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| Washington State Eases Inmates Out Of Solitary |
| By spokanepublicradio.org |
| Published: 09/08/2015 |
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States are starting to move away from using solitary confinement in prison. NPR's Linda Wertheimer speaks with Bernie Warner, who is overseeing moving prisoners out of solitary in Washington. LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: California has announced that it will restrict the use of solitary confinement in its state prisons. Some of California's inmates have spent years in solitary. Because of a successful lawsuit brought by prisoners, some eighteen-hundred inmates must now re-enter the prison's general population. Bernie Warner has an idea of what is ahead for California's prisons. He's in charge of Washington state's Department of Corrections. They have dramatically reduced the use of solitary confinement. Many of those in solitary are the most violent prisoners. I asked him, what programs can help prepare people to move back into the general population? BERNIE WARNER: So anything you do has to be measured, but there are opportunities. Generally, if someone is in solitary confinement or segregation, their only contact is with a correctional officer who has them in shackles and is escorting them to a shower. They're fed through a cuff port. So one of the things we did is try to create an environment that gave them more contact with staff and other inmates. So we took an old utility closet and converted it into a classroom. Now, the inmates in the classroom are shackled, but we were able to have up to eight to 10 inmates in a classroom. We trained our staff on delivering programs that provided specific skills that are proven to be effective to reduce violence. Read More. |
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