Search Results for: covid

U.S. Prison Deaths Increased by 77% in Covid-19 Pandemic…and Other News on Solitary Confinement This Week  

New this week from Solitary Watch: In a recent article published in collaboration with The Stranger in Seattle, incarcerated journalist Kevin Light-Roth examines current efforts to pass legislation limiting the use of solitary confinement in Washington state. Although advocates were hopeful that HB 1087 would be passed this year, efforts stalled following an exorbitant fiscal note from the state […]

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Immigrant Detainees Went on Hunger Strike Against Intolerable Conditions and COVID Exposure. ICE Punished Them with Solitary Confinement.

This exposé of abusive practices at the ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, was written by Renée Feltz, who received a grant from the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project, administered by Solitary Watch with funding from the Vital Projects Fund. Feltz is the Co-Director of Democracy Now! News and an award-winning investigative journalist who has covered criminal justice and […]

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At San Quentin, a Desperate Man Goes on Hunger Strike to Protest Conditions in a COVID-19 Isolation Unit

Editor’s Note: Juan Moreno Haines is an award-winning journalist incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists. In February, before the pandemic visibly hit the United States, Haines wrote a prescient piece that was published in The Appeal (and supported by a grant from the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project) documenting how San Quentin […]

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U.S. Use of Solitary Defies International Treaty, UN Finds…and Other News on Solitary Confinement This Week  

New this week from Solitary Watch: Only two days remain in November, when all donations to Solitary Watch will be TRIPLED through NewsMatch. Donations in any amount are deeply valued and appreciated. Please consider making a donation today. ___________________________________________________________________________ This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: In mid-October, as part of a […]

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal of Man Held in Solitary for Years Without Exercise…and Other News on Solitary Confinement This Week

The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from an incarcerated man in Illinois who argued that his prolonged solitary confinement and denial of outdoor exercise violates the Eighth Amendment. Michael Johnson, the plaintiff, spent three years in solitary in a small, windowless cell at Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois, where he was routinely […]

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What It’s Like to Be in Solitary If You Can’t Read…and Other News on Solitary Confinement This Week

Incarcerated writer Kwaneta Harris writes that after seven years in solitary confinement,  “Reading has been my lifeline… after seven years in solitary confinement. With my earplugs jammed in deep—sometimes too deep—I’ve read books, magazines, and newspapers and found respite amid tortuous conditions. That includes no air conditioning, TV, or recreation.” But at the Lane Murray […]

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