US rights groups demand an end to solitary confinement for children

originally by: TBIJ 
published: 11 October 2012

Children as young as 13 are being placed in solitary confinement for months at a time in US jails, according to a report by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The report, Growing Up Locked Down documents, for the first time, the widespread use of solitary confinement on youth under the age of 18 in prisons and jails across the US.

The report makes shocking reading. It documents a 15-year-old carving the first letter of her mother’s name into her arm, another 15-year-old boy locked in solitary for 15 days for not making his bed, a 14 year-old who spent 60 days locked up alone and juveniles describing their experience as being like a slow death.

Nobody knows how many juveniles are held in solitary, as it is not documented, but it is estimated that between 3% and 5% of US prisoners are held in solitary and anecdotal evidence suggests that, in some systems, children may be isolated at even higher rates than adults.

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Growing Up Locked Down – youth in solitary confinement in jails and prisons across the United States
9 October 2012

Posted by Alison Leslie on 21/10/2012. Filed under Human Rights,Policy & Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry