Notable recent new coverage of the not-so-new horrors of solitary confinement

Long-time readers know I have long bemaoned the enduring use and reliance on extreme solitary confinement in many penal instututions for decades.  Indeed, in some of my posts here and here from 2006 on this issue, during a time when constitutional litigation over lethal injection protocols was first getting revved up, I made suggested here and elsewhere that persons truly concerned about both human dignity and public safety ought to given even more attention to the tens of thousands of humans in Supermax facilities and subject to long periods of solitary confinement than to the far fewer humans on (often much nicer) death rows.

In part because it sometimes felt like shouting into the wind, I have not tended to blog all that much on this important topic.  But I am still quite pleased when I see persons with much bigger platforms giving new and renewed attention to solitary, and I am eager in my little platform to highlight coverage at HBO and the New York Times:

From John Oliver on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, “Solitary Confinement”:

From Adam Liptak at the NY Times, “How Long Without Outdoor Exercise Is Too Long for a Prisoner in Solitary?“

Just a few recent (of many) prior related posts:

• “The case against solitary confinement” 
• Might a challenge to extreme solitary confinement for over a quarter century reveal if any current Justices are truly textualists and originalists? 
• Latest “Time-in-Cell” report estimates that, as of July 2021, “between 41,000 and 48,000 people were held in isolation in U.S. prison cells” 
• “A Call to Reform Federal Solitary Confinement”