The following was written by Hector Matos, who is incarcerated in the New York State prison system on manslaughter and attempted assault convictions, and has spent long stretches of time in solitary confinement on various disciplinary charges. As he describes in his piece, he believes many of these charges are the result of his hearing […]
Marshall Justice Rountree served 23 years in New Jersey’s prisons. He spent several of his years behind bars helping other incarcerated men as a prison paralegal, and built relationships with advocacy networks and organizations. Rountree believes these activities led to him being targeted and placed in solitary confinement. Immediately upon his release in June of this year, Rountree […]
Every year, thousands of human beings in solitary confinement reach out to Solitary Watch through the old-fashioned practice of letter-writing. Through our Lifelines to Solitary project, supported largely by donations from our readers, we are able to send these individuals quarterly newsletters and holidays cards, and have even been able to connect some of them with pen pals in the […]
Francis Bauer Harris has been on Death Row at Greene State Correctional Institution for 19 years. He was convicted of first degree murder in 1997, though he continues to maintain his innocence. On Death Row, Harris spends 23 to 24 hours a day in solitary confinement. According to a friend with whom he corresponds, “he feels […]
In 2004, Mathew Davis was arrested in Alton, Illinois, and charged with first degree murder. He was twenty-four years old. By his own account, while awaiting trial, Davis was held without bond for two years in a “strip cell,” a 6×4-foot concrete cell with no clothing, furniture or bedding, 24-hour artificial light, and only a […]
Thomas Bartlett Whitaker is serving time in solitary confinement on Death Row at the Polunksy Unit in Livingston, Texas, after being convicted in 2007 of hiring a gunman to kill his family. While in prison, Whitaker, now 36, completed a bachelor’s degree in English and sociology, graduating summa cum laude, and he is studying toward a master’s […]
The Correctional Association of New York recently released Voices from Clinton, a report detailing the abuse and isolation many of the incarcerated people at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, face. (See accompanying post.) The report follows how punishments and brutality at an already notoriously violent prison have become worse since an escape made by […]
In 2008, the federal Bureau of Prisons passed a policy prohibiting the use of restraints on women in custody who are in labor, delivery or postpartum recovery. In 2009, Texas passed a law banning the use of shackles on incarcerated pregnant women during labor, delivery and postpartum recovery. But, as both the ACLU of Texas and […]
Jacob Barrett is an Oregon state prisoner who was transferred to Florida under the Interstate Corrections Compact. He was held in the Intensive Management Unit in Oregon, and then in Close Management in Florida—both euphemism for solitary confinement. Barrett has served two decades of a life sentence for a murder committed when he was 19 years […]
The following is a collection of excerpts from an interview with Johnny Perez, who went to prison at the age of 21 and served a total of 13 years in various New York City and State facilities. He spent an accumulated three years in solitary confinement, with his longest consecutive stay being ten months. Since his 2013 release, Perez […]
The following account is by Casha Russell, who has spent the past eight months in the segregation unit at Illinois’s Logan Correctional Facility, a women’s prisons three hours south of Chicago. Russell was sentenced to one year in segregation for allegedly burning her wife and co-defendant with hot water. (Both Russell and her wife insist […]