• Sixty-one-year-old Eldon Lee Jackson died at Harris County Jail in Texas this week, one day after being placed in solitary confinement. The Houston Chronicle reported that Jackson, who had a history of threatening suicide, was found unconscious in his cell with a noose around his neck. • The Carrizales-Rucker Detention Center in Cameron County, Texas, […]
The following article originally appeared on Counterpunch. A Solitary Watch investigation into the sites of the federal government’s two “supermax” facilities—the first open for two decades, the second slated to open soon—reveals a number of possible serious environmental hazards. The prisons, ADX Florence in Colorado and AUSP Thomson in Illinois, are built to hold men […]
Prison officials across the country dedicated themselves to reducing the use of solitary confinement as they released a ground-breaking survey showing as many as 100,000 people were in solitary as of last fall. “Prolonged isolation of individuals in jails and prisons is a grave problem in the United States,” said a press release by the […]
Much has been written of late about the emergence of a bipartisan consensus on the need for criminal justice reform, encompassing both the White House and Congress. If this is true, the President and members of Congress would do well to start their reform efforts close to home, at the District of Columbia jail. The […]
Guest Post by Michael B. Mushlin Michael Mushlin, professor at Pace Law School, has a long history of involvement with prisoners rights as a lawyer and legal scholar. He has lectured and published widely on the subject and is author of the four-volume Rights of Prisoners. He serves on the board of the Correctional Association of New York, […]
A long-awaited audit of the use of solitary and other forms of isolated confinement in the federal Bureau of Prison (BOP) recommends minor reforms while affirming the overall legitimacy and efficacy of a system that holds more than 10,000 people in extreme isolation. At 242 pages in length, the Federal Bureau of Prisons: Special Housing Unit Review […]
On Friday, December 19th, hundreds packed into the audience at a meeting of the New York City Board of Correction (BOC), the body that oversees New York City’s jail system. At issue was the use of solitary confinement on Rikers Island—specifically, whether to move forward with a new, highly-restrictive Enhanced Supervision Housing unit (ESHU). The […]
Update, 8/22/14: On Thursday, August 21, the New York City Council passed legislation introduced by Councilman Danny Dromm of Queens that would require corrections officials to release quarterly reports documenting information about inmates being held in solitary confinement at Rikers Island jail. Presenting this information to the New York City Board of Corrections would create increased transparency […]
In March, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed reformer Joseph Ponte as the Commissioner of the Department of Correction. In his last post, overseeing Maine’s Department of Corrections, Ponte gained particular renown for reducing the use of solitary confinement by over 60 percent. In fact, the changes he helped bring about in Maine […]
Presumably spurred by the growing attention to solitary confinement, Corrections Corporation of America has produced a promotional piece on how it is “strategically serving” those it places in solitary. The article, which appeared recently in the companies online publication InsideCCA, claims that the company is “Thinking Outside the Box” when it comes to the use […]
The following essay appeared as a guest post on the “Speaking of Medicine” blog published by PLOS (Public Library of Science.) There are 2.3 million people in US prisons in conditions that are often inhumane and at worst life threatening. An estimated 80,000 of US prisoners are locked up in solitary confinement, which means in […]
The following roundup features noteworthy news, reports and opinions on solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in other Solitary Watch posts. • In early January, a South Carolina judge ruled that the treatment of individuals with mental illness in state prisons was unconstitutional – particularly the disproportionate use of solitary […]