Dear Friends,

The past couple of months have seen a steady growth for our movement to end the torture of solitary confinement.

The 34th General Synod of the United Church of Christ passed a resolution urging congregations to work to end solitary. The Parliament of the World’s Religions invited NRCAT to screen our film, Torture in Our Name, and to set up our Virtual Reality Exhibit of Solitary Confinement for the duration of their 5-day conference attended by over 7,000 faith leaders worldwide.

In California the state legislature again passed the California Mandela Act which would enshrine into law the UN Mandela Rules banning solitary confinement beyond 15 days in California prisons, jails, and private immigrant detention centers. The legislation will return in 2024 with Governor Newsom still being the major stumbling block to the bill becoming law. Faith leaders, in solidarity with solitary survivors, were on the frontlines again in 2023, urging the Governor to support this legislation. NRCAT organized a faith delegation to meet with the Governor’s staff and delivered this letter of support for the bill signed by leading California religious organizations. Pictured below, Dolores Canales, co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement and a NRCAT Board member, speaks during a press conference in Sacramento in support of the bill.

In Washington, D.C., the End Solitary Confinement Act (H.R. 4972), was introduced in July in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Cori Bush, Adriano Espaillat, Jamaal Bowman, Rashida Tlaib, and Bonnie Watson Coleman, with the endorsement of more than 150 organizations nationwide, including 30 faith organizations. The End Solitary Confinement Act would stop torture, save lives, and improve safety for everyone by prohibiting this form of torture in most cases and specifically for vulnerable populations, with exceptions for conflict de-escalation and emergency lockdowns. NRCAT is currently working with allies to find additional co-sponsors with an ambitious goal of adding 100 members of Congress to the bill.

Reflecting the growing interest of mainstream media in the work to end the torture of solitary, Teen Vogue recently launched the Teen Vogue Guide to Solitary Confinement, a resource page which includes details of the historic End Solitary Confinement Act federal legislation and recommended resources for people of all ages to learn more about the harms of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. The NRCAT Humans Out of Solitary series of filmed interviews with people who have survived solitary confinement and are now fighting to end the practice, is spotlighted among other key resources.

This fall, we invite you to engage your faith community by inviting them to utilize NRCAT’s e-advocacy platform to write to their U.S. Representative and ask them to cosponsor the End Solitary Confinement Act. Here is a valuable 2-pager about the legislation to share at coffee hour or an upcoming social justice gathering, and you can use this toolkit we have prepared on the bill. We can also help you design a program around our 35-minute NRCAT feature film, Torture in Our Name, and our filmed interviews with solitary survivors, Humans Out of Solitary. For more information, please reach out to Laura Markle Downton, Director of Faith and Community Engagement, at [email protected].

We at NRCAT celebrate all the ways communities of faith, survivors of torture, and people of conscience like you are engaged in this movement for human rights and human dignity, seeking an end to all torture, without exception. 

In community,
The NRCAT Team, Ron, T.C., Johnny, Laura and Michael