Solitary Confinement

Long-term solitary confinement is cruel, expensive and ineffective. Isolation creates and exacerbates symptoms of mental illness in prisoners, undermining successful re-entry into society and jeopardizing public safety. Meanwhile, states that have reduced their solitary populations have saved millions and seen violence plummet.

06/05/2013

New Report Shines a Light on Solitary Confinement

By Jesselyn McCurdy, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:20am

It's estimated that more than 80,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement or restricted housing across the United States on any given day. According to a new report released last week by the U.S. General Accounting Office, it's about time the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) started evaluating its use of solitary and monitoring its effects on those prisoners.

The GAO finally released its long-awaited report on the use of solitary confinement in the federal prison system. The report, which was requested by several members of Congress, attempts to solve the mystery surrounding how many prisoners in federal prison are subjected to solitary confinement and how BOP monitors individuals while in solitary.

01/04/2013

Tamms Prison Closing

Tamms "Supermax" Prison, with its Inhumane and Ridiculously Expensive Solitary Confinement Practices, is Officially a Thing of the Past!

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project at 11:00am

Here’s to starting the New Year right. The notorious Tamms Correctional Center in Illinois, with its practice of housing human beings alone in cells for 22-24 hours per day with little or no human interaction or outside stimulus, officially shut its doors today.

06/20/2012

Solitary Confinement

An Innocent Man’s Tortured Days on Texas’s Death Row

By Anthony Graves, who spent years in solitary confinement on Texas’ death row before being proven innocent in 2010. Yesterday he testified about the experience at a Senate subcommittee hearing on solitary confinement. His website is www.anthonybelieves.com.

On November 1, 1994, I heard the gavel fall and the judge announce, “Anthony Graves, I hereby sentence you to death by lethal injection.” The jury had already convicted me of murdering six people and burning down their house down to cover up the crime. I was completely innocent: they had the wrong guy. I was scared of dying for a crime I did not commit, but I believed in my innocence and hoped someone, somewhere would make it right.

04/05/2013

Universal Human Rights

International Human Rights Body Seeking Answers on U.S. Civil and Political Rights Record

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program at 4:16pm

An international human rights body is set to question the United States on its obligations under a key human rights treaty. The U.N. Human Rights Committee, an independent body of experts tasked with monitoring compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), this week released its list of issues, which will serve as the basis for its upcoming review of U.S. compliance with the treaty. The U.S. ratified the ICCPR in 1992 and is obligated to submit to periodic reviews of its treaty implementation efforts.

03/29/2012

Solitary Confinement

"A Picture of Such Horror as Should Be Unrealized Anywhere in the Civilized World"

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project at 1:27pm

A federal court judge has put a stop to the state of Mississippi's practice of putting kids convicted as adults in solitary confinement.

12/01/2012

HIV/AIDS

Living with HIV in an Alabama Prison

By Albert Knox at 10:14am

In 2011, the ACLU and the ACLU of Alabama sued the Alabama Department of Corrections for discrimination against inmates living with HIV. Alabama is one of only two states, along with South Carolina, that continue to segregate inmates living with HIV in separate housing units and otherwise restrict their access to prison programs. We are awaiting a decision. You can read more about it here.

04/09/2013

Solitary Confinement

International Body Slams U.S. Solitary Confinement Practices

By Ian Kysel, Aryeh Neier Fellow, ACLU Human Rights Program at 5:07pm

There are more than 80,000 people in solitary confinement in the United States. Last week, the widespread misuse and abuse of solitary confinement in jails and prisons across the country drew international condemnation when the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights criticized the United States following weeks of hearings on human rights practices across the Americas region.

04/30/2012

Private Prisons

Private Prisons Are the Problem, Not the Solution

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project & Gabriel Eber, ACLU National Prison Project at 4:38pm

For the past two years, the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center have been investigating and exposing a horrifying pattern of abuse against juveniles and the mentally ill in two Mississippi prisons operated by the GEO Group, one of the biggest for-profit prison operators in the world.

Recently, we got some good news and some bad news.

09/30/2011

Solitary Confinement

97 Years in Prison for a Mentally Ill Man Who Threw Feces

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project at 12:43pm

Anthony Gay was sentenced to an incredible 97 years in prison for throwing feces out his food slot, behavior experts characterize as symptomatic for severely mentally ill people held in solitary confinement. Yesterday the ACLU joined the National Disability Rights Network, Mental Health America and many others in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in Gay's appeal, calling the sentence "an unconscionable and shocking criminalization of his mental illness."

04/29/2013

Solitary Confinement

"Reflection Cottages": The Latest Spa Getaway or Concrete Solitary Confinement Cells for Kids?

By Kiela Parks, Advocacy Associate, ACLU of Colorado at 12:06pm

When you hear the term "reflection cottage," what comes to mind? A relaxing spa getaway...

American Civil Liberties Union