Illinois needs this law on solitary confinement in our prisons
Our state corrections department relegates people to solitary confinement, locks them behind thick iron doors, and leaves them to languish and suffer there for years and decades on end.
What is even more shocking is that the department is not required by law to report any data on who is subjected to solitary confinement, why they are placed there, or how long they are left to endure this treatment, leaving all of us—including lawmakers—in the dark about its use.
Solitary confinement in Illinois must come out of the shadows. The Illinois House has already passed a bill (HB 4828) to require accurate and reliable data reporting about solitary confinement, including aggregate numbers and information disaggregated by age, sex, race/ethnicity and other categories, all to be collected and disseminated by the corrections department in collaboration with a third-party research university.
The Senate now has a limited four-day window of opportunity in early January to pass the bill during the lame-duck session before the 103rd General Assembly comes to a close. Gov. JB Pritzker must also sign the bill without delay.
What we already know about solitary confinement is alarming, and it makes the need for transparency painfully obvious. Last year, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson condemned our state’s treatment of a man our corrections department sequestered in solitary confinement for nearly three years. Michael Johnson spent “nearly every hour of his existence in a windowless, perpetually lit cell about the size of a parking space. His cell was poorly ventilated, resulting in unbearable heat and noxious odors. The space was also unsanitary, often caked with human waste.”
Panic, rage and worse
Let’s acknowledge that solitary confinement is a form of torture.
Solitary confinement can literally cause the brain to shrink in physical size. According to a leading solitary confinement researcher, isolation conditions cause a range of symptoms, including “panic, withdrawal, hypersensitivity, ruminations, cognitive dysfunction, hallucinations, loss of control, irritability, aggression, rage, paranoia, hopelessness, lethargy, depression, a sense of impending emotional breakdown, self-mutilation and suicidal ideation and behavior.”
United Nations rules for incarceration conditions specify that under international human rights law, solitary confinement for more than 15 days amounts to “torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” These provisions are referred to as the “Mandela Rules” after Nelson Mandela, who endured 26 years in prison in apartheid South Africa and came to describe solitary confinement as “the most forbidding aspect of prison life.”
There is no legitimate reason for secrecy around the dangerous use of solitary confinement. Every day, Illinois tortures people in violation of international human rights law and the Mandela rules. A 2024 report by Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, in collaboration with Restore Justice and Uptown People’s Law Center, revealed that in a 12½ -year period, more than 11,000 Illinoisans spent over six months in solitary confinement. Forty-four people spent over 10 years in solitary confinement.
“Sunlight,” as the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “is the greatest disinfectant.” Transparency in the use of solitary confinement ought to be a no-brainer. Our legislators should get a simple thing done and enact HB 4828 right away.
Will they?
David M. Shapiro is executive director of the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights.
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