New Class Action Lawsuit Argues Oregon Department of Corrections’ Solitary Confinement Program Violates Oregon Constitution
A statewide lawsuit was filed on behalf of hundreds of incarcerated people who are subjected to dangerous and degrading solitary confinement practices that call into question Oregon’s purported commitment to humane prison practices.
June 11, 2026:
SALEM, OR – Prison Law Office, Oregon Justice Resource Center, the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP filed a class action lawsuit today on behalf of five plaintiffs and hundreds of other incarcerated people against the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC), arguing that ODOC’s rampant use of solitary confinement blatantly violates the Oregon Constitution and Oregon disability rights law.
Hundreds of people in Oregon prisons are subject to unconstitutional conditions in solitary confinement units, including:
extreme restrictions on out-of-cell time
crushing social isolation
deprivation of almost all mental stimulation
degrading restrictions on hygiene
Collectively and individually, these conditions violate Article I, Section 13, of the Oregon Constitution, which prohibits the treatment of incarcerated people with “unnecessary rigor.”
“People hear the term 'solitary confinement' and think it's simply being alone. It’s not,” said Plaintiff Dominique Jenkins-Millage. “It's being cut off from human connection, day after day, sometimes for months or years. The isolation changes you. The silence becomes overwhelming, your sense of time disappears, and the physical, psychological and emotional toll can be devastating. This is the lowest point of my entire life, and I’ve been shot and experienced homelessness.”
The harsh, degrading, and dehumanizing conditions of confinement in ODOC’s solitary units cause new mental health crises and exacerbate existing ones. These conditions result in physical suffering and shorten lifespans.
Plaintiff Linsey Duvall struggles to sleep in her solitary confinement unit due to the screams of other incarcerated people who are experiencing acute mental health crises. She has experienced a resurgence of night terrors that she has not experienced since she was a child, and she reports that solitary makes her ADD, ADHD, and OCD symptoms overwhelming. She said she feels like she’s losing her mind.
People held in ODOC’s solitary confinement units are cut off from other incarcerated people and from their loved ones outside of prison. These restrictions keep spouses from speaking to their partners and parents from speaking to their children. They are also deprived of any congregate programming which harms individuals whose religious beliefs require congregate prayer and worship.
Plaintiff Martin Kirk-Varela has multiple young children and his contact with them was completely cut off when ODOC placed him in solitary confinement and took away his personal property, including contact information for his loved ones. He is also unable to practice his religion, causing him to feel disconnected from his sense of comfort. Plaintiff Rolando Martinez-Farias lost his relationship with his partner and he has also been largely unable to communicate with his three teenage children, whom he speaks to regularly when he is housed with the general population.
“My children don’t know where their father is and I don’t know where they are. It is unbearably distressing to not know, constantly having to question. I can’t be the father I want to be and who my children deserve to have,” said Plaintiff Kirk-Varela.
ODOC’s solitary confinement program also discriminates against people with physical disabilities. People with physical disabilities in solitary confinement are placed in inaccessible cells and denied basic disability accommodations.
Plaintiff Orlando Pouncey has a severe vision disability but is denied reading and writing accommodations in solitary confinement and the extreme isolation cuts him off from other people who could help him. He only sees mental health staff outside of his cell for ten to thirty minutes every few months. Despite describing his deteriorating mental health due to conditions in solitary confinement, he has been repeatedly told by providers that they cannot help address conditions. Plaintiff Duvall is confined to a wheelchair but has been placed in a cramped and inaccessible cell. As a result, she cannot safely turn her wheelchair, causing her repeatedly to injure herself against the metal corner of her bed.
Solitary confinement does not make prisons safer or deter incarcerated people from violating prison rules. In fact, the opposite is true, as ODOC officials have agreed in previous statements over the years. This year, the Superintendent of Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Charlotte Thrasher, provided testimony before Governor Tina Kotek’s Racial Justice Council stating that “the use of segregation isn’t an effective tool to change behavior” and noted that she supported efforts to reduce the use of solitary confinement. Yet these practices persist. ODOC’s solitary confinement program makes Oregon communities less safe by creating lingering, harmful symptoms that make recidivism more likely.
“I don’t wish this on anybody,” said Plaintiff Jenkins-Millage. “[I am participating in this case] because I wish it was a little bit better in the future, even if not for me.”
Additional quotes from co-counsel are as follows:
“For weeks, months, and even years on end, our clients are housed for 23 to 24 hours a day inside windowless boxes that are smaller than a parking space,” said Jacob Hutt, senior staff attorney at the Prison Law Office. “The Oregon Department of Corrections generally prohibits them from spending any time outside. They eat alone, exercise alone, worship alone, mourn alone, and—far too often—suffer mental breakdowns alone. This lawsuit aims to put an end to ODOC’s unconstitutional solitary confinement program and we hope it will add to the momentum to stop solitary across the county.”
“Solitary confinement literally shortens lives,” said Daniel Greenfield, senior staff attorney at the Prison Law Office. “Controlling for other risk factors, people who experience solitary confinement are significantly more likely to die prematurely than their peers who remain in general population housing. ODOC is needlessly harming—and even potentially shortening the lives of—incarcerated people by placing them in solitary confinement.”
“Solitary confinement is cruel and unnecessary. It causes harmful mental, emotional, and behavioral changes and worsens existing symptoms of mental illness. It increases violence and instability in prisons and impairs rehabilitation. Solitary confinement prevents people from working, taking classes, joining in prison programs, and preparing to reenter society,” said Ben Haile, senior counsel at Oregon Justice Resource Center. “There are better, safer, less brutal alternatives. The people of Oregon are ready to push ODOC to move past this dark chapter in our State’s history.”
“Solitary confinement is one of the most extreme – yet wholly unnecessary – practices used in American prisons and jails,” said Devi Rao, director of the MacArthur Justice Center’s Washington DC Office. “In Oregon, hundreds of people are subjected to this isolating and dehumanizing experience at any given time. We are challenging the state’s solitary confinement program because it is unconstitutional and because people in Oregon prisons deserve to be treated with dignity and humanity.”
“We are proud to work with our public-interest partners to pursue much-needed reform in the Oregon prison system,” said Steven Schulman, pro bono partner at Akin.
Read the complaint.
Click here to view and download high-resolution photographs of Oregon’s solitary confinement units.
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The Prison Law Office (PLO) is a nonprofit public interest law firm based in Berkeley, California. We work to reduce incarceration and demand fair and humane treatment for people who remain in prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities and on parole. PLO engages in class action and other impact litigation, advocates for policy and law changes, assists individuals in administrative actions and lawsuits, educates the public, creates and distributes self-help information, and lends technical assistance to other attorneys.
Media contact: Jacob Hutt, Senior Staff Attorney
jacob@prisonlaw.com | 510-280-2650
The Oregon Justice Resource Center (OJRC) is a public interest law firm and nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon. OJRC provides legal services to currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, with a focus on populations that have often been underserved in the past. We are changing the criminal system in Oregon through our legal work, policy and advocacy initiatives, public education, communications, and strategic partnerships.
Media contact: Alice Lundell, Director of Communication
alundell@ojrc.info | 503-781-1405
The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center (MJC) is a national, nonprofit civil rights organization. We represent people who have been harmed by America’s criminal legal system, seeking to vindicate their rights, amplify their experiences, and hold people with power accountable. Learn more at MacArthurJustice.org.
Media contact: Jasmine Razeghi, Communications Manager
jasmine.razeghi@macarthurjustice.org
Akin is a leading international law firm with more than 1,000 lawyers in offices throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.