Solitary Confinement

Brief written June 28, 2026 from GPS Intelligence System data.

A Punishment That Breaks Minds

The research on solitary confinement spans 150 years and is “strikingly consistent,” according to a 2018 Crime and Justice review cited by Georgia Prisoners’ Speak (GPS) in its 2026 research brief Solitary Confinement & Restrictive Housing. The United Nations Nelson Mandela Rules define solitary as 22 or more hours per day without meaningful human contact and classify any period beyond 15 consecutive days as torture. Yet in Georgia’s prisons, isolation routinely lasts for years.

The psychological toll is well documented. Dr. Craig Haney’s studies found that 91% of prisoners in solitary reported anxiety, 86% oversensitivity to stimuli, 83% social withdrawal, 77% chronic depression, and 70% a sense of impending nervous breakdown. Dr. Stuart Grassian identified a specific “SHU syndrome” that includes hypersensitivity, hallucinations, panic attacks, and in severe cases “florid delirium.” A 2025 PLOS One meta-analysis of 171,300 incarcerated people confirmed significantly greater psychological distress, more psychiatric symptoms, and higher hospitalization rates among those in disciplinary confinement.

The consequences are deadly. Half of all prison suicides occur among the 6–8% of the population held in solitary, GPS’s research brief notes. A New York City study found that although only 7.3% of jail admissions involved any solitary confinement, those individuals accounted for 53.3% of all self-harm acts. The research brief also documents that premature deaths—including suicide, homicide, and opioid overdose—after release are significantly more likely for people who spent time in isolation during their incarceration.

Racial disparities are stark. In the federal Bureau of Prisons, Black individuals made up 38% of the population but 59% of Special Management Unit placements. Among women, Black women constituted 42% of those in solitary but only 22% of the total female prison population.

Georgia’s Special Management Unit: “One of the Harshest and Most Draconian”

Georgia’s system of long-term isolation is anchored by the Special Management Unit (SMU) at Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison (GDCP), a unit of approximately 192 single-bunked cells. As of July 2017, 182 prisoners were held there. GPS’s 2026 legal analysis Solitary Confinement in Georgia Prisons: Tier Programs, the Special Management Unit, and the Eighth Amendment Standards Gap describes the SMU’s six cellblocks, where prisoners in the most restrictive cellblocks were confined 22 to 24 hours per day alone, without books or personal property, and prohibited from leaving their cells for a minimum of 90 days upon arrival.

The physical conditions are grim. Cells measured roughly six feet by nine feet—the size of a parking space—with solid metal doors and only a small glass window. An exterior window was covered by a shield, eliminating all outside light. GPS’s research brief records that the SMU was characterized by “a constant din of yelling and banging, a permeating stench of feces, and dampness and mildew from in-cell showers.” Meals were passed through a slot in the door.

Dr. Craig Haney, a leading expert on solitary confinement, inspected the SMU in 2017 and described it as “one of the harshest and most draconian” solitary confinement facilities in the nation and “as chaotic and out-of-control as any such unit I have seen in decades of conducting evaluations.” He found a cellblock full of prisoners with serious mental illness, a man locked for months inside a pitch-black cell, and another man, naked and psychotic, whose cell was covered in blood.

The duration of confinement is staggering. At the time of Haney’s inspection, 78% of SMU prisoners (141 of 182) had been held in isolation for more than two years. Forty-four percent had been held more than four years; 26% more than five years; and approximately 20% for six or more years. The average stay was three to four years. Timothy Gumm, the lead plaintiff in the landmark lawsuit Gumm v. Ford, was held for 7.5 years despite 14 separate recommendations for transfer. Johnny Mack Brown was held for nine years; Robert Watkins for eight to ten years. Some prisoners were released directly from the SMU to the community at the expiration of their sentence, with no transitional programming.

Thirty-nine percent of the SMU’s population had a diagnosed mental illness, according to GDC’s own classification data. Dr. Haney warned that the conditions created a “significant risk of very serious psychological harm” and that the harm to some prisoners “may be irreversible and even fatal.” Two men committed suicide in the SMU in 2017.

