Michael Schwirtz and Michael Winerip in The New York Times report that New York will overhaul solitary confinement procedures in the state’s prisons, in a lawsuit agreement announced Dec. 16. The five-year, $62 million lawsuit agreement was brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union, who claimed abusive treatment of inmates in solitary confinement. “This is the end hopefully of an era where people are just thrown into the box for an unlimited amount of time on the whim of a corrections officer,” said Taylor Pendergrass, the civil liberties union’s lead counsel on the case. “This will not be the end of the road for solitary confinement reform, but we really think it’s a watershed moment.” Read the full story in The New York Times.