Despite a 2021 Colorado law meant to curb solitary confinement, judges almost always approve requests to isolate people with serious mental illness, often because there is nowhere else to send them.
Category: Inside Isolation: Mental illness and solitary confinement in the Boulder County Jail
In 2021, Colorado lawmakers passed a law intended to limit the use of solitary confinement on people with serious mental illness in local jails. Five years later, the practice continues.
In this two-part investigation, Boulder Reporting Lab and Bolts examine how people with serious mental illness end up in the Boulder County Jail and other Colorado jails when they can’t get the treatment they need and what happens once they are there. Through interviews, court records and state data, the reporting reveals how gaps in the mental health care system funnel people into jail, how judges routinely approve requests for extended isolation, and how a law designed to curb solitary confinement has fallen short of its promise.
