Join CCR President and Pittsburgh Law Professor Jules Lobel, CCR Deputy Legal Director Alexis Agathocleous, and other experts from a variety of disciplines and countries to talk about solitary confinement at this two-day conference in Pittsburgh.

Jules Lobel and Alexis Agathocleous both worked on Ashker v. Governor of California, a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of prisoners held in prolonged solitary confinement in California. A recent landmark settlement in the case has ended long-term, indeterminate solitary confinement in California and will dramatically reduce the number of people held in solitary.

This conference brings together leading neuroscientists, professors of medicine, psychologists, and former prisoners to explore the medical, mental health, and neurological damage wrought by prolonged solitary confinement. Highlights over these two days of speakers include:

• Prominent European and American prison administrators and experts will present and evaluate alternatives to solitary confinement now being implemented.
• Leading litigators in Canada, Brazil, and the United States will discuss the legal and political strategies to challenge prolonged solitary confinement in those nations.
• The current and prior UN Rapporteurs on Torture and other international experts will present the history and practice of solitary confinement, and the current international efforts to end it.

This event is free and open to the public. Please click here to RSVP online.

The conference is sponsored and supported by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, the University of Pittsburgh’s Global Academic Partnership (GAP), Office of the Provost, the University Center for International Studies, the Global Studies Center, the Center for International Legal Education, Center for Latin American Studies, Department of Psychology, and the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute. In addition, the Danish Institute for Human Rights sponsored and supported the conference  and the University of California  Health and Criminal Justice Institute sponsored the conference and specifically funded the health panels.