• Jessica Schulberg from The Huffington Post and incarcerated journalist Christopher Blackwell interviewed dozens of people from across the country of the hundreds of thousands who were put in solitary confinement as a COVID prevention tactic. “Even under regular conditions, solitary confinement is a dehumanizing, tortuous form of punishment that often leads to depression, anxiety, paranoia, […]
• Reporting from the Moultrie Observer draws on various investigations into conditions in Georgia prisons. At a legislative hearing last week, families spoke about the dangers their loved ones faced and the failure to protect them and provide appropriate care. Allegations include inadequate protection, medical neglect, staff absenteeism, and isolation of mentally ill individuals. The Southern […]
• The New York Times reports that federal officials announced the temporary closure of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), a federal jail in Lower Manhattan. They have described it as part of an effort to improve conditions at the jail, which have been dangerous for years, but only received widespread attention in 2019 after the suicide […]
• An opinion piece in USA Today reports that low rates of vaccination among prison staff nationally are driving COVID outbreaks in prisons. The authors of the piece work with the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project, which found that fewer than half of prison staff had been vaccinated, despite the fact that the […]
• “It’s hard to escape the conclusion that this isn’t just a place where people do time—it’s a place where people go to be broken.” A blog post on the website of Arnold Ventures provides an in-depth look at solitary confinement, the way it affects incarcerated people, their families, and correctional officers, and recent reforms […]
• Brian Nelson spent 23 years of his 28-year sentence in solitary confinement, many of them in the notorious Tamms supermax state prison in Illinois, which has since been closed. After his release, Nelson dedicated himself to advocating for the rights of people in prison through his work with the Uptown People’s Law Center in […]
• According to a February 19 article from the Davis Vanguard, incarcerated individuals in the California Medical Facility are suffering from mental health problems due to a lockdown that was imposed in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, but has resulted in the solitary confinement of people with physical and mental health issues. • The […]
• The Atlantic published the first article in what will be a five-part series by Solitary Watch’s Jean Casella, Katie Rose Quandt, and Sarah Shourd, on the epidemic of deaths in U.S. jails. The article, written by Shourd, tells the story of two families in California who called the police for help when their sons […]
• The Associated Press reported that all federal prisons have been locked down in anticipation of the potentially violent protests that could erupt across the country on the inauguration day of Joe Biden. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has reportedly begun to move some of its Special Operations Response Team (SORT) from federal prisons to […]
• The Boston Globe reported that the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney’s office conducted an investigation, finding “reasonable cause to believe” that the Massachusetts Department of Correction (MDOC) has been violating the rights of people with mental health conditions by failing to provide them with proper care. MDOC has been placing people in […]
• The Durango Herald reported that a wrongful death lawsuit filed against Grants County, New Mexico claimed that county jail officials failed to properly monitor Fernando Rodriguez before he apparently killed himself in a solitary confinement cell. The lawsuit claims that officers failed to note his drug addiction and failed to document the needle marks in […]