New this week from Solitary Watch:

In the most recent Voices from Solitary piece, Rodney Reid, who spent half of his 22 years of incarceration in solitary confinement, reflects on nearly three years in solitary on Rikers Island. His piece examines how isolation worsened the already “depleting, dehumanizing, and beyond deplorable” experience of being incarcerated on Rikers Island. Describing the meager meals, disruptive sleep, lack of mental stimulation, and exposure to human waste within cells, Reid explains how he survived and at what cost. Solitary Watch 

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

The Minnesota Disability Law Center recently released a report detailing the use of “seclusion rooms” that constitute a form of solitary confinement in Minnesota schools. Images and testimony shows these rooms are often “concrete, closet-sized, and feature thick four-inch magnetic-locking doors, like a jail cell.” While the practice was banned for children in grades K-3, there are still at least 194 seclusion rooms in 100 schools across 50 Minnesota school districts. These rooms are intended to separate children who pose an immediate danger to another person, but have primarily been used on minority children with disabilities. Many children who have endured these rooms have experienced trauma with lifelong effects. In one case, a Black third-grader was hospitalized after being held in a seclusion room for hours and suffering multiple brain hematomas from running “his head into the cinderblock wall to try to get out and escape from staff.” The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder | Since 2023, the use of seclusion rooms has decreased due to a law restricting the practice in all grade levels. However, a proposal from State Senator Judy Seeberger would decrease restrictions, allowing the use of seclusion rooms for all grades with parent approval. Disability advocates oppose this proposal, arguing alternatives that address the sensory and psychological needs of children are more effective. Fox 9 | The use of seclusion rooms is not by any means limited to Minnesota. Investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as human rights and disability rights organizations, reveal their widespread use in schools across the country. U.S. DOJ

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The Supreme Court rejected an attempt by GEO Group, a private prison contractor, to avoid trial in a lawsuit over forced labor at a Colorado immigration detention center. Filed in 2014, the lawsuit alleges that detainees were threatened with solitary confinement if they did not clean. It also asserts that the company received unjust enrichment from paying detainees $1 a day for labor, despite Colorado’s minimum wage being $8 an hour. GEO Group argued that they are immune from civil trial because the policies were the result of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) orders. However, the justices unanimously agreed to dismiss their bid, stating “the degree to which federal officials authorized the detention center’s work program was an issue that could be hashed out at trial.” Politico

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An investigation found GEO Group falsified detention records of a man who died in solitary confinement at the Moshannon Valley ICE Processing Center. Frankline Okpu was placed in solitary confinement after allegedly swallowing an unknown substance in an altercation with a guard. GEO Group records claim Okpu refused to receive treatment from the emergency department, and staff completed “15-minute visual checks to ensure his safety.” However, surveillance footage shows that 94 of the 219 checks were not completed, and a portion of those completed were insufficient. More falsified records from the day of Okpu’s death showed staff also failed to comply with informed consent protocols for medical work. Sadly, these findings are a part of a larger pattern of deaths at Moshannon Valley, resulting from failures to ensure the safety and well-being of people at the facility. The Intercept

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Malik Carter’s family is calling for the warden and several guards at U.S. Penitentiary Lee to be held criminally responsible for their roles in his death. Carter’s family claims that his death was the result of injuries from a severe beating by staff. While the Bureau of Prisons has refused  to disclose any details pertaining to his cause of death, families of other incarcerated people at the facility report that Carter was routinely subjected to “prolonged physical abuse, the use of extreme restraints, denial of medical care despite visible injuries, isolation and solitary confinement and even shutting off basic necessities like water.” According to their attorney, the Virginia  prison has a history of “excessive force, abuse, racism and covering up the deaths of prisoners.” As the family awaits Carter’s autopsy results, they are organizing a protest outside the prison. DC News Now

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People incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a New York women’s prison, are urging officials to remove new deputy superintendent of safety Michael Blot due to his personal history of violence and brutalization. Bedford Hills Correctional Facility is already one of the most dangerous women prisons, with one-fifth of women having experienced sexual violence at the facility. A trans woman incarcerated at the facility stated “the arrival of Michael Blot has sent this facility into a spiraling tailspin and human rights crisis.” In the last year, Blot has enacted several policies targeting transgender people and rolling back their protections under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Specifically, Blot has significantly changed shower policies at the facility, including forcing transgender and intersex people to shower with the general population. “I am a Muslim man who should not be subjected to this,” said a transgender man who was allowed to shower separately before Blot’s arrival. “I’ve grieved it but it hasn’t been answered.” Prism

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Former employees and whistleblowers testified about dangerous conditions at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility, Michigan’s only women’s prison. Those who testified reported mold, neglect, and women being punished with solitary confinement, loss of time with family, and access to phone calls for speaking out. Letters from women incarcerated at the prison have further detailed sexual abuse and drug trafficking by officers. Lawmakers are calling for the prison’s warden and the Director of the Department of Corrections to respond to these allegations before the state’s Oversight Committee. WXYZ Detroit

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Michael Kimble and other incarcerated people in Alabama are striking over “the situation of slavery and super-exploitation” within the state’s criminal legal system. The strikers are protesting forced labor, Alabama’s three strikes law, and sentences of life without parole, and “ultimately call for the total abolition of the system of caging people.” As the last state to end convict leasing in 1928, Alabama has continued to rely on prison labor, leading to many strikes and protests among incarcerated people. Kimble compares these protests to slave revolts and connects these issues to the 13th Amendment, which incentivized incarceration for forced labor. Although the violent nature of prisons makes facilitating strikes difficult, Kimble encourages people to continue contributing by making phone calls to officials and lawmakers, donating, and doing what they can to protest in support of the strike. Scalawag

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A year after prison staff’s three-week wildcat strike, the National Guard is still deployed in New York prisons to compensate for the shortage of 4,600 guards. While State Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello stated that the National Guard has played a “helpful role in prison operations,” State Senator Dan Stec disagrees and argues that they are “untrained and unqualified.” Failed attempts to recruit new officers and over $535 million of the state budget spent to deploy the National Guard has resulted in Republican lawmakers calling for the state to reconsider the Human Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act, which initiated the strike. Strikers blamed the HALT Act for increasing prison violence by limiting their use of solitary confinement; however, anti-solitary advocates claim that the law was never even fully enforced. WXXI News 

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