'An Affront to Our Humanity': Obama Bans Solitary for Children

President Barack Obama is banning the use of solitary confinement for juveniles and low-level offenders in U.S. federal jails, a measure that the ACLU said could save thousands from “needless suffering and permanent psychological damage.”

In an op-ed for the Washington Post published Monday night, Obama invoked the story of Kalief Browder, who at 16 was sent to Rikers Island for allegedly stealing a backpack, and spent the next three years—much of it in solitary—awaiting a trial that never came. In June of 2015, two years after his release, Browder committed suicide.

The controversial practice of holding people in isolation for 23 hours a day is “increasingly overused on people such as Kalief, with heartbreaking results—which is why my administration is taking steps to address this problem,” Obama wrote, calling the use of solitary “an affront to our common humanity.”

The reforms include “banning solitary confinement for juveniles and as a response to low-level infractions, expanding treatment for the mentally ill and increasing the amount of time inmates in solitary can spend outside of their cells,” he wrote. “These steps will affect some 10,000 federal prisoners held in solitary confinement—and hopefully serve as a model for state and local corrections systems.”

All relevant federal agencies will be required to review those measures and craft a plan to address their use of solitary, he said.

Current data estimates there are between 80,000 and 100,000 people being held in isolation in U.S. prisons, including children, a large portion of whom are serving long-term sentences. According to Amnesty International, the average length of time an individual is held in solitary in the U.S. is 8.2 years.