A letter sent to Attorney General Eric Holder today by several civil rights groups expresses “urgent concern about Syed Fahad Hashmi’s conditions of confinement.” The letter, from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the Council on American-Islamic Relations of New York (CAIR-NY), Educators for Civil Liberties, and the Muslim Justice Initiative, reads in part: For nearly three years before his case […]
Month: October 2010
Children Routinely Held in Pre-Trial Solitary Confinement in Texas
CHILDREN IN LOCKDOWN One of this year’s Molly Prizes–named for the late journalist Molly Ivins, and sponsored by the Texas Observer–has gone to a powerful story about teenagers held in solitary confinement in adult jails in Texas, before they have been tried or convicted of any crime. Chris Vogel’s story “For Their Own Good” appeared […]
Criminalizing Mental Illness
Yesterday, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) issued a compilation of staggering statistics on the criminalization of people with mental illness in the United States. As NAMI points out, “Over the past 20 years, state spending on correctional systems has increased 350 percent from $10 billion to $45 billion,” while the same states have cut […]
Suicide and Solitary Confinement in New York State Prisons
An important new Special Report in the Poughkeepsie Journal documents the increase in suicides in New York State prisons–and its relationship to solitary confinement. The reporter, Mary Beth Pfeiffer, has a long history of documenting the plight of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system. For this latest report, she filed FOIA requests and […]
The Colorado Files: Death in a Denver Jail
As we were preparing to make our recent trip to Colorado, the district attorney in Denver decided not to file criminal charges against the group of corrections deputies who, according to the coroner, were responsible for the death of an inmate in a local jail. Marvin Booker, who was a preacher and homeless, was 56 years old. He was […]
Voices from Solitary: "Home Sweet Home"
Brandon Green is imprisoned in Uinta 1, a supermax unit at the Utah State Prison in Draper. His writings appear on a blog created for him by Utah Prison Watch. In this piece, he challenges readers to imagine what is like to live in solitary confinement, as he vividly describes the physical and psychological deterioration that […]
The Colorado Files: Ballot Measure Would Keep Poor Defendants in Jail
Since we are focused on Colorado’s criminal justice system, it’s worth noting that in November, state residents will vote on a ballot measure called Proposition 102. According to an editorial in the Denver Post, the proposition “is worded in such a way that voters might be led to believe they are supporting increased public safety by voting […]
Angola Prison May Close Lockdown Unit--But Vows to Keep Inmates in Isolation
The Baton Rouge Advocate reports that the Louisiana Department of Corrections “is contemplating the sale of prisons and the closure of an inmate isolation unit in order to cut costs during difficult budget times.” Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc told the Advocate, “Everything has to be put on the table” to deal with massive state budget deficits. […]
Teen Held in Solitary in Tennessee Jail Because He Can't Make Bail
CHILDREN IN LOCKDOWN Second Class Justice is a first-class new blog published by Stephen B. Bright, who heads the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. It’s primary aim is “ending the unfair and discriminatory treatment of people in the criminal justice system by documenting that treatment.” It’s mission statement continues: Contrary to the constitutional guarantees […]
Scott Sisters Case Wins National Attention
Jamie and Gladys Scott are two young women from rural Mississippi who were convicted, on questionable evidence, of involvement in an armed robbery that netted $11, and were sentenced to life in prison. Jamie Scott is suffering from end-stage renal disease, exacerbated by prison conditions and inadequate treatment–so her life sentence may soon become a death sentence. […]
All-American Prison Torture
After reading our post on Cañon City, Colorado, a reader called our attention to a piece on the Huffington Post by Anne-Marie Cusac called “Torture Is American.” As an investigative reporter for The Progressive, Cusac wrote about devices of torture in U.S. prisons, including Tasers, restraint chairs, and stun belts, as well as solitary confinement; she has […]
Leaving Cañon City
Solitary Watch spent last week in Colorado. We talked with faculty and students at the University of Denver Law School’s Civil Rights Clinic, which has mounted several groundbreaking legal challenges to solitary confinement. In the coming weeks we will be writing about these individual cases, as well as what we learned from meetings with other […]