It is now headed to the Illinois Senate for a vote. The bill is named for former inmate Anthony Gay who was held in solitary confinement for two decades, including 15 years of a prolonged sentence as a punishment for behavior resulting from his isolation. Gay is the face of the state's Anthony Gay Isolated Confinement Act, a bill developed over the last 10 years that would limit solitary confinement to no more than 10 days per six-month period.
Peters is one of the sponsors of the bill, HB , which would create the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act – also called the Anthony Gay Law. The bill has already passed the Illinois. Anthony Gay was in solitary for 20 years. Now incarcerated in Springfield, Missouri, he’s fighting for reform & supports a federal bill. Anthony Gay spent more than 20 years in solitary confinement.
He also became an advocate against the practice. He had just been granted compassionate medical release from federal custody, just days before his 51st birthday. He died of lung and liver cancer. Legal Funds for Free Anthony Gay! He cut himself hundreds of times in his 7-byfoot cell, slicing open his neck, forearms, legs and genitals. The bill was passed in the state's House last month and is now being considered by the state Senate.
After spending 22 years in solitary confinement, Anthony Gay is trying to make sure no other prisoner in Illinois has to experience the same level of trauma that he went through. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. The Anthony Gay Isolated Confinement Restriction Act would bar the Illinois Department of Corrections from placing an inmate in isolation for more than 10 days in a six-month period.
It's horrible. It will be a win, he says, for everyone. They presented a video to the jury that showed none of what they claimed it showed. Lashawn Ford to the solitary confinement reform bill that now bears Anthony Gay's name. MORE: Texas' longest serving death row inmate has sentence tossed. The prosecution had no physical evidence and no eyewitnesses to testify to seeing Anthony with a gun. The issue has prompted several states to reform their segregation policies in recent years, though Illinois lags behind.
Man hurt after shooting leads to crash overnight on Kennedy Expressway. That in turn increased his time in solitary, and he began cutting and harming himself. Jul 13, PM. Gay said he was in the cell for 24 hours a day and that occasionally he'd be let out for an hour. The bill, which is assigned to the House Judiciary-Criminal Committee, is expected to be taken up after the March 17 primary election, Ford said. It's one of several bills currently moving through state legislatures across the country that aim to reform solitary confinement in prisons and reduce the severe mental health toll on prisoners.
The conditions of confinement caused my mind to sink like the Titanic. I would act out [and] throw urine, liquids, [at] all officers. That's harmful, it's traumatic and it only harms society as a whole because those people come back and they become our neighbors. Spurred by a Chicago Tribune investigation involving a man who spent two decades in isolation after being convicted of stealing a hat and a single dollar bill, a proposed state law would limit how long an Illinois prisoner can stay in solitary confinement.
Anthony chose to represent himself in court, and managed to achieve a hung jury.
Another measure, provided in December by the Illinois Department of Corrections, found that nearly 1 in 3 prisoners in segregation have a mental illness categorized as serious. May 11, , PM. Not only did he have to grapple with the bias of the judge, who ruled in favor of the prosecution on motion after motion, but he was also up against the seemingly endless resources of the federal government.
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