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

The children of Geraldo Lunas Campos filed a lawsuit last week against the companies operating the Camp East Montana immigration detention center in El Paso, Texas, for the wrongful death of their father. Campos, a 55-year-old Cuban man, died at the facility on January 3, 2026, after his repeated pleas for mental health treatment went unmet. The medical examiner’s 300-page unpublished report documents Lunas Campos’s several suicide attempts, including tying a bedsheet around his neck, and ruled his death “a homicide” from “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression” during an altercation with staff over his psychiatric medication. 911 calls recorded at least three other suicide attempts at the facility, with detained men swallowing unknown objects, biting their wrists, and hanging themselves. Less than two weeks after Lunas Campos’s death, staff found Victor Manuel Díaz dead in a solitary confinement cell, hanging from his pants. Both Lunas Campos and Díaz were held in windowless isolated cells, in violation of mental health protocol for people with high risk of suicide. A medical advisor for Physicians for Human Rights said the conditions at the detention center “signal that it is not a safe place for any detained individual.” Under Trump, at least 10 of 53 deaths in ICE custody have been ruled suicides, prompting the United Nations to call for an investigation into the use of solitary confinement. ProPublica | Solitary Watch published a commentary back in January about Lunas Campos and others who died in ICE custody in “The Other ICE Killings.” Solitary Watch

Under the Trump Administration, eight protestors were sentenced to 30 to 100 years each in prison for a July 4, 2025, noise demonstration outside Prairieland Detention Center, an ICE facility in rural north Texas. Most defendants are held at Johnson County Jail, where the majority remain in administrative segregation. Defendant Autumn Hill spent “23 hours a day in a 10×10 foot cell” with one hour of recreation and reported “humiliating strip searches by male guards.” A 2021 lawsuit alleges a lieutenant at the jail confined naked inmates in refrigerated suicide cells to pressure them into disclosing information. A defendant’s sister said, “This is a political case, and Texas is sending a message: If you show up to protest an ICE facility, expect to go to jail for decades.” The Nation 

Timothy Rantila, incarcerated at Minnesota Correctional Facility-Faribault, felt “dehumanized” by prison staff’s refusal to accommodate his needs after a neurological disorder left him paralyzed, unable to move either of his legs or his left arm. Placed in solitary confinement in a non-ADA compliant cell, Rantila suffered several falls, one so severe it caused a nosebleed. Security staff refused to help Rantila use the bathroom, telling him “it’s not our job,” forcing him to drag himself across the floor using one arm. Rantila said he was denied a liquid diet despite difficulty swallowing due to his neurological conditions. Rantila said, “I mean, a convict against the DOC is just a human against a wall… I feel less of a man, less than a human.” Northfield News

A nine-year-old student and his family are suing the Special School District of St. Louis County, Missouri, alleging he was isolated in a small, padded seclusion room 66 times over two school years. A U.S. DOJ investigation found the district’s five specialized schools used seclusion and restraint in response to student behavior, violating state law and causing injury, self-harm, and mental anguish. In one 2025 incident, the boy was pushed into a seclusion room over inappropriate language, spraining his elbow. “Defendants punished the plaintiff with solitary confinement for nothing more than being who his disabilities force him to be,” the lawsuit states. St. Louis Today 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani closed the North Infirmary Command section of Rikers Island Jail, which Mamdani has called a “milestone” towards his ultimate goal of shuttering the jail—a facility long notorious for “violence, mismanagement and dysfunction, with inmates subject to beatings, routinely denied medical care, and put in solitary confinement.” In 2023, New York news outlet City & State reported at least 120 deaths at Rikers between 2014 and 2022. Officials say the site could be repurposed for renewable energy projects. In February 2026, Mamdani appointed Stanley Richards, who previously served time on Rikers Island, as the first formerly incarcerated NYC Department of Corrections Commissioner. Novara Media

New York state prisons have paid out $25.7 million across 170 lawsuits alleging beatings, medical neglect, and unlawful isolation. In one case, a prisoner held in solitary confinement for 12 extra days sued—and after 15 years in court, settled for just $748. Antoine Galloway, beaten by seven officers with a baton and placed in isolation for a year, said the payouts don’t provide relief: “I’ll never be satisfied. I’m bruised for life and you get to keep your job. And I know they are doing this to so many people and still getting away with it.” The City Reporter

The Wisconsin DOC has entered a $500,000 contract with consulting firm Falcon Correctional and Community Services to reform the state’s prison practices with the stated aim to reduce solitary confinement, improve healthcare, and address “understaffing” across six facilities. Advocates expressed concerns over the lack of funding allocation for the changes and called for an independent ombudsman’s office to oversee the DOC, greater decision-making power for directly impacted people, and expanded employment opportunities. Wisconsin Examiner

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