After a Thanksgiving Day meal, “J,” who was incarcerated at North Central Correctional Institute in Massachusetts, complained of a stomach ache. His friend Carlos, who requested to be identified by his first name only, leaned down from his top bunk and rubbed J’s head jokingly. “There, there,” he said, as the men laughed. Later that […]
• USA Today published an opinion piece by solitary survivors Johnny Perez, Jack Morris, and Pamela Winn, all of whom now advocate for the rights of incarcerated people. All three recounted their own experiences being trapped in prison for the holidays. Perez, the director of the U.S. Prisons Program at the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, […]
In April 2018, advocates in Massachusetts celebrated the signing of the Criminal Justice Reform Act (CJRA), which mandated changes throughout the state’s criminal justice system. Included among the reforms were some new restrictions on the use of solitary confinement, set to go into effect at the beginning of 2019. But advocates say that instead of […]
• According to WHYY public radio, neurological researchers Michael Zigmond and Richard Smeyne have recently aimed their studies at understanding the physical impairment of the brain caused by solitary confinement. While the damaging psychological effects of isolation have been widely examined, Smeyne says that physical damage might prove more powerful than psychological damage in legal proceedings. The researchers’ […]
• The Associated Press published an anonymous firsthand account from an 18-year-old Honduran boy who experienced abuse at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center and participated in the recent lawsuit against alleged brutality and use of solitary confinement at the facility. The plaintiff reported incidents including officers withholding food and a group of officers kicking him so […]
The following account is written by Daniel Holland, who is serving a sentence of life without parole in Massachusetts at MCI Norfolk prison. After eight years of good behavior, he had earned the privilege of a single cell. But his clean disciplinary record was broken when he was placed in solitary confinement after being interrogated […]
The inmate at Massachusetts’ Norfolk Prison who blew the whistle on a sex-for-information ring operated by guards (as reported here last week) has been placed in the hole. Timothy Muise, an activist with the Lifers Group inside the prison, said in a letter that he had been visited by Assistant Deputy Commissioner Paul DiPaolo, the state official in […]
A prisoner at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk has written to Solitary Watch to report the existence of a “sex for information’’ ring run by guards within the prison. He says the existence of this hitherto unknown operation is responsible for the state’s high number of prison suicides. The inmate suicide rate in Massachusetts is four times the national […]