Justice 4 Housing

You Can Never Get That Time Back: Solitary Confinement is Devastating for Incarcerated Mothers and their Children

Leslie Credle couldn’t stomach the thought of her children seeing her that way: handcuffed, divided from them by an imposing Plexiglass shield, unable to reach out and touch their hands. For the eight months she spent in the SHU at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Framingham, Credle’s only contact with the outside world were one-hour visits in a bare, freezing room the size of a closet.

Although Credle is a single mother and had close relationships with her children, aged 16 and 20 at the beginning of her incarceration, she couldn’t bear for them to visit for the entire time she was in solitary confinement.