MEDIA ADVISORY
February 24, 2014
CONTACT: Samantha Friedman, West End Strategy Team
Office: (202) 776-7700 or cell: (202) 215-9260 or
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TUESDAY: UN Special Rapporteur On Torture, Clergy, Family Members and Survivors to Unite Against Solitary Confinement Before Senate Hearing
Gathering to immediately precede Capitol Hill hearing on solitary confinement
WASHINGTON – Preceding a Congressional hearing Tuesday, Feb. 25, on solitary confinement, Reassessing Solitary Confinement II: The Human Rights, Fiscal and Public Safety Consequences, national faith leaders, survivors of solitary confinement and their families, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, and human rights activists, will join together earlier Tuesday to spotlight the continuing national human rights crisis faced by tens of thousands of adults and children held in conditions of long-term isolation in prisons, jails and detention centers at the federal, state and local level.
Tuesday’s gathering, organized by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the ACLU, will be held at 12 p.m. in the Simpson Memorial Chapel of the United Methodist Building, 100 Maryland Ave. NE. According to Laura Markle Downton, Director of U.S. Prisons Policy and Program for NRCAT, “The gathering will focus on calling on the federal government to honor its commitments to Constitutional and international standards of human rights by confronting the use of solitary confinement in federal facilities. We will highlight developments in states including New York and California that illustrate national recognition that the abusive use of solitary confinement is immoral, antithetical to rehabilitation, fiscally wasteful, endangers institutional and community safety, and must be brought to an end.”
During the pre-hearing gathering, attendees will be invited to sample “the loaf,” a tasteless, non-nutritious, visually unappealing substance served to incarcerated individuals in solitary confinement for additional punishment.
Details follow. Press should RSVP to Samantha Friedman at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
WHAT: Religious leaders, human rights advocates, formerly incarcerated individuals and their families to gather to call on the federal government to end the abuse of solitary confinement
WHEN: Tuesday, February 25 at 12 p.m.
WHERE: Simpson Memorial Chapel, United Methodist Building
100 Maryland Ave. NE, Washington, D.C.
WHO: Speakers will include:
- Laura Markle Downton, Director of U.S. Prisons Policy and Program, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, who will moderate
- Jim Winkler, General Secretary and President, National Council of Churches, who will deliver an opening prayer
- Juan Mendez, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
- Dolores Canales, co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement, whose son is among those enduring solitary confinement in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay Prison in California
- Five Mualimm-ak, of the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement, who spent five years in solitary confinement in a New York state prison
- Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., President and CEO, Hip Hop Caucus
- Galen Carey, Vice President of Government Relations, National Association of Evangelicals
- Amy Fettig, Senior Staff Counsel, ACLU’s National Prison Project
- Rabbi Rachel Gartner of T’ruah: A Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, who will deliver a closing prayer
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights will host a hearing, Reassessing Solitary Confinement II: The Human Rights, Fiscal and Public Safety Consequences at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 25, in Hart 216.
“The United States now holds far more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other democratic nation,” said Rev. Ron Stief, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture’s executive director. “An estimated 80,000 incarcerated adults and youth are held in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons, jails, and detention centers. They are held in isolation for 23 to 24 hours a day in small cells with no natural light and no meaningful contact with staff or other prisoners for weeks, years, even decades. This violates basic religious values of community, restorative justice, compassion, and healing. The faith-based members of NRCAT are united in opposing treatment that violates our values as people of faith.”
In May 2013, a U.S. Government Accountability Office report concluded that the Federal Bureau of Prisons has failed to evaluate the impact of solitary confinement on institutional safety and the well being of incarcerated persons, despite a 17 percent increase in its use of solitary confinement between 2008 and 2013. In addition, the use of solitary confinement is economically costly. Supermax prisons, which are comprised of all isolation cells, cost generally two or three times more to build and operate than traditional maximum security prisons.
In a 2012 report presented to the United States Human Rights Council, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez called for a universal prohibition of prolonged solitary confinement exceeding 15 days and a total ban on the use of solitary confinement for vulnerable populations including persons with mental disabilities and youth, finding its prolonged use a form of torture. Mendez has requested that the U.S. State Department authorize him to visit prisons operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and by states including New York and California. That request remains pending.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is encouraging those who are unable to attend Tuesday to pause for one minute of prayer and silence on Tuesday to remember all held alone in solitary confinement. The minute will serve as reminder of the torture of solitary existence and isolation. NRCAT has made interfaith resources for the minute of silence available. In conjunction with the first Senate hearing on the use of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons in 2012, hundreds of people of faith across the country took part in NRCAT’s “23-Hour Fast to End 23-Hour Solitary.” The length of the fast symbolized the 23 hours per day inmates are typically required to spend in solitary confinement cells.
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is a membership organization committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its formation in January 2006, more than 300 religious organizations have joined NRCAT, including representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baha’i, Buddhist, and Sikh communities. Members include national denominations and faith groups, regional organizations and local congregations.
www.nrcat.org @NRCATtweets facebook.com/nrcat
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