Last week Ken Strutin, the Director of Legal Information Services for the New York State Defenders Association and a contributor to the New York Law Journal, published an annotated bibliography on solitary confinement. The bibliography provides links to reports, law review articles, expert statements, standards, books, news, and organizations pertaining to solitary confinement. Here are a few examples:
- Lockdown New York: Disciplinary Confinement in New York State Prisons. This 2003 report from the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit organization that has authority from the New York legislature to inspect prisons, identifies many areas of concern including the high percentage of inmates with mental illness in solitary confinement (approximately 23%), the psychological effects of isolation, and the challenges for corrections officers. The report identifies well-run programs in New York and offers several recommendations for improving correctional facilities.
- ABA Criminal Justice Standards on Treatment of Prisoners. Standard 23-2.6 provides what the ABA considers to be legitimate rationales for solitary confinement. Standard 23-2.8 provides standards for the mental health of prisoners in solitary confinement.
- History of Solitary Confinement from National Geographic.
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