2019-22

Curtailing the Use of Solitary Confinement,

Guaranteeing Fair Visitation Rights to Inmates and Families, and

Prohibiting Price-Gouging on Inmate Telecom and Tech Options

Sponsored by Sen. Nellie Pou (NJ)

Unanimously ratified by the Caucus on December 5, 2019

I. The use of isolated confinement has become unmoored from its legitimate use as a last-resort punishment or medical protection

WHEREAS, isolated or solitary confinement is the confinement of an inmate in a correctional facility, pursuant to disciplinary, administrative, protective, investigative, medical, or other classification, in a cell or similarly confined holding or living space, alone or with other inmates, for approximately 20 hours or more per day with severely restricted activity, movement, and social interaction; and,

WHEREAS, many health professionals have questioned the effectiveness and dangerous consequences of solitary confinement, and therefore have criticized the use of solitary confinement for a number of reasons particularly when experts who study the issue agree that U.S. prisons are turning to solitary confinement more frequently;[1] and,

WHEREAS, according to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) it encourages inhumane practices such as confinement behind a solid steel door for 22 to 24 hours a day, severely limited contact with other human beings, infrequent phone calls and rare non-contact family visits, extremely limited access to rehabilitative or educational programming, and grossly inadequate medical and mental health treatment;[2] and,

WHEREAS, solitary confinement often causes depression and rage after a few days, and it tends to spark violence instead of lessening it, moreover it tends to increase the likelihood that a prisoner will commit another crime once they get out;[3] and,

WHEREAS, important factors in successful rehabilitation such as contact with family or visitors is often restricted or denied altogether;[4] and,

WHEREAS, “the adverse effects of solitary confinement are especially significant for persons with serious mental illness, commonly defined as a major mental disorder (e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder) that is usually characterized by psychotic symptoms and/or significant functional impairments”;[5]and,

WHEREAS, research has documented the detrimental psychological effects of long-term solitary confinement such as visual and auditory hallucinations, hypersensitivity to noise and touch, insomnia and paranoia, uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear, distortions of time and perception, increased risk of suicide, incremental risk of suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD);[6] and,

WHEREAS, medical research shows that prolonged isolation can destroy a person’s personality and their mental health and its effects may last long after the end of the period of segregation;[7] and

WHEREAS, prisoners are put into solitary confinement for many reasons, from serious infractions, such as fighting with another inmate, to minor ones, like talking back to a guard or getting caught with a pack of cigarettes. Nevertheless, prisoners are often thrown into solitary confinement without breaking the rules at all;[8] and,

WHEREAS, prisoners are often confined for months or even years, with some spending as well as more than 25 years in segregated prison facilities. Furthermore, as with the general prison community, Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately represented in isolation units;[9] and,

WHEREAS, despite evidence of the harm of solitary confinement, it continues to form a basic component of federal and state prison systems in the United States, particularly in supermax penitentiaries, where all prisoners are kept in twenty-three-hour-a-day lockdown with almost no human interaction;[10] and,

WHEREAS, prison and jail administrators at all levels have relied increasingly on isolation and segregation to control men, women, and even youth in their custody. In fact, more than 40 states have maximum-security facilities essentially designed to hold people in long-term isolation;[11] and,

WHEREAS, nowadays there are more than 80,000 men, women, and children in solitary confinement in prison throughout the whole nation, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics;[12] and, it is important to note that the figure previously mentioned is a decade old and does not include the whole range of imprisonment settings such as jails, juvenile facilities, and immigrant centers. Virtually every state utilizes some form of solitary confinement, however there is no federal reporting system that tracks how many people are isolated at any given time;[13] and,

WHEREAS, people of color are overrepresented in solitary confinement in comparison to the general prison population, and according to a 2015 survey on the use of solitary confinement in 48 jurisdictions. Overall, black male prisoners made up 40 percent of the total prison population in the 43 jurisdictions polled that provided details on race, also in 31 of the 43, the percentage of black males who spent time in solitary confinement was greater than their slice of the general population;[14] and,

WHEREAS, Latinos were also disproportionately represented in solitary confinement in at least 22 of the 43 jurisdictions in relation to their general population numbers. In contrast, “figures for white inmates were largely inverse, with 36 of the 43 jurisdictions reporting that whites were underrepresented in solitary” confinement;[15] and,

