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New ACLU Report Examines Devastating Impact of Solitary Confinement on Women
Photograph by Richard Ross. Today, the ACLU released Worse than Second Class: Solitary Confinement of Women in the United States. Recognizing that women in solitary are often ignored, the report...
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On the Way to Solitary, Women in Massachusetts Jail Get Strip Searched and...
“When women are moved to the Segregation Unit for mental health or disciplinary reasons, they are strip searched. With four or more officers present, the inmate must: take off all her clothes, lift her...
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Transgender Women in New York State Prisons Face Solitary Confinement and...
A SOLITARY WATCH INVESTIGATION Michelle Scott worries about her child, Carey Smith, a transgender woman being held in solitary confinement in a men’s prison. It was Gay Pride weekend in New York City,...
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Civil Rights Groups Demand Change for Transgender Women Held in Solitary in...
Update, 8/20/14: Yesterday, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project released a new call to action to “Demand Safer Housing for Trans People in New York State Prisons.” After once again citing our investigation,...
View ArticleCruel and Usual: U.S. Solitary Confinement
The title above is the title of the article we wrote for Al Jazeera English, which ran as a feature today on their web site. It begins as follows; please use the link at the end to read the full piece....
View Article“The Destruction of the Human Spirit”: Testimony of Rev. William McGarvey on...
Reverend William McGarvey, a member of the national board of More Light Presbyterians and former chair for the Justice, Advocacy and Caring Committee of the Presbytery of San Francisco, spoke at the...
View ArticleAbu Ghraib on the Allegheny: Sexual and Physical Abuse at Pennsylvania Prison
A story out of Pennsylvania reveals the extreme abuse to which some U.S. prisoners are subjected. Yesterday, a suspended prison guard from the State Correctional Institution (SCI)-Pittsburgh was...
View ArticleThe Silent, Terrifying World of a Deaf Prisoner
My article “The Silent Treatment” appeared on the Mother Jones website a few days ago. It tells the story of Felix Garcia, a deaf man framed by his own siblings for a murder he did not commit, and...
View Article“Complete Lawlessness” at Orleans Parish Prison
Check out our latest piece over at MotherJones.com, on a new lawsuit filed on behalf of inmates at New Orleans’ main jail. Here are some excerpts: As hellholes go, there are few worse places in America...
View ArticleTransgender Immigrant Detainees Locked in Solitary Confinement
Today’s Advocate has an excellent article by Andrew Harmon, dissecting the abuses faced by transgender detainees in Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. It begins with the story of a...
View ArticleChildren Spend Months in Solitary Confinement in Texas Jails
A new report produced by researchers at the University of Texas’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs describes conditions faced by children who are “certified” for transfer to adult criminal...
View ArticleKids in Solitary Confinement: America’s Official Child Abuse
The title of this post is the title of our most recent piece for The Guardian. It draws on a new report released yesterday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, titled Growing...
View ArticleNew Video: Dr. Terry Kupers on Solitary Confinement and Mental Health
Dr. Terry Kupers, Institute Professor at the Wright Institute in San Francisco and Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, is among the foremost national experts on the...
View ArticleThe Ten Worst Prisons in America
“The Ten Worst Prisons in America,” our eleven-part article, premiered yesterday over at MotherJones.com with the notorious ADX Florence federal supermax. A new worst prison will be published each...
View ArticleDeaf Prisoners in Florida Face Abuse and Solitary Confinement
In the a Florida prison called the Reception and Medical Center, a corrections officer appears at a cell door and begins mocking fake sign language to the man inside, who is deaf. Then he pulls Sam...
View ArticleWomen in Solitary Confinement: “The Isolation Degenerates Us Into Madness”
A mass prisoner hunger strike rocked California’s prison system this past summer, drawing international attention to the extensive use of solitary confinement in the United States. Increasingly,...
View ArticleWomen in Solitary Confinement: Sent to Solitary for Reporting Sexual Assault
It seems absurd that a person who has been sexually assaulted would be punished for speaking up, especially since prison policy prohibits sexual contact between staff and the people whom they guard....
View ArticleWomen in Solitary Confinement: Buried Inside the Federal Prison System
This past September, in response to continued criticism around its use of solitary confinement, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) began an internal audit of its “restricted housing operations.” As...
View ArticleSeven Days in Solitary [1/26/14]
The following roundup features noteworthy news, reports and opinions on solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in other Solitary Watch posts. • In early January, a South...
View ArticleVoices from Solitary: Injury x Insult
The following is a compilation of writings by Geri Erwin, who is serving 25 years to life on a second-degree murder charge. Erwin is a transgender woman involved in various facets of activism regarding...
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