Help End Solitary Confinement in New Jersey

“Whatever you think hell is, that’s what solitary confinement is — 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. It’s a system that seems designed to break a man’s will to live.”

Anthony Graves spent 18-1/2 years in prison, including 16 in solitary and 14 on death row for a crime he did not commit. He was exonerated and released in 2010. www.Anthony Graves Foundation.org

State Senators Raymond Lesniak and Peter Barnes introduced a bill in the NJ Senate in 2014 to reform the use of solitary confinement (2016 Bill numbers are S51 and A547). The Senate version passed in June 2016. The Assembly version should get into Committee this fall– let’s be sure it is passed by the full Assembly quickly! Sponsors of A547 are Pinkin, Sumter, Huttle, Gusciora and Muoio.

Please sign and circulate this petition to show your support for S51, sponsored by Senator Lesniak, to end the abuse of solitary and isolated confinement. Significant features of the bill include the prohibition against isolation unless there is reasonable cause to believe that an inmate poses a serious and immediate risk of harm to self or others, and only when all less restrictive interventions are insufficient.

Experience that confinement by stepping into a life-sized replica of the cell.
Click here for details.