WHEREAS, the widespread use of solitary confinement for immigrant detainees in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody has been widely reported; meanwhile, newly obtained information has shed light on how many detainees are forced into extended periods of isolation for reasons that have nothing to do with violating any rules, but rather the person’s disability, sexual orientation or gender identity;[16] and,

WHEREAS, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, and the UN Committee on Torture have both denounced that United States prison conditions violate the applicable international standards which state that:

1. each state party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial, or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction;
2. no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture,[17]

II. Restrictions to family and other visitation rights have increasingly become commonly petty and casually cruel

WHEREAS, inmate visits are a right and a need of both inmates and their visitors, particularly family members; and,

WHEREAS, inmate visits benefit the community at large because strong ties increase a prisoner’s success after release; and,

WHEREAS, a recent report[18] concludes that, after visiting many prisons in several states, “the rules [regarding visits] are always changing, always arbitrary; [w]hat is consistent is the casual cruelty; the indifference; the way some seem to relish denying visits for any reason they can;” and,

WHEREAS, undue restrictions to visitations can harm both the visitors and the inmates fracture families and undermine the rehabilitative purpose of correctional facilities;[19] and,

WHEREAS, rule enforcement and interpretation can be or seem arbitrary, visitors are sometimes not allowed cure easily addressable issues and reattempt entry;[20] and,

WHEREAS, in fact, visitors are often extraordinarily punished themselves for petty deviations from the rules;[21] and,

WHEREAS, on too many occasions inmates have no prior notice of a restriction on visits, they may find out after the attempted visit that it was denied and sometimes neither visitors nor the inmates know of a good reason for the denial;[22] and,

WHEREAS, states vary widely in the number and duration of visits they allow with many providing “a floor for the minimum number of days or hours visitation must be made available”, including on weekends and holidays, and no restriction on the length of visits during the facility’s established visitation periods,[23] others mandate a ceiling for visitation hours,[24] and one, North Carolina, mandates both;[25] and,

WHEREAS, as of 2013 the most welcoming maximum security prison visitation policy, New York’s, mandated “up to six hours of visits 365 days a year and overnight visits approximately every two months” and, the most restrictive, North Carolina’s, established a “ceiling of no more than one visit per week up to two hours (excluding legal and clergical visits);”[26] and,

WHEREAS, some jails and prisons are replacing in-person visits with remote video calls or on-site video visitation system, both of substandard quality, and, in some cases, requiring a fee for them;[27] and,

WHEREAS, many locations forbid visits by individuals with criminal records, which, “in communities and social groups where having a criminal record may be common… circumscribes the number of potential visitors;” in contrast, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont and the Federal Government allow former felons to visit inmates absent other aggravating circumstances;[28] and,

WHEREAS, some states, like California, do not limit the number of approved visitors, while others allow visitors only from a list that can be as short as two persons plus family (with many limiting edits to the list), with many states forbidding a person to be on more than one inmate’s list, regardless of how many family or community members are incarcerated;[29] and,

WHEREAS, states differ in whether they allow the same visitation rights to higher-security inmates, with the State of Georgia explicitly providing for the same level of rights unless, for reasons of violence or similar, this is not feasible;[30] and,

WHEREAS, over a million prisoners have minor children and a “relationship with one's children may be the most meaningful or important connection a prisoner has to the world outside the walls” but the prison environment can be challenging for a child; therefore, “some states, like Washington, provide for child-friendly visiting rooms, including toys, games, and rule enforcement sensitive to children” and several “have women's prisons that run nursery programs for incarcerated mothers” allowing “mothers who are incarcerated during childbirth to keep newborns with them inside the facility;”[31]

III. Price gouging and rights violations related to telecommunications options has become common

WHEREAS, like visitations, inmate telecommunications with families can help reduce recidivism and, therefore, taxpayer dollars;[32] and,

WHEREAS, for years, two prison phone companies “have exerted effective monopoly power in many states to charge inmates, families, lawyers, and clergy excessive rates that can result in monthly bills of as much as $500. For a struggling family whose former breadwinner may be locked up, that’s a lot of money just to stay in touch with a loved one;”[33] and,

