§ 17-26-301 — Legislative declaration

(1) The general assembly finds that:

(a) Placing individuals with serious mental illness in restrictive housing, also
known as solitary confinement, within a local jail is inappropriate and causes further
harm to the individual;

(b) According to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care,
prolonged solitary confinement is cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment and
harmful to an individual's health, and juveniles, individuals with serious mental
illness, and pregnant women should be excluded from solitary confinement of any
duration;

(c) The World Health Organization, United Nations, and other international
bodies have recognized that solitary confinement is harmful to health;

(d) Psychological effects caused by placement in isolation can include self-harm, suicide, paranoia, psychosis, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions,
obsessive thoughts, anxiety, and depression;

(e) Studies have shown that the psychological stress created from solitary
confinement compares to the distress of physical torture. According to United
States District Judge Thelton Henderson, putting an individual with a serious
mental illness in solitary confinement is the equivalent of putting a person with
asthma in a place with little air.

(f) In 2012, a task force appointed by the United States attorney general
concluded that nowhere is the damaging impact of incarceration on vulnerable
children more obvious than when it involves solitary confinement. Juveniles
experience symptoms of paranoia, anxiety, and depression even after very short
periods of isolation.

(g) The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of
Prisoners state that solitary confinement should be prohibited in cases involving
children and in the case of adults with mental or physical disabilities when their
conditions would be exacerbated by such measures; and

(h) International standards established by the United Nations Rules for the
Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders
state that pregnant women should never be placed in solitary confinement as they
are especially susceptible to its harmful psychological effects.

(2) Therefore, the general assembly declares that due to the substantial
negative impacts of placing juveniles and adults with specific health conditions in
restrictive housing, the state must take immediate steps to end and prohibit the use
of restrictive housing of juveniles and adults with specific health conditions in
Colorado jails.

Legislative History

Source: L. 2021: Entire part added, (HB 21-1211), ch. 322, p. 1974, � 1, effective July 1, 2023.