Solitary confinement can eat away at someone's mind, making mental illness worse and leaving many people depressed, suicidal, hopeless or hallucinating. It's no place for individuals with mental illness.
In 1995, a federal court in California agreed. After a trial exposing the appalling conditions at Pelican Bay—the state's most notorious, all-isolation, supermax prison and the site of repeated hunger strikes—a all mentally ill prisoners out of the prison's security housing unit (SHU) in a case called Madrid v. Gomez.
But, because of the sometimes frustratingly limited nature of legal decisions, this judge's order only impacted Pelican Bay. While Pelican Bay has for years been notorious for its conditions of extreme isolation—leading thousands of prisoners across California to participate in , some for as long as two months—it is the only California prison in which prisoners with mental illness may not be held in solitary confinement as a matter of law. This means that seriously mentally ill prisoners all over California continue to be held in long-term solitary confinement, even though the Madrid order prohibits those conditions for the mentally ill at Pelican Bay.
It's time to change that. Today in Sacramento, key witnesses, including experts in psychology and corrections practices, will take the stand in support of the first statewide case aimed at getting all mentally ill people in California out of solitary confinement. The case is called Coleman v. Brown, and beginning today these experts will help to expose the extreme and sometimes irreversible damage of holding people with mental illness in solitary confinement.
The Coleman plaintiffs have marshaled stunning evidence to support their claims that all California prisons must remove mentally ill prisoners from solitary confinement. Statewide, according to case filings, about 9 percent of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's (CDCR) approximately 123,600 total prisoners are held in some form of segregated housing—but that number includes 21 percent of mentally ill prisoners system-wide. This means that mentally ill prisoners in California are held in disproportionately high numbers in solitary confinement. Even more alarming is evidence uncovered by the Coleman plaintiffs showing the dramatically heightened suicide rate among prisoners in segregated housing: in 2011, more than one third of all suicides in CDCR facilities took place in segregation units; more than half of the individuals who committed suicide in the first half of 2012 were housed in segregation; and 58 percent of the 19 people who have taken their life to date in 2013 occurred in segregation units.
These disproportionately high instances of suicide are unfortunately not surprising to those familiar with the harms of solitary confinement. Psychological studies consistently show that solitary confinement can wreak distinctive harms on prisoners, including heightened symptoms of hopelessness, depression, hallucinations, self-mutilation, suicidal ideation, and suicidal acts. And a noted a striking correlation between segregated housing and prison incident reports of self-mutilation and suicide.
Although the harms of solitary confinement for mentally ill prisoners are well known, many states, including California, have been slow to catch up to the growing trend against prolonged solitary. Across the country, corrections departments, judges, activists, prisoners and their families alike will be watching to see if the Eastern District of California holds that the CDRC must forbid the housing of mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement. If the court holds that it must, then California—and the rest of the country—will be forced to rethink its statewide policies governing the use of solitary confinement.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Criminal Law Reform
ACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law AllowsACLU Sues Bureau of Prisons for Keeping People in Prison Longer Than the Law Allows
WASHINGTON – A federal lawsuit brought today by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of D.C., and Jenner & Block LLP challenges the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for unlawfully incarcerating people longer than the law allows under the First Step Act. The lawsuit contends that the BOP’s failure to implement the First Step Act according to its plain language violates the rights of thousands of people who should be returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives but instead remain incarcerated. Signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, the bipartisan First Step Act was designed to reduce the population in federal prisons, reform extreme sentencing laws, and provide programming and reentry transition services to people in prison. Central to the First Step Act is a system of earned time credits, which allows people in prison to earn time off their sentences and time out of prison by participating in rehabilitation programs. Through the First Step Act, Congress unambiguously ordered BOP to move people out of prison when they meet certain requirements to use their earned time credits. Instead of