This article was published in collaboration with Truthout. Anthony Gay entered prison at age 19 with a sentence of seven years. The punishment seemed harsh enough for a weaponless robbery of a hat and a single dollar. But for Gay, the seven years would turn into 97, based entirely on his behavior in prison—despite the […]
• The WAMU radio show “1A” hosted Terry Kupers, a leading expert on the psychological effects of solitary confinement, and Robert Hood, former warden of the ADX federal supermax in Florence, Colorado, for an episode addressing the reality incarcerated people face at ADX under conditions of severe isolation. Kupers, who has visited 30 supermaxes across the […]
• In These Times reported on the Operation PUSH labor strikes across Florida prisons that began on January 15 of this year, organizing against what they say is the brutality of Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) officers, poor living conditions, and unfair labor practices. Many of the participants in the work stoppage, according to the […]
• The Tribune covered a protest this weekend calling for the San Luis Obispo Sheriff Ian Parkinson to step down from his re-election campaign, after a video exposed the conditions of the death of Andrew Holland, a mentally ill man being held in custody at San Luis Obispo County Jail in California. Holland had been […]
• The Washington Post reported that federal judge Leonie M. Brinkema ruled unconstitutional the state of Virginia’s practice of placing death row individuals in solitary confinement. In 2015, Virginia allegedly stopped placing individuals with death sentences in solitary confinement, but the state had refused to maintain this prohibition. However, Brinkema, the first federal judge to determine […]
• The Connecticut Law Tribune reported the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to reverse the $62,650 reparations originally awarded to Almighty Supreme Born Allah, a man from New Britain, Connecticut, for the violation of his constitutional rights and psychological trauma inflicted by solitary confinement. Allah was subjected to solitary […]
Psychiatrist Terry Allen Kupers is one of the nation’s leading experts on the mental health effects of solitary confinement. He is also a physician for whom healing and advocacy are inseparable, and the pursuit of justice is an integral part of his service to his patients. For the past forty years, those patients have included men […]
• The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (IG) found in an investigation, released September 29, that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents failed to report to ICE headquarters when they place individuals with mental illness in solitary confinement. The investigation, according to an article by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), […]
Guest Post by Terry Kupers Dr. Terry Kupers is one of the nation’s leading experts on the psychological effects of prison isolation. A psychiatrist with a background in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, forensics and social and community psychiatry, he is on the faculty of the Wright Institute in Berkeley. The following is a brief excerpt from a chapter […]
The Center for Constitutional Rights will host a panel discussion next Tuesday in San Francisco on the subject of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. It’s free and open to the public, and Solitary Watch is a co-sponsor. Panelists include Dr. Terry Kupers, a leading expert on the psychological effects of solitary, whose writing has appeared here […]
An article about solitary confinement appears in the current issue of Psychiatric News, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association, “Psychiatrists Decry Punishment That Isolates Prisoners.” It’s encouraging to see this issue at least being discussed in a forum for the leading professional organization of American psychiatrists–which has never undertaken an official review of mental health professionals’ possible role in torture in […]