Federal prisoners, including those with mental illness, are being kept in solitary confinement for long periods of time in violation of federal policy, according to a new report. Although the Bureau of Prisons states that it does not practice solitary confinement, the Justice Department inspector general found inmates, including mentally ill prisoners, housed in single-cell confinement for extended periods of time and “with limited human contact,” the 96-page report concluded. Federal prisons keeping mentally ill in solitary confinement for long stretches of time, new report says