Reform Now: Solitary Confinement
Channel: Timothy W Coursen
Date: 2015-01-11

On October 1, 2014, members of WISDOM, Wisconsin’s statewide network of faith-based social justice organizations, gathered on the Capitol steps in Madison for an extraordinary event calling attention to the abusive overuse of solitary confinement in Wisconsin’s prisons.  The event included a life-size replica of a solitary confinement cell, complete with an actual soundtrack of the din of screams and banging that occur constantly in solitary confinement units, where people must endure weeks, months, years, and even decades in isolation -- a practice that most of the world considers torture. Those who gathered at the event heard moving testimonies from parents whose sons developed severe mental illness after extended periods of confinement in isolation. The event included powerful statements by faith leaders, civil rights leaders and others.  All call on people of good will to stand up against this hidden and brutally inhumane treatment of incarcerated men and women by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, paid for by the taxpayers of Wisconsin.