Movement to end solitary confinement gains force

Many other places, including Maine, Connecticut, Illinois, Texas and Mississippi, have revamped or reformed their solitary confinement policies in recent years. California, which has high levels of prisoners in solitary, may be the next battleground: A case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, a human rights organization, against the state for its use of prolonged solitary confinement in the notorious Pelican Bay prison will go to trial in November.

“The trend right now is to recognize that solitary is both an economically wasteful and harmful method for prisons to operate,” said Jules Lobel, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Colorado, too, is looking to drastically reduce or entirely eliminate the use of solitary confinement, especially for mentally ill inmates — who comprise at least a third to a half of those held in isolation nationwide, according to David Fahti, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project. Rich Raemisch, the new executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, recently spent 20 grueling hours in a solitary cell to get a better understanding of it, and left with “even more urgency for reform.”

The agonizing experience is hard for anyone, but for the mentally ill, it can be deadly.