Diane Lazarus , MBA , GRI Group Leader – Broker Associate
CityState : Reporter
“ It was just too much for them . We are social beings , and if we have nobody to talk to , we will create somebody ,” he recalls . “ And I was starting to deteriorate from the sensory deprivation . You aren ’ t living ; you are existing .”
Released in 2019 , Robinson now works as a community organizer for Open- Doors , which advocates for ex-offenders and is lobbying hard for the passage of a comprehensive solitary confinement reform bill that would strictly limit the use of long-term “ restrictive housing ” in Rhode Island .
The United Nations defines “ solitary confinement ” as twenty-two hours or more per day in a cell without meaningful human contact , and “ prolonged solitary confinement ” as lasting longer than fifteen consecutive days . In the United States , it remains widely used as a tool of detention , punishment or protection , and exists under a variety of names , including restrictive housing , administrative segregation and disciplinary confinement . According to a 2016 report by the National Institute of Justice , an estimated 90,000 inmates ( 70,000 prisoners and 20,000 jail inmates ) reside in restrictive housing on an average day . In 2022 , an average of sixty-four out of 2,233 inmates at the ACI were held in some form of restrictive housing .
ACI officials insist there is no “ solitary confinement ” in Rhode Island , but define “ restrictive housing ” as “ any type of detention that involves the removal of an inmate from the general population , voluntarily or involuntarily ; placement in a locked room or cell , whether alone or with another inmate ; and the inability to leave the room or cell for the vast majority of the day , typically twenty-two hours or more .”
Inmates in Rhode Island ’ s high security facility are held in single cells roughly the size of a parking space . Inmates can be held on lockdown for as many as twentytwo hours a day with few privileges for prison programming or communication with family and friends , although they get out-of-cell time to meet with their lawyers , social workers and medical staff , according to Rhode Island Department of Corrections spokesman J . R . Ventura . In addition , general population inmates may be subject to disciplinary confine-
Diane Lazarus , MBA , GRI Group Leader – Broker Associate
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