Update, July 2018: Recently Dennis Hope, whose story is featured in this article, shared with us the complaint from a lawsuit he has filed pro se in federal district court in Texas. Hope challenges the constitutionality of his nearly 25 years in extreme solitary confinement, and particularly the lack of justification or any meaningful review process […]
• Texas announced it was ending the use of punitive segregation in its facilities, and will instead rely on other restrictions – like loss of good time, commissary or phone privileges – to deal with bad behavior. The decision will not affect the 4,000 or so people currently held in administrative segregation in the state. • The […]
The following is excerpted from an article appearing last week on Gothamist, about the Photo Requests from Solitary exhibit currently on display at Photoville in Brooklyn. Solitary Watch has been collaborating on the Photo Requests from Solitary project for the past five years. Scroll down for information on exhibit location and hours. No one knows […]
• The watchdog group Disability Rights New York released a report about conditions inside the mental health treatment unit at Attica Correctional Facility, known as the Residential Mental Health Unit (RMHU). According to Shadowproof, “While in theory the RMHU is supposed to be a therapeutic alternative to punitive solitary confinement, in reality there are many similarities […]
The following piece is by Andrea May Darlene Weiskircher, who was incarcerated at the Ada County Jail and Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center in Idaho on theft and forgery charges. In total, she spent over three years in solitary confinement, including one period that lasted a full year. Weiskircher had long struggled with mental illness, and […]
• A settlement has been reached after an individual incarcerated in Louisiana accused prison officials of retaliating against him for exchanging emails with a reporter. Last year, William Kissinger was transferred out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and sent to another prison, where he was placed in solitary confinement. Under the settlement, Kissinger will […]
• “An 18-year-old Bronx resident claims in a new lawsuit that workers at a juvenile detention center have been using their teen jailbirds as “sex slaves,’” reported the New York Post. The young man, Franklin Maldonado, said female supervisor Natalie Medford would take him out of segregation and bring him to her office to engage in […]