Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which an incarcerated person lives in a single cell with little or no contact with other people. It is a punitive tool used within the prison system to discipline or separate incarcerated individuals who are considered to be security risks to other incarcerated individuals or prison staff, as well as those who violate facility rules or are deemed disruptive. However, it can also be used as protective custody for incarcerated individuals whose safety is threatened by other prisoners. This is employed to separate them from the general prison population and prevent injury or death.
Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) is a supermax prison facility in Crescent City, California. The 275-acre (111 ha) prison takes its name from a shallow bay on the Pacific coast, about 2 mi (3.2 km) to the west.
HM Prison Whitemoor is a Category A men's prison near March, Cambridgeshire, England, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Force-feeding is the practice of feeding a human or animal against their will. The term gavage refers to supplying a substance by means of a small plastic feeding tube passed through the nose (nasogastric) or mouth (orogastric) into the stomach.
The United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility, commonly known as ADX Florence or the Florence Supermax, is an American federal prison in Fremont County to the south of Florence, Colorado, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. ADX Florence, constructed in 1994 and opened one year later, is classed as a supermax or "control unit" prison, that provides a higher, more controlled level of custody than a regular maximum security prison. ADX Florence forms part of the Federal Correctional Complex, Florence, which is situated on 49 acres of land and houses different facilities with varying degrees of security, including the adjacent United States Penitentiary, Florence High.
The rights of civilian and military prisoners are governed by both national and international law. International conventions include the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the United Nations' Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
A super-maximum security (supermax) or administrative maximum (ADX) prison is a "control-unit" prison, or a unit within prisons, which represents the most secure level of custody in the prison systems of certain countries.
In Italian law, Article 41-bis of the Prison Administration Act, also known as carcere duro, is a provision that allows the Minister of Justice or the Minister of the Interior to suspend certain prison regulations and impose practically a complete isolation upon a prisoner. It is used against people imprisoned for particular crimes, such as Mafia-type association under 416-bis, drug trafficking, homicide, aggravated robbery and extortion, kidnapping, terrorism, and attempting to subvert the constitutional system. It is suspended only when a prisoner co-operates with the authorities, when a court annuls it, or when a prisoner dies.
Red Onion State Prison (ROSP) is a supermax state prison located in unincorporated Wise County, Virginia, near Pound. Operated by the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC), it houses about 800 inmates. The prison opened in August 1998.
F-Type-Prisons, officially called F-type High Security Closed Institutions for the Execution of Sentences, are high-security closed prisons designated by Turkish Law 5275 on the Execution of Sentences.
In Italy, life imprisonment is the most severe punishment provided by law, and has an indeterminate length. Article 22 of the Italian Penal Code defines life imprisonment as "perpetual, and is taken for granted in one of the establishments destined for this, with the obligation of work and with night-time isolation", thus meaning that the sentence may last for the remainder of the convicted person's life. It is a mandatory punishment for aggravated cases of murder, aggravated cases of terrorism, felony murder in cases where serious violent offences result in death, using a weapon of mass destruction by causing an endemic through the spread of pathogenic germs in the case of a biological weapon, and mafia association under aggravated circumstances. It is also a possible punishment for terrorism, poisoning of water or food supplies, and treason.
The widespread and systematic use of torture in Turkey goes back to the Ottoman Empire. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey, torture of civilians by the Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish police was widespread during the Dersim rebellion. The Sansaryan Han police headquarters and Harbiye Military Prison in Istanbul became known for torture in the 1940s. Amnesty International (AI) first documented Turkish torture after the 1971 Turkish coup d'état and has continued to issue critical reports, particularly after the outbreak of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the 1980s. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture has issued critical reports on the extent of torture in Turkey since the 1990s. The Stockholm Center for Freedom published a report entitled Mass Torture and Ill-Treatment in Turkey in June 2017. The Human Rights Foundation of Turkey estimates there are around one million victims of torture in Turkey.
The 2013 California prisoner hunger strike started on July 8, 2013, involving over 29,000 inmates in protest of the state's use of solitary confinement practices and ended on September 5, 2013. The hunger strike was organized by inmates in long term solitary in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in protest of inmates housed there that were in solitary confinement indefinitely for having ties to gangs. Another hunger strike that added to the movement started the week before in High Desert State Prison. The focus of the High Desert State Prison hunger strike was to demand cleaner facilities, better food and better access to the library.
In the United States penal system, upwards of 20 percent of state and federal prison inmates and 18 percent of local jail inmates are kept in solitary confinement or another form of restrictive housing at some point during their imprisonment. Solitary confinement (sometimes euphemistically called protective custody, punitive segregation (PSEG) or room restriction) generally comes in one of two forms: "disciplinary segregation," in which inmates are temporarily placed in solitary confinement as punishment for rule-breaking; and "administrative segregation," in which prisoners deemed to be a risk to the safety of other inmates, prison staff, or to themselves are placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time, often months or years.
Taunoa v Attorney-General was a case in the Supreme Court of New Zealand concerning breaches of prisoners' Bill of Rights protected rights by the Department of Corrections in the Behaviour Management Regime programme at Auckland Prison between 1998 and 2004.
The Prisoner Human Rights Movement was launched in 2011 by Pelican Bay State Prison inmates in response to large numbers of inmates being moved from general prison populations to solitary-confinement units after allegations of gang affiliation or political organizing. Its goal is to improve living conditions for inmates in California.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment is a United Nations special rapporteur. The office is currently filled by Alice Jill Edwards, since 1 August 2022. It was previously held by Nils Melzer, and before him, Juan E. Méndez.
FIES is a restrictive Spanish prison regime which involves 22 hours of solitary confinement every day. After first being imposed on those convicted of terrorism or membership of armed groups such as ETA, it was extended to particularly violent prisoners and major drug traffickers. FIES has been criticised for being applied to prisoners who have not committed offences covered by the regime.
Kevan Thakrar is an English prisoner who has spent over a decade in solitary confinement in Close Supervision Centres (CSCs) in various UK prisons. Thakrar received a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum term of 35 years under joint enterprise in 2008 after his brother Miran murdered three men in Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. Whilst incarcerated, Thakrar attacked three prison officers and was acquitted by a jury after being charged with attempted murder. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment raised concerns about Thakrar's treatment in 2021 and Thakrar was subsequently moved into a segregated ward at HMP Belmarsh. He remains in the CSC system and launched a judicial review in April 2023.
Ahmad Manasra is a 22-year-old Palestinian who was arrested in 2015 at the age of 13 in relation to the Pisgat Ze'ev stabbings in an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem.
