Solitary Watch

by Sara Vogel

December 31, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  We’ve chosen five stories published in 2025 that exemplify what makes Solitary Watch unique, vital, and indispensable—but we hope you’ll explore our website to find hundreds more. We also hope you will join the small legion of Solitary Watch readers who make this work possible by supporting it with […]

by Jean Casella

December 28, 2025

When Solitary Watch was founded in 2009, there was nothing else like it out there. Solitary confinement was the best-kept secret of the U.S. criminal justice system—a shadow world that was inhabited by upwards of 100,000 people, yet managed to remain out of sight of the American public, and resolutely off-limits to the press. Over more […]

by Sara Vogel

December 24, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch: In exciting funding news, we’ve just received a second matching funds grant, from The Public Concern Foundation. For the next $4,000 given before December 31st, all donations will be TRIPLED, and we couldn’t be more grateful. That means a gift of $50 now is actually $150 to Solitary Watch! […]

by Jean Casella

December 22, 2025

LGBTQ+ people face disproportionate rates of violence, abuse, and psychological trauma while incarcerated. Often, this results in being sent to solitary confinement, either as alleged “protection,” as punishment for their gender expression and personal relationships, or as retaliation for acting in self-defense and filing grievances.

by Jean Casella

December 18, 2025

Friends: This is really exciting for us. We’ve just received a second matching funds grant from The Public Concern Foundation. TRIPLE MATCH! That means a gift of $50 now is actually $150 to Solitary Watch! As a small operation, we don’t have the resources to spend all year fundraising—this end-of-year push with NewsMatch is the […]

by Sara Vogel

December 17, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  Only two weeks remain for all donations to Solitary Watch to be doubled, thanks to NewsMatch—the matching funds program for nonprofit newsrooms that only happens once a year. This kind of matching funds program is not only rare, but it’s critical to our mission: the funds we raise now will have […]

by Jean Casella

December 15, 2025

There’s Still Time to Help Us End the Torture in U.S. Prisons and Jails. This is the only time of year for matched donations. All donations are deeply valued, and until midnight on Wednesday, December 31st, all donations up to $1,000 will be doubled through the NewsMatch program. Please consider making a tax-free, end-of-year donation today. •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  • Tomorrow Morning, […]

by Sara Vogel

December 10, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  Our latest end-of-year appeal focuses on the Lifelines to Solitary project, the only pen pal program specifically for people held in solitary confinement—providing someone on the outside who listens and responds to their daily struggles, their ideas and interests, heartaches and hopes. Please consider supporting these unique and vital […]

by Jean Casella

December 9, 2025

For tens of thousands of people locked away in U.S. prisons and jails, the extreme deprivation and isolation of solitary confinement causes unimaginable suffering. One person living in solitary described his existence to us as “a soul-destroying loneliness that never ends.” This kind of isolation causes so much pain. It severs people from any kind of […]

by Sara Vogel

December 3, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  The deadline to submit an application for the 2025 Fall/Winter round of the Ridgeway Reporting Project has been extended to December 31. The project offers grants and editorial support for incarcerated journalists for stories about solitary confinement. If you know someone who may be interested, please share the full […]

by Kwaneta Harris

December 2, 2025

Today is #GivingTuesday, and our appeal for support comes directly from incarcerated writer Kwaneta Harris, Contributing Writer for Solitary Watch and recipient of a grant from our Ridgeway Reporting Project. Kwaneta is now widely published in leading media outlets, and was named Prison Journalist of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists—achievements made all […]

by Sara Vogel

November 26, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  The latest appeal in our annual fundraising campaign describes the “soul-crushing loneliness of solitary confinement,” and points out that “the more than 100,000 people currently in solitary in prisons and jails are victims of the largest incidence of mass torture in the United States today.” Solitary Watch is working […]

by Jean Casella

November 20, 2025

In our overly busy, hyper-connected, screen-centric world, the idea of “alone time” holds a powerful appeal. Solitude and silence are seen as things that create space for relaxation and self-awareness—things to be sought out and savored. But in the years since I co-founded Solitary Watch, I’ve learned about another kind of “alone” that, when I […]

