Seven Days in Solitary [6/14/2015]
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.
• Clinton Correctional Facility has been under 24-hour lockdown for over a week, ever since two prisoners incarcerated at the facility escaped. The lockdown means that people are unable to leave their cells, congregate with others, or engage in the rehabilitative programming necessary to receive parole.
• At least 200 people have gone on hunger strike at Eloy Detention Center, in Arizona, in response to the recent deaths of two detainees. Jose de Jesus Deniz-Sahagún is believed by advocates and detainees to have died in solitary confinement after being beaten by guards; ICE officials have maintained that he was found dead in his cell with no signs of injury.
• The Marshall Project, in partnership with NPR News Investigations, released an investigation on those who are released to the street directly from solitary confinement. (Read Part 1 and Part 2 on the NPR website or access the project via the Marshall Project website.)
• Kalief Browder, who spent three years on Rikers Island without ever being convicted of any crime, committed suicide. His death was first reported by The New Yorker. A vigil was held for Browder in front of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Manhattan.
• A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Virginia’s automatic placement of death row prisoners in solitary confinement. The Washington Post wrote an editorial supporting the suit moving forward.
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Florida State Prison has five death row inmates in solitary confinement without any meaningful review by the Institutional Classification Team (ICT). They are told it is not punishment, but then why do they have solid doors on their cells instead of bars like the others? Also they take their recreation in individual cages, instead of on the basketball court with the others. There are rules for their reviews, but they are not followed, like so many other rules they have on the books but that are not implemented.