WHEREAS, according to the Federal Communications Commission, “in most cases, inmates' telephone calling options are limited to one or more of the following calling types: collect, debit account or pre-paid account; [and] incarcerated persons typically cannot choose their calling provider. These factors, combined with unrestricted rates, have often resulted in unreasonably high phone bills for inmates' families;”[34] and,

WHEREAS, some companies providing services for inmate calling impose “dozens of fees for calls and basic services, including establishing, maintaining and closing an account;”[35] and,

WHEREAS, the FCC attempted to pass orders capping phone call rates in 2013, 2015 and 2016, settling in the latest one at 13 cents/minute for the least expensive option (debit or prepaid calls from state or federal prisons) and a top rate of 31 cents/minute for the most expensive option (debit or prepaid calls from non-state or federal jails with fewer than 350 inmates), for both interstate and intrastate calls,[36] but, after the FCC refused to continue defending its own rules in 2017,[37] the DC Circuit declared that the latest couple of orders exceeded the FCC’s authority,[38] which means that the much higher 2013 interim rate caps, which “apply only to interstate long-distance calls, not in-state long distance or local calls,”[39] remain in effect; and,

WHEREAS, given the prevalence of unlimited nationwide calling packages and reliable worldwide voice over IP and internet video calling at affordable fixed monthly rates for unlimited access, even the rates proposed by the FCC in 2016 seem unacceptably high; and,

WHEREAS, bipartisan legislation to address this issue, like S. 2520, the Inmate Calling Technical Corrections Act of 2018, has not advanced in Congress;[40] and,

WHEREAS, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is currently evaluating a bill to eliminate all charges for inmate phone calls;[41] and,

WHEREAS, US prisons and jails have begun using AI to mass-monitor millions of inmate calls;[42] and,

WHEREAS, some of those monitored or recorded calls include the calls of pretrial inmates in jails, placing those defendants at a disadvantage when compared to those who, through bail or otherwise, are not incarcerated;[43] and,

WHEREAS, a hack of recorded inmate calls earlier in this decade published for download recordings of “more than 70 million records of individual phone calls” including “prisoners’ first and last names; the phone numbers they called; the date, time, and duration of the calls” and other information;[44] and,

WHEREAS, the hack revealed that Securus Technologies had improperly and knowingly recorded at least 14,000 phone calls to 800 different landlines that clearly belonged to attorneys, constituting a massive breach of attorney-client privilege;[45] and,

WHEREAS, the hack also revealed that the same company had endangered the lives of several inmates cooperating with authorities by recording 75 calls from inmates to a United States attorney’s office;[46] and,

WHEREAS, a new trend has developed whereby inmates are charged to read electronic books and donations of hard copies are forbidden, this limits educational opportunities for inmates and likely increases recidivism and misbehavior.[47]

IV. Conclusions

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators calls on the United States Congress and state legislatures, corrections departments and localities to strengthen or enact stringent restrictions on the use of isolated or solitary confinement in immigration, correctional and other detention facilities, taking into account that, in the case of the criminal justice system, it tends to undermine the goal of rehabilitation which should be the primary aim of a correctional system; and,

BE IT FUTHER RESOLVED, specifically, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators calls for the enactment of the following minimum restrictions[48] regarding the use of isolated or solitary confinement:

1. an inmate shall not be placed in isolated confinement unless there is reasonable cause to believe that the inmate or others would be at substantial risk of immediate, serious harm as evidenced by recent threats or conduct, and any less restrictive intervention would be insufficient to reduce that risk; and
2. an inmate shall not be placed in isolated confinement based on the inmate’s race, creed, color, national origin, nationality, ancestry, age, marital status, domestic partnership or civil union status, affectional or sexual orientation, genetic information, pregnancy or breastfeeding status, sex, gender identity or expression, disability or atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait; and,
3. an inmate shall not be placed in solitary confinement as a coercive, extortive or investigative technique or for any other non-disciplinary reason; and,
4. the correctional facility shall be responsible for establishing the justification for isolated confinement by clear and convincing evidence; and,
5. except in cases involving medical isolation, the final decision to place an inmate in isolated confinement is to be made by the facility administrator; and,
6. an inmate shall not be placed in isolated confinement or in any other cell or holding or living space with one or more inmates if there is reasonable cause to believe that it could potentially be a dangerous space for the inmate for reasons such as harassment, intimidation, extortion or any physical or emotional abuse; and,
7. no inmate is to be placed in isolated confinement for more than 15 consecutive days, or for more than 20 days during any 60-day period; and,
8. exceptions to the restrictions on isolated confinement may be made for facility-wide lock downs, emergency confinement, medical isolation, and protective custody, but these should be rare; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators also calls for the enactment of the following minimum guarantees[49] regarding the use of isolated or solitary confinement:

