Tagged: long-term solitary confinement

Prof. Michael B. Mushlin Testifies at Briefing on Solitary Confinement in CT

Michael B. Mushlin, Professor of Law at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, Scholar, and Renowned Expert on Prisoners’ Rights, testified on February 7, 2017 before the Connecticut Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as part of their scheduled Briefing on Solitary Confinement.

Prof. Mushlin has been advocating for more humane conditions in state and federal prisons and jails, he has testified in the past, and written extensively on the topic. He has been consistently calling to ban the use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails coupled with instituting an external and independent oversight to ensure the reform is sustained.

Please read his entire testimony here.

Solitary Confinement and Prisoners with Disabilities

Our blog has written on the use of solitary confinement, its impacts, and the efforts for prison reform many times.

To continue the discussion about this dark penal practice, here is a more recent report compiled and published by ACLU. It sheds the much needed light on the use and misuse of solitary confinement and prisoners with mental and physical disabilities.

This report provides a first-ever national ACLU account of the suffering prisoners with physical disabilities experience in solitary confinement. It spotlights the dangers for blind people, Deaf people, people who are unable to walk without assistance, and people with other physical disabilities who are being held in small cells for 22 hours a day or longer, for days, months, and even years.

Few statistics from the report:

  • “Nearly 50% of all suicides by incarcerated people are completed in solitary confinement.”
  • “Prisoners with disabilities are placed in solitary confinement even when it serves no penological purpose.”
  • “Approximately 80,000 to 100,000 people are held in solitary confinement in the U.S.”
  • “32% prisoners and 40% of jail detainees report having at least one disability.”
  • “Solitary confinement inflicts psychological and physical damage on human beings.”
  • “Prisoners with physical disabilities are placed into solitary confinement due to a lack of accessible cells.”

Report:

Colorado Proposes Bill Limiting the Use of Solitary Confinement for Mentally Ill

The State of Colorado is taking steps to restrict the use of solitary confinement for those with a serious mental illness. Colorado Senate Bill 14-064, A Bill for an Act Concerning Restricting the Use of Long-Term Isolated Confinement for Inmates with Serious Mental Illness, has passed through the second regular session reading and would require

the department of corrections to review the status of all offenders held in long-term isolated confinement within 90 days after the effective date of the bill.

According to the bill, if such review concludes that an inmate is suffering from a serious mental illness, the correction facility would be required to move the inmate to a mental health unit, prison hospital or other form of housing that would not include long-term solitary confinement. Further, this bill would require that any inmate would go through a mental evaluation prior to being placed in isolation.

Colorado isn’t the first state revising this long-established and controversial practice of placing inmates in solitary confinement for prolonged periods of time. In 2013, Massachusetts introduced a Bill S. 1133, An Act Relative to the Appropriate Use of Solitary Confinement, requiring that the decision to place an inmate in segregation be reviewed within 15 days of such placement and at 90 day intervals thereafter and that an inmate shall receive a written notice, a hearing at which inmate has the opportunity to dispute such placement, and a final written decision on the matter.

In California, Senator L. Lee introduced SB Bill 970 that would limit the use of solitary confinement on minors at state and county juvenile correctional facilities. This bill would

prohibit a minor or ward who is detained in, or sentenced to, any juvenile facility or other secure state or local facility from being subject to solitary confinement, unless the minor or ward poses an immediate and substantial risk of harm to others or to the security of the facility, and all other less-restrictive options have been exhausted.

And more recently on May 8, 2014, Rep. Cedric Richmond from 2d District of Louisiana, introduced H.R. 4618, Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Act of 2014, intended to develop and implement national standards for the use of solitary confinement in the Nation’s prisons, jails, and juvenile detention facilities. The recommendations include:

  • Limiting the use of segregation to only extreme and specifically defined situations;
  • Ensuring that prior to being placed in segregation, an inmate is entitled to a meaningful hearing on the reasons for and duration of the confinement;
  • Ensuring that indefinite sentencing of an adult inmate to long-term isolation will not be allowed;
  • Ensuring that inmates are afforded a meaningful review of the confinement at least once every 30 days;
  • Ensuring that prisoners and juvenile detainees diagnosed with a serious mental illness shall not be held in long-term solitary confinement;
  • Limiting the use of solitary for the purpose of protective custody only; and more.

This bill was co-sponsored by 22 other representatives from California, Illinois, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, Colorado, D.C, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, and Texas, and on May 8, 2014 it was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

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