Findings and Recommendations to Partner Agencies
After decades of misuse and overuse, the role of solitary confinement in United States jails and prisons is now being addressed. In recent years, this practice—also known as restrictive housing or segregation—has been the subject of increased scrutiny from researchers, advocates, policymakers, media, and the government agencies responsible for peop ...
Annual Report 2018
Annual Report 2018
The Vera Institute of Justice is working to radically transform incarceration in America by replacing punishing practices with an approach that prioritizes compassion, true accountability, healing, restoration, opportunity, and hope. Learn more about our commitment to human dignity in our annual report 2018.
Isolation is at the core of incarceration. Prisons—often located in remote corners of the country—are surrounded by high walls that visibly separate those who are incarcerated from the community. Prisons also employ a wide range of housing practices to limit incarcerated people’s physical freedom, contact with others, and access to privileges and ...
Many efforts to understand and reform the use of segregation—also commonly called solitary confinement or restrictive housing—focus on incarcerated men. However, what is often ignored are women’s unique pathways into segregation and the differential impact that its restrictive conditions can have on them. Through the Safe Alternatives to Segregatio ...
Lessons from Five U.S. Jail and Prison Systems
Lessons from Five U.S. Jail and Prison Systems
In recent years, the practice of restrictive housing (otherwise known as solitary confinement or segregation) in U.S. prisons and jails has been the subject of increased scrutiny from researchers, advocates, policymakers, media, and the government agencies responsible for people who are incarcerated. Originally intended to manage people who committ ...
Series: Addressing the Overuse of Segregation in U.S. Prisons and Jails
The path continued when Vera launched its Safe Alternatives to Segregation Initiative, generously funded by the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, in 2015. Numerous states and counties applied to partner with us and examine their practices with an aim to reform. Details of what we learned is outlined in the five ...
Series: Addressing the Overuse of Segregation in U.S. Prisons and Jails
Two members of the SAS Initiative Advisory Council, Dr. Craig Haney and Danny Murillo, are prominently featured in Winfrey’s report. Both Murillo and Haney speak to the trauma of long-term restrictive housing, and both also have intimate knowledge of the impacts of solitary confinement at Pelican Bay—Dr. Haney as a social psychologist, and Danny Mu ...
Vera Institute Eleventh Annual Gala
On Thursday, April 20, 2017, justice reform leaders and supporters joined the Vera Institute of Justice for Vera’s 11th Annual Gala, Reimagine Justice. Honorees discussed approaches to criminal justice reform and the future of the movement in a very different federal climate. Samuel David Flores Murillo, a client of Vera’s recently expanded New Yo ...
Vera Institute Eleventh Annual Gala
The Fight of Our Lives
With law and order rhetoric coming from our nation's capitol, we're in the fight of our lives to keep the promise of criminal justice reform alive and strong. From working to keep immigrant families together, to reforming a bail system that criminalizes poverty, to ending the use of solitary confinement and reimagining justice with human dignity a ...