1. an inmate cannot be denied access to necessities such as water or food nor to appropriate medical care; and,
2. cells or other holding or living spaces used for isolated confinement are to be properly ventilated, lit, temperature-controlled, clean, and equipped with properly functioning sanitary fixtures; and,
3. an inmate shall receive timely, fair, and meaningful opportunities to contest the isolated confinement, including the right to an initial hearing within 72 hours of placement and reviews every 15 days thereafter, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, unavoidable delays, or reasonable postponements; the right to appear at the hearing; the right to be represented at the hearing; an independent hearing officer; and a written statement of reasons for the decision made at the hearing; and,
4. inmates in non-local correctional facilities or in any facility capable of doing so shall receive a personal and comprehensive medical and mental health examination, conducted by a clinician, before being placed in isolated confinement; and inmates in local or county correctional facilities not capable of providing the prior clinician examination, a preliminary examination is to be conducted by a member of the medical staff within 12 hours of confinement and the clinical examination is to be conducted within 48 hours of confinement; and,
5. except as explained below, an inmate determined to be a member of a vulnerable population is to be immediately removed from isolated confinement to an appropriate placement; ‘vulnerable population’ includes those 21 years of age or younger; 65 years of age or older; those with a disability based on a mental illness, a history of psychiatric hospitalization, or having recently exhibited conduct, including but not limited to serious self-mutilation, indicating the need for further observation or evaluation to determine the presence of mental illness; those having a developmental disability; those having a serious medical condition which cannot effectively be treated in isolated confinement; those who are pregnant or lactating; those in the postpartum period, or those who have recently suffered a miscarriage or terminated a pregnancy; those who have a significant auditory or visual impairment; or those perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex. To that end,
   1. an inmate who is a member of a vulnerable population because the inmate is 21 years of age or younger, has a disability based on mental illness, or has a developmental disability shall not be subject to discipline for refusing treatment or medication, or for self-harming or related conduct or threats of this conduct; and, if they would otherwise be placed in isolated confinement, they shall be screened by a correctional facility clinician or the appropriate screening service and, if found to meet the standards of civil commitment, shall be placed in a specialized unit, or civilly committed to the least restrictive appropriate short term care or psychiatric facility;
   2. an inmate who is a member of a vulnerable population because the inmate is 65 years of age or older, has a serious medical condition which cannot be effectively treated in isolated confinement, or is pregnant, is lactating, is in the postpartum period, or has recently suffered a miscarriage or terminated a pregnancy, who would otherwise be placed in isolated confinement, shall alternately be placed in an appropriate medical or other unit; and,
6. all guarantees and restrictions shall be continuing and inmates whose isolation fails to meet all criteria shall be removed from isolation immediately; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators calls on the United States Congress and state legislatures, corrections departments and localities to strengthen or enact stringent restrictions on the use of limitations to visitation rights of inmates with family members and others as a tool by prison officials; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, specifically, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators also calls for the enactment of the following minimum guidelines on the visitation and contact rights:

