In June 2016, UPLC brought a case against the Illinois Department of Corrections on behalf of six prisoners who were facing or had faced, extreme isolation in Illinois prisons. These individuals had been held in extreme isolation for between 6 months and 17 years. The conditions described by the prisoners included being confined, often for 24 hours a day, to small, airless cells with no natural light, reduced food, minimal yard time (and even then, alone in a bare concrete box). Cells are often infested with rodents and insects, and are cold in the winter and stifling hot in the summer. All of these prisoners were deprived of meaningful contact with other people- including other prisoners and their own family members. The court held that "these allegations certainly establish the denial of the 'minimal civilized measure of life's necessities."