Solitary confinement is the prison warden’s strongest tool in controlling inmate. But two cases in America are raising questions about that country’s use of solitary confinement in respect to African American inmates who by all appearances did not deserve what the prison system was doing to them.

A judge in the deep southern state of Louisiana ordered the release of an inmate who has been locked up in solitary for more than 40-years.  Yes, the US constitution has nice words against “cruel and unusual punishment”, but these things seem to happen without any safety mechanism kicking in, or without anyone in power caring.  For decades, activists have been trying to get Albert Woodfox, now 68-years old, out of solitary.  He was forced into the hole on 18 April 1972 after allegedly killing a guard in a riot at Louisiana’s notoriously harsh Angola Prison.

Woodfox has repeatedly denied killing the guard.  He was tried, convicted, and then acquitted on appeal.  So authorities put him on trial for the guard’s death again, and he was convicted, and again was cleared by a higher court. 

On Monday, the judge ordered Woodfox’s unconditional release now just from solitary but from Angola State Penitentiary altogether.  The judge denied prosecutors a third trial.  They’re planning to appeal that decision.

Hundreds of kilometers away in New York City, getting out of solitary wasn’t enough for young Kalief Browder who committed suicide over the weekend.  The 22-year old’s story is infuriating. 

At the age of 16, he was arrested for stealing a rucksack on extremely flimsy evidence.  So flimsy in fact, that no prosecutor in the Bronx borough of New York wanted to bother to bring the case to trial.  But Browder was not released from the violent Riker’s Island jail.  He refused to plead guilty, so a series of judge kept pushing his case back and back.  Finally, Browder was released from Riker’s at age 20, without ever having been granted a trial. 

He spent more than a thousand days in prison for a petty crime he said he did not commit, and two years of that time was spent in solitary confinement.  Browder was shown in internal security videos being beaten by guards for no reason.  He attempted suicide in the prison several times in prison, and then mad more suicide attempts when he was outside.

Browder had a good lawyer who will continue pressing his case, social workers, family, and even some celebrity backers like Rosie O’Donnell.  But he could never overcome the damage done by solitary confinement.  Kalief suffered from depression and paranoia.  He threw out a brand new flat screen television because he thought it was watching him.  He tried go to community college, would do fairly well, and then have setbacks.  And then last weekend, it was too much.

“There is no reason he should have gone through this ordeal,” wrote New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who wrote new jail rules barring guards from putting minors into solitary confinement.  “And his tragic death is a reminder that we must continue to work each day to provide the mental health services so many New Yorkers need.”