Triaged Out of Care: How Carceral Logics Complicate a 'Course of Care' in Solitary Confinement.

Incarceration, along with its most restrictive iteration, solitary confinement, is an increasingly common experience in America. More than two million Americans are currently incarcerated, and at least one-fifth of incarcerated people will experience solitary confinement. Understanding the barriers to care people experience in prison, and especially in solitary confinement, is key to improving their access to care during and after incarceration.

Window dressing: possibilities and limitations of incremental changes in solitary confinement.

Background: In light of mounting evidence of the physical and psychological harms associated with solitary confinement, many correctional systems, state legislators, courts, and even international human rights bodies are increasingly recommending and implementing reforms to mitigate the harms of solitary confinement, if not abolish the practice entirely. In this piece, we examine three specific infrastructural changes to solitary confinement conditions and practices implemented in Washington state prisons with such harm minimization goals in mind: (1) building so-called "nature imagery rooms" to play videos of outdoor spaces, (2) eliminating punishments for self-harm, and (3) conducting daily cell-front wellness checks.

Results: Drawing on 183 in-depth qualitative interviews with both staff working in and people imprisoned in solitary confinement units conducted in Washington state restrictive housing units in 2017, we find that these three reforms not only resulted in limited successes but also generated new conflicts.

The body in isolation: The physical health impacts of incarceration in solitary confinement.

We examine how solitary confinement correlates with self-reported adverse physical health outcomes, and how such outcomes extend the understanding of the health disparities associated with incarceration. Using a mixed methods approach, we find that solitary confinement is associated not just with mental, but also with physical health problems. Given the disproportionate use of solitary among incarcerated people of color, these symptoms are most likely to affect those populations.

Psychological Distress in Solitary Confinement: Symptoms, Severity, and Prevalence in the United States, 2017-2018.

To specify symptoms and measure prevalence of psychological distress among incarcerated people in long-term solitary confinement. We gathered data via semistructured, in-depth interviews; Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) assessments; and systematic reviews of medical and disciplinary files for 106 randomly selected people in solitary confinement in the Washington State Department of Corrections in 2017. We performed 1-year follow-up interviews and BPRS assessments with 80 of these incarcerated people, and we present the results of our qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics.

Firearm and Nonfirearm Violence After Operation Peacemaker Fellowship in Richmond, California, 1996-2016.

To evaluate whether the Operation Peacemaker Fellowship, an innovative firearm violence-prevention program implemented in Richmond, California, was associated with reductions in firearm and nonfirearm violence. We compiled city- and jurisdiction-level quarterly counts of violent firearm and nonfirearm incidents from statewide records of deaths from and hospital visits for homicide and assault (2005-2016) and from nationwide crime records of homicides and aggravated assaults (1996-2015). We applied a generalization of the synthetic control method to compare observed patterns in firearm and nonfirearm violence after implementation of the program (June 2010) to those predicted in the absence of the program, using a weighted combination of comparison cities or jurisdictions.

Not an 'iron pipeline', but many capillaries: regulating passive transactions in Los Angeles' secondary, illegal gun market.

Objectives: California has strict firearm-related laws and is exceptional in its regulation of firearms retailers. Though evidence suggests that these laws can reduce illegal access to guns, high levels of gun violence persist in Los Angeles (LA), California. This research seeks to describe the sources of guns accessed by active offenders in LA, California and reports offenders' motivations for obtaining guns.