• As NorthJersey.com reported, Governor Phil Murphy signed the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, hailed as “the strongest legislation restricting solitary in the nation,” by ACLU of New Jersey Executive Director Amol Sinha. The bill, taking effect next year, will ban solitary confinement for longer than 20 consecutive days and prohibit the isolation of youth, elderly people, pregnant […]
• The Advocate reported on the release of a report by Solitary Watch, the ACLU of Louisiana, and the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University New Orleans, which reflects the survey responses of 709 people in solitary confinement in Louisiana state prisons. Over 77 percent who responded said that they had been held in solitary for […]
UPDATE: More than 50 people attended the press conference on Tuesday, June 25, where representatives of Solitary Watch, the ACLU of Louisiana, and the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University New Orleans introduced the report. The words of survey respondents currently in solitary confinement were shared by formerly incarcerated readers Kiana Calloway of Voice […]
• NBC News, The Intercept and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) jointly published the findings of a major investigation into the use of solitary confinement in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, based on their review of over 8,400 agency reports. The investigation found that immigrants face isolation as punishment for minor violations […]
• Democracy Now! interviewed Albert Woodfox, who spent over 44 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana after being wrongfully convicted of a prison guard’s murder. Woodfox discussed his recently released memoir Solitary and shared memories of his time incarcerated as a member of the Angola 3, along with Herman Wallace and Robert King, who formed the […]
• WAVY reported that a federal judge issued an opinion following the settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of 24-year-old Jamycheal Mitchell, who died in solitary confinement at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Virginia in 2015. Diagnosed as “manic and psychotic,” Mitchell had been ordered to be transferred to a state […]
• The WAMU radio show “1A” hosted Terry Kupers, a leading expert on the psychological effects of solitary confinement, and Robert Hood, former warden of the ADX federal supermax in Florence, Colorado, for an episode addressing the reality incarcerated people face at ADX under conditions of severe isolation. Kupers, who has visited 30 supermaxes across the […]
• One of the Angola 3, Albert Woodfox, who served the longest stretch in solitary confinement documented in the United States of 43 years and 10 months, discussed on Love + Radio his experience as a Black man in society, in the Louisiana prison system, and in solitary: “The thing about pain is it’s always fresh. No matter […]
• The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on a visit to Pennsylvania’s prisons by Are Høidal, warden of Halden prison in Norway, which is often cited as having the most humane prison system in the world. While Pennsylvania currently holds more than 2,000 people in solitary confinement, Halden has no solitary unit at all. “I think you have too much […]
• In the Burlington Free Press, Vermont’s Secretary of Human Services Al Gobeille claimed the state is in a “mental health crisis,” as it keeps running out of beds for those in urgent need of inpatient psychiatric treatment once they have entered the criminal justice system. For those awaiting the opening of a bed, the […]
• “North Carolina inmates who break prison rules will spend significantly less time in solitary confinement under a new policy that state leaders hope will help make prisons safer,” reported the Charlotte Observer. “Under the state’s new disciplinary policy, which took effect Monday, inmates who commit offenses generally can’t be sent to solitary for longer than […]