Beyond the SMU, Georgia operates a broader Tier Management System that classifies restrictive housing. Tier I and Tier II facilities—including Hancock, Hays, Macon, Smith, Telfair, Valdosta, and Ware State Prisons—house prisoners under varying levels of restriction. Tier II placement requires an administrative segregation hearing within 96 hours, with 90-day formal Classification Committee reviews and a phased step-down program. For Tier III, the SMU’s own SOP 209.09 (effective April 2025) describes a 13-month minimum incentive-based program. Yet as GPS’s legal analysis notes, even GDC’s 90-day review cycle and the 24-month SMU limit imposed by the Gumm settlement exceed the Mandela Rules’ 15-day threshold by an order of magnitude.

Gumm v. Ford: Litigation, Settlement, and Contempt

In 2015, Timothy Gumm, serving a life sentence for rape, filed a handwritten pro se lawsuit challenging SMU conditions after five years in isolation. The Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) and the law firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP later joined as class counsel. In January 2019, the parties reached a sweeping settlement requiring: a minimum of three hours of out-of-cell time plus one hour of outdoor recreation daily; two hours per week of computer or educational programming; tablets in cells at all times; mental health evaluations; a maximum 24-month SMU stay except in narrow circumstances; and committee review for transfer 6 to 12 months before release.

By April 2024, Chief Judge Marc T. Treadwell of the federal district court found that GDC had engaged in “flagrant” violations. In a 100-page contempt order, the court documented that GDC officials placed people in “strip cells” upon SMU arrival, leaving them naked or near-naked for hours or days. Compliance documents were found to be “not only insufficient but also unreliable”—officials had falsified documentation. Judge Treadwell wrote: “It became clear to the Court that the defendants, in effect, were running a four-corner offense and had no desire or intention to comply with the Court’s injunction; they would stall until the injunction expired.”

Six prisoners testified about being denied showers, out-of-cell time, programming, cell cleanout, and access to kiosks and book carts. One described a cell where the toilet was broken and filled with feces and urine; he urinated in a cup and defecated on his food tray. He had no mattress, no clothing, and was held in freezing temperatures. The GDC attorney did not refute this testimony.

The court imposed daily fines of $2,500 ($75,000 per month) for six months, appointed an independent monitor at GDC’s expense, extended the settlement agreement, and ordered attorney’s fees. The settlement remains under enforcement, with the monitor’s reports yet to be made public. GPS has identified a data gap regarding those reports and recommends seeking them to assess whether SMU conditions have improved.

The DOJ Investigation: Violence and Deliberate Indifference

The U.S. Department of Justice launched a statewide civil investigation of Georgia’s prisons in September 2021 under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). In April 2024, the investigation was expanded to include restrictive housing, disciplinary practices, and special education services. On October 1, 2024, the DOJ published a 93-page findings report containing 82 recommendations.

The DOJ found that “GDC fails to control violence even in its segregated housing units and exposes incarcerated persons to an unreasonable risk of harm due to its inappropriate use of segregated housing.” The report formally concluded that the State violates the Eighth Amendment in two ways: failing to protect incarcerated people from violence and harm by other incarcerated people, and failing to protect them from sexual violence, with LGBTI individuals at particular risk.

The findings documented that queer and transgender prisoners were being placed in solitary after reporting sexual assault or because they were experiencing mental health crises—making isolation a punitive response to victimization and vulnerability. The DOJ noted that victims of gang violence had “bled out from treatable stab wounds, waiting for a guard escort,” and that vulnerable prisoners were forced to sleep in hallways, shower stalls, or outside.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke stated: “Our findings report lays bare the horrific and inhumane conditions that people are confined to inside Georgia’s state prison system. People are assaulted, stabbed, raped and killed or left to languish inside facilities that are woefully understaffed. Inmates are maimed and tortured, relegated to an existence of fear, filth and not so benign neglect.”

GDC disputed the findings, claiming the DOJ “fundamentally misunderstands current challenges of operating any prison system” and criticizing the “Notice Letter” approach. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock wrote Commissioner Tyrone Oliver demanding swift action. As of February 2025, no formal resolution had been reached, and the DOJ may initiate a CRIPA lawsuit if violations are not satisfactorily addressed. The restrictive-housing findings from the expanded investigation have not yet been released as of May 2026.

