NEW REPORT

WASHINGTON

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Campaign efforts led by Survivors Opposing Solitary (SOS) Coalition are focused on ending the use of long-term solitary in the state prisons, with an end goal of total abolition in all settings. The SOS Coalition seeks to work collaboratively with other stakeholders to identify potential policy changes to address the impacts and harms of long-term solitary confinement, and to enact real legislative reforms that will end this brutal practice. We are guided by a steering committee of current and former survivors of solitary confinement as it seeks to pass state legislation to reform the use of solitary in the state’s prisons. The coalition has also partnered with juvenile justice advocates, immigrant rights groups, and groups focused on jail reform and oversight, to amplify the need for reforms in other carceral settings.

ARKANSAS

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Campaign efforts led by DecARcerate have played an active and central role in shared efforts to seek change. They have organized individuals and partner organizations around the state to advocate for HB1530, a bill to require data collection on the use of solitary confinement by the Arkansas Department of Correction (ADC). While this bill did not pass, it did lead to a concession by ADC to collect and disseminate data on solitary confinement in its quarterly public reporting. In 2021, they helped pass HB1470, which bans solitary confinement for pregnant juveniles and places restrictions on its use for pregnant adults. Arkansas has the third highest rate of solitary confinement in the country, and ADC recently increased the number of isolation cells by 400. The long-term goal is to eliminate solitary confinement and replace it with incentive-based and program-rich alternatives and building a state-wide organizing effort around this goal.

CONNECTICUT

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Campaign efforts led by Stop Solitary Ct led to the passage of the PROTECT Act, (Promoting Responsible Oversight and Treatment and Ensuring Correctional Transparency). The legislation provided a tool toward improving conditions within Ct jails, prisons and youth detention facilities. The primary focus of the PROTECT Act was ending the use of extreme isolation , constant lockdowns, abusive restraints, establishing independent oversight over CT Dept of Corrections and promoting social bonds. SSCT also aided in the closure of CT’s supermax. SSCT continues to work toward implementation, strengthening language and enforcement of the PROTECT Act while providing a path to ending routine degrading and dehumanizing cavity searches absent of probable cause.

LOUISIANA

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Campaign efforts led by the Louisiana Stop Solitary Coalition are focused on policy changes within the Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC), local jails, and juvenile facilities to implement policies that reduce the use of solitary confinement for everyone. . In 2020, they changed solitary confinement law in Louisiana for the first time in 150 years, banning its use for currently and recently pregnant people. In 2021, they achieved a phone call policy for people held in solitary in DOC facilities. The campaign will continue to leverage the resources and expertise of those who have litigated and collected data, with the experience of those who have experienced solitary firsthand and are in the best position to lead on this issue.

MASSACHUSETTS

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Massachusetts Against Solitary Confinement (MASC) helped pass MA’s strongest criminal law reform bill in decades, which included significant changes to the state’s solitary confinement policies and practices. The Dept. of Corrections has failed to implement the mandates.  New legislation filed this session will make the legal requirements explicitly clear and effectively end solitary confinement in MA.

MICHIGAN

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The goal of the Open MI Door campaign is to end solitary confinement in all Michigan prisons, jails and juvenile detention facilities, bringing the state into full compliance with the UN’s Mandela Rules. Utilizing a survivor/family led coalition, we seek to implement safe alternatives to segregation.

NEBRASKA

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Campaign efforts led by ACLU-NE ended the horrific overreliance on juvenile solitary confinement. The new law bans use of room confinement, except to eliminate substantial, immediate risk of harm and requires release from confinement as soon as the risk is resolved. The campaign is now focused on implementation of the law and expanding reform to the adult system.

NEW JERSEY

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New Jersey Prison Justice Watch (NJ-PJW) is a coalition of solitary survivors and advocates working to end all forms of unnecessary or prolonged isolation in New Jersey’s carceral facilities. NJ-PJW mobilized behind two successful bills: the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act (2019) and the Dignity for Primary Caretaker Parents Act (2020). The former established substantial reporting requirements, conditions standards, and protections for vulnerable populations; the latter prohibited the placement of pregnant people into isolated confinement. In 2024, NJPJW published a report titled “Isolated Voices,” containing testimonies from solitary confinement and urging full implementation of the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act. NJPJW is now working to apply pressure for the adoption of their report’s four policy recommendations, which include oversight boards for all NJ prisons, stricter monitoring and reporting requirements, quarterly inspections from the Ombudsman’s office, and legislative hearings on the continued use of isolation in correctional facilities.

