Solitary confinement is torture and Washington state needs to end it | Opinion

You may believe that solitary confinement in prisons is reserved for serious infractions by violent people. You would be wrong.

Solitary confinement is used in Washington prisons for many purposes including punishment for fighting or separation between people. But it is also frequently used for minor prison rule violations, arbitrary retribution, and undeserved punishment for false positive drug tests.

People are held in solitary for months, years or even decades. It is barbaric, and is defined worldwide as torture.

Substitute House Bill 1087 would have restricted the use of solitary to no more than 15 days at a time, and require that people have more time out of their cells each day. Other states have made this change and saved money. The WA Department of Corrections (DOC) said it would cost $228 million dollars. SHB 1087 is no longer being considered this legislative session.

DOC Secretary Cheryl Strange committed to reducing solitary by 90% in five years. Her plan is to use more staff (300+) to allow people 4 hours a day out of cell.

However, nothing in Strange’s steps to reducing solitary actually says DOC will reduce the number of people in “restrictive housing.” It just expands the definition of what is not solitary, to change the reported numbers.

In DOC’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan, DOC states “there are 218 beds statewide… within the definition of solitary confinement.” Yet, in a funding request, DOC told legislators that DOC has “642 segregation beds and 394 intensive management beds system wide” and that 600 to 800 beds are usually filled.

If the number is 700, DOC is not moving toward reducing solitary confinement; if the number is 218, they have no justification for the exceedingly high fiscal note.

They can’t have it both ways.

That is not a reduction in solitary confinement. That’s saying give us money to hire 300 more employees; we will isolate more people for up to 20 hours a day, and call it progress.

To be fair, some of those hired would be mental health professionals. And improved behavioral health care is sorely needed inside our prisons. But the need for such services would be greatly reduced by reducing the time that people are in solitary.

Are there people in solitary who may never be able to function in general in general population? Yes. And there people in solitary who should never have been in prison to begin with. But these are the ends of the spectrum. Let’s talk about the hundreds in the middle.

Solitary confinement causes psychological harm to every person subjected to it, and exacerbates existing mental health conditions. The outcome is both harmful and costly. Solitary confinement makes us all less safe.

By redirecting our investment into proven means of reducing recidivism — including increasing educational access — we can reduce the number of people in prisons and reduce the overall cost of incarceration in our state.

About 96% of the people who are in prison are coming home. The question is whether they come home better-prepared to successfully navigate life in their communities. That is what makes our communities healthier and safer.

Washington is currently 30th out of 50 in terms of recidivism — an indicator of whether the time in prison was spent on preparing for successful reentry. We can do better. Much better.

We need to get people out of solitary and into environments that contribute to positive outcomes. Four hours out of cell time is a step forward for those now getting one hour on some days, none on others. But it is not a reduction in solitary confinement.

It is atrocious that DOC is literally holding people hostage in solitary confinement and demanding millions of dollars to treat them humanely.

We need state leaders who have the courage to say: We will not torture people in this way, and we will not pay DOC to continue torturing people in their care.

Survivors Opposing Solitary and our community implore you: Talk to your legislators. Tell them long-term solitary confinement is torture and we can end it.

Noreen Light’s son has been incarcerated for more than two decades and has spent months in solitary confinement. She works with a coalition called Survivors Opposing Solitary. She lives in Olympia.