(Opinion) Commitments to anti-racism must include ending solitary confinement.
On the first of July last year, just over a month after the murder of George Floyd, Gov. Ned Lamont reaffirmed his commitment to racial justice and denouncing bigotry. On the cusp of the legislature coming back into session, he stated, “You’ve got to change the heart and that takes each and every one of you standing up.”
Now, nearly eight months after, in a new legislative session, we are still waiting for Governor Lamont to stand up against one of the cruelest and most senseless continuations of racial injustice: solitary confinement.
The legacies of slavery and Jim Crow are not behind us. Also called administrative segregation, solitary confinement is empirically and visibly targeted at the most vulnerable and marginalized people in the country, continuing a pattern of American racism.
Connecticut is the worst state at disproportionately placing Black men in solitary confinement. The data from the Connecticut Department of Corrections show that solitary confinement in Connecticut targets people of color, people with histories of mental illness, and people under the age of 25.
In-cell restraints often consist of routine shackling, often lasting over 72 hours. This shackling makes it impossible to stand upright, fully lie down, eat or use the bathroom. People in solitary face restrictions on visits from family and friends, effectively tearing them out of their communities, once again reflecting an extreme form of disproportionate physical and spatial control over Black and brown people and their communities.
Although Northern Correctional Institution (NCI), a long-time practitioner of solitary confinement, is set to close, the $12.6 million the closure will save the state must be invested back into the communities that have been for so long surveilled, incarcerated, and targeted. Governor Lamont has framed the closure of NCI as purely for efficiency without any condemnation of its inhumane practices. The PROTECT Act, a bill with demands written by Stop Solitary CT, is set to appear before the legislature this year and would end extreme isolation and other abuses, as well as promote oversight and codify the closure of NCI.
In the current legislative session, I echo the governor’s call from July of last year for “each and every one of you” to stand up against legacies of structural racism. You, as in the legislators. You, as in the people of Connecticut. And finally, if Lamont still has conviction in his stance against racial injustice, he must also speak up to support the PROTECT Act.
Melissa Wang is an organizer with Stop Solitary CT and a resident of New Haven.
Better suggestion: when incarcerated, behave. If you can't inside, what makes anybody think you can when outside?