33 Search results for "solitary confinement"

President Barack Obama has announced new rules that will change the way that federal prisons operate. For starters, putting juvenile offenders in solitary confinement has now been banned due to a belief that it is overused and can lead to severe psychological damage.

  Albert Woodfox has spent more than 42 years not just locked up in prison, but in isolation. But thanks to a court ruling, America’s longest-standing solitary confinement prisoner’s conviction has been overturned. 

New York became the largest state in the country to ban placing inmates under the age of 18 in solitude. The decision comes as part of sweeping reforms of the state’s use of solitary confinement. 

71-year-old Herman Wallace is now a free man after spending 41 years in solitary confinement. U.S. District Chief Judge Brian Jackson denied Louisiana’s motion seeking to block his earlier order overturning Wallace’s 1974 murder conviction in the death of guard Brent Miller.

A Louisiana man released just three days from prison after serving 41 years in solitary confinement has died. Herman Wallace was released Tuesday after a judge ruled that he be freed because women were excluded from his grand jury. Wallace suffered from terminal liver cancer.

In the United States, police kill over 1,000 and injure more than 51,000 people each year, with evidence suggesting that these figures could be underreported by as much as 55%. In addition to these numbers being substantially higher than other developed nations, unfortunately, they are also plagued by biases and systematic failures which disproportionately affect […]

Editor’s Note: June is LGBTQ Pride Month. At BYP, we will be exploring gender, sexuality, transgender issues and queer theory, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics and the things surrounding them. We want to hear from you! Send us your pitches at info@blackyouthproject.com My parents love me more than anyone […]

A history of forced institutionalization in service of white supremacy

This essay contains discussions of racialized sexual violence and mentions r/pe and molestation.  by Mekleit Dix The Handmaid’s Tale is a wildly popular American Television show based on a novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood. It portrays a dystopian nightmare: sterility in women becomes a widespread epidemic resulting in a break down of […]

by Tahirah Alexander Green Since the global COVID-19 health crisis began, my post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms have intensified. With non-stop discussions of hospitals and medical care in the news, in our homes, at our jobs, my memory keeps reaching back towards every violent hospitalization I’ve ever experienced or witnessed. While my chronic illnesses are […]

*This piece is published in partnership with Breakthrough as part of By & For: Black Youth, a written series documenting the issues affecting Black girls and gender non-conforming youth.* This essay mentions death, suicide and state violence.   “Memory is a tough place. You were there. If this is not the truth, it is also not a lie.” […]

 by Cheryldean Peters Beginning in the early 1600s, my ancestors were legally forced into slavery and robbed of their freedom. They were involuntarily exploited, beaten and forced to work as servants, which primarily helped generate income for America’s economy. Their servitude drastically enhanced local and colonial economics while creating generational wealth for their oppressors. Africans […]