[The Center for Investigative Reporting] CIR began investigating the solitary confinement of teenagers in prisons, jails and juvenile halls across the U.S. in March 2013. Juvenile justice experts had been pressing the Department of Justice to flex its muscle on behalf of young inmates, to no avail. Holder’s shop declined all interview requests by CIR.
Our reporting quickly zeroed in on Rikers Island, the massive jail complex in New York City, where last year about a quarter of juvenile inmates were held in isolation for 23 hours a day. We spent almost a year requesting to see Rikers’ teen solitary units, but the city’s Department of Correction denied those requests, as did officials at Cook County jail in Chicago and five county jails in Florida. We figured out quickly that juvenile solitary was an often secretive practice, largely unregulated and rampant in most states.
...That’s when we remembered Santa Cruz County Juvenile Hall. Covering juvenile justice over the years, Trey Bundy had heard again and again that officials in Santa Cruz had created a model that had reduced the use of isolation so much that corrections officials around the country routinely traveled to California’s Central Coast to see how they did it.
Santa Cruz Chief Probation Officer Fernando Giraldo and Sara Ryan, the hall’s superintendent, allowed us to film inside their facility for five days, unescorted, and talk to anyone we wanted. Our resulting documentary, “Alone,” toggles between New York City and Santa Cruz, where young people tell their own stories of isolation and how the justice system can do better.
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