National Religious Campaign Against Torture

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is a 20-year-old interfaith education and advocacy network that elevates the strong moral voice of U.S. faith leaders on ending torture in both U.S. national security policy and in U.S. prisons, jails and immigration detention centers. NRCAT continues to work to close the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba and bring resolution for the 15 men who are still held there from the U.S. post-9/11 war on terror.

Key to the mission of ending solitary in U.S. carceral settings is the NRCAT National Network of Solitary Survivors which centers the role and voice of solitary survivors in campaigns led by faith and human rights leaders, legal advocates, disability rights activists, state and local legislators, families, and many others. Together, the goal is to end or place strict limits on solitary confinement for the more than 122,000 incarcerated people currently being held in tiny cells the size of a parking space in the U.S. – conditions that are defined as torture by the United Nation, by leading medical and mental health professionals and brain scientists, and by those with first-hand experience of solitary.

NRCAT is a lead organization in a national movement working on state legislative policy with 23 state-level anti-solitary policy campaigns across the U.S. NRCAT is also a founding member of the Federal Anti-Solitary Task Force, which is working to educate members of the U.S. Congress on the End Solitary Confinement Act – proposed legislation that would end or limit solitary in federal facilities, including federal immigration detention. Working together with state and national allies, NRCAT seeks to change both the national narrative and policy by developing media resources with original content, providing advocacy trainings with grassroots leaders, and organizing community support for anti-solitary campaigns.