BREAKING: The Florida legislature passed a bill that will no longer require unanimous jury recommendations for death penalty sentences. wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/politics-issue…

Today is the first day of RCCJ's 15-day countdown to the anniversary of In Re Gault, decided May 15, 1967. Over the next two weeks, we'll share facts about juvenile #SolitaryConfinement in Florida. We hope you'll read, react, and share. Follow along👇🏼 (1/)

Former Minneapolis police officer Tou Thao, who held back bystanders while his colleagues restrained a dying George Floyd, has been convicted of aiding and abetting manslaughter. apnews.com/article/george…

(2/) Solitary confinement is defined as physical and social isolation lasting more than 22 hours each day. In Florida, the average length of time a youth will spend in #SolitaryConfinement is 45 hours. splcenter.org/20190404/solit…

(3/) #SolitaryConfinement can cause permanent psychological damage and may lead to self-harm, suicide, and psychosis. Children are 9x more likely to commit suicide in isolation than if they were in general population.

(4/) A national study found that of children who died by suicide in detention centers, 50% were in #SolitaryConfinement at the time of the suicide, and 62% had spent time in solitary confinement at one point during their detention. solitarywatch.org/wp-content/upl…

(5/) Recent neuroscientific research demonstrates that after one month of social isolation, neurons in sensory and motor regions of the brain shrunk by 20%. The United Nations considers #solitaryconfinement lasting more than 15 days to be torture.

(6/) At any given time, 26% of children in Florida’s Department of Corrections are in #SolitaryConfinement. Between 2017 and 2019, more than 4,000 children were places in solitary confinement in Florida juvenile detention facilities.

(7/) While Black youth represent approximately 22% of the population in Florida’s public schools, they account for 70% of all instances of #solitaryconfinement in juvenile detention. splcenter.org/presscenter/ne…

(8/) The odds of a Black child being placed in #SolitaryConfinement following a behavioral incident are 69% greater than the odds of a White child being placed in solitary confinement. jlc.org/issues/solitar…

(9/) Florida legislation to ban #SolitaryConfinement for juveniles has never received a vote. The most recent bill was introduced last year in 2022. myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Bills…

(10/) The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys was a juvenile reform school in Marianna, Florida. It was operated by the state of Florida from 1900 to 2011, and, at one point, it was the largest reform institution in the United States. npr.org/2012/10/15/162…

(11/) During its operation, Dozier “swirled with allegations of cruelty, rape, and physical abuse.” One form of abuse the school inflicted was #SolitaryConfinement. splcenter.org/presscenter/ne…

(12/) The DOJ released a report finding boys at #Dozier faced “conditions that placed them at serious risk of avoidable systemic, egregious & dangerous practices.” The horrors of #Dozier are depicted in “The Nickel Boys,” by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Colson Whitehead.

(13/) Florida prosecutes more children as adults than any other state. Children facing criminal charges are held in #SolitaryConfinement before they have been adjudicated in the juvenile legal system or convicted for a crime.

(14/) Florida held Ian Manuel in solitary confinement for 18 years. He was 14 years old when he was initially placed in solitary confinement. He was released in 2016. nytimes.com/2021/03/25/opi…

(15/) Thank you for following along for our series on #SolitaryConfinement. For more information about juvenile solitary confinement in Florida, check out the RCCJ law student cohort’s latest report available here: law.ufl.edu/law/wp-content…

#UFLaw Emeritus Professor Ken Nunn quoted and research by Race and Crime Center for Justice cited in Sarasota Herald-Tribune article heraldtribune.com/story/news/loc…