Solitary confinement must not be used as a response to COVID-19

The Human Rights Law Centre has made a submission to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability raising concerns about the use of harmful practices like solitary confinement on people living with disability in prisons. Solitary confinement is a fundamentally cruel practice that is known to inflict long term and irreversible harm, with international human rights law prohibiting the use of solitary confinement on people with disability when their condition would be exacerbated by such measures.

The submission calls for the practice of solitary confinement of people in prisons to be prohibited. It also highlights that the use of solitary confinement as a primary means to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in prisons is inappropriate especially when safer alternatives, like reducing the number of people detained in prisons, exist.

Read the Human Rights Law Centre’s submission to the to the Royal Commission here.