Seven Days in Solitary [3/27/2016]

Our Weekly Roundup of News and Views on Solitary Confinement

by | March 27, 2016

• 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 that’s smaller than a parking space — with a homicidal roommate,” they write. Also published was a list of the best reporting on solitary, including Solitary Watch’s “Voices from Solitary.”

• Human Rights Watch released a report about the conditions experienced by transgender women held in immigration detention. Half of the women interviewed by HRW had spent time in solitary confinement, allegedly for their own protection. (Covered by Think Progress and others).

• The Department of Justice released new guidelines prohibiting jails or prisons from placing transgender people into men or women’s facilities based solely on their anatomy. Solitary confinement is often used for the alleged protection of transgender people, who are almost always placed in prisons that do not correspond with their gender identity.

• Colorado’s governor is debating whether to support a bill that would prohibit placing children in solitary confinement. “There might be certain circumstances where [isolation] is necessary and a benefit even to the youth, but we’ve got to make sure that, that’s … the details in these bills can have dramatic differences,” he said.

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