By Victoria Law. Excerpted from Gothamist.
(June 13) During her six years in prison, Jovada Senhouse was sent to solitary confinement three times. Twice, she was caught fighting and sentenced to 30 days in solitary. The day she was released from her second solitary stint, Senhouse was caught kissing her girlfriend in the prison gym. For that, she was sentenced to 90 days in solitary.
“You got a jail full of women,” she explained to Gothamist. “I was a pretty girl. I had a lot of girls.”
Today, Senhouse, an organizer with Brooklyn-based advocacy group VOCAL-NY, is going on hunger strike to demand an end to long-term solitary confinement. She’s joined by 17 other advocates, some of whom have also experienced solitary. Together, they’re demanding that state lawmakers bring the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act (S.1623/A.2500) to the floor for a vote. The bill will limit stints in solitary confinement, in which people are confined to their cells for at least 23 hours each day, to 15 consecutive days. It would also create alternatives for those who need to be separated for longer periods of time.
Hunger strikers plan to consume only liquids, a tactic allowing them to extend the length of their protest. This same type of hunger strike was utilized in California’s 60-day mass prison hunger strikes in 2013 which, along with a class-action lawsuit, resulted in sweeping changes to the state’s policies around solitary confinement.
Follow the #HALTsolitary Campaign