This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement:

Before dropping out of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, candidate Kamala Harris took a strong position against solitary confinement. Harris was one of only three out of thirteen Democratic candidates who accepted an invitation to attend the first town hall organized by formerly incarcerated people, held at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The Marshall Project | There, and in her criminal justice platform for 2020, she promised to “end solitary confinement, but ensure alternative therapeutic and rehabilitative mechanisms are available to protect the safety of individuals in prisons and of prison staff.” Kamala’s Plan to Transform the Criminal Justice System and Re-Envision Public Safety in America (2019) | As a U.S. Senator from California, Harris co-sponsored legislation to limit solitary confinement in immigration detention, as well as an early version of Sen. Dick Durbin’s bill to reform (but not end) solitary in federal prisons. | Earlier in her career, while serving as Attorney General of California, Harris had a mixed record, at best, on criminal justice and prison reform. On solitary confinement specifically, she supported legislation to limit solitary in juvenile detention. But under her leadership, the state’s Department of Justice initially pushed back hard against a landmark lawsuit (Ashker v. Brown) to end indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in the state’s adult prisons, before finally settling the case in 2015. Truthdig 

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The New York City Council is preparing to take legal action against the administration of Mayor Eric Adams over the implementation of Local Law 42, which bans solitary confinement in the city’s jails. The law was passed in January after the Council overrode Adams’s veto, and is scheduled to go into effect later this month. The Council voted on a resolution on Thursday to give the speaker the potential to sue the Adams administration if it seeks to obstruct enforcement of the law. Gothamist

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A class-action lawsuit is being filed against Colorado’s Department of Corrections alleging that thousands of incarcerated people were punished for declining to perform labor required by the state. Casey Lowe, an incarcerated man, alleges that he was confined to a cell 22 hours a day when he showed up late to a mandatory work shift. The lawyers of the suit say that these policies violate the Colorado Consitution’s Amendment A, which bans the state from “engaging in slavery of involuntary servitude” under any circumstances. CPR News

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A commentary by California Assemblymember Chris Holden argues that decreasing the state’s use of solitary can “save money and save lives.” Holden introduced the California Mandela Act to limit solitary confinement, which was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom last year. Holden cites studies of how prolonged solitary confinement increases the negative impacts of those incarcerated while not making facilities safer, and introduces a 2023 policy brief by the California Research Bureau, which estimates that reducing solitary confinement could save up to $400 million. He concludes that a reduction of the use of solitary coupled with an investment in rehabilitative services holds the potential to save millions of dollars and create a safer, more humane society. Orange County Register

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Garfield County in Washington State has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the family of a man who killed himself in solitary confinement and has also decided to shut down its jail. Kyle Lara was held in solitary in a basement cell constructed in 1901 for nearly three weeks. According to Lara’s family, officials ignored signs of his intent to self-harm, and his body wasn’t found for 18 hours. The family’s attorney called the conditions of Lara’s confinement “the worst he had ever seen” and said they should be “intolerable in any civilized society.” Seattle Times

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In a hearing last week, the Wisconsin Assembly’s Committee on Corrections heard testimony about the conditions and experiences of those in the state’s prisons. Concerns of neglect and mistreatment were expressed by formerly incarcerated people, former staff, and families of those currently incarcerated. Sara Williams, a community organizer from Green Bay who previously spent a year in solitary confinement, detailed the negative impacts it had on her and called for reform of solitary practices. Others read letters from those currently in solitary. As of May 2024, 704 incarcerated people are in restrictive housing in Wisconsin, according to the Department of Corrections. Wisconsin Examiner

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Incarcerated writer Tony Vick interviewed Frank De Palma, who was held in solitary confinement for 22 of the 43 years he spent in prison in Nevada. De Palma was housed in solitary to separate him from gang members from whom he faced life-threatening retaliation. His time in solitary was abysmal. Due to a lack of healthcare, he had to pull out his own decaying teeth and did not leave his cell for the last five years of his sentence. Released in 2018, De Palma is now the co-author of a new book and an advocate for enforcing limits on the use of solitary. Filter Mag

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In April, a federal judge held the Georgia Department of Corrections in contempt due to its failure to correct the “draconian” conditions of the Special Management Unit (SMU) in Jackson. The individuals housed at the SMU are held in solitary confinement in small cells for nearly the whole day. Craig Haney, a psychologist who visited the SMU, recently spoke about his trip to the facility seven years earlier. Haney detailed the shocking conditions in the unit, including people displaying self-harm and crying out for help. Haney states, “Solitary confinement achieves nothing positive…it makes people worse. That’s not just a problem just for them—it’s a problem for all of us.” 13WMAZ

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In 2011, a massive hunger strike of more than 6,000 people in California prisons was staged for 19 days to protest extreme isolation. Dorsey Nunn, a formerly incarcerated person and leader in the movement to restore rights to incarcerated people, details the conditions of prison—specifically, the use of solitary at Pelican Bay. In an excerpt from his new book, What Kind of Bird Can’t Fly: A Memoir of Resilience and Resurrection, Nunn discusses the organization of the strike and its impacts, which led to legal action and state hearings. The Appeal

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Jeremy Busby, a writer and activist incarcerated in Texas, discusses how solitary confinement has been used as a form of censorship of journalists in prison. The COVID-19 pandemic led to increased use of solitary, which further impeded Busby’s ability to investigate and report on stories. When Busby turned to social media to post about the conditions and fatalities of incarcerated people due to COVID-19, he was disciplined to solitary confinement for 22 months, under the guise of “security.” Currently, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is proposing heightening penalties for social media use, which Busby argues is a form of censorship of constitutionally protected speech and necessary advocacy, while also allowing for further retaliation and punishment. Freedom Press

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