NEW MEXICO

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Successful coalition efforts led by ACLU-NM resulted in the 2019 passage of New Mexico’s Restricted Housing Act, which prohibits use of solitary confinement for those under 18 and pregnant individuals and limits the use of solitary confinement for people living with serious mental illness. The RHA also requires prisons and jails to keep and publish certain data about who is kept in solitary confinement and why. ACLU-NM continues to do public education, outreach, and community engagement regarding solitary confinement, including garnering support for the national End Solitary Confinement Act, working to strengthen the NMRHA, and working to ensure the New Mexico Department of Corrections complies with the law, including through public information requests, advocacy, and efforts to establish independent oversight of the state’s prisons.

NEVADA

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Return Strong’s campaign to end solitary confinement is a powerful movement advocating for the humane treatment of incarcerated individuals, particularly those subjected to isolation in Nevada’s prisons. The campaign aims to raise awareness about the devastating physical and psychological impacts of solitary confinement and calls for policy changes to end its use. A key part of this effort is the implementation of SB307, legislation that establishes strict guidelines for solitary confinement practices in the state. SB307 limits the duration and conditions under which individuals can be placed in isolation, promotes transparency, and seeks to protect vulnerable populations from its harmful effects. Return Strong works to ensure that this law is fully enforced while educating the public, impacted families, and policymakers about the importance of reform.

NEW YORK

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Campaign efforts led by the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC) or #HALTsolitary Campaign resulted in the passage of the HALT Solitary Confinement Act in 2021. HALT limits solitary to no more than 15 days for all people, bans it for young people and other groups, and creates alternatives with at least 7 hours out of cell per day with rehabilitative and therapeutic programming.Campaign efforts, in partnership with the Jails Action Coalition, also resulted in passage of Local Law 42 in New York City in 2024, which bans solitary beyond four hours and otherwise requires all other people in jail to have access to 14 hours of daily out-of-cell group programming and activities. The Campaign is currently focused on pushing for implementation of these laws and going further to end solitary at the local, state, and federal level.

PENNSYLVANIA

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Solidarity Not Solitary PA comes out of decades worth of grassroots organizing inside and outside PA prisons. We fight for legislation at the state and county level that will greatly minimize who can go into solitary and how isolated people are within those units. We work in solidarity with many other campaigns and orgs that fight for the freedom and well-being of incarcerated people, and we center voices and experiences of those inside the walls.

VIRGINIA

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Campaign efforts led by the Virginia Coalition Against Solitary Confinement is the primary force in Virginia working to end solitary confinement. A bold legislative proposal was recently drafted by the coalition to abolish solitary confinement in Virginia prisons, jails, and juvenile detention facilities. The bill prohibits solitary confinement, defined as confinement of a person in a cell, alone or with another person, for more than 20 hours a day, for all populations, with few narrow, time-limited exceptions for lockdowns, imminent security risks, and for the protection of an incarcerated person The coalition will continue to educate stakeholders and push for a ban on solitary confinement.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

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Campaign efforts led by DC Justice Lab will advance legislation that significantly reduces reliance on solitary confinement and use of Black Box restraints in local detention facilities, and educate policymakers, organizers, and the public about how reducing solitary confinement makes us safer and healthier.

GEORGIA

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Out Of Isolation, Into Action is an advocacy campaign to end solitary confinement in Georgia, led by RestoreHER US and the Southern Center for Human Rights. In 2019, RestoreHER spearheaded the passage of HB345, which ended solitary confinement of incarcerated pregnant people. In addition, Southern Center For Human Rights won a lawsuit and a halt of solitary confinement against South Fulton County Jail. Out Of Isolation, Into Action initiated an Advocacy Fellowship in 2022 which educates survivors and other justice advocacy organizations. They’ve focused their efforts on coalition-building through strengthening relationships with survivors of solitary confinement, directly impacted families, and other stakeholders.

