News Match Doubles Donations to Solitary Watch Through December 31

by | November 14, 2017

Dear Readers, Supporters, Colleagues, and Friends:

Every year, Solitary Watch seeks to grow beyond its past achievements. Driven by the vision of tens of thousands of people still locked in solitary confinement in American prisons and jails, we try to work harder, dig deeper, and reach farther with clear, honest, and often game-changing reporting that shines a light on the darkest corners of the U.S. criminal justice system.

And every year, we push up against the inevitable limits set by our resources: Despite running a lean operation, with an impact often equal to organizations many times our size, we never have quite enough time, staff, or funding to do everything we want to do, or tell all the stories we want to tell.

NewsMatch_Logo_stackedThis is why we are so excited to announce a matching gift opportunity from News Match, a national campaign funded by the the Democracy Fund, the Knight Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation to encourage grassroots support for nonprofit news organizations like ours. Starting right now—and until the end of the year—News Match will match any donation we receive, up to $1,000 per donation.

It really cannot be overstated: This is an incredible opportunity for us, and for the thousands of advocates, lawyers, journalists, scholars, policymakers, corrections officials, concerned citizens, and incarcerated people and their loved ones who rely on the work we do. With News Match, we stand to receive thousands in additional funding to support this work. Will you please make a donation today, so you can see it matched in full?

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If you have been following our work over any of the eight years since our founding, you know that Solitary Watch has had an outsized impact on the public’s understanding of—and response to—one of our leading domestic human rights issues. Solitary confinement, once the best-kept secret of the criminal justice system, is now the subject of widespread public debate, mainstream media coverage, and, in some prison systems, the first steps toward meaningful reform.

But with at least 80,000 men, women, and children still held in solitary across the country, a great deal of work remains to be done. Our ambitious plans for 2018 include the launch of a fully searchable Solitary Confinement Resource Center, as well as the first comprehensive report on Alternatives to Solitary, which will serve as a blueprint for change. While continuing to expand our original investigative reporting, we will also grow our Lifelines to Solitary program, which brings the gift of human contact to hundreds of people in solitary confinement, and returns dozens of new “Voices from Solitary.”

All of this will be possible if we are able to raise $28,000 from individual donors—more than we have ever before raised in a year-end campaign—which will be matched by another $28,000 from our News Match partners, for a total of $56,000. Won’t you please help us reach our goal by making a fully tax-deductible donation today?

[su_button url=”https://www.newsmatch.org/organizations/solitary-watch” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#2ed992″ color=”#000000″ size=”10″ center=”yes” radius=”5″ icon_color=”#000000″ class=”font-family: Arial !important; font-size: 16px !important; font-weight: bold !important;”]Donate[/su_button]

 

We don’t often get a chance like this. Please help us tell the stories that would otherwise go untold, about a group of people who might otherwise be forgotten. Please invest in the work of Solitary Watch today.

With our gratitude and warmest wishes,
Jean and Jim
Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

James Ridgeway (1936-2021) was the founder and co-director of Solitary Watch. An investigative journalist for over 60 years, he served as Washington Correspondent for the Village Voice and Mother Jones, reporting domestically on subjects ranging from electoral politics to corporate malfeasance to the rise of the racist far-right, and abroad from Central America, Northern Ireland, Eastern Europe, Haiti, and the former Yugoslavia. Earlier, he wrote for The New Republic and Ramparts, and his work appeared in dozens of other publications. He was the co-director of two films and author of 20 books, including a forthcoming posthumous edition of his groundbreaking 1991 work on the far right, Blood in the Face. Jean Casella is the director of Solitary Watch. She has also published work in The Guardian, The Nation, and Mother Jones, and is co-editor of the book Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement. She has received a Soros Justice Media Fellowship and an Alicia Patterson Fellowship. She tweets @solitarywatch.

Help Expose the Hidden World of Solitary Confinement

Accurate information and authentic storytelling can serve as powerful antidotes to ignorance and injustice. We have helped generate public awareness, mainstream media attention, and informed policymaking on what was once an invisible domestic human rights crisis.

Only with your support can we continue this groundbreaking work, shining light into the darkest corners of the U.S. criminal punishment system.

Donate

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1 comment

  • Bette Davis

    Can you please bring attention to compassionate release?There are so many gravely ill seniors that are no threat to society and their families want them home?They don’t want to die alone in prison

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