Obama bans solitary confinement for juveniles in fed prisons

[webfact]

Obama bans solitary confinement for juveniles in fed prisons
By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Monday he will ban the use of solitary confinement for juvenile and low-level offenders in federal prisons, citing the potential for "devastating, lasting psychological consequences" from the use of the isolation as punishment.

"It has been linked to depression, alienation, withdrawal, a reduced ability to interact with others and the potential for violent behavior," Obama wrote in an op-ed posted Monday evening on The Washington Post's website. "Some studies indicate that it can worsen existing mental illnesses and even trigger new ones. Prisoners in solitary are more likely to commit suicide, especially juveniles and people with mental illnesses."

Obama asked the Justice Department to review the use of solitary confinement last summer, as part of the administration's increased focus on the criminal justice system. Activists have been pushing for changes to the prison system.

The department review yielded a series of recommendations and 50 "guiding principles," which officials said would aim to ensure solitary confinement was an increasingly rare punishment used as an option of last resort when inmates posed a danger to staff, other inmates or themselves.

The changes would also expand treatment for the mentally ill and ensure that inmates in solitary can spend more time outside their cells.

Obama said the reforms would affect roughly 10,000 inmates in the federal system. Roughly 100,000 people are in solitary confinement in the U.S., he said, adding that he hoped the changes would serve as a model for reforms at the state level.

Some states already are making changes.

New York prison officials agreed last month to overhaul the use of solitary confinement with reforms aimed at reducing the number of inmates sent to restrictive housing. Facing a lawsuit, California agreed in September to stop the practice of isolating gang leaders for unlimited periods. Mississippi, Arizona and Ohio have agreed to changes under legal pressure.

In making his case for changes, Obama cited the "heartbreaking" case of Kalief Browder, who at 16 was arrested on suspicion of stealing a backpack and sent to the Rikers Island facility in New York for three years. Browder was kept in solitary confinement and, according to his lawyer, beaten by inmates and guards. He was never tried and was released in 2013. He killed himself last year in his mother's Bronx home.


-- (c) Associated Press 2016-01-26

[bark]

The last part of the story doesn't make sense. How could he be beaten by other inmates, if he is is solitary confinement ? Also he was 16 years old; not a baby. Can you join the US army at 16 ?

[humqdpf]

So now, in addition to having the largest number of people (in proportion to the population) in prison (behind the tiny island of The Seychelles where there has been political unrest), the USA has the fastest growing number of people in solitary confinement - said to be up to 100,000. (UK has about 40 at any one time)

Before you say, well they are probably paying the price, if you are a taxpayer in the USA, you are paying the price - greater costs of prison building, much higher costs for caring for prisoners who become mentally ill due to extended solitary. We have to remember that the majority of prisoners in the USA are in for drug offences.

Fact: this is the first legal restriction on solitary confinement in the USA. There is no national regulation in the USA that determines how long a prisoner stays in solitary

Fact: even China has a law that limits solitary as a punishment for between 7 and 15 days. And yes, there is plenty of evidence to show that this law is often circumvented. BUT AT LEAST THEY HAVE A LAW.

You don't have to be an Obama to think that this is wrong. In fact, if you are a Republican who believes in the US Constitution, you would think it is wrong. How can the USA point to cruel and degrading punishment when it dishes this out to the equivalent to the population of a mid-sized town day after day after day after day after day

[humqdpf]

The last part of the story doesn't make sense. How could he be beaten by other inmates, if he is is solitary confinement ? Also he was 16 years old; not a baby. Can you join the US army at 16 ?

So it is ok to take someone who just may have taken someone's backpack, NEVER TRIED, NEVER CONVICTED and send him to prison for 3 years?

And yes, in solitary you can get beaten by the guards. And he would not have been in solitary for the whole 3 years so there would have been plenty of opportunity for beatings and rape by older prisoners. Even in solitary, depending on the prison, there are often opportunity for beatings by prisoners who are used as cleaners. And in at least some prisons opportunities for violence often arise when a prisoner is taken out of his cell for exercise.

Solitary confinement that is extended beyond a couple of weeks or considered indefinite is considered torture and said to both exacerbate existing or latent psychoses or create new ones. According to one judge, solitary confinement units are "virtual incubators of psychoses—seeding illness in otherwise healthy inmates and exacerbating illness in those already suffering from mental infirmities." Ruiz v Johnson, 154 F.Supp.2d 975 (S.D.Tex.2001)

[chuckd]

@ humqdpf...

