Good news came out of Mississippi this week, where a federal court will soon enter a groundbreaking consent decree, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, banning the horrendous practice of subjecting kids convicted as adults to solitary confinement. The ACLU opposes the use of solitary confinement for people of any age, but it is especially distressing when used against children. And in Mississippi, the situation is even grosser: the correctional facility in question – which houses kids as young as 13 – is run by a for-profit prison corporation.
In 2010, the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit alongside the Southern Poverty Law Center that brought to light the brutal conditions children were being subjected to by GEO Group, Inc., the nation’s second-largest for-profit prison corporation. Tales ranged from staff members peddling drugs to brutal beatings to sexual exploitation – and that’s before even getting to the solitary confinement. Children were also being held in almost complete isolation and sensory deprivation with virtually no human contact, without books, paper or pens. Children were being held in solitary cells without any access to visitors, or even mail from their own families. Children.
Thankfully, bigger hearts and better minds won out. But the case serves as a chilling reminder of how far off-track our criminal justice system has become, particularly for youth. Since the 1990’s, 47 states have actually made it easier to try kids as adults and to incarcerate them in the same harsh and dangerous conditions to which adults are subjected. And it was only a mere seven years ago – on this very day in 2005, in fact – that the Supreme Court finally ruled the death penalty unconstitutional for children who committed a crime under the age of 18. And even that was only a 5-4 decision.
Progress is worth celebrating, even if it’s incremental, but one can’t help wonder why the pace must be so slow. And just to be clear: Mississippi is not the only state where children have been subjected to solitary confinement, nor is it the only state with prisons and youth correctional facilities run by for-profit corporations. Let’s hope other states get the message, follow suit, and categorically forbid such horrid practices.
