• Episode 235 of the Hard Luck Show podcast illustrates the history of solitary confinement and gang affiliation, centering voices from Unlock the Box; California Families To Abolish Solitary Confinement; University of California, Irvine Law School; Criminology, Law and Society Professor Keramet Reiter; and Legal Coordinator & Youth Mentor Michael Saavedra. The podcast is intended to […]
• An ACLU press release condemns the use of solitary confinement in ICE detention, citing a recently published report from the Department of Homeland Security on the lack of oversight and transparency for isolation policies in ICE facilities nationwide. The ACLU outlines how ICE frequently fails to document its use of solitary, and fails to follow […]
• A Kaiser Health News report co-published with NPR details the trauma that survivors of solitary confinement carry with them years after their imprisonment. Pamela Winn, founder of nonprofit RestoreHER, which fights against mass-incarceration, describes her lasting mental health effects from spending eight months in solitary confinement. Her time in solitary continues to make it difficult […]
• 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 federal lawsuit alleges that men held in solitary confinement in Georgia State Prison are dangerously deprived of adequate mental healthcare, reports News Channel 9. Filed on September 10, the proposed class-action lawsuit seeks “to stop prison officials from isolating people in deplorable conditions.” In the last two years, at least 12 people in […]
• On September 10th, National Suicide Prevention Day, Unlock The Box will be held a vigil on Twitter to “to honor those ”who died by suicide both in and out of solitary confinement.” Unlock the Box invited people to fill out a form so that loved ones could be recognized and honored, and provided this link […]
• An opinion piece in USA Today reports that low rates of vaccination among prison staff nationally are driving COVID outbreaks in prisons. The authors of the piece work with the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project, which found that fewer than half of prison staff had been vaccinated, despite the fact that the […]
• “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 […]
• Brian Nelson spent 23 years of his 28-year sentence in solitary confinement, many of them in the notorious Tamms supermax state prison in Illinois, which has since been closed. After his release, Nelson dedicated himself to advocating for the rights of people in prison through his work with the Uptown People’s Law Center in […]
The following piece is written by Juan Moreno Haines, an award-winning journalist incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. Haines is an editor at the San Quentin News, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, a past recipient of a Solitary Confinement Reporting Project grant, and a Contributing Writer at Solitary Watch. Since the COVID-19 […]
The following is a brief excerpt from an article published in City Limits, tracing the struggle of returning to society in New York City with sparse resources to heal the layers of trauma accumulated through years in solitary confinement in New York state prisons. The article was written by Roshan Abraham with the support of a grant from […]