Seven Days in Solitary [09/24/2017]

Our Weekly Roundup of News and Views on Solitary Confinement

by | September 24, 2017

• Texas announced it was ending the use of punitive segregation in its facilities, and will instead rely on other restrictions – like loss of good time, commissary or phone privileges – to deal with bad behavior. The decision will not affect the 4,000 or so people currently held in administrative segregation in the state.

• The Onondaga County Legislature voted to ban the use of youth solitary confinement in all its detention centers and jails. Earlier this summer, the county settled a lawsuit that alleged it relied excessively on the use of solitary for children.

• A man who was wrongfully convinced and spent nine years behind bars is suing the City of Detroit as well as two police officers. Davontae Sanford’s attorney, Bill Goodman, told a local outlet, “[Sanford] spends 9 of them in an adult prison as a 14 year old kid, much of that time in solitary confinement.”

• A North Dakota woman has secured a settlement from a local county and police department after they failed to provide her with the sign language interpreter she needed. After Christine Stein called 911 to report a man who was threatening to kill himself, she was arrested instead, and held in solitary confinement.

• The Colorado Department of Corrections has received $10.6 million from the state to temporarily lease a private prison, in order to address overcrowding within existing facilities. The Centennial Correctional Facility-South, in Cañon City, CO, remains shuttered because it was designed to hold people in solitary confinement; despite requests from the Department of Corrections, the state has declined to renovate the facility, and is instead investigating other approaches to reducing the prison population.

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1 comment

  • Melissa

    Solitary confinement needs to stop .I differently agree that Dennis hope needs to get out of the hole .He will spend his natural life in prison so why do they have a 6 month review if they keep them lockup all the time.Yes he did escape but no one was killed so why put him in solitary for 25 years.Solitary will make a normal person go crazy because they do not have any contact with anyone except the cos.That is differently not a way of life.I think if he is acting on good behavior the doc should try to put him in gp.But I agree that if you do something like escape from prison in Texas they will make your life a living hell.I mean look at the Texas 7 they escape and before they were captured Texas added life sentences to everyone.

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