Obama bans solitary confinement for juveniles in fed prisons

Barack Obama announced on Monday night that he was ending the use of solitary confinement for juvenile prisoners in federal jails, citing concerns about its harmful psychological effects.

President Obama penned an op-ed in The Washington Post announcing new limits on the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons.

“There are as many as 100,000 people held in solitary confinement in United States prisons – including juveniles and people with mental illnesses”, said Mr Obama, who previous year became the first sitting U.S. president to visit a federal prison. “It doesn’t make us safer”.

Based on the recently published review, Obama wrote that he is “adopting its recommendations to reform the federal prison system”.

Describing the USA as “a nation of second chances”, the president said he hoped his reforms at the federal level would push individual states to re-examine their rules on the issue.

Obama said he is also moving to have prisons increase the amount of time inmates in solitary confinement can spend outside cells and expanding treatment for the mentally ill.

Check out the President further explain his plan.

He was beaten in jail by correction officers and inmates and spent more than 400 days in solitary confinement.

Amy Fettig, senior staff counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the group’s Stop Solitary Campaign, said in an interview that the Bureau of Prisons “has lagged behind a number of the states in reforming solitary confinement and in restricting its use and abuse”.

While Obama is leaving the details of policy implementation to agency officials, the Justice Departments report includes “50 guiding principles” that all federal correctional facilities must now follow.

The ban is “absolutely huge”, she said.

Obama cited the “heartbreaking” case of Kalief Browder, who aged 16 was arrested on suspicion of stealing a backpack and sent to a facility in NY for three years. Prison officials in NY last month agreed to overhaul the use of solitary confinement.

Browder was released in 2013 having never stood trial but struggled to cope from the trauma of being locked up all alone for 23 hours each day and killed himself at the age of 22.

In a statement that was written in The Washington Times, Obama said the punishment destroys the possibility that prisoners could be rehabilitated.