1. while facilities are encouraged to provide free or low-cost telecommunications options for inmates, no facility shall fully or substantively replace the right to in-person visits with a telecommunications-based alternative, be it remote or on-site; ‘substantial replacement’ means any curtailment of physical visits for more than 15 days which intends to count telecommunications- or video-based conversation as if it were a visit within that timeframe; and,
2. except as stated below and in addition to any video-based or other telecommunications they may have a right or access to, no inmate shall be denied any in person, physical, visit due to any conduct beyond the inmate’s control; and,
3. unless exigent circumstances, described in writing, make it unfeasible, visits shall allow physical contact; and,
4. facilities shall provide at least six hours a day for visits with more hours on holidays and no time limitation on the length of a visit except when reasonably needed to allow visits for other inmates, with special attention paid in those cases to the distance the visitor traveled; and,
5. facilities shall endeavor to make overnight visits available; and,
6. an inmate shall not be denied visitation rights as a coercive, extortive or investigative technique or for any other non-disciplinary reason; and,
7. inmates in more restrictive or higher-security custody shall have the same visitation rights, in general as other inmates unless there are documented violence reasons that make this unfeasible; and,
8. since visitation also affects the visitors, inmates shall not be denied visits if a lesser restriction would suffice as punishment for the disciplinary violation; and,
9. facilities shall provide child-friendly visiting rooms, including toys, games, and enforcement the rules in a manner sensitive to children’s needs and typical conduct; and,
10. women inmates incarcerated close to childbirth shall be housed in facilities that provide nurseries and are close to their communities so that they can care for their children in the prison for a reasonable time; and,
11. restrictions on the items that visitors may carry on their persons may not be arbitrary and must bear a reasonable, not remote, relation to the security of the inmates and the institution; and,
12. a list of the forbidden items or conduct, which must include the reasons for the prohibition, must be made public and emailed or provided to anyone upon request; the list may not be changed more than once every thirty days and new prohibitions cannot enter into effect immediately and must made public prior to a reasonable waiting period before their effective date; all persons shall have the right to question the list in both the administrative agency and a court with jurisdiction; and,
13. visitors shall not be presumed to be attempting to break the rules, and no visitor shall be denied the right to visit an inmate for any reason that is cured by the visitor after being given reasonable opportunity to do so; and,
14. absent other aggravating circumstances, persons with criminal records shall be allowed to visit inmates; and,
15. visitors to an inmate shall not be limited to persons on a list, although pre-listed visitors may be granted speedier access; and,
16. visitors shall not be denied visitations for more than the current visit absent court order which may only impose restrictions that are reasonably proportional to the violation found; and,
17. neither inmates nor visitors shall be denied visitation rights on the basis of sex, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, domestic partnership or civil union, race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, disability, genetic information, atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait, nor any other social category; and,
18. exceptions to the presumption of a right to visits may be made for facility-wide lock downs, emergency confinement, medical reasons, and protective custody, but these should be rare; and,
19. the correctional facility shall be responsible for establishing the justification for the limits on visitation rights by clear and convincing evidence; and,
20. in all cases, even the exceptions, both inmates, the inmates’ immediate family members and legal counsel and any other regular visitors, as well as any visitor for the inmate, shall be informed of the reasons for any limit to visitations as soon as practicable and they shall be also informed of any lifting of restrictions with the same speed; and,
21. an inmate my limit the notice given to others regarding the inmate’s visitation rights but, in order to prevent coercive renunciation of rights, the inmate may only do so at a time when the inmate is not under threat of any punishment, and has not been punished for any reason, except for the incarceration itself, in the preceding three months, and using a process which guarantees the inmate is ably and freely renouncing his rights and in which the institution’s guards and other direct administrators are not involved; and,
22. an inmate shall receive timely, fair, and meaningful opportunities to contest the limits on visitations, including the right to an initial hearing within 72 hours of placement and reviews every 15 days thereafter, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, unavoidable delays, or reasonable postponements; the right to appear at the hearing; the right to be represented at the hearing; an independent hearing officer; and a written statement of reasons for the decision made at the hearing; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators calls on the United States Congress and state legislatures, corrections departments and localities to strengthen or enact stringent limits on the rates that inmates can be charged for telecommunications; and,

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, specifically, the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators also calls for the enactment of the following minimum guidelines on the telecommunications rights of inmates:

