Solitary confinement consists of placing an inmate alone in a locked room or cell, with minimal or no contact with people other than staff of the correctional facility. A variety of terms are currently used to describe solitary confinement, especially when discussing detained youth. Seclusion. Secure Housing Unit. Special Intervention Unit. Disciplinary Room Time. Segregation. Room confinement. Medical isolation. Reflection time. However, in the eyes of a child locked alone in an empty cell for days at a time, the name we use for these confinement practices doesn’t really matter. Though there is a growing national movement to reduce or eliminate solitary confinement of juvenile inmates, and though 21 states have prohibited punitive solitary confinement, Minnesota continues to allow it.
We may try to convince ourselves that the kid must have deserved it – that solitary confinement is a proportionate punishment for a serious infraction. But across America today, punitive solitary confinement is often routinely imposed for trivial acts such as forgetting to make a bed, leaving a cell door open, or being in someone else’s cell. In extreme cases, solitary confinement has even been used to cover up brutality by correctional staff. For example, a 2014 investigation of Rikers Island by the United States Department of Justice [PDF] included the account of an adolescent male being viciously assaulted by five correctional officers after making a “smart remark” and subsequently receiving 75 days in punitive segregation (a resulting lawsuit was settled).
[For more of this story, written by Jason Sole and Rachel Wannarka, go to https://www.minnpost.com/commu...le-inmates-minnesota]
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