A SOLITARY CAMPAIGN
Unlock the Box is the national campaign to end long-term solitary confinement in the United States and to come into complete compliance with the UN’s Mandela Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners by 2031.
We accomplish our mission working simultaneously on local and national levels with survivors, advocates, legislators, and community organizations dedicated to ending state-sponsored torture. Unlock The Box and it’s partners are changing the national conversation, demanding lawmakers adhere to the suggestions laid out by the world’s leader on Human Rights, the United Nations.
Unlock the Box compiles research and educational materials to spread awareness about this state-sponsored torture and to inspire people like you to fight for meaningful change to our criminal justice system.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
- Solitary confinement is a reflection and a measure of a wider punitive culture within the criminal justice system. Working to end solitary confinement helps challenge this culture, and the incarceration crisis it has created. We support reforms that seek to roll back the culture, policies, and practices that are the underpinnings of mass incarceration.
- An overwhelming body of evidence shows that solitary confinement causes extreme and sometimes permanent damage to the individuals who endure it, and to the families and communities to which they will return. It is also costly and counterproductive, increasing recidivism while failing to reduce prison violence.
- Humane, effective, and safe alternatives exist for all uses of solitary confinement within all segments of the prison population.
- Effective campaigns to end solitary confinement must engage all stakeholders, including incarcerated people and their loved ones, advocates and grassroots activists, corrections professionals, legal and health professionals, policymakers, media, and the public.
- People of color are often disproportionately subjected to solitary confinement, over and beyond their disproportionate representation in the general prison population. Ending solitary confinement requires navigation and resolution of these inequities and the racial bias driving them.
Change on this issue may happen one prison system at a time, and it may not come quickly or easily—but we are approaching a tipping point, and with persistence and resources, it will come. The arc of history bends toward justice, and is on our side.
CREATING A TIPPING POINT
A Strategy For Change
People of color are often disproportionately subjected to solitary confinement, over and beyond their disproportionate representation in the general prison population. Ending solitary confinement requires navigation and resolution of these inequities and the racial bias driving them.
JACK BECK
Dolores Canales
Amy Fettig
Jenny Lutz
Johnny Perez
Jessica Sandoval
Mark Soler
Gabrielle Watson
Dr. Brie Williams
OUR TEAM
Our steering committee is comprised of members from partner organizations across the nation. Partnering with these impactful groups helps us stay informed to the unique challenges of each state and population, while allowing us to guide meaningful policy change at a national level.
TIME'S UP FOR SOLITARY
The United States has been complicit in allowing state-sponsored torture for far too long. The time for solitary is up and Unlock The Box is employing a bold strategy to eradicate the use of long-term solitary confinement in the United States over the next ten years.
Importantly, we are also demanding that all forms of solitary confinement are prohibited for minors, pregnant women and new mothers, the elderly, and those living with mental illness.
These changes would put the United States in full compliance with the United Nation’s mandate for humane treatment of prisoners, also known as The Mandela Rules.
Achieving the Mandela Rules
the Mandela Rules
The United Nations is urging the United States to comply with The Mandela Rules for the Humane Treatment of Prisoners.
Unlock The Box joins the voices of those who believe that the way we treat our incarcerated peoples is a reflection on our society as a whole.
Rules 43, 44, and 45 of the Mandela Rules specifically speak to solitary confinement.
In no circumstances may restrictions or disciplinary sanctions amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The following practices, in particular, shall be prohibited:
(a) Indefinite solitary confinement;
(b) Prolonged solitary confinement;
(c) Placement of a prisoner in a dark or constantly lit cell;
(d) Corporal punishment or the reduction of a prisoner’s diet or drinking water;
(e) Collective punishment.
Disciplinary sanctions or restrictive measures shall not include the prohibition of family contact. The means of family contact may only be restricted for a limited time period and as strictly required for the maintenance of security and order.
For the purpose of these rules, solitary confinement shall refer to the confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact.
Prolonged solitary confinement shall refer to solitary confinement for a time period in excess of 15 consecutive days.
1. Solitary confinement shall be used only in exceptional cases as a last resort, for as short a time as possible and subject to independent review, and only pursuant to the authorization by a competent authority. It shall not be imposed by virtue of a prisoner’s sentence.
2. The imposition of solitary confinement should be prohibited in the case of prisoners with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures. The prohibition of the use of solitary confinement and similar measures in cases involving women and children, as referred to in other United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice,28 continues to apply.
Prolonged solitary confinement shall refer to solitary confinement for a time period in excess of 15 consecutive days.
Our Partners
Our steering committee is comprised of members from partner organizations across the nation. Partnering with these impactful groups helps us stay informed to the unique challenges of each state and population, while allowing us to guide meaningful policy change at a national level.
OUR LOCATIONS
Unlock The Box currently supports anti-solitary confinement groups in 13 states across the nation. We help with funding, policy change assistance, technical assistance, and other resources. Click on each state to see what we’re doing and our past successes. Maybe your state will be next!
END TORTURE NOW
Join the movement to ban solitary confinement in the United States. We’ll send you monthly newsletters and more ways to get involved.
JOIN THE FIGHT
