It’s a measure of the torment of solitary confinement that by comparison, life in the general population of a maximum security prison could seem like paradise. Joseph Aragon was”validated” as a gang member and placed in solitary confinement at Corcoran’s Security Housing Unit, even though he renounced his membership 13 years ago and is now 52 […]
Month: September 2010
Solitary Watch Milestones
This has been a significant week at Solitary Watch, for two reasons. On Monday, nine months after our first post, we reached 100,000 hits. More importantly, this week we introduce our new Project Advisors, a distinguished group of lawyers, scholars, and advocates who have honored us by agreeing to provide advice and guidance as we move […]
How to Create Madness in Prison
Guest Post by Terry A. Kupers, M.D., M.S.P. Editors’ note: Dr. Terry Kupers is one of the world’s leading experts on the psychological effects of solitary confinement. A psychiatrist with a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, forensics, and social and community psychiatry, he teaches at the Wright Institute, a graduate school of psychology in Berkeley, California, while also […]
A Chance at Freedom for the Scott Sisters?
The case of sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott, two African American women serving life sentences for an $11 robbery that took place in rural Mississippi in 1993, has gained prominence in recent weeks. The case has a growing urgency, not only because of the unjust length of the sentence and issues with the fairness of the trial, but […]
Lockdown Fuels "Cycle of Violence" at Federal Prison
The Lewisburg Prison Project is a nonprofit group that “provides legal and other assistance to prisoners in Central Pennsylvania. We are dedicated to the principle that prisoners are persons with incontestable rights to justice and compassion. We strive to provide safeguards for their constitutional and human rights.” Last week the Williamsport (Pennsylvania) Sun-Gazette drew on statements from […]
Another Prisoner With Mental Illness Dies in Isolation
A story on Thursday in the Alexandria (Virginia) Gazette Packet begins: “Did health-care providers at city jail leave a mentally ill inmate to die in 2008? That’s the allegation at the center of a wrongful death lawsuit filed last week in the Eastern District of Virginia, charging the jail’s medical services violated the constitutional provision against […]
Cash-Strapped California to Spend $500 Million for New "Condemned Inmate Complex" (Death Row)
With what the Sacramento Bee called a “twisted sense of timing,” California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced in mid-August that he plans to borrow $64.7 million from the state’s general fund to move forward with construction of a new death row at San Quentin State Prison. According to a Bee editorial, “the administration’s call for bids to build new digs for condemned […]
Voices from Solitary: "Geezer in the Hole"
Robert Platshorn was leader of the “Black Tuna Gang” of marijuana smugglers in the late 1970s, an experience described in his book The Black Tuna Diaries. In 1980, he received what was then an unprecedented sentence of 64 years in federal prison. When he was released on parole in 2008 at the age of 65, he was the […]
Psychiatrists on Solitary Confinement
An article about solitary confinement appears in the current issue of Psychiatric News, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, “Psychiatrists Decry Punishment That Isolates Prisoners.” It’s encouraging to see this issue at least being discussed in a forum for the leading professional organization of American psychiatrists–which has never undertaken an official review of mental health professionals’ possible role in torture in […]
Life and Death in Pennsylvania's Solitary Confinement Cells
Matt Stroud has been doing excellent reporting on solitary confinement in the weekly Philadelphia City Paper. In August he published “A Death in Solitary.” When Matthew Bullock, a 32-year-old convicted killer, fashioned a noose from a bed sheet that he wasn’t supposed to have, secured it around his neck, tied it to thin steel bars in the face-high […]
Voices from Solitary: Katfish on Life in "The Bucket"
Katfish’s blog posts appear on Tales from the Cells, a web site featuring writing by prisoners, maintained by Nikita. Katsfish–whose given name is Mike Harris–is currently serving time in FCI Yazoo City, a federal prison near Jackson, Mississippi. Before he was transferred to “the Zoo” last fall, he was in FCI Big Spring, in west central Texas. Although both […]
Voices from Solitary: Ara Oshagan Photographs California Juvies
Photogapher Ara Oshagan‘s powerful series “Juvies” documents “high-risk juvenile offenders being tried as adults in California.” It includes many images of teens in isolation, sometimes accompanied by their writings. View the entire series here.