• In a long article in the Annual Review of Criminology, Dr. Craig Haney provides a comprehensive review of the growing consensus against solitary confinement in the academic, legal, scientific, medical, and even correctional fields. The piece provides theoretical backing and empirical evidence of the detrimental consequences of depriving individuals of meaningful human contact through the use of solitary, as […]
• WTOP reported the suicide of 20-year-old Jordyn Charity, who had been held at the supermax Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. Charity was convicted of murder at age 16 and was serving a 168-year sentence. The Virginia Department of Corrections has not revealed whether Charity was being held in solitary confinement. Though officials at the […]
The only people who cannot access Solitary Watch’s work online are also its most important potential readers: the men, women, and children who live in solitary confinement. For this reason, we have long been producing a print edition in newsletter format, published as many times a year as we can afford. The print edition now […]
The following account is written by Daniel Holland, who is serving a sentence of life without parole in Massachusetts at MCI Norfolk prison. After eight years of good behavior, he had earned the privilege of a single cell. But his clean disciplinary record was broken when he was placed in solitary confinement after being interrogated […]
• The Nation published an article about the case of Sharqawi Al Hajj, a man from Yemen who has been held in Guantánamo Bay for 15 years without charge. The article references a federal judge’s findings that, during his detention at Guantánamo Bay, Al Hajj suffered “patent… physical and psychological coercion,” including, as Al Hajj’s […]
• A federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of six women against Alameda County, the Alameda County Sheriff’s office, and individual deputies for the alleged “barbaric” and “inhumane” treatment of pregnant women held at the Santa Rita Jail in California. According to the East Bay Times, the lawsuit claims that one woman was misdiagnosed with […]