President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
As representatives of civil and
human rights organizations, religious organizations, faith-based and community
leaders, defense attorneys, and mental health professionals, we applaud your
recent historic remarks recognizing that solitary confinement does nothing to
rehabilitate those who are incarcerated. We also welcome your announcement that
the U.S. Attorney General will conduct a national review of the practice in
prisons and jails across the United States. We are writing to urge that this
review result in recommendations that create a clear pathway toward the
elimination of the use of long-term and indefinite isolation in the United
States.
Following two Congressional
hearings on solitary confinement, a highly critical report on the federal
Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) use of solitary confinement by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) in May 2013; and an independent audit of BOP’s use
of solitary confinement released in February 2015, it is abundantly clear that
solitary confinement is overused and abused across the country. In fact, the
audit of BOP’s practices found that more than 10,000 people were subject to
solitary confinement in federal prisons on any given day in 2013. In some of
these units, terms of solitary confinement average nearly four years. In
light of these findings, the expert auditors recommended that the agency take
immediate steps, including:
• Stopping the practice of
placing persons with serious mental illness in solitary;
• Stopping the practice of
placing vulnerable prisoners in solitary “for their own protection”;
• Stopping the practice of
releasing prisoners directly back to the community from solitary confinement
units without any re-entry services; and
• Limiting the mandatory
amount of time prisoners are held in solitary confinement.
Despite the urgency of the
audit’s findings, to date, BOP has not made public any plans for implementation
of its recommendations. It is imperative they do so without delay.
Nationwide, on any given day,
more than 80,000 people, including children and persons with mental illness,
are held in conditions of solitary confinement in state and federal prisons for
months, years, even decades, with many more facing conditions of extreme
isolation in jails, detention centers, and juvenile justice facilities
throughout the United States. Thousands are released directly from solitary
back into our communities profoundly damaged.
Neuroscience, ethics and
international human rights law widely consider solitary confinement a form of
torture. Indeed, decades of research demonstrate the harms of
solitary
confinement on human beings. Its systematic and widespread use in our criminal
justice system compromises our stated commitments to human rights, human
dignity, the human potential for redemption, and public safety.
States and jurisdictions across
the country are implementing policy changes that focus on alternatives to
solitary confinement. Some have abolished the practice for persons under the
age of 18, pregnant women, and for persons with mental illness. Several states
are also considering legislative proposals that embrace the recommendations of
the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, which include prohibiting
placement in solitary confinement beyond 15 consecutive days. Supporting and
incentivizing such reforms across the country and in the BOP should be an
explicit goal of the Attorney General’s study of solitary confinement.
For the well-being of the men
and women incarcerated in federal prisons, the communities to which they will
return, and the staff employed by federal facilities, we urge you to ensure the
implementation of the BOP auditors’ recommendations without delay. We further
urge you to ensure a national review that prioritizes humane alternatives to
prolonged solitary confinement, including mental health treatment,
rehabilitation, and a clear path to the elimination of long-term isolation.
Such a review should be completed with enough time for your administration to
be able implement its recommendations.
The torture of prolonged
solitary confinement compromises public safety, increases recidivism, is
immoral and indeed has no place in any civilized society. Now is the time to
act to ensure it has no place in our own.
Sincerely,
African American Ministers in
Action (AAMIA)
African American Ministers
Leadership Council (AAMLC)
African Methodist Episcopal
Minister’s Coalition for Redemption and Justice
Alaska Innocence Project
American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU)
American Friends Service
Committee
American Humanist Association
Arizona Center for Disability
Law
Arizona Innocence Project
Arizona Justice Project
(Justice Project, Inc.)
