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Massachusetts High Court Cracks Down on Solitary Confinement

The state’s highest court has ordered safeguards against long-term solitary confinement to prison inmates who are placed in segregation for administrative reasons, such as for their own protection, in a ruling that prisoners’ rights advocates hope will reduce unnecessary isolation of prisoners.

The state’s highest court has ordered safeguards against long-term solitary confinement to prison inmates who are placed in segregation for administrative reasons, such as for their own protection, in a ruling that prisoners’ rights advocates hope will reduce unnecessary isolation of prisoners.

 

The Supreme Judicial Court found that the state Department of Correction must follow court-mandated segregation regulations whenever a prisoner is held in a cell alone for 23 hours a day, with no contact with outsiders, even if the segregation is considered short-term, and even if the department does not call it “segregation.”

 

 

The Department of Correction had placed inmates in “special management units,” but the court found the units are no different than segregation.

 

The court, which upheld past decisions in its ruling released Friday, found that any prisoner held in administrative segregation is entitled to a hearing to petition for their release from segregation, and they must be told what steps they can take to expedite their placement back in general population. They also must be given a projected release date.

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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