Casey Supports National Campaign to Stop Solitary for Kids

In an essay titled ​“Soli­tary Tor­ture” in the May 2016 issue of Sojourn­ers Mag­a­zine, Daniel Men­doza wrote: ​“For 23 hours a day, I was kept in a win­dow­less room small­er than a horse sta­ble. How does this make us safer?” Daniel spent rough­ly two months in soli­tary con­fine­ment dur­ing the four and a half years he was incar­cer­at­ed in a Cal­i­for­nia juve­nile hall.

As if he were answer­ing Daniel, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma wrote recent­ly in The Wash­ing­ton Post that soli­tary ​“doesn’t make us safer and that it’s an affront to our com­mon human­i­ty.” Thou­sands of young peo­ple are held in soli­tary con­fine­ment each year across the coun­try, yet research shows that soli­tary makes kids worse with­out mak­ing facil­i­ties safer.

Researchers have linked soli­tary con­fine­ment to last­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal con­se­quences, includ­ing anti-social behav­ior, anx­i­ety and self-harm. Soli­tary con­fine­ment is most dam­ag­ing to young peo­ple because they are still devel­op­ing men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. Yet the use of room con­fine­ment for dis­ci­pline, pun­ish­ment, admin­is­tra­tive con­ve­nience, retal­i­a­tion and staffing short­ages remains com­mon prac­tice, and has been doc­u­ment­ed in reports such as the Foundation’s Mal­treat­ment of Youth in U.S. Juve­nile Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ties. This mal­treat­ment under­mines the devel­op­ment of young peo­ple who get into trou­ble with the law and expos­es them to grave dan­gers while fail­ing to improve pub­lic safety.

The Foun­da­tion is sup­port­ing the Stop Soli­tary for Kids cam­paign to end soli­tary con­fine­ment of youth in juve­nile and adult facil­i­ties in the Unit­ed States. The Foun­da­tion is join­ing forces to end this prac­tice with a grow­ing coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions and advo­cates led by the Cen­ter for Children’s Law and Pol­i­cy, the Cen­ter for Juve­nile Jus­tice Reform at George­town Uni­ver­si­ty, the Coun­cil of Juve­nile Cor­rec­tion­al Admin­is­tra­tors and the Jus­tice Pol­i­cy Insti­tute along with agency direc­tors and facil­i­ty lead­ers, among others.

The Foun­da­tion is ded­i­cat­ed to work­ing with juve­nile jus­tice sys­tems around the coun­try to improve con­di­tions in juve­nile deten­tion and cor­rec­tions facil­i­ties. Toward this end, the Foun­da­tion has pub­lished a set of com­pre­hen­sive stan­dards for the treat­ment of youth that offi­cials have used to improve con­di­tions, poli­cies and prac­tices in their facil­i­ties. One such stan­dard is to use iso­la­tion only as a tem­po­rary response to behav­ior that threat­ens imme­di­ate harm to a youth or oth­ers. The Foundation’s resources and tools relat­ed to reduc­ing soli­tary con­fine­ment are free down­loads and avail­able to all facil­i­ty administrators.

When young peo­ple are removed from their fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, they should not be placed in insti­tu­tions ori­ent­ed toward pun­ish­ing them fur­ther. Rather, they should go to facil­i­ties ded­i­cat­ed to sup­port­ing their devel­op­ment and chang­ing their think­ing and behavior.

Daniel Men­doza, who wrote Soli­tary Tor­ture, works with the Casey Foun­da­tion as a youth part­ner­ship con­sul­tant while attend­ing col­lege. His future was almost derailed by his two months in soli­tary con­fine­ment. When he was released from iso­la­tion, he was scared to go to school because he felt like he was under con­stant threat and was afraid about how he would react. Crowds made him anx­ious. He cred­its his strong sup­port sys­tem with keep­ing him on track and observes how many oth­ers strug­gled on their own and nev­er recov­ered from isolation.

“Young peo­ple in the jus­tice sys­tem should not have to defy the odds to remake their lives,” said Nate Balis, direc­tor of the Foundation’s Juve­nile Jus­tice Strat­e­gy Group. ​“We need to change the odds so that Daniel isn’t the rare suc­cess sto­ry. All young peo­ple can change and deserve guid­ance, sup­port and new oppor­tu­ni­ties to get there.”