Off the Block
As the first of several journeys for Solitary Watch’s Alternatives Project, my colleague Aviva Stahl and I spent two weeks in Britain, visiting prisons and interviewing officials of HM Prison Service...
View ArticleHow Britain Does Supermax
What is a prison system to do with what are sometimes called the “worst of the worst” among its charges? How can prisons handle individuals who have been so violent that they cannot be housed in the...
View ArticleOpening the Door
For 13 of his 22 years in prison, Cero Smith spent 23 hours a day alone in a small concrete cell. Three times a day, a corrections officer would pass his meals through a slot in the solid steel cell...
View Article"This Is a Public Safety Approach": Solitary Confinement Reform Begins in Idaho
Kevin Kempf is the Director of the Idaho Department of Corrections. Since he first joined the DOC over twenty years ago, Kempf has served in a variety of positions, including correctional officer,...
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Chicago Jail's Quest to End Solitary Confinement Is a Work in Progress
We stood in the middle of the Cook County Jail’s Special Management Unit dayroom, its perimeter lined with cells. Five African American men sat on steel stools connected to small steel tables, each...
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Prisons’ Use of Solitary Confinement Explodes with the COVID-19 Pandemic,...
On April 1, the federal Bureau of Prisons activated its first nationwide lockdown in nearly 25 years. In an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, the nearly 146,000 men and women held in BOP...
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Digging Our Way Out of the Hole: Keeping Prisons Safe Without Solitary...
By Jeremiah Bourgeois Jeremiah Bourgeois During his 27 years incarcerated in Washington State prisons, Jeremiah Bourgeois published several articles covering prison life and criminal justice reform,...
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