From the Orlando-Sentinel: “While many states have reduced the number of inmates in solitary confinement, the SPLC’s study found Florida has not been part of that trend — more than 10% of the state’s inmates were in solitary last year, while the nationwide average was 4.5%.
‘We’re way out of step,’ said Shalini Goel Agarwal, a senior staff attorney at the SPLC. ‘Other states and correctional facilities have started to grapple with the notion that solitary confinement is torture. … We haven’t seemed to make any of those course corrections here yet.’ […]
Johnson-Mabery said the last time she spoke to her son by phone, months before his death, he was lethargic, unable to form complete sentences and had been hallucinating and cutting himself.
‘I don’t believe he was ever going to get out of solitary,’ she said. ‘And I think when he made that realization, he decided he had enough.'”