1. phone calls, both incoming and outgoing, should be free of cost for the inmate and any other party in the call; and,
2. no account-related fees shall be imposed; and,
3. facilities should also endeavor in good faith to provide other free or low-cost telecommunications options for inmates, including video calling of comparable quality to that available to the general public; ‘low-cost’ means the actual cost to the facility of providing the service which shall not exceed the market price of the service or of any substantially similar service for the general public, and, if it is a fixed cost to the facility for unlimited use, then that low fixed cost reasonably prorated to the inmate’s use; and,
4. an inmate’s allowed telecommunications use must provide enough time for substantive, regular conversations; and,
5. an inmate shall not be denied telecommunications rights as a coercive, extortive or investigative technique or for any other non-disciplinary or facility-wide reason; and,
6. since telecommunications with inmates also affects the other parties to the call, inmates shall not be denied telecommunications if a lesser restriction would suffice as punishment for the disciplinary violation; and,
7. the correctional facility shall be responsible for establishing the justification for the limits on visitation rights by clear and convincing evidence; and,
8. no inmate shall be denied telecommunications with the outside for more than 30 days for any reason absent court order which includes findings that such communications are likely to produce danger in the facility or in the outside community, provided that those orders may not be effective for over two years and require renewal and encouraging that those orders be tailored to cover communications with specific individuals and not merely broad prohibitions; and,
9. an inmate shall receive timely, fair, and meaningful opportunities to contest the limits on telecommunications, including the right to an initial hearing within 72 hours of placement and reviews every 10 days thereafter, in the absence of court order, exceptional circumstances, unavoidable delays, or reasonable postponements; the right to appear at the hearing; the right to be represented at the hearing; an independent hearing officer; and a written statement of reasons for the decision made at the hearing; and,
10. except during facility-wide lockdowns, no inmate shall be denied telecommunications with their legal counsel at any time and such communications may not be monitored or recorded; and,
11. the telecommunications of a pretrial inmate who has not been convicted may not be monitored or recorded absent court order applying the same guidelines applicable to non-inmates; and,
12. if an inmate’s telecommunications are monitored or recorded, all parties to the communication must be effectively warned of such before every call that is so monitored or recorded; and,

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators calls on the United States Congress and state legislatures, corrections departments and localities to increase and enhance inmate access to books and other educational opportunities, including electronic books and donated books in printed or electronic format, underscoring that those should be provided free of charge to inmates or their families (including free of processing charges), allowing for market price for special personal orders of new books, and allowing a one-time charge for a personal e-reader or tablet at an accessible price reasonably similar to the lowest outside cost of similar devices.

THE NHCSL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE UNANIMOUSLY AMENDED AND APPROVED THIS RESOLUTION ON DECEMBER 3, 2019 AT ITS FALL MEETING IN SAN JUAN, PR.

THE NATIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS OF STATE LEGISLATORS UNANIMOUSLY RATIFIED THIS RESOLUTION ON DECEMBER 5, 2019, AT THE ANNUAL MEETING IN SAN JUAN, PR.

[1] See Kirsten Weir, Alone, in ‘the hole’, American Psychological Association, May 2012, Vol 43, No. 5. Available at https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/05/solitary

[2] See Solitary confinement facts, American Friends Service Committee. September 9, 2019. Available at https://www.afsc.org/resource/solitary-confinement-facts. The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization founded in 1917, that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action.

[3] See No name, “The Abuse of Solitary Confinement”, The New York Times, March 16, 2012, Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/opinion/the-abuse-of-solitary-confinement.html

[4] See Solitary confinement, Penal Reform International. September 17, 2019. Available at https://www.penalreform.org/priorities/prison-conditions/key-facts/solitary-confinement/. Penal Reform International (PRI) is an independent non-governmental organization that develops and promotes fair, effective and proportionate responses to criminal justice problems worldwide.

[5] See Guenther, Lisa. Solitary confinement: Social death and its afterlives. U of Minnesota Press, 2013.

[6] Solitary confinement facts, American Friends Service Committee. September 9, 2019. Available at https://www.afsc.org/resource/solitary-confinement-facts.

[7] Solitary confinement, Penal Reform International. September 17, 2019. Available at https://www.penalreform.org/priorities/prison-conditions/key-facts/solitary-confinement/. Penal Reform International (PRI) is an independent non-governmental organization that develops and promotes fair, effective and proportionate responses to criminal justice problems worldwide.

[8] Solitary confinement facts, American Friends Service Committee. September 9, 2019. Available at https://www.afsc.org/resource/solitary-confinement-facts.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Solitary confinement facts, American Friends Service Committee. September 9, 2019. Available at https://www.afsc.org/resource/solitary-confinement-facts.

