Solitary confinement is defined as "the isolation of a prisoner in a separate cell as a punishment" .  Typically confined to their cells for 22 to 24 hours a day, and allowed only minimal meaningful interaction with others. In Texas, solitary confinement is known by many names, and each has slightly different meanings. By any name, it is a torturous and excessively used method of control that damages the mental and physical health of human beings who will most likely return to society, as 95% of all incarcerated people do. TDCJ no longer uses the term solitary confinement in an effort to soften this inhumane practice, but the new terms have not come with significant change. The United States Constitution, Amendment 8, prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Across the US, this violation of human and constitutional rights must end!

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• Administrative Segregation or Security detention includes people whom TDCJ has deemed dangerous. They may have tried to escape security restraints, or they may be people who have been determined by the system to be gang members. Because of that designation, they are considered a danger to others in spite of potentially clean behavior records.

 

• ALU stands for Administrative Lock Up and is used to confine those that TDCJ has labeled "Trouble Makers" either physically or politically. ALU is cruel and amounts to nothing more than harassment and discrimination. Across TDCJ there are several boards or committees that oversee solitary confinement. However, the ALU is not monitored by any board or committee. It is overseen and managed by the Executive Director of TDCJ.

 

• Death Row is for those who have been sentenced to death. 

 

• Protective Custody or Safekeeping is for people such as "police officers, transgender people, and those under threat from a gang, whom TDCJ has determined face harm in the general population."