The whole package of reforms - not just the one mentioned in the headline - affect 10,000 people.
[...] President Obama on Monday announced a ban on solitary confinement for juvenile offenders in the federal prison system, saying the practice is overused and has the potential for devastating psychological consequences. In an op-ed that appears in Tuesday editions of The Washington Post, the president outlines a series of executive actions that also prohibit federal corrections officials from punishing prisoners who commit “low-level infractions” with solitary confinement. The new rules also dictate that the longest a prisoner can be punished with solitary confinement for a first offense is 60 days, rather than the current maximum of 365 days. The president’s reforms apply broadly to the roughly 10,000 federal inmates serving time in solitary confinement, though there are only a handful of juvenile offenders placed in restrictive housing each year. Between September 2014 and September 2015, federal authorities were notified of just 13 juveniles who were put in solitary in its prisons, officials said. However, federal officials sent adults inmates to solitary for nonviolent offenses 3,800 times in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2014, suggesting that policy change will have more sweeping ramifications. [...] In addition, federal policy has a spillover effect on state policy. Some states are considering similar reforms. This will help push them over the fence. [...] He said he hoped his reforms at the federal level will serve as a model for states to rethink their rules on the issue. At least a dozen states have taken steps in the past two years to curtail the use of solitary confinement, either in response to lawsuits or through legislative and administrative changes. An increasing number of studies show a connection between isolating prisoners and higher rates of recidivism. [...] As many as 100,000 state and federal prisoners are held in solitary confinement in the United States at any given time, according to the White House. [...] === Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] (202) 448-2898 x1 On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 12:46 PM, Doug Henwood <[email protected]> wrote: > True, but this applies to 26 people. > > > > On Jan 26, 2016, at 1:26 PM, Robert Naiman <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > The President of the United States has awesome unilateral power to enact > reforms. > > > > Pass it on. > > > > > https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-bans-solitary-confinement-for-juveniles-in-federal-prisons/2016/01/25/056e14b2-c3a2-11e5-9693-933a4d31bcc8_story.html > > > > === > > > > Robert Naiman > > Policy Director > > Just Foreign Policy > > www.justforeignpolicy.org > > [email protected] > > (202) 448-2898 x1 > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > pen-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
