About us

Our Story

“I founded Youth to End Solitary SD after a family member of mine was incarcerated. I became aware of the cruelty of our criminal justice system as I saw the deep grief it caused everyone in my extended family. I began to research the history of the United State’s incarceration system and how it operates to date, learning about the systematic ways it upholds institutionalized racism through targeting black and brown communities and keeping individuals in cycles of poverty. I also learned how our criminal justice system, apart from being inhumane, does not properly address crime - there is a 70% rearrest rate within three years of inmates’ release. It has been clear to me that meaningful reform must be enacted to address both a humanitarian crisis and a perpetuation of crime.

After learning about the issues with our criminal justice system, I became interested in how I could be an advocate for reform that attempts to make prisons more humane and better able to address the root causes of crime - mental illness, unemployment, and poverty. I knew that in order to have a meaningful contribution to the ongoing fight to have a fairer system, I needed to focus on a specific problem regionally. Solitary confinement is the epitome of a larger system which traumatizes inmates to keep them incarcerated, and I thought that fighting to end solitary confinement and bringing attention to solitary confinement reform would educate the San Diego community more on the systemic issues of incarceration and make San Diego more ready for future significant reform. YesSD actively lobbies our elected officials, equips a new generation of leaders to continue the existing work of criminal justice reform, and works to create a community infrastructure to challenge the practice of unjust, inhumane incarceration. We hope that you resonate with our message and join our mission towards a city without torture in our jails.”

With determination,

Nikhil Plettner Booker

Why We Fight

Apart from being grossly immoral, solitary confinement does not alleviate the issues that corrections officials claim it is used for. Jail administrators assert that solitary confinement is used to manage prison violence and protect vulnerable inmates by separating them from the general population; however, restrictive housing has several degenerative effects on prisoners. There are several studies demonstrating how placement in solitary confinement can lead to inmates developing new mental health illnesses or exacerbating existing ones. Long-term inmates in restrictive housing often develop cutting disorders and commit other acts of self-harm (in New York State prisons alone, solitary confinement prisoners are 5 times more likely to commit suicide ), experience sensory decompensation, or have schizophrenic visions of individuals who are not actually in their cells.

Solitary confinement produces more violence and crime. It makes prisoners more dangerous, and since most inmates (around 80%) in solitary confinement are not serving life sentences, when they are released, the experience of living in restrictive housing contributes to the likelihood of recidivism. The purpose of a corrections system in society should not be to punish, but rather to rehabilitate and reduce the rate of recidivism. Solitary confinement makes our communities less safe.

In addition to this, restrictive housing is deeply unethical. Putting inmates, many of whom experience mental illness, in a 6 by 9 foot concrete room, lit for 24 hours a day, for weeks, months, or years on end is not justifiable. Studies show how the hippocampus (regulates memory) and frontal lobe (regulates cognition and critical thinking) visibly shrink after being placed in isolation. Furthermore, research has shown that restrictive housing shortens one's life, has other devastating health implications - inmates in isolation have a greater risk of developing hypertension - and can lead to the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Solitary confinement is the embodiment of cruel and unusual punishment.

In San Diego County jails, there have been recent news stories describing the awful conditions of restrictive housing wards, illustrating the prevalence of a humanitarian crisis happening in our city and county. In addition to the issues described above, inmates who do not pose a threat to the general population of a jail can still be placed in solitary confinement if they are deemed in danger. This mainly occurs with individuals who are described as being "sexually vulnerable." We need to reform county jails by legislating towards creating separate wards for vulnerable inmates while still giving them the normal privileges of the general population, creating protocols to send mentally ill inmates to psychiatric centers which improve their mental health, and create wards where inmates who have committed acts of violence can be given psychological aid and social access. Finally, we also need to change the conditions in which people can be sent into solitary. Individuals can be placed in restrictive housing for minor infractions.

You can support the fight towards addressing this issue. We encourage you to call your representative on the Board of Supervisors, sign up for our newsletter, or sign up to volunteer.

We have the power to end this humanitarian crisis and make our local corrections system better able to effectively address violence and crime.

Our strategy

We at Youth to End Solitary understand that lobbying our county elected officials is not enough to achieve the abolishment of solitary confinement. Elected officials need to feel the pressure from their constituents if they are to take seriously the arguments we put forward as to why reform is needed. We also believe that if reform is to be sustained and further advocated for in the future, the next generation of leaders and voters need to be informed on why solitary confinement abolishment and criminal justice reform are desperately needed.

How do we create a sustainable base of advocates, leaders, and voters to complement our lobbying?

  • Dissemination of information about solitary confinement - text/phone banking, social media campaigns, door knocking

  • Getting news coverage on what is happening with solitary confinement in our jails

  • Events with guest speakers

  • Campus chapter program to mobilize and inform youth

  • Partnering with other organizations for outreach campaigns and building community networks around this issue

Through these actions, we hope to make solitary confinement a household-known problem so that we have San Diego’s attention on our lobbying, and also to create a network of advocates to further help carry out our strategy.