I learned the industries for apparel, accessories, ebooks, and credit repair. I learned about financial literacy in various ways because even in that dark time, I knew God put a light in me I needed to get out.
Adseg was a process I needed because even though I’m still incarcerated today, I am now an entrepreneur. I am the Co-Founder and CEO of my own apparel, accessory, ebook, and credit repair company named Always Xpect Greatness LLC that I started with three of my close friends. I am a published poet by the Prison Journalism Project with my inspirational poem titled The Climb.
I am a published author with 14 available ebooks on my website, alwaysxpect.com, and I have become a motivational speaker. To date, I have albums of motivational speeches, love poems, inspirational poems, and Christian poems, with more to come, on Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play — and all of the major platforms when you search my name: Shawn Robert Johnson. Also, I’m currently enrolled in our writing class named Captive Voices to become a journalist, with the outside assistance of the Prison Journalism Project.
They have since shut that whole Adseg unit down in 2019 due to being condemned, except when Covid hit, because then it was used for quarantine whenever someone tested positive or inconclusive. However, now in 2023, this dark place has recently been reopened to continue its punishment of Adseg. I don’t wish solitary confinement upon anyone, because it’s truly an unhealthy environment, mentally and physically. Solitary confinement can darken your spirit, but I chose to let my experience there become my light.
Email: SRJ_clemency@yahoo.com to help Shawn’s fight of injustice.
Follow: @shawjohn1222 on Instagram to engage with Shawn’s poetry, motivational speeches, and creative content.
Shawn’s podcast: @ShawnRobertJohnson on YouTube.
Contact: Shawn Johnson 732464c New Jersey via Jpay.com
Shawn Johnson #000732464C
New Jersey State Prison
PO Box 861
Trenton, NJ 08611
