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You don't hear many "good" stories from ADX-Florence, the "supermax" prison in Florence, Colorado.
The facility is known for housing the worst of the worst, including convicted terrorists like Terry Nichols, Zacarias Moussaoui, Ramzi Yousef, and Ted Kaczynski. It's also known for it's use of solitary confinement, at times as a way to manage mental illness.
But now, for prisoners with mental illness ADX-Florence, there's also a ray of hope. The Marshall Project's Andrew Cohen reports that a major settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by a group of mentally ill prisoners against federal prison officials has been reached.
Dr. Terry Kupers, institute professor at the Wright Institute in Oakland and author of the forthcoming book "Solitary: Supermax Isolation and the Future of Prison Rehabilitation," argues it doesn't go far enough.
"What's needed, really, is to stop isolation altogether," he says.
