Ending Solitary Confinement


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Current Campaigns

Why Jews Should Oppose Solitary Confinement

It is not good for a human to be alone.

—Genesis 2:18

Either companionship or death.

—Babylonian Talmud Ta’anit 23a

Current Campaigns

National

T’ruah endorses the historic End Solitary Confinement Act, introduced by Congresswoman Cori Bush (MO-01) (alongside Representatives Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D. (NY-16), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12)) in July 2023. The act would “end solitary confinement in federal prison and detention facilities, establish minimum standards for incarceration and due process protections, and incentivize states and localities to end solitary in state and local facilities.”

California

T’ruah is supporting the passage of the California Mandela Act on Solitary Confinement (AB280), legislation which would end prolonged isolation beyond 15 days in all California prisons, jails, and detention facilities. Our rabbis have written to their representatives, signed their synagogues and shuls onto a letter to Governor Newsom supporting the bill, and will continue to follow the lead of our partners at the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). 

New York City

T’ruah is partnering with NY-CAIC and the HALT coalition to end all solitary confinement in New York City jails. Most recently, we put together this letter at the end of the last legislative session, signed by dozens of rabbis and cantors in support of banning all solitary in NYC.  

Past victories

  • In 2016, T’ruah organized California rabbis and cantors to support SB1143, which ended long-term solitary confinement for juveniles, and represented the rabbinic community in a state-wide coalition.
  • In 2019, T’ruah organized New Jersey rabbis and cantors to work with a statewide coalition that successfully advocated to pass the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, which bans solitary confinement lasting more than 20 days (and 30 in a 60-day period) and eliminates the practice altogether for vulnerable populations including juveniles, pregnant inmates, and the elderly. (Read T’ruah’s statement on its passage here.)
  • In 2021, T’ruah organized New York State rabbis, cantors, and their communities to support the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act (S1623/A2500), as a member of the Coalition for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC). The HALT act set a 15-day limit on stays in solitary and ends the use of solitary for the most vulnerable populations, including juveniles, pregnant women, seniors, and people with mental illness. Governor Cuomo signed the HALT Act into law on March 31, 2021, after years of tireless campaigning led by survivors of solitary confinement and their friends and families. T’ruah is proud to be part of the coalition that won this victory for everyone who cares about human rights in New York State.

Resources from CAIC

Want to get involved? Email office@truah.org and our team will respond.

In addition to our organizing work, rabbinical students in T’ruah’s summer fellowship have interned with CAIC since 2014, providing additional organizing capacity to our partner at no cost to them.

 

Why Jews Should Oppose Solitary Confinement

Read T’ruah’s 2014 Shadow Report to the UN regarding the U.S. use of solitary confinement as a violation of the Convention Against Torture.

Every day, some 80,000-100,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement (also know as “administrative segregation”, among other terms) in American prisons, more than in any other country in the world. Prisoners in solitary typically spend 23 hours a day locked in small, often windowless, cells with a solid steel door, bed, toilet, and sink. They lack opportunities for significant social interaction. Meals are delivered through small slots in the cell doors, and the privileges of being spoken to and touched by prison guards when unshackled are initially denied to prisoners in solitary, and can only be earned back after a significant period of time. Phone calls and visits by family and loved ones are usually prohibited. A few times a week, prisoners are let out for showers and solitary exercise in an extremely small, enclosed space, which is often indoors.

The Torah did not give permission to place someone in a prison that is cramped, for prisons are only for keeping a person to ensure he doesn’t escape. . . Even more so, we should not place him in a prison that’s soiled, where he will not be able to study Torah or to keep the mitzvot. For even if the Torah gave us permission, since even though he has sinned and must be imprisoned in a prison, he has not ceased to be a Jew.

—Rabbi Chaim Palagi, Choshen Mishpat 5

Many prisoners in solitary confinement are kept there for years, sometimes even for decades. Many are arrested and imprisoned for a low-level drug offense but get put in segregation for non-violent infractions of prison rules, often due to mental health issues. Research by the American Civil Liberties Union has shown that between one-fifth and two-thirds of prisoners held in solitary have a serious mental illness that was diagnosed or manifested before isolation. For mentally ill prisoners, prolonged solitary confinement can be a living horror; the restricted activities and interactions can exacerbate their illness and immeasurably increase their pain and suffering. Many of those who enter solitary confinement mentally unimpaired develop severe mental illness after even just a few weeks in isolation.

Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time, no one to confide in, and only a pillow for comfort—for years on end. It is a living tomb.

—Gabriel Reyes, Pelican Bay State Prison inmate

Many prisoners are released directly from solitary back to the community, unprepared for normal social interaction. With no rehabilitative or educational programming, many end up back in prison after a short time due to panic attacks and other symptoms of mental illness, which are often developed in solitary due to the lack of social interaction.

We have a moral obligation to uphold the dignity and mental health of those currently incarcerated, whatever their crime. By decreasing the overuse of solitary confinement, the U.S. can save money, reduce prison violence, and most importantly, uphold the human rights that all human beings are guaranteed by the Constitution, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Jewish law.

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