Below are glimpses into the daily lives of three inmates held in isolation. Each has been in isolation for at least five years. Their reasons for being held in solitary vary–one was validated for gang membership, another for an escape attempt, and another for assaults on correctional officers. Their reasons for incarceration vary, from attempted […]
Robert “Saleem” Holbrook is serving life without parole in Pennsylvania for a crime committed when he was a juvenile. When he was 16, Holbrook was recruited by adults to serve as a lookout during a drug deal that escalated to robbery and then murder. Under the state’s mandatory sentencing laws, he was given LWOP–an experience he describes in an […]
“The Torture of Isolation” is the title of a post on Andrew Sullivan’s hugely popular blog The Dish, at the Daily Beast. The post features a new video from Reason TV, a project of the libertarian foundation that also publishes Reason magazine. Reason’s editor-in-chief Nick Gillespie interviews SW’s James Ridgeway on solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails. Also referenced in […]
On Monday, June 18th, a class action lawsuit, Bacote v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, was filed against the Federal Bureau of Prisons on behalf of five plaintiffs, all of them inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary Administrative Maximum–commonly known as ADX–in Florence, Colorado. A must-read three-part series of articles by Andrew Cohen, published this week by The Atlantic, covers […]
The following is an excerpt from testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Human Rights, and Civil Rights, which held a hearing on solitary confinement on June 19th. Brian Nelson, in written testimony, testifies to his 12 years in Tamms Correctional Center, a supermax prison in Illinois. Nelson, transferred from a minimum […]
Perhaps the most moving testimony Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on solitary confinement came from death row exonoree Anthony Graves. Graves spent over 18 years on Texas’ death row for a crime he did not commit. Living in an 8 x 12 cell, he had little social contact, and described horrible, degrading conditions. “Like all […]
The title of this post is the title of an op-ed by us, published in the Guardian on Tuesday. An excerpt follows; click through to the Guardian site to read the full piece. Imagine a place filled with closed, windowless cells. Each cell may be so small that you can extend your arms and touch the […]
Our report on today’s hearing was published by Mother Jones. It starts out this way: The cell placed at the back of the hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building was a pretty accurate replica of a real isolation cell—the kind that exists in supermax prisons and solitary confinement units all over the country. It […]
Solitary Watch is building an archive of written testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, in connection with the hearing on solitary confinement to be held on Tuesday at 10 am. You can access the archive (still a work-in-progress) by clicking here, or by going through our Resources page. […]
David Casper is serving a long sentence for armed robbery at Nevada’s Ely State Prison. He has made two unsuccessful escape attempts, which earned him a place in solitary confinement. According to his blog, maintained by friends on the outside, “I have actually been in Solitary Confinement for this last six years (since 2007) but […]
The following comes to Solitary Watch from inmate Brandon Green at Utah State Prison, Draper’s Uinta One facility. The facility currently holds 91 inmates in solitary confinement, including the state’s death row. Green has been in isolation for five years, after a brief period released from prison before being rearrested. He has been corresponding with Solitary […]