US Senate Aims To Ban Solitary Confinement For Kids Behind Bars
By David Madden
TRENTON, N.J. (CBS) - There's a bipartisan effort in the US Senate to ban youthful lawbreakers from being subjected to solitary confinement. One of the leaders of that effort is a New Jersey Democrat.
Senator Cory Booker says the measure, known by the acronym MERCY, seeks to address the findings of medical experts worldwide. Locking up kids by themselves for weeks, or months at a time, can affect them for the rest of their lives.
It can either aggravate mental illness or instigate symptoms of mental illness as well, frankly, as being something that leads to worse behavior in our young people often into the future," Booker says.
The proposal would ban solitary for those under 18 years old in federal facilities and those under federal contracts, except in cases where immediate safety to the inmate or others is at risk. And then its use would be limited.
Booker hopes states might be encouraged to pick up the ban on their own.