Deaths in Isolation: The Human Toll

GPS’s research and reporting catalogues a series of deaths tied to restrictive housing conditions that illustrate the intersection of isolation, neglect, and mental health crisis.

In February 2023, an incarcerated man was found dead in his restrictive-housing cell at Calhoun State Prison, leaning against the door and wrapped in mattress padding. No one had entered his cell for two days. Staff had shut off his water supply, closed the chow flap, and did not deliver meals. The cause of death was dehydration with renal failure. The coroner described the cell as a mess.

At Smith State Prison on April 5, 2023, a man was discovered dead, possibly strangled to death by his roommate in a segregated housing unit. The local coroner noted the body was badly decomposed and the man likely had been dead for over two days. At Smith, where GDC’s mission is to house offenders with behavioral problems, an incarcerated person was held in a shower stall measuring 3.75 feet by 6.75 feet for nearly three days with no mattress, toilet, ventilation, heat, or water; he ultimately hanged himself. The corrections industry has long documented that housing individuals in shower stalls dramatically increases suicide risk, GPS’s research brief notes.

In 2025 and 2026, the pattern continued. Miguel Angel Duran, 44, died by suicide by hanging in segregation at Central State Prison on March 1, 2026. Denecia Nichelle Randall, 28, died by suicide by hanging at Pulaski State Prison on March 30, 2026, while in lockdown. Justin Waymon Hollingsworth, 43, died by suicide by hanging in segregation at Rogers State Prison on June 26, 2025. Calvin Earl Noble, 25, died by suicide in a one-man cell at Macon State Prison on August 26, 2025.

Among the most disturbing cases is that of Sheqweetta Vaughan, a 32-year-old postpartum mother with documented postpartum depression on psychotropic medication. On July 9, 2025, she was found decomposing in segregation cell H-19 at Lee Arrendale State Prison, where the temperature was in the 90s with minimal ventilation. A neighboring prisoner reported hearing her call for medical help at approximately 6 a.m. on July 8—more than 28 hours before discovery. The pathologist stated decomposition was inconsistent with required 30-minute welfare checks. The GBI could not determine cause or manner of death.

Lee Arrendale’s A Unit—the only GDC women’s mental health Level III and Level IV unit, housing 70–80 women—has produced a catastrophic concentration of violence. Angela Anderson, 39, was strangled in the dayroom in September 2022. Sherry Joyce, 61, was strangled in April 2024. Hallie Reed, 23, was strangled eight days later after requesting protective custody in writing; her request was denied. A former correctional officer assigned to A Unit, Cameron Larenzo Cheeks, pleaded guilty to six felony counts involving sex acts with incarcerated women including residents of that unit, and was sentenced to 25 years. Only nine women died by homicide in state prisons nationwide between 2001 and 2019; Georgia’s A Unit alone produced three such deaths in two years.

Observers note that observation cells designed to prevent suicide are disproportionately filled with prisoners transferred from segregation, indicating a dangerous cycle: isolation precipitates crisis, crisis leads to further isolation.

GPS records additionally show that across seven GDC facilities over the past 12 months, 30 distinct sources have alleged due process violations in segregation placement—including at Johnson State Prison, Augusta State Medical Prison, GDCP, and Calhoun. In that same period, eight sources at GDCP and Johnson State Prison have reported mental health crises left unattended in restrictive housing, with some cases classified as critical severity.

A System Collapsing Under Its Own Weight

The DOJ documented correctional officer vacancy rates systemwide of 49.3% in 2021, 56.3% in 2022, and 52.5% in 2023. At the 10 largest facilities, vacancies exceeded 70%. Without security escorts, mental health appointments are missed, suicide-watch protocols cannot be implemented, and medication passes are delayed. The DOJ noted that classification recommendations frequently are not honored in housing assignments due to staff shortages, exposing people to unreasonable risk of violence.

