Solitary Watch

by Gravity Switch

May 18, 2022

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by Roxanne Barnes

March 30, 2022

• The Lens NOLA reports about two bills that have been introduced in the Louisiana legislature to protect the health of incarcerated people, one to create a medical advisory council to approve  policies, and another to eliminate co-pays. In 2016 Solitary Watch’s Katie Rose Quandt and James Ridgeway wrote about substandard medical care at Angola prison […]

by Roxanne Barnes

March 23, 2022

• KTVH reports that the Montana Department of Corrections has settled a case with Disability Rights Montana, agreeing to provide people with “severe mental illness” with “appropriate care, treatment, and housing.” While the litigation was ongoing, 12 people with mental health issues died by suicide in the prison. Recently, the Western News reported on the “unreasonable […]

by Katie Rose Quandt and Allison Altshule

March 22, 2022

This article was published in partnership with Truthout. When the Omicron variant of COVID-19 spiked across the nation in late 2021, approximately 1,350 people incarcerated in the District of Columbia Jail were sequestered in solitary confinement conditions in their cells for 22 hours a day. “It was dehumanizing,” said Russell Rowe, of the repeated COVID lockdowns […]

by Mirilla Zhu

March 18, 2022

At Connecticut’s Cheshire Correctional Institution, Hamid Muhammad and his blockmates are often locked in their cells for upwards of twenty-two hours a day. The lockdowns have put tremendous stress on the men, according to Muhammad, and when they are let out, guards sometimes curse at them and encourage fights. “Tempers are raging to a boiling […]

by Roxanne Barnes

March 16, 2022

• The Colorado Sun reports that the state legislature rejected a bill that would have created a commission responsible for ensuring local jails follow protocol regarding health standards, food and visitation services, and use of solitary confinement. The legislature instead opted to send the bill for further study. Legislation that limits solitary confinement in local jails […]

by Victoria Law

March 11, 2022

In 1991, Southport Correctional Facility became New York state’s first “supermax”—a prison designed to hold people in near-total isolation. In a 2017 article, Victoria Law reported on the experience of people held there in an article for Solitary Watch. Approximately 350 men were in solitary confinement at the prison, over 90 percent of them Black […]

by Roxanne Barnes

March 9, 2022

• Reason published an article following the State of the Union about President Biden’s unfulfilled campaign promises, saying “neither the White House nor Biden had much to say about the sweeping criminal justice platform that he ran on.” The administration drafted an executive order last fall, as Solitary Watch and the Appeal recently reported, instructing that […]

by Roxanne Barnes

March 2, 2022

• A Virginia House of Delegates subcommittee voted to amend legislation that would have limited solitary confinement to 15 days to instead require that prison officials study the issue, reports the Virginia Mercury. One of the bill’s advocates, Delegate Patrick Hope, stated, “I don’t want a study, but the alternative was that this bill was going […]

by Veronica Riccobene and Jean Casella

February 28, 2022

After a bold campaign promise, the president has remained almost silent as thousands languish in solitary in federal prisons. Advocates say they remain hopeful that he will find his voice on the issue.  This story was published in partnership with The Appeal. “Biden believes no act can justify the inhumane treatment of an individual in […]

by Solitary Confinement Reporting Project

February 24, 2022

This week, The Marshall Project published a long essay by Matthew Azzano, which was written with the support of a grant from the Solitary Confinement Reporting Project, managed by Solitary Watch with funding from the Vital Projects Fund. Matthew Azzano, 24, was born and raised in Rochester, New York. After serving two years in New York prisons, he is completing a bachelor’s degree […]

by Roxanne Barnes

February 23, 2022

• The Washington Post Editorial Board published an opinion piece discussing the ongoing, 27-year solitary confinement of Dennis Hope, stating, “Solitary confinement is a sanitized term for torture.” The article describes Hope’s pleas to the Supreme Court, and highlights that the last phone call he was permitted to make was in 2013, when Hope’s mother passed […]

by Madeline Batt

February 17, 2022

Today, the Washington Post published an editorial titled “Call Solitary Confinement What It Is: Torture.” It is the strongest condemnation yet by a major national newspaper of the practice used on tens of thousands of people in U.S. prisons and jails. (Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the estimate was at least 80,000; now the number […]

