August Rebellion

The August Rebellion refers to a 1974 riot at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, a prison in Bedford Hills in the Town of Bedford, Westchester County, New York, United States. In August 1974, about 200 of these prisoners rioted, taking over parts of the prison, because of the inhumane treatment of one of the leaders among the prisoners, Carol Crooks.

Crooks filed a lawsuit challenging the action of placing women in solitary confinement without a 24 hour notice of charges, hearings, and the reason for the punishment. This lawsuit was filed in July 1974, and was filed because the guards at Bedford NY Women's Prison started placing prisoners into the special housing units for reasons that were not fair or just. In August of the same year, after the judges who heard Crooks' case ruled in her favor, the prison guards reciprocated by beating her and putting her in a segregated cell. The actions of these guards resulted in the uprising of the prison that included about two hundred inmates. These inmates took action by fighting the guards and for about two and a half hours they were in control of parts of the prison.

Solitary confinement is form of imprisonment where an inmate is taken from the general population and put into isolation. The use of segregation, solitary confinement, or SHU: special housing unit, is to detain prisoners that have earned their way there through being involved in serious infractions, such as fighting another prisoner or guard or prisoners who are a threat to themselves. Using solitary confinement as a way to cut down the amount of suicides. Most inmates only stay a few days or maybe even weeks but in actuality they could spend decades in solitary confinement, even serve their entire sentence there. Although solitary confinement is used for the safety and sometimes as a punishment of the inmates it has serious effects on the people being placed there. Being held in a small space without access to objects, recreation, or human contact can lead to claustrophobia, anger, depression, hallucinations, insomnia, and obsessive idealization or fixation on dying.

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