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Anthony Blankenship went into solitary confinement at the Pierce County Jail on suicide watch, despite not feeling suicidal.
That changed by the time he got out, just days later.
While in solitary confinement, he could hear people “breaking” in other rooms, and had nothing in his cell other than a smock and a mattress.
“Anytime someone is put into a solitary condition and left there without any sort of resources, any sort of opportunity for communication, we have to start asking ourselves, what is that going to do?” Blankenship said. “For me, what it did was it broke me.”
A new report from Washington’s prison watchdog lays out policy changes the Department of Corrections should make to improve and reduce solitary confinement in its prisons. The agency says it agrees with many of those recommendations.
Still, advocates are frustrated by what they see as slow progress. Corrections pledged in 2023 to reduce solitary confinement by 90% in five years, but whether it’s on track to meet that goal is in doubt.
“I think DOC has no shortage of ideas about how to address solitary and how to make things better,” said Rachael Seevers, who focuses on criminal justice reform at Disability Rights Washington. “I think they just haven’t done them.”
Meanwhile, the Office of the Corrections Ombuds, which issued the report, is in a turbulent moment.
Gov. Bob Ferguson fired its director, Jeremiah Bourgeois, last month amid allegations of ethical misconduct and fostering a hostile work environment that had led several employees to resign or take medical leave. The watchdog agency’s work has played a key part in driving discussions about the state’s solitary confinement practices in recent years.
Bourgeois, who spent decades in prison on a murder conviction and went to law school after his release, declined to comment on his ouster. His firing came after just six months on the job. He suggested on LinkedIn that his efforts to eradicate the ombuds’ reputation as “beholden to the Department of Corrections” had “apparently displeased some officials” in the governor’s office. The governor’s office declined to comment.
Defining solitary
As of last month, there were 346 prisoners in what the state considers solitary confinement, less than two hours out of cell per day, according to the Department of Corrections.
A department spokesperson called that a “substantial drop from just a few years ago.” It was over 600 in mid-2024, for example. That said, the state Office of the Corrections Ombuds said last month it “has ongoing concerns about the reality” of the prison system’s plan to dramatically reduce solitary confinement.
“DOC intends to continue to expand out-of-cell time for individuals in restrictive housing and continued solitary confinement reform remains a priority for DOC,” Corrections spokesperson Rachel Ericson said. “It is part of our commitment to keeping staff, the incarcerated and the public safe.”
However, the agency’s data on those held in restrictive housing shows over 800 prisoners in the first quarter of 2026 were held in maximum custody solitary confinement and what’s known as administrative segregation. This marks a significant increase over years past.
With administrative segregation, people are temporarily housed separately from the general population. Critics have argued it is on par with traditional solitary confinement.
The ombuds is also concerned that increased out-of-cell time is really just an alternative cell considered a “yard” where prisoners remain isolated from others.
“Current practices in Washington State do not fulfill access to meaningful human contact for people in solitary confinement,” the report says.
The ombuds in past years has found frequent suicide attempts among those held in solitary and inadequate care to meet basic needs like eating and showering. Seevers said those conditions remain largely unchanged.
“I have not seen a lot of change in any intercept point in terms of closing the front door of solitary or opening that back door faster,” she said. “It really seems to be focused in on adding some guards so people can be in an empty room by themselves more time.”
Addressing the issue
The report offers recommendations that wouldn’t require legislative action. The ideas aren’t new.
One would develop a comprehensive policy for residential treatment units, which are meant to provide more intensive mental health services. These units, at the prisons in Monroe and Walla Walla and the women’s prison in Gig Harbor, serve varying custody levels. The ones in Monroe and Gig Harbor have dedicated solitary units.
In the ombuds’ vision, this policy would include objective criteria for being admitted and discharged, as well as mandate specialized staff training on mental health issues.
Ericson, from the Department of Corrections, said the agency is finalizing a residential treatment unit policy.
A proposal in the state Legislature would establish guidelines for segregating state prisoners from the general population and raise the standard of proof for discipline. That bill hasn’t made it far in the legislative process the past two years.
Another idea from the ombuds looks to expand the “severely underutilized” Washington Way program that focuses on rehabilitation and reintegration into society after prison. It’s based on a model out of Norway.
The office also suggests speeding up the timeline for finding alternative housing for transgender prisoners, who report safety concerns or a need for gender-affirming housing and are held in the meantime in restrictive units, sometimes for weeks or months.
“Trans people are disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system, and so it is something that we do need to continue to address,” said Blankenship, now a community organizer at Civil Survival.
The report also recommends improving pathways to privileges in solitary confinement, like access to tablets. The ombuds office argues this would allow isolated prisoners to occupy their time more productively.
Corrections is “continuously looking for ways to further expand Washington Way into prisons and restrictive housing and address the level system for people placed in solitary confinement,” Ericson said.
She noted state prisons haven’t received additional funding for revamping solitary confinement beyond the millions of dollars per year the agency gets to address the issue.
“DOC intends to continue to expand out-of-cell time for individuals in restrictive housing and continued solitary confinement reform remains a priority for DOC,” Ericson said. “It is part of our commitment to keeping staff, the incarcerated and the public safe.”
The ombuds office also reports that the Department of Corrections hasn’t been publishing planned updates about its progress on reducing solitary confinement. The agency reportedly blamed this on a lack of funding.
“We would love to see an update,” said Madison Vinson, of the ombuds office. “I’m not sure when they plan on doing that, but we would love to see it.”
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