VERA Selects five Corrections Departments for initiative aimed at reducing the use of solitary confinement.

Mar 24 2015

NEW YORK – The Vera Institute of Justice announced today that it has selected five state and local corrections departments to participate in its Safe Alternatives to Segregation (SAS) initiative aimed at reducing their use of solitary confinement and other forms of segregated prisoner housing. The state corrections departments in Nebraska, Oregon, and North Carolina, and local departments in New York City and Middlesex County, New Jersey were chosen after a competitive bidding process.

The purpose of segregated housing is to isolate inmates deemed threats to the safety and security of facilities. But over the past three decades, departments of corrections have increasingly used it to punish disruptive but nonviolent behavior, protect vulnerable inmates, or temporarily house inmates awaiting the completion of a facility transfer. Individuals are held in segregation for days, years, and in some instances, decades.

A growing body of evidence suggests that segregation is counterproductive to facility and public safety. According to

NY Times Op Ed piece, My Night in Solitary, click the inmate to read.

one report, nearly every study of segregation’s effects conducted over the past 150 years has concluded that subjecting an individual to more than 10 days of involuntary segregation negatively impacts his or her emotional, cognitive, social, and physical well-being. Segregation is also expensive, as isolated housing can cost tens of thousands of dollars more per inmate than general population housing. READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

‘Troubling’ Use of Solitary in Federal Prisons

March 16, 2015 By Cara Tabachnick

Inmates in the federal prison system who suffer from mental illness are routinely kept in solitary confinement for extensive periods without proper treatment, according to the first-ever audit of the Bureau of Prison’s (BOP) segregation policies.

The 250-page-plus report, completed in December, but not made public until now, detailed numerous areas in which the BOP was failing its mentally ill inmates, but did not offer concrete solutions on how to alleviate the use of solitary confinement….

….A copy of the audit was obtained by The Crime Report. Among the most disturbing findings were:

A large number of inmates in solitary confinement need mental health treatment, but aren’t receiving it;
No protocol exists to identify inmates with mental illness who should be kept out of solitary confinement;
Inmates often receive a mental health diagnosis by medical students or interns who are not trained in psychiatry. Once diagnosed, they rarely receive follow-up reassessments or proper medication;
No reentry programs or means of tracking for inmates coming out of segregation exist.

The audit was conducted over a period of two years after Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) chaired the first ever hearing on segregation in the nation’s jails and prisons before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights in 2012. Read the FULL Article with links to the report here

Washington Prisons Will No Longer Punish Inmates For ‘Self-Harm’

self harm American Journal of Public Health: Solitary Confinement and Risk of Self-Harm Among Jail Inmates

Listen to full story from NW new network (NPR)

Washington’s prison system has announced a major policy change when it comes to inmates who harm themselves. The Department of Corrections said Thursday that it will no longer sanction inmates for cutting or other acts of self-injury.

Self-harm is associated with borderline personality disorder and other mental health conditions. Scott Frakes, Washington’s deputy prison director, said he’s seen it firsthand and it can be gruesome.

Until now, Washington inmates who hurt themselves were subject to discipline. Those violations could lead to segregation from other inmates and a loss of time off for good behavior.

Fox News attacks a provision of the (ACA) allowing inmates to access Medicaid

Fox News attacked a provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows certain inmates to be enrolled in Medicaid as “ridiculous and unfair to every taxpayer.” But according to health care and correctional experts, increasing access to health services reduces both the costs associated with incarceration and decreases inmates’ chances of being incarcerated again.

De-Incarceration of California youth

Radical de-incarceration article

By Mike Males

Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice

California has undertaken two gigantic experiments in de-incarceration, one of youths and the other adults. They were largely forced on the state by court mandates and budget constraints—but also by some key policy changes.

The first experiment is so radical that even the most progressive reformers could never have envisioned it. California has all but abolished state imprisonment and has sharply reduced local incarceration of youths to the lowest levels ever recorded—by far.