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

Five incarcerated people have filed a class-action lawsuit demanding an end to the “damaging and degrading” use of solitary confinement in Oregon state prisons. According to the lawsuit, the state’s solitary practices violate both its constitution and disability rights laws. Earlier this year, the Oregon Department of Corrections paid out $2.3 million in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the mother of Grayson James Allen Painter, who died by suicide in solitary at an Oregon prison. Orlando Pouncey, a member of the new class-action suit, was diagnosed with depression and PTSD and has experienced new and worsening symptoms, including auditory hallucinations, as a result of his aggregate 11 years spent in solitary. Others named in the complaint have been restricted from contacting their children, receiving basic hygiene supplies, and accessing adequate mental healthcare. Statesman Journal | Some argue that Malik Muhammad, an incarcerated Black Lives Matter protester, was put in solitary in Oregon then transferred to South Carolina as retaliation for his prison organizing, which included encouraging others in solitary to join the class action lawsuit. The Intercept | The use of solitary has increased in Oregon in recent years, rising to 561 people held within Disciplinary Segregation Units as of May 2026. Although the state limits the use of disciplinary solitary to 90 consecutive days, other forms of administrative solitary can last for five months or longer. “I would rather take a bullet than go through this,” stated Dominique Jenkins-Millage, another plaintiff in the lawsuit. OPB 

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A series of letters written by people incarcerated in the windowless, underground H Unit at Oklahoma State Penitentiary revealed inhumane conditions, physical and sexual violence, and psychological torture. Many of the 248 people currently in H Unit, known as “the tombs,” are in solitary, confined in their cells for 23 hours a day. Before being granted clemency and transferred to another correctional center, Tremane Wood spent 17 years on death row H Unit without seeing sunlight. “I won’t ever get over the impact of being there in [the] tombs or going through what I went through. I won’t ever be the same but imma try my best,” he wrote. The Guardian

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Photos obtained through public record requests illuminate the severe isolation of behavioral assessment units (BAUs) in a Massachusetts prison, where two people died by suicide last year. People in these units are confined in cells for up to 21 hours a day for an average of 14 days—supposedly as an alternative to “restricted housing,” which the state defines as in-cell isolation for 22 hours a day and is significantly limited under a 2018 law. While state officials argue BAUs are not a “punitive measure,” critics say they are functionally the same as solitary. Half of the suicides within the Massachusetts prison system in 2025 occurred in BAUs. Incarcerated individuals reported that the mental health care provided in BAUs was severely limited, and studies show people in such units are seven to ten times more likely to die by suicide. MassLive

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Alex Kuhnhausen died from sepsis in 2024 after prison staff at Washington State Penitentiary repeatedly dismissed his symptoms and placed him in solitary confinement. While in isolation, his condition worsened, and officials refused to provide medical information to Kuhnhausen’s wife. By the time he was diagnosed with an untreated ulcer and sent to the hospital, Kuhnhausen was too weak to survive surgery. His wife is preparing a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Washington Department of Corrections. The Nation 

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A recent report by Disability Rights North Carolina reveals that the state relies heavily on solitary confinement in some of its Juvenile Detention Centers (JDCs). In one JDC operated by Durham County, youth reported being sent to a small room that contained only a mattress and a hole in the floor in lieu of a toilet. Isolation can be especially harmful for youth, leading to long-term psychological and physical consequences. EdNC | In interviews conducted between July 2024 and August 2025, youth in five facilities across the state reported being locked in their cells for 20 to 24 hours a day. Disability Rights North Carolina

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At a recent jail oversight meeting, activists and attorneys alleged that correction officers at Rikers Island practice “deadlocking,” or confining people in their cells for weeks or months at a time. Jail officials denied the existence of this practice, which violates Department of Correction policy. A review by the Department of Investigation this year failed to substantiate a social worker’s claims about the use of deadlocking, but the investigation also acknowledged that video footage of certain cells was missing and several witnesses were uncooperative. At the meeting, the senior corrections specialist of the New York County Defender Services stated that six reports of deadlocking had been made to the organization since April. Queens Daily Eagle

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled to reverse a prior court’s dismissal of a class action lawsuit against a Wisconsin county jail for allegedly forcing detained immigrants to do unpaid labor. Those held in the Kenosha County jail, which has a contract with the U.S. government to hold detained immigrants, claim they were threatened with punishment and put in solitary for multiple days if they refused to do janitorial work. The Seventh Circuit ruled that local jails violate the federal Forced Labor Statute by “threatening civil detainees with solitary confinement to coerce them to work” because “threats of ‘physical restraint’ are forbidden—and solitary confinement is one form of physical restraint.” Law360

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Detainees at Delaney Hall, a privately-run immigration detention facility in New Jersey, are using a labor and hunger strike to protest “unlawful and forced detention” and inhumane treatment. The detainees have reported being forced to shovel snow, serve food, and clean for little or no pay. Several other ICE detention centers operated by GEO Group, the company that owns Delaney Hall, have been accused of violating forced labor laws. In February, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan criticized the company’s “so-called Sanitation Policy” at a facility in Colorado where detainees were punished with solitary if they did not perform janitorial services. Last year, the National Labor Relations Board argued that the GEO Group violated workers’ rights by sending labor and hunger strike organizers at a detention center in California to solitary. These forced labor practices at ICE facilities may violate the Thirteenth Amendment, as most detainees have not been convicted of a crime. Balls and Strikes

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Ryan Samsel, the first person to breach the U.S. Capitol during the January 6, 2021, insurrection, sued the federal government for nearly $18 million in damages for conditions he faced while in pretrial detention. Before being pardoned by President Trump in 2025, Samsel alleged that he was beaten by prison staff, forced to spend months in solitary confinement, and was denied medical care in jails in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. Courthouse News Service | As Solitary Watch senior writer Katie Rose Quandt reported in 2023, Republican leaders and supporters only began to decry pretrial conditions on behalf of the few dozen defendants sent to the D.C. Jail while facing charges for their roles in the January 6th insurrection. These same political leaders have vocally opposed policies that would reduce pretrial detention, such as abolishing or reforming cash bail. Solitary Watch

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