Six juvenile offenders and their parents or guardians brought a class action lawsuit against the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office in New York, alleging that, between October of 2015 and August of 2016, dozens of juveniles were subjected to solitary confinement in the Onondaga County Justice Center in Syracuse. In all, the plaintiffs claim to have spent a combined seven and a half years in solitary at the center, during which time they were restricted to a 60-square-foot cell for at least 23 hours a day, with “virtually no contact with others except for adult inmates in neighboring cells who routinely harass and intimidate them,” according to case filings.
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the case, reiterating the department’s position that juveniles should not be subjected to solitary confinement. Such statements are like weightier amicus briefs; in other words, legal filings from the federal government that don’t evaluate the facts of the case but argue for the larger civil rights issues to which the case pertains—for example, the question of whether or not solitary confinement for juveniles is unconstitutional.
[For more of this story, written by Kate Wheeling, go to https://psmag.com/the-justice-...b7d687b55#.l7gjruxs3]
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