New this week from Solitary Watch:

In the most recent piece in our Voices from Solitary series, Mason Swanson, currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania, describes his experience spending seven years in solitary confinement. While on “suicide watch” at SCI Camp Hill, Swanson was isolated in a cell completely naked without access to any personal property or opportunity to speak with a psychologist, psychiatrist, or doctor. For years he was unable to sleep through the night, living in constant fear of his surroundings and cruel treatment from officers. Solitary Watch 

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

Private prison operator GEO Group settled a forced-labor lawsuit right before the 14-year legal battle went to trial. The lawsuit claimed that immigrants detained at a facility near Aurora, Colorado, were threatened with solitary confinement if they refused to participate in “voluntary” work programs. Under the program, detainees were randomly selected and paid $1 per day to clean housing units or perform other jobs around the facility. Loveland Reporter-Herald

In 2021, Jahi Hynes died by suicide one day after he was placed in solitary confinement for allowing the food port on his cell door to close on the hand of a correctional officer, causing minor injuries. After a five-year legal battle, the state of Missouri was ordered to pay his mother $150,000. According to the lawsuit, officials ignored department safeguards and Hynes’s mental health needs when sentencing him to solitary. Missouri Independent

Summaries of news and commentary on solitary confinement are written by Solitary Watch’s research and reporting interns and edited by our staff. Solitary Watch uses people—not A.I.—to create the work we do.

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