by Sara Vogel

November 19, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  In funding news, all donations to Solitary Watch through the end of the year are doubled, thanks to NewsMatch—the annual matching funds program for nonprofit newsrooms. This is the only time of year we explicitly reach out to readers for support, and with every dollar doubled (up to $1,000 […]

by Sara Vogel

November 12, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  “The High Cost of Solitary” is the eleventh in Solitary Watch’s series of fact sheets that offer information, analysis, and resources on a variety of topics related to solitary confinement. Depending on the facility, solitary units cost between tens and hundreds of millions of dollars per year—approximately three times […]

by Jean Casella

November 7, 2025

Friends, We know how tough these times are for so many. So many things—things we’ve counted on, thought of as immutable—feel completely upside down. That’s a hard world to live in, and maybe, like us, you’ve become no stranger to despair. But we’re still here. And we’re grateful you are, too.Your support—and impact—today will be […]

by Sara Vogel

November 5, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch:  For World Mental Health Day, Solitary Watch Editor-in-Chief Juan Moreno Haines explores the unique struggles experienced by incarcerated people in need of mental health care. Haines tells the story of a man who spent ten days in solitary during his mental health evaluation, depicting the disconnect between the needs […]

by Jean Casella

November 3, 2025

While the costs borne by individuals forced into solitary confinement are immeasurable, the practice is also far more expensive than other forms of incarceration, as well as alternatives to incarceration. Beginning with construction and extending through operation and reentry, the costs of solitary confinement substantially outpace those of typical incarceration. Estimates suggest that housing an individual in solitary confinement can cost up to three times more than incarceration in the general prison population. Additionally, there are many indirect, or hidden, costs of solitary confinement, including medical care and re-incarceration.

by Sara Vogel

October 29, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch: When JD was arrested and placed in solitary confinement, her body was “still healing from a difficult labor, still bleeding, still adjusting after birth, still overwhelmed by the hormonal storm that every mother endures in those first fragile weeks.” Despite exhibiting signs of postpartum depression and aggravated symptoms of […]

by Juan Moreno Haines

October 28, 2025

This commentary is the latest in “The Word from Solitary Watch,” our series of dispatches by Solitary Watch staff and contributors. • Earlier this month, I learned from colleagues that October 10 was being marked by the World Health Organization as World Mental Health Day.  My first reaction was that when you live in one […]

by Samantha Santoro

October 22, 2025

This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of former Republican Representative George Santos, citing concern over Santos’s placement in solitary. Trump announced the move on Truth Social, stating: “George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been […]

by Voices from Solitary

October 21, 2025

Fifteen years ago, JD was incarcerated in a Pennsylvania jail while experiencing postpartum symptoms. Despite having given birth less than a month prior, she was placed in solitary confinement. Now, as a board member of a non-profit that provides services for justice-impacted women, JD knows all too well how often incarcerated women’s needs and struggles […]

by Emily Engel

October 15, 2025

News this week from Solitary Watch: In her latest piece for Solitary Watch, Kwaneta Harris describes how 11 days in a hospital cell brought her to new places of psychological suffering. She initially thought that her temporary transfer for medical treatment would bring relief, but instead she endured darkness for hours on end and was […]

by Kwaneta Harris

October 14, 2025

What they don’t tell you about solitary confinement is how it shape-shifts, morphing into forms you never expected, slipping through the cracks of places supposedly designed for healing. I learned this lesson in the most bitter way possible at the prison hospital in Galveston, Texas, where care became just another word for control, and medical […]

by Samantha Santoro

October 8, 2025

This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: A recent investigation revealed that children incarcerated at the Youth Justice and Education Center in Shelby County (Memphis), Tennessee, are being held in solitary confinement for months at a time. For eight months, one young person was isolated in a concrete cell less than half […]

by Emily Engel

October 1, 2025

New this week from Solitary Watch: In a recent press release, Solitary Watch announced that eight incarcerated journalists with first-hand experience of solitary confinement will receive grants through the Ridgeway Reporting Project. The financial and editorial assistance provided by the project will support these journalists’ original reporting on often overlooked topics, including the experience of […]