New this week from Solitary Watch:

In a story co-published with Truth Out, Solitary Watch contributing writer Kwanetta Harris writes about Black August, a month of mourning and mobilization to celebrate the lives Black liberation figures. The piece commemorates figures like Jonathan and George Jackson, brothers who were killed by San Quentin prison guards in the 1970s, Angela Davis, and Assata Shakur. After many years spent in isolation, Davis, Shakur, and George Jackson understood solitary as a deliberate strategy to break the will of those who challenged the carceral system. Harris urges us to recognize solitary “as a weapon of psychological warfare against those who dare to organize, educate, and resist.” Truth Out | Solitary Watch

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

Honesty Bishop, an HIV-positive transgender woman, was placed in solitary confinement in Missouri for over six years after she was classified as “sexually active” because her cellmate tried to sexually assault her. Missouri, where Bishop was incarcerated, is one of three states that allows people to be placed in solitary due to their HIV status. Despite filing numerous grievances about her extended isolation and lack of access to gender-affirming medical care, a classification committee denied her pleas for help more than a dozen times. The psychological toll of isolation led Bishop to attempt to take her life twice while in solitary. However, Bishop was eventually released from prison and, with assistance from the MacArthur Justice Center, filed a lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Corrections (DOC) for its discriminatory policies against HIV-positive people. In the lawsuit’s final settlement, the Missouri DOC agreed to remove language concerning HIV from its segregation policy, mandate assessments of anyone with HIV who is sent to solitary, require training for prison staff, and hold more “meaningful hearings.” Unfortunately, Bishop did not live to see the policy change, dying by suicide after her release. Shubra Ohri, an attorney at the MacArthur Justice Center, noted that Bishop’s experience in solitary played a “huge role” in her death and was the “base trauma” for the anxiety and darkness she felt once out of jail. Midwest Newsroom | The Marshall Project

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is suing state correctional officials over an internal policy that bypasses the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act’s 15-day limit on solitary confinement. The court filing comes a year after State Supreme Court Justice Kevin R. Bryant ruled New York prisons had illegally held people in solitary, and ordered decisions made about solitary based on internal policies to be“null and void.” However, the NYCLU claims that New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision has upheld nearly 2,000 extended disciplinary confinement sanctions in direct opposition to Justice Bryant’s decision. Ify Chikezie, a staff attorney at NYCLU, said, “It’s very clear that they continue to fail to satisfy the criteria that are laid out in the HALT Act.” NY Times

Mario Guevara, an award-winning journalist and a U.S. resident for over 20 years, is currently being held in solitary confinement at a Georgia prison after he was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while livestreaming a “No Kings” protest in June. According to a petition filed by ACLU Georgia, Guevara is currently the only journalist in the U.S. detained because of his work and is facing charges of obstruction, pedestrian walking in or along a roadway, and unlawful assembly. Axios | The ACLU’s petition demands Guevara’s release after being held in multiple Georgia facilities for over two months. It also declares Guevara’s detention as unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections. Davis Vanguard

Tuberculosis (TB) is spreading in ICE detention centers across the country as the Trump Administration crams thousands of people into facilities with declining conditions. National medical care standards require all facilities to screen detainees for TB within 12 hours of intake and subsequently retest every 12 months. Additionally, anyone with tuberculosis symptoms must be placed into a special airborne infection isolation room with negative pressure ventilation to avoid transmission. However, a recent lawsuit found that these standards are rarely met due to staffing shortages, overcrowding, and lack of medical resources. Instead, infected detainees are put in solitary confinement cells or unclean medical isolation rooms. Although a new Republican mega-bill includes approximately $45 billion in additional funding for ICE and its detention facilities, medical experts doubt that the money will be spent on detainee health measures. The American Prospect

Staff at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny County Jail have gathered more than 1,000 signatures for a petition that proposes to amend a 2021 ballot initiative limiting the use of solitary confinement and banning the use of restraint chairs, leg shackles, and chemical agents at the facility. The petition requests that the City Council reinstate the use of leg shackles for hospital transports, but County Executive Sara Innamorato “does not support reinstating” such measures, and the proposal is unlikely to receive her final approval. WESA

In their new book, Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement, reviewed by The Guardian, award-winning incarcerated journalist Christopher Blackwell and legal expert Deborah Zalesne cover every aspect of solitary confinement and the harmful effects experienced by those who are subjected to such isolation. With contributions from incarcerated journalist Kwaneta Harris and medical expert Terry Kupers, the book compiles psychiatric research, personal narratives, and interviews to systematically dismantle “every possible argument one could use to justify solitary confinement.” The Guardian | The book’s release date on September 4, 2025, coincides with the launch of the nationwide Journey to Justice bus tour, which will bring an interactive museum that “makes the human rights crisis of solitary confinement impossible to ignore” to events in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Pluto Books | Journey to Justice

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