Georgia’s broader mental health infrastructure compounds the crisis. The state ranks 48th in the nation for adult access to mental health care and 51st for the share of adults with frequent mental distress unable to see a doctor due to cost, according to Mental Health America’s 2024 annual report. Georgia has not expanded Medicaid. An individual with serious mental illness faces a one in five chance of ending up in prison instead of a hospital in Georgia, per MHA Georgia and NAMI. In April 2026, more than 500 adults awaited pre-trial competency evaluation and more than 700 individuals waited for a state hospital bed for competency restoration. Approximately 800 people were waiting in jails as of February 2025.

Inside the prisons, GDC’s own data from May 2026 show 1,243 people classified as “poorly controlled health” and 45 people in “active mental health crisis.” Yet GPS’s mental health analysis notes that GDC’s classification system is an administrative caseload count, not a clinical-epidemiological prevalence estimate; the true number of people with serious mental illness is likely far higher. GDC has not published a comprehensive facility-by-facility mental health unit inventory, nor has it disclosed suicide and self-harm incidents by tier and facility, or length-of-stay distributions for restrictive housing. The agency stopped publishing cause-of-death data after February 2024.

In 2019, Georgia’s prison homicide rate was 34 per 100,000—nearly triple the national state-prison rate of 12 per 100,000. Over 2018–2023, GDC reported 142 homicides, with a 95.8% increase in the latter three years. In 2025, the reported homicide total was 51. GPS has independently tracked 1,841 deaths in GDC custody since 2020.

Legal and Policy Landscape

The Eleventh Circuit, which governs Georgia, has not issued a published opinion squarely holding prolonged solitary confinement unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. The Fifth Circuit, in Hope v. Harris (2021), held that solitary does not violate the Eighth Amendment “no matter how long it is imposed for.” However, in 2024, the Third Circuit in Williams v. Secretary Pennsylvania DOC held that there is a clearly established right against prolonged solitary confinement for people with known serious mental illness, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari. The Fourth Circuit in Porter v. Clarke (2019) held that death row solitary in Virginia violated the Eighth Amendment.

In 2018, Justice Sotomayor wrote in a concurrence that prolonged solitary can place prisoners “in what comes perilously close to a penal tomb.” Justice Kennedy, in his 2015 Davis v. Ayala concurrence, observed that “years on end of near-total isolation exact a terrible price” and suggested the judiciary might need to address the issue.

A wave of state-level reform has already arrived. New York’s HALT Act limits solitary to 15 consecutive days and bans it for vulnerable populations. Connecticut and Nevada enacted 15-day maximums. New Jersey adopted a 20-day cap. Colorado reduced its segregation population from approximately 1,500 to under 200, then largely eliminated it, with assaults on staff declining to the lowest levels in over a decade. Four states—Colorado, Delaware, North Dakota, and Vermont—no longer house anyone under restrictive housing definitions. The federal End Solitary Confinement Act, reintroduced in 2025, would prohibit isolation beyond four hours.

Georgia is moving in the opposite direction. In late 2025, the state announced a $1.6 billion investment in new prison infrastructure, framed by GPS reporting as a “hardened” approach emphasizing walls and isolation units. By contrast, California invested $239 million in the rehabilitation-focused California Model at Valley State Prison and San Quentin.

The 2026 Georgia gubernatorial race has been identified as a critical window for pressing candidates on solitary confinement reform. GPS’s 2026 research recommends requesting current SMU population data, independent monitor reports, current staffing levels at GDCP, and investigation of the DOJ enforcement action status.

Sources

This analysis draws on GPS’s own investigative research briefs Solitary Confinement & Restrictive Housing (2026) and Solitary Confinement in Georgia Prisons: Tier Programs, the Special Management Unit, and the Eighth Amendment Standards Gap (2026), as well as the companion analysis Mental Health Care and Mental Illness in the Georgia Department of Corrections (2026). It incorporates federal court records from Gumm v. Ford including the 2019 settlement and the 2024 contempt order, the U.S. Department of Justice’s October 2024 findings report, and statements from the Southern Center for Human Rights. Firsthand accounts published in GPS’s Tell My Story series, GDC official statements, and GPS’s intelligence system records provide additional corroboration.