This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary held a hearing on solitary confinement. Titled Legacy of Harm: Eliminating the Abuse of Solitary Confinement, the hearing opened with remarks from solitary survivor Damon Thibodeaux, who stated, “life in solitary is made all the worse because its often a hopeless existence.” Over the next two hours, the committee heard testimony from witnesses regarding the conditions of solitary confinement and the longstanding mental, physical, and psychological harm it causes. United State ..read more

This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: A new report from the Vera Institute of Justice and Black & Pink documents the disproportionate abuse faced by transgender incarcerated people. Of the 280 respondents across 31 states, 90 percent stated they had been placed in solitary confinement. Current housing policies inadequately address the needs of transgender incarcerated people, and reforms are difficult to implement due to the group’s unique needs. While 66 percent of incarcerated trans women say they wish to be housed in women’s facilities, so do 58 percent of ..read more

New this week from Solitary Watch: Xandan, a trans-masculine writer incarcerated in Texas, has been in solitary confinement for over seven years due to his gender identity and as retribution for his journalism exposing the inhumane conditions faced by transgender incarcerated people. As a 2023 recipient of a Ridgeway Reporting Project grant, Xandan’s latest article “The Horrific Reality of Transgender Individuals in Texas Prisons,” was published in The Advocate. In addition to the article’s searing descriptions of his life in solitary confinement, Xandan also shared with Solitary Watch the dia ..read more

Xandan is a female-to-male trans person and writer who is incarcerated in Texas state prison. Xandan has been held in solitary confinement for over seven years due to his gender identity and as retribution for his published exposés that unveil the inhumane conditions that transgender prisoners face. Some of his articles can be found in the San Francisco Bayview, Texas Letters Project, Southern Cultures Journal, and Prison Insider. As a 2023 recipient of a Ridgeway Reporting Project grant, Xandan’s latest article, “The Horrific Reality of Transgender Individuals in Texas Prisons,” was published ..read more

In her seventeen years incarcerated, Kwaneta Harris has spent the last eight years in solitary confinement in Texas state prison and is currently held at Lane Murray Unit. Her powerful and shocking stories expose how the intersections of gender, race, and place contribute to state-sanctioned, gender-based violence. As a mother and former nurse, she has a personal commitment to illuminating how the experience of being incarcerated uniquely impacts women. When she is not writing, Harris shares liberatory knowledge on reproductive justice with the other women in her unit. Photo by Ariana Gomez fr ..read more

This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: A recent report from the Council for Court Excellence (CCE) paints a grim picture of the ongoing use of solitary confinement by the Washington, D.C., Department of Corrections. The majority of people at the D.C. jail are being held in pre-trial detention, meaning they’ve yet to be convicted of a crime. However, despite submitting multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests, CCE was only able to obtain limited information on the number of people in and conditions of solitary confinement at the jail. Washington City Pape ..read more

New this week from Solitary Watch: William Blake lived in solitary confinement for 34 years while incarcerated in the New York state prison system, an experience he wrote in the viral essay “A Sentence Worse Than Death.” In 2021, he was released into the general population without receiving any transitional support or mental health treatment for the three decades of torture he endured while in solitary. According to Blake, now 60, six months ago he experienced a psychotic break from the untreated effects of solitary which landed him back in isolation at Attica Correctional Facility. In the lat ..read more

In 2021, after 34 years of living in solitary confinement in New York state prisons, William Blake was released into general population. Solitary Watch first encountered Blake, now 60, back in 2013, when we published his essay “A Sentence Worse Than Death.” The essay received more than half a million hits on this site alone, and has been widely reprinted and translated into several languages. Since that first publication, Blake has continued to write about his experience in solitary confinement.  Blake says he was never provided any mental health treatment for the three decades of torture ..read more

More than 9 percent of Black men in Pennsylvania were imprisoned in solitary confinement for 15 days or more before they reached the age of 32, according to a 2021 study conducted at Columbia University. The study’s authors believe their findings likely apply to the broader United States as well. This means nearly one in ten Black men nationally has subjected to conditions that have been defined as torture by the United Nations, and shown to cause psychological damage, suicide, and PTSD.  This is only one of many numbers showing a grossly disparate use of prison isolation on Black people ..read more

This week’s pick of news and commentary about solitary confinement: The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is being called “an agency in crisis” after a series of recent reports by government watchdogs. Washington Post | One, by the Justice Department’s Inspector General, revealed that the prison system struggles to keep people in its facilities alive. According to the report, 344 people died by homicide, suicide, accidents, and drug overdoses while in BOP custody between 2014 and 2021. Of the incarcerated people who died by suicide, about half died in solitary confinement. Department of Justice ..read more