In April 2018, advocates in Massachusetts celebrated the signing of the Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA), which mandated changes throughout the state’s criminal justice system. Included among the reforms were some new restrictions on the use of solitary confinement, set to go into effect at the beginning of 2019. But advocates say that instead of […]
The following is an excerpt from the report Louisiana on Lockdown, published this past June in a collaboration between Solitary Watch, the ACLU of Louisiana, and the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University New Orleans, with Solitary Watch’s Katie Rose Quandt as the lead author. For the report, the authors conducted the largest survey ever made […]
• In Truthout, Victoria Law reports on how solitary survivors are helping lead the fight to end solitary confinement in New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and throughout the country. In New Jersey, their efforts led to the recent passing of the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, which limits solitary to 20 consecutive days and bans it entirely […]
• Reports this week on the suicide of high-profile detainee Jeffrey Epstein at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan have been full of questions and speculation about how such a thing could have been allowed to happen. Epstein had reportedly been on suicide watch, but was taken off and was in a cell […]
This article was published in collaboration with The Appeal. The true story of a 2015 prison break from a New York maximum-security facility has electrified viewers of Showtime’s acclaimed miniseries “Escape at Dannemora,” which wrapped up on December 30. The tale focuses on two men serving life sentences, David Sweat and Richard Matt, and their […]
This week, voters elected a new host of Democratic legislators and governors, flipping the balance of power in many state governments and in the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Democrats in Congress, in particular, will have their hands full dealing with the Trump White House, elected officials who find the time and wherewithal to address […]
In 2016, the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) announced it had significantly reduced its use of solitary confinement, particularly in the state’s two supermax facilities, Red Onion and Wallens Ridge. The reforms were welcome news: Five years earlier, the Washington Post reported that five percent of people in Virginia’s prisons were in solitary, including more […]
• The Portland Press Herald reports that a former Rhode Island prison warden is speaking out against the use of solitary confinement. Roberta Richman, who worked for the state Department of Corrections for 33 years, supports a bill that would prohibit isolation longer than 15 days. “Too many inmates come out of isolation angrier and […]
People held in Illinois prisons will receive an improved level of mental health care in coming years, thanks to a major class action settlement in late December. In the case of Ashoor Rasho v. John Baldwin, the Illinois Department of Corrections agrees to: Hire 300 new mental health workers, as well as additional security and […]
Albert Woodfox, the last remaining incarcerated member of the “Angola 3,” is appealing to the Supreme Court for his release after a tumultuous succession of appeals and overturned decisions. Sent to Louisiana’s Angola Prison in 1971 for armed robbery, Woodfox was then twice convicted—and twice saw those convictions overturned—of the 1972 murder of an Angola […]
As prison issues and criminal justice reform become increasingly popular items on the nation’s political agenda, the 2016 presidential candidates are getting in line. Most have shifted their prison policies toward reform in recent years (or months), and almost all say they support basic reforms like reduced mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders. Nonetheless, headlines […]