For Immediate Release: September 18, 2026
Contact: Jean Casella, jcasella@solitarywatch.org, (917) 974-0529

WASHINGTON, DC—Solitary Watch today announced the first group of recipients to receive support through a new Solitary Confinement Reporting Grants program. 

The grants program, which is funded by the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, the Navigation Fund, and the Vital Projects Fund, will support seven projects that expose the use and effects of solitary confinement in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers. 

The journalists will report on various untold aspects of solitary confinement, including the often hidden use of solitary in ICE facilities, the placement of people in isolation for alleged medical purposes, the life-long mental and physical effects of solitary confinement, and potential solutions to keep people out of solitary.

These awards mark the first round of Solitary Watch’s new Solitary Confinement Reporting Grants. The grants support stipends for both established and upcoming journalists working as freelancers or in small nonprofit newsrooms,  and cover reporting expenses such as travel, public records requests, and communications with incarcerated sources. The new program complements Solitary Watch’s Ridgeway Reporting Project, which has awarded dozens of reporting grants to incarcerated journalists. Together, these two grant opportunities will continue to get crucial stories out of the dark and in front of readers.

In addition to providing reporting grants, Solitary Watch recently launched a series of virtual roundtables—by journalists and for journalists—on covering prison conditions, to help reporters share tips and resources for covering this challenging beat. The next roundtable, “Investigating Solitary Confinement,” will be held on Thursday, September 24th, at 1:00 pm Eastern time. Journalists wishing to attend must register in advance at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/djWTrrTITjyhLPQGUmbG7w. 

“More than 120,000 people are locked in solitary confinement each day in prisons and jails across the United States,” said Katie Rose Quandt, Senior Writer and Editor at Solitary Watch. “It’s a practice that’s been proven to be both deeply harmful to the people who endure it, and counterproductive for prison and public safety. There are substantial obstacles to reporting on this widely hidden practice. We believe these grants and roundtables will help expose the realities of solitary confinement to new audiences across the country.”

Solitary Watch, which administers the grant program and hosts the roundtables, is a national nonprofit newsroom that works to uncover the truth about solitary confinement in the United States by producing high-quality investigative journalism, accurate information, and authentic storytelling from both sides of prison walls. Over the past 17 years, Solitary Watch has generated public debate and informed policy change on an underreported humanitarian crisis by promoting awareness, creating accountability, and shifting narratives.

Applications for reporting grants will be accepted three times a year, on March 31, July 31, and November 30. The next deadline to submit a proposal to the Solitary Confinement Reporting Grants project is November 30, 2026. For more information, visit https://solitarywatch.org/reporting-grants/.

Round 1 Solitary Confinement Reporting Grant Recipients

• Chandra Bozelko will report on the impact of an innovative pilot program offering legal representation to people facing solitary confinement in New York.
• Renee Feltz will create a multi-media report on the enduring physical and mental impact of long-term solitary confinement on the writer and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
• Raina Lipsitz and Chris Gelardi (New York Focus) will investigate New York’s holding of incarcerated people in isolation in bathroomless cells called “defecation rooms.”
• Monique Maydan will explore the lingering effects of solitary confinement, through a profile of a man who spent decades in prison and ICE detention in Florida, including years in solitary. 
• Kate Morrissey (Daylight San Diego) will investigate the placement of people in solitary confinement for “medical isolation” at Otay Mesa ICE facility in California.
• Delaney Nolan (The Lens) will investigate a new immigration detention unit housed in a notorious shuttered solitary confinement building at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
• Sierra Pfeifer and Keaton Ross (KOSU & Oklahoma Watch) will produce a print and audio story on the solitary confinement of people with mental health disorders in Oklahoma.

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