North Carolina prison officials are reducing the number of inmates kept in solitary confinement. The number has been cut in half over the past year.
Until the changes were implemented, roughly 5,300 of the state's 38,000 prisoners — 1 in 7 — were kept in isolation on any given day. The News and Record of Raleigh reports that number is now down to about 2,500.
State prison Commissioner David Guice says his goal is to end the state's heavy use of solitary confinement, a punishment that he says is linked with an increase in assaults on staff members.
Guice says other states that are moving away from solitary have seen assault numbers decline.
The state prison system was one of five in the country chosen last spring to participate in a two-year study to reduce the use of solitary confinement.
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