[14] Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, “The Link Between Race and Solitary Confinement”, The Atlantic, December 5, 2016. Available at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/race-solitary-confinement/509456/

[15] Ibid.

[16] Rappleye, H., Lehren, A., Woodman, S., Swales, V. and Saleh, M., “Thousands of immigrants suffer in solitary confinement in U.S. detention centers”, CBC News, May 21, 2019. Available at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/thousands-immigrants-suffer-solitary-confinement-u-s detention-centers-n1007881

[17] American Friends Service Committee. Inalienable Rights: Applying international human rights standards to the U.S. criminal justice system. 2009. Page 14.

[18] Liliana Segura, Twitter report on experiences as a visitor in prisons across the country (Nov 2019), https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1196198439685672961.html

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid. (listing Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming).

[24] Ibid. (listing Oregon and Utah).

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Timothy Lee, NOFACETIME — Jails are replacing visits with video calls—inmates and families hate it (Ars Technica, May 14 2018), https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/05/jails-are-replacing-in-person-visits-with-video-calling-services-theyre-awful/; and see Shannon Sims, The end of American prison visits: jails end face-to-face contact – and families suffer (The Guardian, Dec 9 2017) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/09/skype-for-jailed-video-calls-prisons-replace-in-person-visits

[28] Chesa Boudin, Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty-State Survey, Yale L. & Policy Rev., 165 (2013), https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/center/liman/document/prison_visitation_policies.pdf

[29] Ibid. p 164.

[30] Ibid. p. 162.

[31] Ibid. p 168-69.

[32] Alex Friedmann, Lowering Recidivism through Family Communication (Prison Legal News, Apr 15, 2014) https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/apr/15/lowering-recidivism-through-family-communication/

[33] San Gustin, A new bill could finally ban predatory inmate phone costs (The Verge, Mar 13 2018), https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113712/prison-phone-call-bill-reform-senate

[34] FCC, Inmate Telephone Service, https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/inmate-telephone-service

[35] Timothy Williams, The High Cost of Calling the Imprisoned (New York Times, Mar 31, 2015) https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/us/steep-costs-of-inmate-phone-calls-are-under-scrutiny.html

[36] FCC, FCC ADOPTS SUSTAINABLE, AFFORDABLE INMATE CALLING RATES (Aug 4 2016), https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-340632A1.docx. (Rates for collect calls were “slightly higher in the first year” and were meant to be “phased down to these caps after a two-year transition period” which would have ended in December 2018).

[37] San Gustin, Trump’s FCC Refused to Fight For Lower Prison Phone Rates. Now, Inmates Will Pay (Motherboard Tech by Vice, Jun 14, 2017), https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43y7eq/trumps-fcc-refused-to-fight-for-lower-prison-phone-rates-now-inmates-will-pay

[38]A new bill, supra, n 23.

[39]Inmate Telephone Service, supra, n. 23. (Those 2013 rates still in effect are 21 cents a minute for debit/prepaid calls, and 25 cents a minute for collect calls.)

[40] Sponsored by Senators Tammy Duckworth, Cory Booker, Brian Schatz, Rob Portman, Ed Markey and Angus King.

[41] MA S.1372: An Act Relative To Inmate Telephone Calls. https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/S1372

[42] Chris Francescani, US prisons and jails using AI to mass-monitor millions of inmate calls (ABC News, Oct 24 2019), https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/us-prisons-jails-ai-mass-monitor-millions-inmate/story?id=66370244

[43] Ibid.

[44] Jordan Smith and Micah Lee, NOT SO SECURUS, Massive Hack of 70 Million Prisoner Phone Calls Indicates Violations of Attorney-Client Privilege (The Intercept, Nov 11, 2015), https://theintercept.com/2015/11/11/securus-hack-prison-phone-company-exposes-thousands-of-calls-lawyers-and-clients/

[45] Ibid.

[46] Ibid.

[47]https://reason.com/2019/11/22/west-virginia-inmates-will-be-charged-by-the-minute-to-read-e-books-on-tablets/

[48] Based on NJ S.3261 (2018-2019) introduced by the sponsor of this resolution. See https://legiscan.com/NJ/text/S3261/id/1828804

[49] Ibid.