by Roxanne Barnes

February 16, 2022

• The New York Times reports that in Texas, a lawsuit filed by Dennis Hope asking for relief from his prolonged isolation is headed for the U.S. Supreme Court. Hope, who is represented by the MacArthur Justice Center, has been in solitary confinement for 27 years. He was put in solitary after he escaped prison in […]

by Roxanne Barnes

February 9, 2022

• Slate and the Marshall Project co-published an article about the many individuals on death row with a history of abuse in juvenile detention, including overprescription of drugs, hostile environments, and solitary confinement. The article delves into the history of juvenile detention, describing a “narrative familiar to legal and medical experts, in which a victimizer was […]

by Voices from Solitary

February 8, 2022

About 4 AM, the lights slam on obliterating the dark from my box. I curse the inventor of the megawatt lightbulb. Breakfast is placed on the food flap ledge for me to debate whether to eat or not. What’s left is picked up 30 minutes later. 

by Roxanne Barnes

February 2, 2022

• Peter Robbins, the original voice of the Charlie Brown cartoon, died by suicide last week, reports The Mercury News. After his release in 2019, he “expressed hope that he could turn his life around after struggling for years with mental illness, addiction and “manic,” threatening behavior.” But he also described his time in prison as […]

by Roxanne Barnes

January 26, 2022

• Intelligencer published an article covering the history of the anti-solitary movement at Rikers Island, where author Matt Steib concludes, “under Mayor Eric Adams, it appears solitary isn’t going anywhere.” AMNY reported on a January 20 protest against solitary outside City Hall. In The Nation, Victoria Law interviewed Candie Hailey, who was held pre-trial in solitary […]

by Voices from Solitary

January 20, 2022

Patrick Irving, 41, has been in Administrative Segregation, a form of solitary confinement, at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna for two years. His writing is published on the website Book of Irving #82431. In March of 2021, Irving was invited to speak at the Idaho Law Review Symposium. He gave his video presentation […]

by Roxanne Barnes

January 19, 2022

• The Washington Post reported that ​​the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program sued federal immigration officials for failing to release records about the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention. The clinic’s director, Sabrineh Ardalan, stated, “There is clear evidence that long term solitary confinement has devastating effects, particularly on trauma survivors. It is essential […]

by Roxanne Barnes

January 12, 2022

• The Pittsburgh Institute for Nonprofit Journalism reports that the Allegheny County Jail has put the entire population on lockdown for 23 hours a day, despite a referendum that banned the use of solitary confinement in the facility. Recently, 174 people in the facility have tested positive for COVID-19. According to Susan McCambell, president of the […]

by Roxanne Barnes

December 29, 2021

• The Oregonian and the Oregon Capitol Chronicle both report on a lawsuit filed by the Oregon Justice Resource Center against the state Department of Corrections, seeking a 15-day limit on the use of punitive solitary confinement in the state. The current policy allows punitive segregation to 180 days. In comparison, neighboring Idaho has a 15-day […]

by Jean Casella

December 29, 2021

Dear Readers, Supporters, Colleagues, and Friends: This second pandemic year has been a difficult one for just about everyone, with political and environmental maelstroms on top of a public health crisis. Like hundreds of thousands of people around the world, all of us at Solitary Watch have also contended with an overwhelming private loss with […]

by Voices from Solitary

December 28, 2021

Henry Messenger is a writer incarcerated at Great Meadow Correctional Facility in New York. He has spent 35 years in prison, and is currently serving a five-year sentence for larceny. Messenger says he has dedicated himself to self-education, and he has written for Truthout as well as several prison newspapers. In this open letter, he […]

by Jean Casella

December 24, 2021

This is one of the first posts we ever published on Solitary Watch, twelve years ago, and we now share it with our readers every year. Once a year, we also ask you to consider supporting the work we do: shining light into the darkest corners of our punishment system, and bringing a glimmer of […]

by Jean Casella

December 23, 2021

Dear Readers, Supporters, Colleagues, and Friends: We started Solitary Watch, twelve years ago this month, simply because we felt we had no other choice. Through our reporting on the case of the Angola 3 for Mother Jones, Jim Ridgeway and I had learned about the best-kept secret of the U.S. criminal justice system: In prisons and jails […]