• The Texas Tribune reported that of the people in prison who have been tested for the coronavirus, 70 percent have tested positive. Only one percent of the prison population, or 1,700 people, has been tested but the percentage of positive results far outweighs the ten percent of Texas residents throughout the whole state whose […]
As they shelter in place to impede the spread of COVID-19, millions of Americans across the country have been given just a glimpse of the isolation, idleness, and deprivation faced by tens of thousands of incarcerated men, women, and children held in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention centers. Unlike those held in […]
Mwalimu S. Shakur was in Pelican Bay State Prison’s notorious Security Housing Unit in 2013, when tens of thousands of people incarcerated throughout California launched a mass hunger strike. He and others were protesting the polices of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) around indefinite isolation in solitary confinement (also known as indeterminate […]
• The Washington Post reported that attorneys visited the DC jail unannounced last week under a court order to inspect the conditions and health care precautions being taken. Of the 1,442 people held in DC custody, 452 people—or one-third—are held in isolation, where they are prohibited from showering or cleaning their cells. One of the […]
Incarcerated journalist Juan Moreno Haines is the Senior Editor of the San Quentin News. In 2017, Haines received the Silver Heart Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. This article was produced with a grant from the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project, which is managed by Solitary Watch with funding from the Vital Projects Fund. An illustration by O. […]
Dear Friends, Supporters, and Readers: In recent months, a lot of well-deserved recognition has gone to whistleblowers—those courageous individuals who, often at great risk to themselves, take steps to expose corruption and abuse that would otherwise remain hidden from public view. In an era rife with secrets and lies, whistleblowers are rightly being celebrated for […]
• The North Carolina Health News reported that Mecklenburg County jail has opened its first psychiatric unit, as a voluntary therapeutic alternative to solitary confinement for people with mental illness. Sergeant Charles Pearson said, “Some of them… they can’t function in another pod, they can’t be around a lot of people, they can’t follow orders. They […]
Books and other reading materials are of special value to people held in solitary confinement. They provide an opening to the world beyond their four gray walls, a connection to the thoughts, words, ideas, feelings, experiences, and insights of other human beings that, for a time, can relieve the endless isolation and boredom of solitary. In […]
The following is an excerpt from the report Louisiana on Lockdown, published this past June in a collaboration between Solitary Watch, the ACLU of Louisiana, and the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University New Orleans, with Solitary Watch’s Katie Rose Quandt as the lead author. For the report, the authors conducted the largest survey ever made […]
• As NorthJersey.com reported, Governor Phil Murphy signed the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, hailed as “the strongest legislation restricting solitary in the nation,” by ACLU of New Jersey Executive Director Amol Sinha. The bill, taking effect next year, will ban solitary confinement for longer than 20 consecutive days and prohibit the isolation of youth, elderly people, pregnant […]
WASHINGTON, DC, April 9—Solitary Watch today announced the recipients of the first grants awarded by the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project. The new grants program, which is funded by the Vital Projects Fund and administered by Solitary Watch, will fund 14 projects in a variety of media that examine the use of solitary confinement across the U.S. […]