• A Syracuse 16-year-old is suing the Onondaga County Justice Center for allegedly placing him in solitary confinement for more than two months. According to one local site, “Chief Onondaga County Custody Deputy Esteban Gonzalez called [the teenager’s housing conditions] ‘segregation housing’ in a response to the lawsuit, saying that the conditions “do not meet the […]
Citing the “devastating, lasting psychological consequences” of solitary confinement, President Barack Obama on Monday evening announced a set of policy changes designed to dramatically reduce the use of prison isolation. The changes, which apply only to the federal prison system, will have a limited initial impact on the total number of people held in solitary, […]
• The Crime Report published a report from a two-day colloquium about the use of segregation that occurred last fall and involved corrections agencies, academic experts and advocates. The colloquium aimed to “further a national consensus on ending the over-use of extreme isolation in prisons.” • A Colorado statistician who accused state prison officials of manipulating statistics […]
Since August 2015, men in the Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit have been subjected to loud, disruptive “welfare checks,” causing sleep deprivation that amounts to torture, according to prisoners rights activists. The welfare checks, which occur throughout the state prison system, were only recently implemented in the Pelican Bay SHU, which still houses […]
Oregon corrections officials have agreed to reduce the isolation of people with serious mental illness in the Behavioral Health Unit (BHU) at Oregon State Penitentiary, settling over a year of discussions with Disability Rights Oregon (DRO), the state’s federally designated Protection and Advocacy System. The agreement, signed January 8, has the potential to significantly improve the […]
• RH Reality Check published an article about trans people in prison “suffer[ing] rape, coercion, denial of medical treatment.” The piece also discusses the frequency with which trans people are placed in solitary confinement, ostensibly for their own protection. • San Francisco is considering placing limits on the time incarcerated youth can spend in solitary confinement. The […]
People held in Illinois prisons will receive an improved level of mental health care in coming years, thanks to a major class action settlement in late December. In the case of Ashoor Rasho v. John Baldwin, the Illinois Department of Corrections agrees to: Hire 300 new mental health workers, as well as additional security and […]
Passing notes, talking in the hallway and having too many books in your room are among the reasons children in Nebraska detention facilities have been locked in solitary confinement, according to a report released last week. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska found widely varying policies governing the isolation of juveniles in the nine detention […]
• An op-ed published in the New York Times by legal scholars Michele Deitch and Michael Mushlin called for independent oversight of New York’s prisons, which would be an addition to the two years of monitoring required in the recent settlement to reduce and restrict the use of solitary confinement. “If harm is to be prevented […]
Reduced reliance on solitary confinement is set to save California taxpayers millions of dollars, according to Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed 2016-17 budget. The state is moving to convert segregated housing units to non-segregated units pursuant to the Ashker v. Brown lawsuit settled in September 2015. The lawsuit, filed by numerous individuals held in long-term solitary […]
Jacob Spivey has bipolar two disorder. Before his incarceration, explained his mother Denise Harrelson, every six months he would become depressed and have suicidal thoughts. In 2014, he entered the North Carolina prison system, but spent most of that first year in the state’s Central Prison, which has a 216-bed mental health facility. In 2015, […]
• Coverage continues of the recent solitary confinement settlement in New York state, with articles appearing in the New York Times and Al Jazeera America, among other outlets. • A Colorado State Senator wrote about the hunger strikes that occurred in Aurora and other immigration detention centers across the country. Two participants “reported to [him that] all […]