Control Units are prisons within prisons. Prisoners in control units are kept in solitary confinement in tiny cells for 23 hours a day. There is no contact with other prisoners. Many prisoners are put in control units as punishment for filing grievances or lawsuits or just for advocating for themselves and other prisoners. Control units use constant light, sleep deprivation, frequent strip searches, non-contact visits, sensory deprivation and lack of human contact to break the will of the prisoner. Sensory deprivation and isolation are forms of torture.

Massachusetts currently has hundreds of prisoners in these torture chambers and is building more control units in prisons across the state. We demand that all control units be shut down and no new control units be built.