Here is a thread that demands your immediate attention. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/889717-amnesty-dozens-of-juvenile-offenders-face-death-in-iran/#entry10352767

[GeorgesAbitbol]

The last part of the story doesn't make sense. How could he be beaten by other inmates, if he is is solitary confinement ? Also he was 16 years old; not a baby. Can you join the US army at 16 ?

Never seen Oz tv show?

[djlest]

i dont think there is anything wrong with solitary confinement just as long as its not too long.... A good time to reflect and meditate,.

[jesimps]

So now, in addition to having the largest number of people (in proportion to the population) in prison (behind the tiny island of The Seychelles where there has been political unrest), the USA has the fastest growing number of people in solitary confinement - said to be up to 100,000. (UK has about 40 at any one time)

Before you say, well they are probably paying the price, if you are a taxpayer in the USA, you are paying the price - greater costs of prison building, much higher costs for caring for prisoners who become mentally ill due to extended solitary. We have to remember that the majority of prisoners in the USA are in for drug offences.

Fact: this is the first legal restriction on solitary confinement in the USA. There is no national regulation in the USA that determines how long a prisoner stays in solitary

Fact: even China has a law that limits solitary as a punishment for between 7 and 15 days. And yes, there is plenty of evidence to show that this law is often circumvented. BUT AT LEAST THEY HAVE A LAW.

You don't have to be an Obama to think that this is wrong. In fact, if you are a Republican who believes in the US Constitution, you would think it is wrong. How can the USA point to cruel and degrading punishment when it dishes this out to the equivalent to the population of a mid-sized town day after day after day after day after day

There are so many worthwhile causes in this world deserving of my attention. Prison scum in solitary isn't one of them. I'll leave it to the left wing bleeding hearts.

[humqdpf]

@ humqdpf...

Here is a thread that demands your immediate attention. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/889717-amnesty-dozens-of-juvenile-offenders-face-death-in-iran/#entry10352767

I already dealt with the very high numbers of executions in Iran in a post on Thai Visaa few weeks ago when Iran was complaining about the execution of one cleric by Saudi Arabia - I pointed out that Saudi Arabia had indeed executed over 47 people that day but Iran chose to focus on just one.

I also pointed out that Iran did not have the moral high ground in this regard and could hardly complain about executions in Saudi Arabia. Even though Saudi Arabia has a high number of executions per annum, Iran managed to double that number.

For your convenience, that post is quoted below:

--------------

"A couple of points seem to have gone unreported in much of the mainstream media about the various aspects of this case.

1. There were 47 other persons executed at the same time as the Shia cleric. No one is reporting anything about them. Iran and its friends are talking only about the one person out of 47. Perhaps the cleric is the most innocent - but we will never know unless the topic is debated. However, on all information available, this cleric was the most peace-loving of them all.

2. Iran executes far more people per annum than Saudi Arabia (perhaps double), many of them too are innocent of anything that any other country would consider a crime.

3. From what I have read, neither the UK nor the USA have mentioned the barbarity of the executions nor have they referred to the injustice of the cleric's case or any of the other 47.

4. If Iran wants to be accepted by the rest of the world community, it has to defend diplomatic missions against crowds (whether it is politically organised or otherwise), even if it is because of some grave injustice.

5. When will the rest of the world learn that Saudi Arabia is a thuggish state that has funded terrorism, treats its ordinary citizens to a very strict regime, is terrible to its minorities and has a huge destabilising effect on the region? It is time to call halt to Saudi Arabia's immunity to criticism by the West. Stop buying their oil - they are running a huge deficit because of the price of oil and sometime their cash pile will run out"

[nottocus]

Ban the death penalty. Ban solitary confinement.

What next lefties? Let them all out?

[Andaman Al]

The last part of the story doesn't make sense. How could he be beaten by other inmates, if he is is solitary confinement ? Also he was 16 years old; not a baby. Can you join the US army at 16 ?

So, he is not a baby and can face unlimited solitary?? yes it seems you can join the army and die for your country but you can't have a beer and you can't have sex

[hawker9000]

Ban the death penalty. Ban solitary confinement.

What next lefties? Let them all out?

Like that doesn't already happen when some governor or some judge (or a certain elected officeholder with delusions of imperial grandeur...) decides the prisons are overcrowded or totally lawful sentencing is "unfair"?

Just one recent headline:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34460443