American Civil Liberties Union

In New York’s prisons, people caught with too many postage stamps in their cells can land a stint in extreme isolation – the harshest possible punishment in the state prison system.

Extreme isolation – locking one or two people in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day under conditions commonly understood as solitary confinement – should never be a disciplinary tool of first resort. In fact, the cruel and ineffective practice should be eliminated all together.

At its meeting in Pittsburgh earlier this month, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted by an overwhelming margin to accept a resolution recognizing that the use of solitary confinement can be a form of torture.

This is a good week in Illinois. Yesterday, Gov. Pat Quinn announced that he would close the “supermax” facility at Tamms Correctional Facility, where prisoners are held in long-term solitary confinement.

The first-ever (and long-overdue) congressional hearing on solitary confinement convenes tomorrow, June 19, at 10 a.m. before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. You’ll be able to watch a webcast of the hearing on the Senate website, and follow our live tweeting using #stopsolitary.

Among others, the committee will hear from Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps, who is rethinking the use of solitary in Mississippi correctional facilities; Anthony Graves, who spent years in solitary on Texas’ death row before being exonerated; Dr. Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz who has studied and written about psychological trauma among prisoners held in long-term solitary confinement; and Pat Nolan of the Justice Fellowship/Prison Fellowship Ministries, a leader in the conservative movement for criminal justice reform.