Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissenting opinion to last week’s Brown v. Plata decision, called the ruling “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.” Since Scalia is the ultimate legal literalist, we presumably ought to take his written opinions literally. So what is this decision that the Court’s most conservative justice finds […]
We’ve just come across a widely circulated article from Agence France-Presse, published on May 18 while Dominique Strauss-Kahn was still languishing on Rikers Island, entitled “Strauss-Kahn’s Suicide Watch Cell Tiny, Isolated.” Here, some highlights from the story: Under suicide watch, Dominique Strauss-Kahn wears a specially designed jumpsuit and lives in a tiny cell, monitored by a guard […]
This account of life in Special Management Unit at SCI-Fayette in Pennsylvania comes to us via the Human Rights Coalition, a Philadelphia-based prison reform and social justice organization. As HRC describes it: “The Special Management Unit, or SMU, is billed by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections as a program designed to alter the behavior of […]
A group of civil liberties and criminal justice reform groups is calling for a change in direction at the federal Bureau of Prisons, following the retirement of BOP head Harley Lappin, appointed during the Bush Administration. Under Lappin, the BOP continued to grow, adding new prisons and prisoners at a rate even higher than that of the […]
Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox have entered their 40th year in solitary confinement in the Louisiana prison system. A series of events in New Orleans last month marked the 39th “anniversary” of their placement in solitary, following the murder of Angola prison guard Brent Miller–a murder for which Wallace and Woodfox were later convicted on highly […]
The suffering of solitary confinement extends beyond prisoners, to the families who wait for them outside. The anguish can be particularly keen for the families of inmates with mental illness. Diana Montes-Walker’s son, whom we will call A, exhibited signs of mental illness from the time he was a young boy. When he was in […]
Thomas Silverstein, who has been described as America’s “most isolated man,” has been held in an extreme form of solitary confinement under a “no human contact” order for 28 years. Originally imprisoned for armed robbery at the age of 19, Silverstein is serving life without parole for killing two fellow prisoners (whom he says were threatening his […]
Solitary Watch has issued its first quarterly print edition, in a four-page newsletter format with selected articles from the previous three months. The print edition is available to download as a PDF: Print Edition Spring 2011 Hard copies are available to prisoners and their families and advocates and to non-profit organizations. To request (single or multiple) […]