New this week from Solitary Watch: 

For our latest piece of original journalism, “A Sliver of Light,” reporter Edward Tie traveled to a remote prison in eastern Oregon to witness the work of Amend at the University of California San Francisco, which is working with correctional staff to get the toughest cases out of long-term isolation. This nuanced and ultimately inspiring story, focusing on an incarcerated man once known as “the monster of Oregon,” documents what it takes to bring someone back into the human community after decades of solitary confinement and demonstrates that no one deserves or needs to be tortured by the state. Solitary Watch

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Solitary Watch Editor-in-Chief Juan Moreno Haines reflected on the reality of Juneteenth behind bars in California, where a measure prohibiting involuntary servitude in state prisons failed to pass last November. While laws and policies advancing mass incarceration persist and the social issues underlying incarceration fail to be addressed, Black Americans continue to be disproportionately affected by the carceral system. “As an American, I deserve to be delivered from slavery, just as my ancestors were on the original Juneteenth,” Haines wrote. Solitary Watch

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With support from the Ridgeway Reporting Project, incarcerated writer and activist Shaun Traywick reveals how incarcerated people in Alabama are forced to work despite the state banning slavery without exception in 2022. Traywick, who has spent years in solitary confinement for speaking out against forced labor in Alabama prisons, discusses a federal lawsuit first filed in December 2023 that challenges Alabama’s continued use of forced labor and names state officials and private contractors—including a distributor operating under the Budweiser name. Solitary Watch 

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

Almost two dozen California state prisons have imposed new restrictions on their incarcerated populations—roughly 34,000 people—including the suspension of in-person visitation and outside communication. People are being forced to remain primarily in their cells or dormitories. Several legal experts and advocates have called these restrictions solitary confinement “in all but name.” In protest, an estimated 500 people at Salinas Valley State Prison started a hunger strike. Cal Matters

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The mayor of Shelby County (Memphis), Tennessee will sign an executive order limiting the use of solitary confinement on people held in county jails or prisons. Under the new rules, incarcerated people will stay in solitary confinement for no more than 15 days and will have at least two hours a day outside their cells. The county is reportedly the first Southern government to adopt this standard, which is based on the UN’s Mandela Rules. News Channel 3 Memphis

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A Minnesota Department of Corrections report found that Hennepin County (Minneapolis) officials conducted late well-being checks and fraudulently filed paperwork claiming they had conducted a check for 36-year-old Ryan Wodziak before his suicide in February 2023. Wodziak’s parents are suing the jail and hospital that treated their son, who was kept in solitary confinement for four months, often unmedicated, even after several suicide attempts. Minnesota Star Tribune 

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Over three months after a “wildcat” strike by prison guards protesting work conditions, New York Governor Kathy Hochul and other state prison officials are continuing to pare back restrictions on the use of solitary confinement established by the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act. THE CITY

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A New York lawsuit challenging the use of solitary confinement against persons with disabilities will proceed in Brooklyn as a class action. First filed in December 2023, the lawsuit contends that New York state prison officials have violated state laws both by imposing solitary confinement against people with disabilities and instituting policies that allow corrections officials to do so. Disability Rights Advocates

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Adults incarcerated and held in solitary confinement as children in Florida are now advocating against its use in the prison system. The Florida Department of Corrections isolates children and adults at their carceral facilities, though they call the practice “close management” instead of “solitary confinement.” ABC Action News

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The organization Freedom to Grow has transformed a 6-by-9 foot garden in the center of New Orleans to replicate the dimensions of a standard solitary confinement cell. The Solitary Garden is one of more than two dozen gardens built in cities across the United States, including Philadelphia, New York, and others. The garden’s contents, including cabbage, kale, cucumbers, and radishes, were chosen by Obie Winters, a man on death row in Texas who has spent 25 years in solitary confinement. Civil Eats

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