Update, June 7, 2016: According to family members with knowledge of the situation, Tim Muise, Shawn Fisher, and Steven James were all released from solitary on May 26 and returned to general population on May 27. Muise and Fisher received disciplinary reports, dated May 22, alleging an “attempt to build a computer, which they intended […]
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. • North Carolina reached a $2.5 million settlement with the estate of Michael Kerr, who died of dehydration in 2014 after being held in solitary confinement for 35 days. • According […]
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. • The UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Crime Justice has revised its international standards for the treatment of prisoners. The rules call for solitary confinement to be limited to a […]
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. • A Massachusetts judge has tentatively approved a settlement for a class-action lawsuit that alleged abuses at Bridgewater State Hospital, including the excessive use of solitary confinement. A lead attorney […]
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. • According to the tally kept by The Miami Herald, 104 of the 166 men held captive at Guantanamo are now on hunger strike, with 44 being force-fed and one hospitalized. The New York Times reports that […]
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. • According to the tally kept by The Miami Herald, 104 of the 166 men held captive at Guantanamo are now on hunger strike, with 41 being force-fed and four hospitalized. The Miami […]
On November 27, in a ruling that may have wider implications for the use and abuse of soliary confinement in American prisons, a Massachusetts inmate won a longstanding case against the prison that illegally held him in segregation, as well as the Massachusetts Commissioner of Corrections. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts found that the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC) […]
The title of this post is the title of a new article by James Ridgeway that appears on Mother Jones and New American Media. It begins this way: William “Lefty” Gilday had been in prison 40 years when the dementia began to set in. At 82, he was already suffering from advanced Parkinson’s disease and […]
Five years ago, the Boston Globe did a comprehensive exposé on what it called the “Prison Suicide Crisis” in Massachusetts. The Globe found that prisoners in the state were taking their own lives at a rate three times the national average–and that “most of the deaths came after careless errors and deadly decisions by Department of Correction officials […]