Florida has one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the nation, at one eighth of the total state prison population. Florida’s usage of solitary is extreme not only in its scale, but also its implementation, with African Americans and individuals with mental illness significantly overrepresented in isolation. Florida’s prisons and juvenile detention centers […]
• The Daily Beast reported on the role that contraband cell phones played in the recent uprising in Alabama’s Holman Correctional Facility. “Even solitary confinement can’t keep some inmates from organizing and fighting back.” • The Marshall Project and NPR published a story in collaboration with NPR about double-celling in solitary. “Imagine living in a cell […]
When Candie Hailey was released from Rikers Island’s women’s correctional facility May 2015, after nearly three years on the island prison, she faced the challenge of putting her life back together. What made her reentry to society even more difficult was the mental and physical torture she endured while accused of a crime of which […]
• A Nebraska outlet profiled the experiences of Jacob Rushner. As a teenager, Rushner was kept in solitary confinement for 41 days at the Douglas County Youth Center in Omaha. • A prison captain who was fired in the wake of Michael Kerr’s 2014 death cannot get his job back, a North Carolina Court of Appeals had […]
The following account is by Nicole Natschke, who was incarcerated for years in Illinois’ Logan Correctional Facility, about three hours south of Chicago. During that time, she was “constantly in and out of segregation,” including one stay that lasted for an entire year. Logan Correctional, which was repurposed from a men’s prison to imprison women […]
UPDATE: Five Mualimm-ak and Jazz Hayden were both released on their own recognizance late Wednesday afternoon. Click here for video of their statements following release. Also see coverage and video of the arrests on Democracy Now! and Gothamist. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more details as they emerge. . . . . . […]
• A report written by a Los Angeles volunteer probation department monitor found deplorable conditions inside the city’s Central Juvenile Hall, with conditions similar to a “Third World country prison.” According to the LA Times, the report alleges that children were sent to solitary for reasons that violated departmental policy, including in one instance for sharing […]
Russell “Maroon” Shoatz, a former Black Panther who escaped from Pennsylvania prisons twice in the 1970s, was held in solitary confinement for nearly thirty-three years, including twenty-two consecutive years, from 1991 to 2014. During that time, Shoatz was in confined to his cell, in complete social isolation, for 23-24 hours a day. He contends that his time […]
• Yes! Magazine published an article about the 24 states that still put children in solitary, and the advocates that are working to change that. • Legislation to curb the use of solitary moved forward in Rhode Island, where legislators have proposed limiting the use of isolation to 15 days. “It’s used for punishment and it’s used […]
Sometimes overshadowed by the anti-solitary movement in neighboring New York, activists in New Jersey have been fighting a battle of their own against the use of extreme isolation in state prisons and county jails. Earlier this year, they had some success when Governor Chris Christie signed into law a major juvenile justice bill that, among others […]