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New Mexico Panel Eyes Limiting Solitary Confinement

A New Mexico House panel is scheduled to debate a proposal that would ban the use of solitary confinement on juveniles and inmates suffering from mental illness.

The House Safety and Civil Affairs Committee is set Thursday to discuss a measure that would also limit solitary confinement to no more than consecutive 15 days and no more than 60 days a year.

The proposal comes after a number of high-profile lawsuits by inmates who alleged that they were placed in inhumane and filthy isolation cells in state prisons or county jails.

Dona Ana County in 2013 reached a $15.5 million settlement in a case of a man who was held in solitary confinement for two years without a trial and was so neglected that he took out his own tooth.

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