Portside

The HALT Act was passed to end long-term solitary confinement. Enforcing it is a whole new struggle.

Regardless of the name, the reality is that people spend nearly 24 hours locked in their cell each day with little to no human contact.

We must hold these dual, overlapping realities in our minds, as we strive to comprehend the interrelated horrors to which the United States — not just Trump, but the United States — subjects millions of people every day.

“After two months of confinement, and using every legal mechanism available so far, I can – without any hesitation – state that nothing that will convince me to testify before this or any other grand jury for that matter.” – Chelsea Manning

Prolonged social isolation can do severe, long-lasting damage to the brain

Todd Ashker is one of the leaders of the Pelican Bay hunger strikers and the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit Ashker v. Governor of California. Sometime between 2008 and 2009, Ashker managed to get his hands on “Nothing But an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Inspired a Generation." What does a book have to do with the movement that ended indefinite solitary confinement in California?

Albert Woodfox – who has the dubious honor of being the United States’ longest serving prisoner in solitary confinement – is just one of an estimated 80,000 people held in solitary confinement on any given day in the United States.

Through a request under South Carolina’s Freedom of Information Act, EFF found that, over the last three years, prison officials have brought more than 400 disciplinary cases for “social networking”—almost always for using Facebook. The offenses come with heavy penalties. In 16 cases, inmates were sentenced to more than a decade in what’s called disciplinary detention, with at least one inmate receiving more than 37 years in isolation.

Angela Davis on Prison Abolition, the War on Drugs, Why Social Movements Shouldn’t Wait on Obama, Solitary Confinement, Immigration Detention and "12 Years a Slave"