From corrections to correcting the record, twelve prison and jail officials and administrators pushed back against Congressional narratives connecting solitary confinement to safety in a letter obtained by the AmNews penned to Sen. Dick Durbin last December.
They maintained alternative practices providing “meaningful human interaction” are safer for incarcerated people, correctional staff and the general public in response to an April 2024 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the Illinois senator chaired on potentially eliminating solitary confinement in federal facilities. In fact, the letter’s authors —which include a former head of New York State prisons — argue the practice creates, rather than resolves, safety issues.
“During that hearing, several senators on both sides of the aisle perpetuated the myth that solitary is necessary for safety in their comments and questions to the witnesses,” they wrote. “As people with extensive experience and expertise supporting the operations of prisons, jails, and related facilities, we write to correct the record.”
The United Nation’s Mandela Laws defines solitary confinement as 22 hours or more a day “without meaningful human contact.” The bylaws mandate the practice as a last resort “for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review, and only pursuant to the authorization by a competent authority.”
In practice, incarcerated individuals are typically held alone or in pairs behind cell walls, with food and medicine often passed through a slot.
Prolonged solitary confinement, defined by more than 15 consecutive days, is considered torture by the U.N. Additionally, a person’s crime or conviction should not dictate whether they should be confined.
“A lot of correctional officials will just assume that even if solitary confinement is harmful, it’s still something that’s really needed,” said Maria Morris, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “And it was very important to us to bring out the recognition that a lot of the time it’s not needed [and] done because it’s easier.
“It certainly has a surface appeal to [the] people who are running prisons and jails because it seems like putting the problem out of the way, but quite often, it doesn’t resolve any of the actual problems, and it often exacerbates them significantly.”
Morris says corrections staff employ solitary practices on incarcerated individuals for other reasons than their misconduct. She points to Arizona prisons separating people who opted into racially-integrated housing to protect them from gang-related retaliation. People who are transgender also frequently face solitary confinement for their own “protection.”
While the harms towards those subjected to solitary confinement are well-documented and include anxiety, depression and heart disease, the letter also argues the general public also suffers. The authors point to research finding higher rates of assaults on correctional officers in some solitary confinement units. Returning citizens are more likely to recidivate if they spent time in solitary and even those who do not reoffend may still subject those around them to “their trauma symptoms without any support or resources from the state.”
Retired New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) commissioner Brian Fischer signed the letter. So did Mary Buser, a former Rikers Island assistant mental health chief-turned-author and Steve Martin, who currently monitors New York City jails through a federal judge’s appointment from the Nunez class action lawsuit.
Others among the 12 who signed the letter have experience heading prison and jail systems and mental health services across the country, including a former Massachusetts Department of Correction commissioner and an ex-chief psychiatrist for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
“While [solitary confinement] is touted as a measure to stem violence, in actuality it is a perpetuator of violence,” said Buser over email. “Human beings are social creatures, in need of social interaction just as much as the need for food and water. Isolation is highly unnatural, often inducing aberrant behavior. When I worked in the Rikers Island solitary confinement unit, I looked in on continual scenes of self-mutilation, bloodstained walls and makeshift nooses.
“The degree of self-harm in solitary is staggering. People who are violent often have poor socialization skills; placing them in isolation is going in the wrong direction, only intensifying the propensity for violence toward themselves and others.”
Buser’s own experience visiting prisons in Colorado — the first state to implement humane alternatives to solitary — informed her on how separating incarcerated people from the general population without isolating them reduced assaults on staff through incentivized additional out-of-cell time.
The letter points to two other examples in San Francisco’s Resolve to Stop the Violence Program (RSVP) and the Merle Cooper program at Clinton Correctional Facility.
Expert witness Dr. James Gilligan testified during the Congressional hearing on how correctional officers initially requested transfers to other jails away from RSVP due to safety concerns. Later on, they requested to be transferred back after the program made the jail “the safest place in the whole correctional system, not just for those who have been incarcerated but also for correction officers.”
Jerome Wright, who co-directs the #HALTSolitary Campaign which successfully pushed bills limiting solitary confinement in New York state, recalls only a few small fights during his time participating in the Merle Cooper program while he was incarcerated.
“I’m gonna be fully transparent with you, there ain’t no angels in there,” said Wright over the phone. “Things happen, but it never rose to the occasion that it was going to the staff, because there’s no record of it. There [was] minimal, if any, disciplinary force given out for anything, and none for overt violence. Why? Because you were out all day. This is what works, and they know that.”
A recent highly-publicized strike among DOCCS prison staff claimed they faced more dangerous conditions due the HALT laws restricting use of solitary confinement. The state suspended certain programming tied to the legislation in response.
“People incarcerated, family members and numerous studies have all documented for decades that solitary confinement causes irreversible harm and worsens safety for everyone, while there are alternatives proven to reduce violence,” said State Sen. Julia Salazar, the law’s main sponsor in a statement. “That is why we enacted the HALT Solitary Confinement Law to replace solitary with alternative forms of separation.
“With corrections commissioners and administrators reaffirming the overwhelming evidence in this important new letter, it is imperative that New York State fully implement the HALT Solitary Law, and that jurisdictions across the country end this torturous, deadly, and violence-producing practice once and for all.”
A spokesperson for Durbin pointed to his previous statements. The Illinois senior senator held the first congressional hearing on solitary confinement back in 2012 and reintroduced a bill to limit the practice in federal prisons last year. He also pushed to end solitary confinement in immigration detention centers.
“Individuals who violate our laws must be held accountable, but they are also entitled to safe and humane detention that does not violate their fundamental civil and human rights,” said Sen. Durbin in his statement. “We know that prolonged exposure to solitary confinement can be as profound and permanent as a traumatic brain injury and can result in psychological and physical disabilities.
“Research by experts and testimony from countless people who have spent time in solitary documents how it worsens preexisting medical and mental health conditions and risks causing conditions that didn’t previously exist.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
which is amazing under a year ag0 I was j0bless in a h0rrible ec0n0my. I thank G0d every day I was blessed with these instructi0ns and n0w its my duty t0 pay it f0rward and share it with Every0ne
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As a Former Correction Officer I call bull crap on anyone who has the position that separating, isolating and confining a violent convict away from the Gen Pop. does make the facility safer these so called progressive liberals when the questions are put to them have no answers so a couple of questions from someone who was Frontline security What do you do with a Convict who viciously assaults Staff and other Convicts? What do you do with a Convict who sexual assaults, rapes Staff and other Convicts?, What do you do with a Convict who throws feces ( chit) and urine (piss) on Staff and other convicts?, What do you do with a Convict who destroys State, County, City property? What do you do with a Convict who maliciously and purposely floods his toilet with feces and urine? the real questions that should be asked is why do black males consistently and constantly exhibit this criminal, anti social and negative behaviors and show a lack of self control , respect and discipline the bottom line is some folks need to be locked up and away from society and when incarcerated need to be in a cell 23 hours a day all this human rights nonsense what about folks in society right to to live normal and peaceful lives without the cookies and ray ray criminal behavior as a 65 year old Black Man Native New Yorker I am sick and tired of the excuses folks make for this population of criminals the Victims of the criminals had rights that were violated to the 9nt degree by these criminals lastly in by 6 years of being a CO the Convicts who were placed in segregation maliciously and willfully broke the facility rules the fatigue is real.