• In an article in The Conversation, a clinical psychologist who has conducted neuroscience research in a Connecticut state prison points out that solitary confinement “can lead to hallucinations, fantasies and paranoia; it can increase anxiety, depression and apathy as well as difficulties in thinking concentrating, remembering, paying attention and controlling impulses,” which not only lessen […]
At the Lincoln Hills School for Boys (LHS), a juvenile correctional facility in far northern Wisconsin, two entire buildings called the Krueger Unit and the Roosevelt Unit exist solely for the purpose of holding children in solitary confinement for 22 to 23 hours a day. Each unit holds two-dozen isolation cells, which measure seven by […]
Perhaps no story captures the injustice and horror of juvenile solitary confinement more than that of Kalief Browder, the Bronx sixteen-year-old who was wrongfully accused of stealing a backpack in 2010 and spent three years on Rikers Island awaiting trial. Two of his three years on Rikers were spent in solitary confinement, where Kalief was […]
Just east of Capitol Hill, on 19th Street between D and E streets, lies a complex of reddish brown concrete buildings. These are the District of Columbia’s jail facilities – the Central Detention Facility (CDF) and The Central Treatment Facility (CTF). Along with some 2,000 adults, these buildings house children under the age of 18 who have […]
CHILDREN IN LOCKDOWN One of this year’s Molly Prizes–named for the late journalist Molly Ivins, and sponsored by the Texas Observer–has gone to a powerful story about teenagers held in solitary confinement in adult jails in Texas, before they have been tried or convicted of any crime. Chris Vogel’s story “For Their Own Good” appeared […]
Yesterday, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) issued a compilation of staggering statistics on the criminalization of people with mental illness in the United States. As NAMI points out, “Over the past 20 years, state spending on correctional systems has increased 350 percent from $10 billion to $45 billion,” while the same states have cut […]
Photogapher Ara Oshagan‘s powerful series “Juvies” documents “high-risk juvenile offenders being tried as adults in California.” It includes many images of teens in isolation, sometimes accompanied by their writings. View the entire series here.
CHILDREN IN LOCKDOWN “Across the United States, the brutal and dysfunctional juvenile justice system sends queer youth to prison in disproportionate numbers, fails to protect them from violence and discrimination while they’re inside and to this day condones attempts to turn them straight,” writes Daniel Redman in a powerful article on LGBT youth behind bars, which appeared […]
CHILDREN IN LOCKDOWN A story by Scott Christiansen that appeared in June in the Anchorage Press is significant not only because it describes the case of a 16-year-old who spent 500 days in pre-trial solitary confinement. It’s significant because this case, according to the paper, “has a chance to reform the way Alaska treats young offenders who’ve been waived […]
Guest Post by David Chura Editors’ Note: David Chura has spent forty years working with–and writing about–“kids in the system”: at-risk children in foster care, group homes, homeless shelters, psych hospitals, drug rehab, special education, and alternative high schools, as well as in juvenile and adult corrections facilities. (Chura’s blog is kidsinthesystem.wordpress.com.) As a teacher in […]