Back in 2016, then President of the United States, Barack Obama, called
solitary confinement “an
affront to our common humanity” and ordered the Justice Department to
implement reforms to the practice in U.S. prisons. Although just three short
years ago, in too many ways it seems a different age: We have seen a resurgence
of the “tough on crime” rhetoric that favors harsh policies and approaches that
we know don’t work. Despite these painful setbacks in other areas, the strength
of grassroots movements, political leadership, and growing public awareness
have created a robust and growing movement to end solitary conferment — known
to those of us in the justice community as Stop Solitary — dedicated to ensuring
that this torturous practice ends up in the dustbin of history where it
belongs.
In 2019, we saw national momentum to reign in the abusive use of
solitary confinement expand faster than ever before. This year was record-setting
in terms of reforms we saw introduced in state legislatures. Twenty-eight
states introduced legislation to ban or restrict solitary confinement, and twelve
states passed reform legislation: Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota,
Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Virginia. Some
of these new laws, such as those in Connecticut and Washington, present
tentative and piecemeal approaches to change. But most represent significant
reforms to existing practices that promise to facilitate more humane and
effective prisons, jails, and juvenile detention centers.
New
Jersey passed the strongest law yet in the nation, limiting the length of
solitary confinement to 20 consecutive days for all prisoners and detainees. Before
the passage of this law, New Jersey put people in solitary for months or even years
at a time. The new law ends that practice and also protects vulnerable
populations from the harms of solitary, including people under 21 and over 65, pregnant
and post-partum people and those who have recently suffered a miscarriage or
terminated a pregnancy, LGBTQ people, those with serious medical conditions, and
those with various forms of mental health or developmental disabilities.
Nebraska’s
law also stands out: It bans any practice that looks like solitary for
minors, pregnant people, and those with serious mental illness, developmental
disabilities, or traumatic brain injuries. New
Mexico also moved aggressively to ban solitary for minors and pregnant people
and ban its use on individuals with serious mental illness. Several states,
including Georgia, Texas, Montana, and Maryland
passed laws prohibiting the use of solitary on pregnant people, and Montana,
Maryland, and Arkansas
also passed prohibitions on the use of solitary confinement on minors. In
total, five states limited the use of solitary confinement on minors, and six prohibited
its use on pregnant people. We even saw this issue taken up at the federal
level, with the first briefing in the U.S. House of Representative highlighting
The
Solitary Confinement Study and Reform Act of 2019, a bipartisan bill which
would establish a national commission to study the problem of solitary
confinement and recommend national standards for reducing its use.
The one major disappointment came from New York, where the
widely-supported HALT
Solitary Bill was never brought to a vote after legislative leaders cut a
deal with New York Governor Cuomo to let the prison administrators write
their own reform policies. Those proposed
rules have already been widely panned as woefully inadequate to stop the
torture of solitary in New York State. Despite these setbacks, advocates in New
York continue to push for passage of HALT and the implementation of real reform
in the state, including a 15-day limit on solitary confinement that conforms
with the international human rights standards set forth in the United Nations
Standard Minimum Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners, now known as the Mandela Rules. If HALT
passes in 2020, New York will be the first state in the nation to incorporate
the Mandela Rules into its laws.
Advocates across the country are now gearing up to introduce more legislation to Stop Solitary and to ensure that the significant reforms passed in 2019 are actually implemented by corrections institutions as the laws require. State by state and community by community, solitary survivors, civil rights advocates, faith leaders, medical professionals, politicians, and interested members of the public are joining together to bring an end to the torture of solitary confinement in the United States. Much has changed since President Obama spoke of “our common humanity” in 2016, but that humanity remains the same. It demands that we end solitary confinement once and for all — to the protect the people it harms and the communities they will return to, but also so we can be the type of country we aspire to be.
Part of an end of year wrap-up series. Read more:
Under Attack by Trump, Immigrant Justice is Advancing in the States
In 2019, We Fought Across the Country to Dismantle Mass Incarceration. We won on Multiple Fronts
The Battle for Abortion Access is in the States
The 2020 Election Promises Record Turnout
The Death Penalty in 2019: A Year of Incredible Progress, Marred by Unconscionable Executions