WASHINGTON — President Obama is moving to ban solitary confinement for juveniles and low-level offenders in federal prisons, a change long sought by advocates of prison reform who argue the punishment exacts a devastating and permanent mental toll.Obama was influenced by a U.S.
Department of Justice review that determined the practice reduces the chances that prisoners can be acclimated back into society, he said in a Washington Post op-ed piece.
Obama stated that solitary confinement has been “increasingly overused … with heartbreaking results,” and subsequently ordering federal penitentiaries to cease using the punishment on juvenile offenders in the federal prisons and on prisoners who committed non-serious offenses.
He went on to say that it may be necessary in case of violent or misbehaving prisoners, but otherswise “be limited, applied with constraints and used only as a measure of last resort.”
The White House said Obama was also adopting Justice Department recommendations that would limit solitary confinement for prisoners with mental illness and avoid using the practice as a tool to segregate prisoners who face threats from fellow inmates. He wrote in the Post that the move would affect 10,000 federal prisoners.
“The United States is a nation of second chances, but the experience of solitary confinement too often undercuts that second chance,”
Obama wrote in the Post op-ed.
“Those who do make it out often have trouble holding down jobs, reuniting with family and becoming productive members of society. Imagine having served your time and then being unable to hand change over to a customer or look your wife in the eye or hug your children.
How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people? It doesn’t make us safer. It’s an affront to our common humanity.”
In his final year in office, Obama has said that he’d redouble his efforts on criminal justice reform, including improving conditions in federal prisons and encouraging states to adopt new rules that hew more closely to updated research on corrections facilities. In July he became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, and he has spoken candidly about issues like prison rape and criminal re-entry programs.
The goal, officials have said, is to improve the chances that incarcerated Americans become functioning members of society after serving their sentences.
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