• The New York Times reported that New York City settled the civil rights and wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Kalief Browder, and agreed to pay $3.3 million. Browder, arrested for stealing a backpack when he was 16 years old, committed suicide after being released from nearly three years on Rikers Island, […]
• Courthouse News reported that two lawsuits have been filed in the past few weeks against Alameda County in California over conditions at Santa Rita Jail and Glen Dyer Detention Facility. Three women held in the custody of Santa Rita Jail claim that they are being subjected to severe sleep deprivation, which they say has […]
• KOB4 reported that Keith Kosirog and Adonus Encinias, two men held in solitary confinement at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas, committed suicide last Sunday. Albuquerque attorney Matt Coyte, who has represented individuals held in solitary, noted that evidence showed Kosirog had a psychiatric disability. Coyte expressed disappointment that Gov. Susana Martinez had vetoed […]
• Crosscut reported that Amar Mergensana, a 40-year-old asylum seeker from the Russian Republic of Buryatia in Siberia, died this week after he committed suicide in the custody of Northwest Detention Center, an ICE facility operated by GEO Group in Tacoma, Washington. The immigrant advocacy organization NWDC Resistance called for an investigation into his death, claiming […]
• Lawyers for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is currently held in solitary confinement in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, have filed papers asking that their client be transferred to general population and be granted visiting privileges to speak to his wife. According to CNN, “During the week, Guzman spends 23 hours […]
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. • Advocates and advocates gathered on Rikers Island to demand justice for Kalief Browder, a 22-year-old who committed suicide after spending three years at the jail, including 400 days in […]
In a follow-up to a recent ruling by a federal judge that prisoners at Tamms state supermax in Illinois do not receive due process, the Belleville News-Democrat reports on some significant features of the judge’s written decision. As George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsforfer write, the judge’s statement supports researchers’ findings that extended solitary confinement not only exacerbates mental illness, but causes […]
A federal judge yesterday ruled that current procedures for sending prisoners to the Tamms Correctional Center in southern Illinois–and keeping them there indefinitely–is in violation of the 14th Amendment to U.S. Constitution, which guarantees due process of law. The judge ordered that significant changes be made at the notorious state supermax. George Pawlaczyk, whose award-winning coverage last year exposed […]
Some of the best reporting on solitary confinement last year came from Beth Hundsdorfer and George Pawlaczyk at the Belleville News-Democrat, a regional paper in southwestern Illinois. Their multi-part series on the state’s twelve-year-old supermax prison, “Trapped in Tamms,” appeared in the paper in August. Their expose was particularly damning on the treatment of mentally ill inmates at Tamms. In a […]