• A 32-year-old man held in solitary confinement at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correction Center has been on hunger strike for about two months. “When in in the SHU, a person is always cuffed outside the cell. They make us stand with our back to the door and place our hands through a slot before and after […]
Arthur Johnson
Man Held in Solitary Confinement for 37 Years Wins Legal Victory in Pennsylvania
In September, Arthur Johnson got the news he has waited more than three decades to hear. A federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, ordering Pennsylvania to transition him out of solitary confinement and into the general prison population. Johnson, now 64, spent close to 37 years — over half of his life — alone, locked in […]
Seven Days in Solitary [9/25/2016]
• The LA Times published an in-depth look into the use of solitary confinement at the Men’s Central Jail, including efforts to reduce the use of isolation. Dominic Walker, who was in solitary confinement at the jail for three years, said “it makes you feel like nobody. I’m here, the walls are closing in. It […]
Seven Days in Solitary [6/12/2016]
• On the Marshall Project, Andrew Cohen explores the ongoing lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and its reform-minded secretary, John Wetzel. Lawyers for Arthur Johnson, an incarcerated man with intellectual disabilities who has spent the last 36 years in solitary confinement in the state’s prisons, allege that Johnson’s conditions of confinement violate the […]
Seven Days in Solitary [5/15/2016]
• A Bronx woman is suing New York City for $10 million after spending more than two years in solitary confinement on Rikers Island. Candie Hailey, 32, also alleges she was subject to physical and sexual abuse by guards before eventually being acquitted on attempted murder charges and released. • In its continuing coverage of […]