The Association of Legal Aid
Attorneys, UAW Local 2325
Bend the Arc Jewish Action
Brookline PeaceWorks
Brooklyn Defender Services
California Families Against
Solitary Confinement
California Innocence Project
California Prison Focus
Campaign for Youth Justice
Center
for Public Representation
Center for Race, Religion, and
Economic Democracy
The Chicago Committee to Defend
the Bill of Rights
Children's Defense Fund
Children's Defense Fund-Ohio
Children's Law Center, Inc.,
Covington, Kentucky
The Christian Church (Disciples
of Christ) in the United States and Canada
Church of the Brethren, Office
of Public Witness
Citizens United for
Rehabilitation of Errants – International (International CURE)
Citizens United for
Rehabilitation of Errants – Virginia Inc. (Virginia CURE)
Citizens United for
Rehabilitation of Errants –Nevada (NV-CURE)
Community Legal Aid Society,
Inc
Connecticut Innocence Project
The Correctional Association of
NY
Council of Bishops, United
Methodist Church
Criminal Justice Policy
Coalition
DeafCAN!, Deaf Community Action
Network
Disability Rights Iowa
Disability Rights Maine
Disability Rights Washington
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon
EMIT: End Mass Incarceration
Together, working group of Unitarian Universalist Mass Action
Family UNIty Network of
Imprisoned People
Florida Council of Churches
Florida Institutional Legal
Services Project
Florida Justice Institute
The Fortune Society
Franciscan Action Network
Friends Committee on National
Legislation
Global Justice Institute
Hip Hop Caucus
Human Rights First
Human Rights Watch
I.S.P. Consulting
Illinois Coalition Against
Torture
Illinois Innocence Project
Incarcerated Nation Corp.
Innocence & Justice Clinic,
Wake Forest University School of Law
Innocence Project
Interfaith Action for Human
Rights
JustLeadershipUSA
Legal Aid Justice Center,
Charlottesville, Virginia
Life After Innocence
Maine Council of Churches
Maine Prisoner Advocacy
Coalition (MPAC)
Maryland
Disability Law Center
Mass Incarceration Working
Group, First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington (MA)
Medical Mission Sisters
Alliance for Justice
Metropolitan Community Churches
Midwest Innocence Project
Montana Innocence Project
Muslim Justice League
NAACP Maine State Prison Branch
NAACP Portland Maine Branch
National Alliance on Mental
Illness – Huntington (NAMI – Huntington)
National Alliance on Mental
Illness – New York State (NAMI-NYS)
National Alliance on Mental
Illness (NAMI National)
National Center for Lesbian
Rights
National Council of Churches
National Disability Rights
Network (NDRN)
National Religious Campaign
Against Torture
New York Campaign for
Alternatives to Isolated Confinement
New York City Jails Action
Coalition
New York Law School Innocence
Clinic
North Carolina Center on Actual
Innocence
North Carolina Stop Torture Now
Office of Social Justice of the
Christian Reformed Church
Ohio Innocence Project
Pax Christi Massachusetts
Pax Christi USA
Pennsylvania Council of
Churches
Pennsylvania Innocence Project
Peoples' Action for Rights and
Community (PARC)
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)
Princeton's Students for Prison
Education and Reform (SPEAR)
Prison Activist Resource Center
(PARC)
The Prison Law Office
Prisoners' Legal Services of
Massachusetts
Prisoners' Legal Services of
New York
Protection & Advocacy
Project (Disability Rights North Dakota)
Protection and Advocacy for
People with Disabilities, Inc. (P&A, Columbia, SC)
Ramsay Merriam Fund
The Real Cost of Prisons Project
Resources for Organizing and
Social Change (ROSC)
Sisters of St. Joseph
Non-Violence Committee
Sisters of St. Joseph,
Brentwood NY
Social Action Linking Together
(SALT)
Social Workers Against
Prolonged Solitary Confinement
Solitary Confinement. Org
Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC)
St.
Mary's Episcopal Church, Manhattanville
St. Susanna Peace and Justice
Committee, Dedham MA
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Tamms Year Ten
T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for
Human Rights
Union for Reform Judaism
Unitarian Universalist
Association
United Church of Christ,
Justice and Witness Ministries
United Methodist Church,
General Board of Church and Society
University of Miami Innocence
Clinic
Uptown People's Law Center
Virginia Council of Churches
Washington Lawyers' Committee
for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs
West Virginia Innocence Project
WISDOM of Wisconsin
Women's International League
for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Boston Branch
Wrongful Conviction Clinic at
IU McKinney
Wrongful Conviction Project,
Office of the Ohio Public Defender
cc: U.S. Attorney General
Loretta Lynch