WASHINGTON (CN) — The Senate took aim at solitary confinement Tuesday, as some lawmakers branded the practice as a form of torture and backed efforts to drastically reduce its use in both federal prisons and migrant detention centers.
The use of solitary confinement, which involves separating an incarcerated person from the general population of a prison for months at a time, is widespread in the federal prison system. A February report from the Government Accountability Office found that the Bureau of Prisons was holding roughly 8% of its total prison population in solitary confinement as of last fall.
During a hearing Tuesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, lawmakers railed on the practice as antiquated and inhumane.
“This is sick, this is unacceptable and this is un-American,” said New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, adding that solitary confinement “is a practice that is so byzantine, so universally condemned by other peer nations, so torturous to individuals … it is stunning to me that this practice goes on in our nation at such a widespread level.”
Booker and other lawmakers pointed to studies they said demonstrate prolonged solitary confinement can cause or exacerbate mental health issues such as anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder and can lead to self-harm or suicide.
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, chair of the Judiciary Committee, said he has long been frustrated by the lack of action from lawmakers to limit the use of such practices.
The Senate majority whip pointed out that he has pushed for congressional action on solitary confinement for more than a decade, but that despite his advocacy the practice continues in federal prisons.
“We must look in the mirror and acknowledge our obligation to eliminate solitary,” Durbin said.
Booker concurred, saying that there is “no excuse for torturing individuals” and that Congress has had a hand in the accelerated use of solitary confinement by chronically underfunding institutions such as the Bureau of Prisons — forcing them to rely on the practice instead of pursuing alternatives.
Experts invited to testify Tuesday urged Congress to take action.
“No one should be in solitary confinement,” said Katherine Peeler, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a medical expert for Physicians for Human Rights. “It helps no one, hurts everyone, and better alternatives exist.”
Peeler was particularly critical of isolation practices used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in migrant detention facilities. She pointed to research which found that, between 2018 and 2023, ICE put detained immigrants in solitary confinement 14,000 times for an average of 27 days.
That figure puts ICE’s solitary confinement program in conflict with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which prohibits prolonged confinement for a period of more than 15 days, she said.
Isolating a person for longer than the U.N. threshold can make many of the acute symptoms of solitary confinement irreversible, Peeler contended.
Federal immigration authorities have also used “indiscriminate” solitary confinement, she said, pointing to examples from her research in which detained migrants were isolated for using profanity or refusing to get out of their bunk during an inmate head count. ICE has also used solitary confinement to isolate people who are sick or in need of other medical care, Peeler said.
The federal government should ultimately seek to completely do away with solitary confinement, she contended, but for now it should take steps to drastically reduce its use.
Nicole Davis, executive director of the Chicago-based Talk2Me Foundation, detailed her own experience in solitary confinement at a federal correctional institution in Danbury, Connecticut. She spent a total of 117 days in isolation, she said — including an 87-day stint that came as punishment for participating in a three-way phone call with her sister and hospitalized daughter.
“Solitary confinement is not a place to put human beings,” said Davis. “We know even a short time in solitary causes substantial harm.”
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, were open to the idea of reducing the reliance on solitary confinement in federal prisons, but pointed out that there was still a place for the practice when it came to particularly dangerous people.
“Solitary confinement is a necessary part of escalation with someone … who represents a danger to themselves or others,” said North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, who added that not all prisoners “are good people who did a bad thing.”
Despite that, Tillis said that lawmakers “have to get smarter on how we deal with people” in prison, particularly people suffering from mental illness.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the Judiciary Committee’s Republican ranking member, had little to say on solitary confinement, agreeing with Tillis’ contention that it is “a tool that most jailers need to protect not only the population of prisoners” but the isolated inmates themselves.
Roy Boyd, the sheriff of Goliad County, Texas, said that federal policy on solitary confinement should mimic the Lone Star State’s guidelines on the practice — which it legally refers to as “separation cells” rather than solitary.
Texas gives incarcerated people in isolation access to phone calls and publications such as newspapers and magazines, Boyd said, as well as exercise and sunlight. The state guidelines also lay out specific offenses that can warrant solitary confinement, such as escape attempts, attacking guards or refusing to participate in an inmate head count.
Democrats, for their part, acknowledged that there were circumstances in which solitary confinement would still be necessary but said that federal prisons should employ alternatives to reduce its use.
Tuesday’s hearing comes as Senate Democrats, led by Durbin, have reintroduced two pieces of legislation which, if made law, would clamp down on the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons as well as immigration detention centers.
The first measure, known as the Solitary Confinement Reform Act, would require the Bureau of Prisons or any outside contractor to limit solitary confinement “to the briefest term and least restrictive conditions practicable,” and would mandate people in confinement be allowed out of their cell for at least four hours pa day. The bill would also ensure that anyone in solitary confinement has “meaningful interaction” with other inmates, clergy and mental health professionals.
The second piece of legislation sets similar limits on the use of solitary confinement in ICE detention centers. The bill would also prohibit the use of such practices on certain detainees, including people under 25 years old, pregnant women and people with serious mental illness.
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