Rhode Island

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The Campaign efforts led by the Stop Torture RI Coalition in Rhode Island are focused on codifying solitary confinement policies through the legislative process in the Rhode Island Department of Corrections that have been reformed due to federal litigation limiting the use of solitary confinement to 30 days maximum while at the same time allowing 2-3 hours out of cell time. The Stop Torture RI Coalition has also put an emphasis on the establishment of an Oversight Committee in RIDOC. Due to the sensory deprivational experience, suicides and medical neglect of individuals while in RIDOC. The Oversight Committee would afford the families of the individuals under the Custody and Care of RIDOC, transparency through communication and reports.

NORTH CAROLINA

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Our campaign is dedicated to advocating for the cessation of solitary confinement and upholding the rights and protection of incarcerated individuals with psychological, physical, and emotional disabilities in North Carolina prisons.

CALIFORNIA

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The California Mandela Campaign encompasses a coalition of advocates fighting to end solitary confinement in California. Partners affiliated with organizations like Silicon Valley De-Bug, Immigration Defense Advocates (IDA), and Disability Rights California (DRC) facilitate inside-outside organizing, working directly with people who are currently incarcerated or are otherwise impacted by the carceral system. Most recently, the California Mandela Campaign championed AB280–the California Mandela Act. This bill seeks to establish a 15-day limit on the use of solitary, protect vulnerable populations from solitary, and institute reporting requirements for facilities. Some California advocates were also involved in the creation of The Strike. This 2024 documentary tells the story of the largest hunger strike in U.S. history, launched in response to decades of solitary confinement. 

MARYLAND

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Torture Free MD is a campaign dedicated to ending solitary confinement in Maryland. Recognizing solitary as torture, advocates focus on building a strong network of support for survivors. Partners in Maryland recently rallied behind the 2023 Maryland Mandela Act (SB459 & HB385); if it had passed, this bill would have limited restrictive housing to 15 days. It also would have prohibited the use of restrictive housing on multiple vulnerable groups, and it would have provided access to regular health assessments and four hours of out-of-cell time.

MAINE

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MPAC was founded to end the use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails and has since branched out to include other justice issues.

FLORIDA

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The Florida Coalition on Solitary, led by LatinoJustice PRLDEF, is a statewide campaign to end the use of solitary confinement and lockdowns in Florida. The coalition works in partnership with the Florida Coalition on Criminal Justice Reform (CCJR), the Florida Restorative Justice Association (FRJA), the Florida State University (FSU) Solitary Confinement Workgroup, and other solitary survivors. Currently, 10,000 people are held in solitary confinement within Florida’s Department of Corrections, not including those in ICE detention centers or county jails. Additionally, between “youth” and “involuntary commitment,” there are nearly 4,000 children and others, as well as the 13,000 individuals in Florida’s federal institutions, in alignment with the broader goals of the federal initiative. The campaign highlights the inhumane conditions of prolonged solitary confinement, which can lead to severe psychological trauma, especially for vulnerable populations. The coalition pushes for community education efforts, coalition building, legislative advocacy, and humane alternatives to extreme isolation.

End Solitary Now

Websites: Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Restore Justice, Uptown People’s Law Center

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Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, in partnership with Restore Justice and Uptown People’s Law Center, is participating in statewide advocacy to eliminate solitary confinement in Illinois. In coalition, we’ve worked to support The Nelson Mandela Act, which would significantly reduce the use of solitary confinement within Illinois prisons. We have also employed education campaigns targeting legislators, practitioners, and the general public, in an effort to spread awareness the tortuous practice of solitary confinement and restrictive housing which have been shown not to increase safety within prisons. We also authored a report providing data and personal narratives of directly impacted individuals who had served in solitary confinement prisons across IL. We will continue identifying and growing relationships with fellow advocates working to end solitary confinement and strategizing on the best methods available to do so.

WISCONSIN

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WISDOM leads the state campaign against solitary confinement in Wisconsin. Through its statewide Transformational Justice Campaign, WISDOM works to advance racial justice, decarcerate Wisconsin, and re-invest funding in the communities most impacted by mass incarceration. WISDOM championed companion bills SB904 and AB939 in 2024, which, among other reporting requirements, order the department of corrections to establish a digital, interactive reporting system that publishes the number of individuals currently held in solitary confinement within each state correctional facility and county jail. Also by means of its Transformational Justice Campaign, WISDOM fights to end lockdowns in Wisconsin prisons and close correctional facilities altogether.