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 […]

Mathew Davis is in prison at the Western Illinois Correctional Center, where he is serving a life sentence. He was first incarcerated nearly two decades ago, in 2004, when he was 24. He is now 42. Davis previously wrote for Solitary Watch about his experience surviving extreme isolation in prison. His past writings can also be […]

After years of unsuccessful attempts to secure funding, the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC) recently obtained the go-ahead to add more beds to the state’s prison system. In March, state lawmakers passed legislation dedicating $75 million to add 498 high-security beds to the North Central Unit, a men’s prison in Calico Rock.  Advocates like those […]

This is the third in a new series of monthly dispatches from Solitary Watch. COVID-19 infection rates continue to rise and fall. Death rates for vaccinated people, however, remain relatively low, so many, if not most, Americans are unmasking and reclaiming the freedom of their pre-pandemic lives. Still, a virus that persists for this long […]

This article was published in partnership with Truthout. When the Omicron variant of COVID-19 spiked across the nation in late 2021, approximately 1,350 people incarcerated in the District of Columbia Jail were sequestered in solitary confinement conditions in their cells for 22 hours a day. “It was dehumanizing,” said Russell Rowe, of the repeated COVID lockdowns […]

The following piece is written by Juan Moreno Haines, an award-winning journalist incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. Haines is an editor at the San Quentin News, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, a past recipient of a Solitary Confinement Reporting Project grant, and a Contributing Writer at Solitary Watch. Since the COVID-19 […]

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 […]

Juan Moreno Haines is an award-winning journalist incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison , a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and a regular contributor to Solitary Watch. On May 30, San Quentin had zero cases of the coronavirus, but after prison officials transferred 121 men from the California Institution for Men at Chino […]

For much of this year, Solitary Watch has been working with Juan Moreno Haines, Senior Editor at the award-winning prison publication the San Quentin News. A recipient of a grant through our Solitary Confinement Reporting Project, he is now a Contributing Writer. Haines, 63, continued reporting even as he fought COVID-19 from a solitary confinement cell during the […]

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 […]

This afternoon, Unlock the Box: The National Campaign To End Solitary Confinement released a report based on research and analysis by Solitary Watch. The press release for the report follows. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . Washington, D.C.—The Unlock the Box Campaign announced today the […]

In early April, as reports of deaths from COVID-19 began to emerge from U.S. prisons and jails, Aaron Campell posted a desperate 20-minute Facebook Live video shot using a contraband cell phone. The video showed sick people gasping and coughing on his unit in the low-security federal FCI Elkton in Ohio, and one of the […]

The following piece originally appeared in the Opinion section of The Guardian on March 30.  •   •   •   •   • On Wednesday, March 18, while New York was emerging as the national epicenter for the novel coronavirus, a desperate message was dispatched from the city’s notorious Rikers Island. “A storm is coming,” tweeted Dr. Ross […]

On April 1, the federal Bureau of Prisons activated its first nationwide lockdown in nearly 25 years. In an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, the nearly 146,000 men and women held in BOP facilities are spending 14 days confined to their cells for up to 24 hours a day, in what is […]

New this week from Solitary Watch: Enormous gratitude to the hundreds of donors who responded to our annual appeal for donations. Thanks to you, we met our goal and will receive the full amount of matching funds from NewsMatch. Your support is a huge part of what keeps our vital work going throughout the year. […]

This commentary is the latest in “The Word from Solitary Watch,” our series of dispatches by Solitary Watch staff and contributors. • As the United States prepares to choose its next president, I am toiling through my 28th year of incarceration. It is with Election Day fast approaching that I consider the famous 1852 speech […]

To reach as broad an audience as possible with our original reporting and commentary on solitary confinement, Solitary Watch regularly publishes not only on our own site, but in larger publications as well. The following is a list of well over a hundred pieces supported by Solitary Watch that have appeared in a wide variety […]

Richard Nelson spent three and a half years isolated in solitary confinement in Michigan. Without access to the phone, his closest reminder of humanity was the eternally present “hysterical yelling and incoherent babbling” that echoed through the halls. Even as a self-described “outgoing and optimistic” individual, he struggled with intense detachment from reality.  “I began […]

New this week from Solitary Watch: Victoria Law, a freelance journalist and Solitary Watch contributor, explores how the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the cruelties of incarceration in her latest book Corridors of Contagion. Featuring testimonies from five people incarcerated across the United States, the book combines storytelling with cutting-edge analysis of the structural failures of the […]

Just published last week, Corridors of Contagion is a searing new book by Victoria Law, an author and freelance journalist focusing on the intersections of incarceration, gender, and resistance (and a contributor to Solitary Watch). Her previous books include Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Prison By Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences […]

This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: Before dropping out of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, candidate Kamala Harris took a strong position against solitary confinement. Harris was one of only three out of thirteen Democratic candidates who accepted an invitation to attend the first town hall organized by formerly incarcerated people, […]

This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: Testimonies of people incarcerated all over Texas reveal horrifying conditions, long stays in solitary, and evidence of widespread abuse from correctional officers. Incarcerated people describe being kept in solitary confinement cells no bigger than a bathroom 22 to 24 hours a day in extreme heat. […]

After some time off, we are reviving “The Word from Solitary Watch,” our monthly series of dispatches by Solitary Watch staff and contributors. • The mainstream media has traditionally gotten most of its information about what goes on inside prisons from corrections officials—government employees who feed stories to journalists, aimed at protecting the institution’s image. […]

For Mother’s Day, we are reposting this article, originally published in November 2020. It was May 2020, and Esther Arias was finally going to be released from prison. For years of her 14-year sentence, she had held out hope that she would win her appeal and surprise her four kids one day by picking them […]

The work we do is made possible by your support. From now through the end of December, your donation will be DOUBLED through the NewsMatch program! Please take advantage of this once-a-year opportunity and consider making a tax-deductible donation in any amount today. New this week from Solitary Watch: New Solitary Watch Editor-in-Chief Juan Moreno […]

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 […]

New this week from Solitary Watch: Solitary Watch has appointed award-winning journalist Juan Moreno Haines to serve as editor-in-chief. With this appointment, Haines becomes one of a very few currently incarcerated individuals to hold a leadership position at a newsroom or nonprofit organization. Haines has spent 27 years in the California prison system and served […]

Earlier this week, Solitary Watch announced some very exciting news with the following press release. The appointment of incarcerated journalist Juan Moreno Haines as our editor-in-chief ushers in a new era for us, in which we will deepen our longstanding commitment to supporting and publishing the work of incarcerated writers. Juan is the perfect person to […]

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 […]