Abstract
Recent national inquiries in Australia and New Zealand describe historic failures in the treatment of people in government-run institutions, including the routine use of restrictive and traumatizing practices. However, restrictive practices such as solitary confinement remain widespread in prisons and youth detention facilities, despite their known harms to physical and mental health and their potential to infringe human rights. The use of solitary confinement on children, Indigenous People, and those living with a disability (for example, a learning disability or serious mental illness) is of particular concern and is likely to violate international human rights conventions.
To avoid repeating past mistakes, it is imperative that restrictive practices in custodial settings be transparently reported and subject to public scrutiny. Although solitary confinement is a health and human rights issue of global importance, in this essay we take a regional perspective by examining the extent to which there is regular and transparent reporting on solitary confinement in Australian and New Zealand prisons and youth detention centers.