• Sara “Mariposa” Fonseca, who has been incarcerated for eighteen years in the California state prison system, including several years in solitary confinement, will be released from prison on September 11, 2020. During her lonest stinct in solitary, Fonseca wrote a play about her experience, in partnership with artist and activist Julia Steele Allen, called Mariposa […]
• According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, solitary confinement remains the only housing option for many incarcerated transgender people, unless they choose to stay in a general population of the opposite gender. Kamiah Kahanel, a transgender woman held in the male Nottoway Correctional Center in Virginia, was attacked by an incarcerated man, who cut her face and […]
Last week we wrote about the dramatic increase in the use of solitary confinement currently underway on Rikers Island. By the end of this year, Rikers will have close to 1,000 “punitive segregation” units for a population of 12,700 inmates–giving the island prison one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the country (and […]
Two recent stories in the New York City media delve into the controversy surrounding the lack of an emergency evacuation plan for Rikers Island. Solitary Watch’s original story on this subject went viral in the days leading up to Hurricane Irene. In our follow-up we cited the response from the New York City Department of Corrections, […]