• In the year since the historic settlement agreement in Ashker v. Brown, there has been a 99% decrease in long-term solitary confinement at California’s Pelican Bay Prison. Center for Constitutional Rights staff wrote about the significant gains from the settlement in Truth-Out. • Idaho’s work to decrease its use of solitary confinement was featured on […]
Last week, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Méndez, presented a report to the General Assembly detailing and comparing solitary confinement practices around the world. The report, notably, was Mendez’s last as Special Rapporteur, as was his appearance before the UN. The report, Seeing into Solitary: A Review of the Laws and Policies […]
• Venida Browder has died due to complications from a heart attack. Her son, Kalief, committed suicide about 16 months ago after spending several years in solitary confinement on Rikers Island. • An assistant professor at University of California Irvine, Keramet Reiter, penned an op-ed for the LA Times about how to fix solitary confinement […]
Francis Bauer Harris has been on Death Row at Greene State Correctional Institution for 19 years. He was convicted of first degree murder in 1997, though he continues to maintain his innocence. On Death Row, Harris spends 23 to 24 hours a day in solitary confinement. According to a friend with whom he corresponds, “he feels […]
• Rikers Island has officially ended its placement of 19-to-21 year olds in solitary confinement, who will now instead be placed in the jail’s Secure Unit or Enhanced Supervision Unit. Advocates expressed concern that young people will still spend extended time in some form of isolation. “Our goal has never been to eliminate the term […]
• Vice News spoke to prison strike organizer Bennu Hannibal from his solitary confinement cell at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Alabama. The action, which started on September 9th, is said to involve over 24,000 people and constitute the biggest prison strike in the nation’s history. • A grandmother is suing the Utah […]
A group of Democratic senators has introduced a bill that would for the first time place legal limitations on the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons. The Solitary Confinement Reform Act (S. 3432), is co-sponsored by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Al Franken (D-MN). The […]
• Governor Jerry Brown of California signed into law a bill limiting the use of isolation in juvenile detention centers. “Young people across the state who are and were incarcerated have been calling for an end to long-term isolation for years,” said Kim McGill, an organizer with Youth Justice Coalition. “It is partly thanks to […]