For Immediate Release: March 21, 2012
Contact: Samantha Friedman: office: (202) 265-3000 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Proposed changes to California’s solitary confinement policy not enough to address concerns about inhuman conditions
Washington, D.C. — On March 9, 2012, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) released its proposed changes to existing regulations regarding solitary confinement in California prisons. Rev. Richard Killmer, Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, a coalition of 313 religious institutions and organizations, issued the following statement in response to the report:
“While we applaud the CDCR’s recognition of the need for change and its proposed step-down program to provide prisoners a way out of isolated confinement, we do not believe that the CDCR’s proposals go nearly far enough to substantively address our concerns about inhumane conditions that exist in California’s supermax prisons and other isolated confinement facilities. We believe these conditions violate both U.S. domestic and international law prohibiting the use of torture and other cruel and inhumane treatment.
We have known since the 19th century that near-total physical and social
isolation, even for short periods of time, can cause irreparable
physical and psychological damage. Prolonged isolation actually
exacerbates the very public safety and prison security problems it is
intended to alleviate. Numerous recent studies have shown that prisoners
confined for 22 to 24 hours a day in small, bare cells—often with no
sensory stimulation and virtually no human contact—are often released
from prison incapable of functioning in society, and more capable of
doing harm to others. Men and women in California isolation units are
held under these conditions for years, often decades, and the damage
caused to them, and to their families and communities, is severe and is
therefore unconscionable.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture has been outspoken in its opposition to the use of prolonged solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and is active in legislative campaigns to restrict its use in many states. States that have reduced their solitary confinement populations and implemented more humane and rehabilitative policies are seeing significant reductions in the cost of incarceration and none of the increases in prison violence or threats to public safety about which the CDCR is rightfully concerned. NRCAT encourages the CDCR to seriously consider this evidence in further revisions of its proposal. Further, we call on the CDCR to demonstrate good faith in its commitment to reform by immediately beginning its review of prisoners currently held in solitary confinement.”
According to Geoffrey Gaskins, who leads NRCAT’s campaign to end prolonged solitary confinement in California, “To people of faith and conscience in California, all of us are responsible for the conditions in California prisons. If we remain silent, we are condoning unconscionable suffering. Ultimately, as citizens, we are responsible for holding our public institutions accountable to our nation’s highest moral and ethical standards. We will continue to press the CDCR about the moral and ethical principles that must determine the final form of these regulations. We are hopeful that the CDCR will listen.”
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