• The Colorado Independent reported on the story of Sam Mandez, a 41-year-old man who was sentenced to life without parole under the state’s felony murder law for being the lookout at a robbery at which someone was killed. Mandez was fourteen years old at the time. Under the 2012 Supreme Court ruling that bars mandatory life […]
• According to NPR, the family of Terrill Thomas, a 38-year-old man who died of dehydration in April 2016 in the Milwaukee County Jail, will receive $6.75 million in a settlement with the county and Armor Correctional Health Services, the company operating the jail’s health care at the time. The lawsuit says, “They forced him to […]
• The Guardian reported further suppression and retaliation against incarcerated organizers of the Nationwide Prison Strike, specifically through the use of solitary confinement and long-distance transfers. According to a spokesperson for the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, “Leaders were picked off, one by one, and thrown into solitary in anticipation of the strike that was coming.” […]
• The NPR show “Hidden Brain” interviewed UC Irvine criminology professor Keramet Reiter about what happens to the mind in isolation. “Reiter says inmates living in isolation crave things we might take for granted, such as the touch of another person or the sight of the moon. They often find it hard to differentiate one […]
A new report produced by the ACLU of Nevada, Nevada Disability Advocacy & Law Center, and Solitary Watch is the first to document the scope and impact of solitary confinement in Nevada. Unlocking Solitary Confinement: Ending Extreme Isolation in Nevada State Prisons reveals the number of people held in solitary in the state’s eight state prisons, details […]
• The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Allegheny County in Pennsylvania for placing pregnant women in solitary confinement, a practice that is said to put both the mother and her child at risk. According to the lawsuit, some women have been placed in isolation in the Pittsburgh jail for relatively minor rule violations, like […]
• The Crime Report published a report from a two-day colloquium about the use of segregation that occurred last fall and involved corrections agencies, academic experts and advocates. The colloquium aimed to “further a national consensus on ending the over-use of extreme isolation in prisons.” • A Colorado statistician who accused state prison officials of manipulating statistics […]
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 Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) has established a new Administrative Regulation (AR) that eliminates “administrative segregation” in favor of “restrictive housing.” Maximum security housing status will be limited […]
The following comes from Bryan Crawley, a prisoner at Ely State Prison in Ely, Nevada. Incarcerated since 2006 and convicted in 2008 for murder, he has been held in solitary confinement for his own protection since 2009 at the maximum security facility, after three years in a debriefing program. His involvement in the debriefing program, […]
David Casper is serving a long sentence for armed robbery at Nevada’s Ely State Prison. He has made two unsuccessful escape attempts, which earned him a place in solitary confinement. According to his blog, maintained by friends on the outside, “I have actually been in Solitary Confinement for this last six years (since 2007) but […]
One of the aims of Solitary Watch News is to build an online archive of literature, drawings, and reportage by people who are, or have been, in solitary confinement. These will be compiled in the Voices from Solitary section of the site, and sometimes featured in blog posts. Readers are encouraged to send in their […]