On July 23, join groups around the United States in bringing awareness to the issues surrounding solitary confinement. If you are unable to join in person, please take a moment to raise awareness in your online community.
Individuals in solitary confinement are housed in tiny cells, deprived of human contact and stimulation for 23 hours each day, and held under these conditions for months…or years. Study after study has demonstrated that this prolonged state of isolation is deleterious for mental health; the United Nations has called for a ban on solitary confinement lasting longer than fifteen days. Yet we continue to use this barbaric method of imprisonment on approximately 80,000 individuals each day in the United States.
A mentally ill inmate who is under solitary confinement at the Hampton Roads Regional Jail in Portsmouth, Va., peers from behind his cell door, November 29, 2004. The Hampton Roads cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, Newport News, and Hampton contribute to the Regional Jail and often send the most intense mental cases to the jail. (AP Photo/Virginian-Pilot, Chris Tyree)
It’s time for change.
Read more about reforms to solitary confinement happening in the state of Washington.