faithfully following the mandatory law, BOP adopted a regulation treating the law as optional. As a result, thousands of people, who should already be back in their communities and with their families, remain in prison. “Every extra unlawful day our clients spend in prison is a serious injustice,” said Emma Andersson, deputy director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU. “It is egregious that the Bureau of Prisons is imprisoning people for months longer than the law allows. The government must follow through on its legal obligation to get people out of prison on time and back into their communities, where they belong.” Additional comments below from: Vanessa Crowe, plaintiff: “Time is what I owed for my wrongdoing, and I have paid my time. But I should not have to spend more time in prison than the law allows. I often reflect on what I will miss during the months after when I should be out of prison. I will miss work and lose out on wages that would help me get back on my feet. I could be a tax paying citizen instead of a burden on society. But most of all, I will miss more precious time with my family. My family and I are ready to tum the page on this period in our lives — we are all ready to start a new life, a life with purpose, hope, and healing together. I want to start that life when I am legally entitled to start it-not five months later.” Arthur Spitzer, senior counsel at ACLU of D.C.: “There’s no excuse for the Bureau of Prisons to pretend not to understand Congress’s clear command that people who have earned the right to early release must be released. This law has been on the books for six years. The Bureau of Prisons has had plenty of time to understand it. Law enforcers should obey the law.” Betsy Henthorne, partner at Jenner & Block: “It has been six years since the First Step Act was signed, but despite Congress’s clear directives, the Bureau of Prisons continues to hold thousands of people in prison longer than the law allows. We should and do expect better—it’s past time for the BOP to ensure that those who have earned their release are able to return home to their families and communities according to the law Congress passed.” -
Press ReleaseSep 2024
National Security
Prisoners' Rights
ACLU Statement on Senator’s Discriminatory Questioning of Civil Rights Leader Maya BerryACLU Statement on Senator’s Discriminatory Questioning of Civil Rights Leader Maya Berry
WASHINGTON — American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero, released the following statement regarding Sen. John Kennedy’s questioning of Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute: “The American Civil Liberties Union condemns this discriminatory and vitriolic attack on Maya Berry, a renowned civil rights leader, and joins the chorus of voices from across the political spectrum in denouncing these remarks. “To use a hearing about the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and antisemitic hate crimes to launch personal and discriminatory attacks on an expert witness they’ve invited to testify is both outrageous and inappropriate. This kind of racist rhetoric should be widely condemned. It has no place in Congress, or in politics. “Maya Berry is a courageous and compassionate leader who has spent her entire career working to strengthen our democracy and protect the rights of Arab American communities, and other vulnerable communities who face discrimination and targeting because of their ethnicity, race, or religion.” -
Ohio Supreme CourtSep 2024
Prisoners' Rights
State v. MorrisState v. Morris
This case in the Ohio Supreme Court concerns the scope of the state constitutional right to counsel. The police in this case interrogated the defendant, Isaiah Morris, without mentioning his already-appointed counsel or asking him to waive his right to counsel. This procedural circumstance risks confusing criminal defendants and undermining their state constitutional rights. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Ohio and WilmerHale, filed an amicus brief arguing that merely providing a defendant notice of Miranda rights falls short of the bare minimum requirements for a valid waiver. -
Oregon Supreme CourtSep 2024
Prisoners' Rights
Huskey v. Oregon Department of CorrectionsHuskey v. Oregon Department of Corrections
This case in the Oregon Supreme Court centers on whether Article I, Section 41(3) of the Oregon Constitution, which provides that Oregon prisoners lack legally enforceable rights to prison jobs and training, bars prisoners from collecting damages relating to lost prison jobs and training caused by the alleged breach of a settlement agreement by prison officials. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Oregon, filed an amicus brief arguing that that plaintiff Arnold Huskey, an incarcerated individual whose identity was used in Department of Corrections training materials, is entitled to damages notwithstanding Article I, Section 41(3), because plaintiffs in contract disputes never have to show standalone legal rights to the damages they claim. Instead, they need only show that the damages were reasonably foreseeable consequences of the alleged breach of contract.