• The Washington Post reported that the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program sued federal immigration officials for failing to release records about the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention. The clinic’s director, Sabrineh Ardalan, stated, “There is clear evidence that long term solitary confinement has devastating effects, particularly on trauma survivors. It is essential […]
• The Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism reports that the Allegheny County Jail has put the entire population on lockdown for 23 hours a day, despite a referendum that banned the use of solitary confinement in the facility. Recently, 174 people in the facility have tested positive for COVID-19. According to Susan McCambell, president of the […]
• The Oregonian and the Oregon Capitol Chronicle both report on a lawsuit filed by the Oregon Justice Resource Center against the state Department of Corrections, seeking a 15-day limit on the use of punitive solitary confinement in the state. The current policy allows punitive segregation to 180 days. In comparison, neighboring Idaho has a 15-day […]
The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola holds more than 6,000 men, three-quarters of whom are Black, in an area larger than Manhattan. Angola, which takes its name from the slave plantation that once occupied the site, is a place synonymous with draconian sentences and nightmarish conditions. But even here, a special level of dread has […]
• On September 30th, the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) claimed that it will end the use of disciplinary segregation as punishment in prisons after determining that most individuals moved to solitary were there for nonviolent offenses, reports the Seattle Times. Although in the DOC Secretary’s statement she justified the policy change saying, “the science […]
A New Yorker article by Eyal Press looks at the work of Angela Armstrong, who has spent the past decade examining conditions inside of carceral facilities in Louisiana. This past June, she launched a revolutionary database compiling death statistics for Louisiana prisons and jails, attempting to improve transparency. Armstrong’s database reports on individuals moved to […]
• A study conducted in 2017 concluded that recent incrementalist reforms in Washington state prisons’ Intensive Management Units, where people are held for 22 hours a day in isolation, failed to alleviate the suffering of solitary confinement. In this study, published in the journal Health Justice, interviewers spoke with 183 people, both incarcerated people and staff, […]
• Although the Virginia Department of Corrections claims to be shifting their solitary confinement practice to “restorative housing,” the Virginia Coalition on Solitary Confinement and ACLU of Virginia maintain that many people are still held in isolation for 20 hours a day, the Progress-Index reports. Coalition organizer Natasha White said, “[VDOC] can claim they’ve ended solitary […]
• A group of more than 20 men at David Wade Correctional Center in Louisiana went on a hunger strike last week to call attention to the torture-like conditions they are experiencing. They are part of a program in which incarcerated people from another prison—Elayn Hunt—are sent to David Wade for intensive disciplinary segregation. The […]
• A new report found that at least 786 people died in Louisiana’s jails and prisons between 2015 and 2019. The report is the result of research conducted by Andrea Armstrong of Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and a team of law students as part of the Death Behind Bars in Louisiana project, […]
• “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 […]