KUNM's Public Health correspondent Marisa Demarco recently completed a three part series on the use of solitary confinement in New Mexico prisons and jails.
A recent report co-authored by the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and the American Civil Liberties Union New Mexico found the practice to be not only ineffective, but inhumane and expensive.
Demarco explained to KUNM's Rita Daniels that some inmates were put in segregation for really long periods of time, over two years in one case.
You can read all three parts of the series here, here, and here.
*******
Corrections: When this interview originally aired on May 9, 2014, reporter Rita Daniels said Marisa Demarco had visited multiple facilities. Demarco visited one facility, the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center.
Daniels also included a statistic about New Mexico having the highest rate of solitary confinement use in the U.S. We have been unable to verify this information and it has been removed it from the audio of the interview. We regret these errors.
This version of the interview also includes additional information Marisa Demarco reported about Valencia County jail officials who challenge some of the allegations from former inmate Jan Green's lawsuit. This information was edited out of the original broadcast version, but we determined it should have been included and have done so here.
If you have questions about our editing process or our practice of journalism ethics, please contact News Director Elaine Baumgartel.
