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

Since 2022, at least seven incarcerated individuals known to have mental health challenges have died by suicide while in solitary confinement in North Carolina prisons. According to a 2021 study featured in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, those struggling with mental health issues are 30% to 60% more likely to be placed into solitary confinement. Suicide rates in North Carolina prisons have increased over the past few years, with over 60% of suicides occurring within solitary confinement since 2020. In once case, a man named Eric Ramsey died by suicide after being isolated in solitary confinement for nearly 70 days between February and May of last year. Shortly before his death, Ramsey told the correctional officer on duty that “he needed to talk to someone.” Despite being diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder as well as having a history of self-harming and threatening suicide on multiple occasions, the officer told Ramsey he was “busy” and denied the request for mental help. Charlotte Observer | Solitary confinement is known to exacerbate mental health struggles. Therapeutic division units (TDUs) act as alternatives to isolation by allowing people to participate in group therapy while gradually easing their restrictions over time. A report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that within North Carolina prisons, people participating in TDUs were less likely to commit crimes, harm themselves, or require mental health treatment than those isolated in solitary confinement. North Carolina prison leaders say they are working to reduce how often people are sent into solitary confinement and aim to bring the state into compliance with the limits on solitary outlined in the United Nations’ Nelson Mandela rules. Charlotte Observer

---

Fifty-five New York state legislators sent a letter calling on the state prisons commissioner to reinstate all elements of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act that were suspended earlier this year during the wildcat strike by state corrections officers. However, a spokesperson for the state’s Department of Corrections denied that the HALT Act was paused and maintained that the agency reserved the right to suspend solitary confinement rules during a state of emergency. NY Daily News | Additionally, twelve prison and jail officials sent a letter to Illinois Senator Dick Durbin opposing the assertion that solitary confinement makes prisons safer. Among the letter’s authors were a retired New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) commissioner, a former Rikers Island assistant mental health chief, and an ex-chief psychiatrist for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The letter states that Sen. Durbin perpetuated the myth that the practice is essential to safety during a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on eliminating solitary confinement last year. Jerome Wright, co-director of the #HALTSolitary Campaign, said that “with corrections commissioners and administrators reaffirming the overwhelming evidence in this important new letter, it is imperative that New York State fully implement the HALT Solitary Law, and that jurisdictions across the country end this torturous, deadly, and violence-producing practice once and for all.” Amsterdam News

---

A new report from the Washington, D.C., auditor found that, between the summers of 2023 and 2024, people in custody within the District’s Department of Corrections died at a rate over three times the national average, and stated that the city needs a new facility. Additionally, the report noted the D.C. jail was over reliant on solitary confinement, understaffed, not transparent about its in-custody deaths, and had ever-worsening conditions. It found that in many of the facility’s deaths experienced over the period studied, officials failed to follow proper protocol, such as routine safety checks every 30 minutes. “While safer, more humane buildings are a critical part of improving D.C.’s correctional system, without addressing the many systemic issues within DOC facilities, both jail residents and staff will continue to inhabit a dangerous and unhealthy environment that does not meet the duty of care the District owes to them,” the report stated. The Washington Post 

---

Two incarcerated individuals died at Hālawa Correctional Facility in Hawaii in what are believed to be the fourth and fifth suicides at the facility since last summer. Though nationally, suicides make up 8% of all deaths within state and federal prisons, according to a 2019 report by the U.S. Department of Justice, five of six deaths in the past year at Hālawa were apparent suicides. Hawaii’s Correctional System Oversight Commission has raised concerns over the lack of mental health services at the facility, which infamously led to a man named Joseph O’Malley dying by suicide while in solitary confinement in 2017. The oversight commission has also flagged the lack of activities and out-of-cell time for individuals as an issue. Many activities for those incarcerated were never reinstated following the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, often leaving individuals confined in their cells for more than 20 hours a day. Honolulu Civil Beat

---

A lawsuit filed last year accuses the Richard L. Bean Juvenile Detention Center in Tennessee of isolating children in solitary confinement for numerous days. The lawsuit, filed by advocacy group Disability Rights of Tennessee, alleges that the facility’s staff isolated a child for 23 hours a day, despite various Tennessee laws outlawing the use of solitary confinement for more than six hours a day within juvenile detention centers. It also alleges that the facility’s staff wrongly declare that children are suicidal as an excuse to isolate them in solitary confinement. The lawsuit alleges that multiple juvenile detention facilities, in addition to the Bean Center, are failing the children within Tennessee’s justice system. WATE News

---

A lawsuit filed against current and former officials at Chesapeake Correctional Center in Virginia alleges that an individual suffered psychological damage after being forced to endure over two years of prolonged solitary confinement. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff, Brian Askew, was constantly isolated in solitary confinement between September 2022 and February 2025 under the pretext of being on suicide watch. It states that while isolated, Askew was denied the freedom to communicate with his family, to engage in physical activity, to practice his religion, and to shower. Additionally, it alleges that prison officials deliberately kept Askew isolated despite medical staff’s recommendations that he be moved to general population. 13 News Now

---

Children in custody across Texas’s five juvenile detention centers are regularly subject to physical and emotional abuse. An internal report by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department found that each of the five detention centers is on average 143% overcrowded, leaving children to spend much of their time isolated in solitary confinement. According to the Child Crime Prevention and Care Safety Center, prolonged isolation can incite depression, hallucinations, and other psychological damages in children. Other reports have found that half of the children who die by suicide while in juvenile detention die while in solitary confinement. Hill Top Views

---

The Trump Administration’s gutting of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties has left multiple ongoing investigations into abuse and misconduct allegations at various immigrant detention centers in limbo, opening the door for more abuse toward migrants. Though the special office hasn’t been closed, it employs less than a fifth of its original staff, making it more difficult to cover the more than 100 detention facilities nationwide. The agency launched a sweeping investigation into Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania last year after numerous allegations of neglect and abuse came out surrounding the facility, including sexual harassment, physical abuse, and the use of solitary confinement as retaliation. In one case, a man died from an overdose and other health breakdowns while isolated in solitary confinement, which the ACLU of Pennsylvania has said was a “preventable tragedy.” It is unclear whether the investigation into Moshannon is still active. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

---

Get this weekly roundup in your mail every Wednesday, covering the past seven days of solitary confinement news and commentary. Subscribe today.

The work we do is made possible by your support. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation—large or small—today.