# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
JO STAFFORD "You Belong To Me"  1952    HQ

# data[].attributes.body
Chritopher craig statement on learning of dereks' pardon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Craig and Derek Bentley were convicted of the murder of a policeman in a burglary on a south London warehouse in 1952.

The Court of Appeal on Thursday quashed the conviction of 19-year-old Derek Bentley who was hanged in 1953 and pardoned him. Craig at the age of 16, was too young to hang.

This is his full statement:

"Today, after 46 years, the conviction of Derek Bentley has been quashed and his name cleared. While I am grateful and relieved about this, I am saddened that it has taken those 46 years for the authorities in this country to admit the truth.

"I am truly sorry that my actions on 2 November 1952 caused so much pain and misery for the family of Pc Miles, who died that night doing his duty.

Also, for the Bentley family, I regret that Iris, Derek's sister, who fought all those years for Derek's pardon, died recently before this appeal was concluded.

Finally, I apologise to my family, who have had to endure Press attention over the years.

Innocence proved

"At the end of the day, the lawyers decided it was not necessary for me to give evidence at the appeal hearing but I was ready and willing to do so in the interests of justice.

"A day does not go by when I don't think about Derek and now his innocence has been proved with this judgment.

"Now at last this case is over. My gratitude goes to those who have fought so tirelessly for justice."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
bbc news world uk international foreign british online service

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
BBC News | UK | Craig's relief at Bentley pardon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Craig and Derek Bentley were convicted of the murder of a policeman in a burglary on a south London warehouse in 1952. The Court of Appeal on Thursday quashed the conviction of 19-year-old Derek Bentley who was hanged in 1953 and pardoned him. Craig at the age of 16, was too young to hang.

# data[].attributes.body
Could be used as a speech for someone to multiirole as the 'authorities'

# data[].attributes.body
Could be some interviews in this that could be used as verbatim?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
FIRST EDITION - FOR IRIS [Derek Bentley] (ITV, January 1999)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 1953, 19-year-old Derek Bentley was hanged for murder, but did the police interfere with his statement to make him look guilty? Below you will find the data, audio credits, sources, and a transcript of the podcast.

Philipp Weigl - Subdivision of the Masses
Chris Zabriskie - Divider
Lee Rosevere - Taking the Time
Lee Rosevere - Self-Care
Kai Engel - Brand New World

(1) I have known Craig since I went to school. (2) We were stopped by our parents going out together, but we still continued going out with each other - I mean we have not gone out together until tonight. (3) I was watching television tonight (2 November 1952) and between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Craig called for me. (4) My mother answered the door and I heard her say that I was out. (5) I had been out earlier to the pictures and got home just after 7 p.m. (6) A little later Norman Parsley and Frank Fasey called. (7) I did not answer the door or speak to them. (8) My mother told me that they had called and I then ran out after them. (9) I walked up the road with them to the paper shop where I saw Craig standing. (10) We all talked together and then Norman Parsley and Frank Fazey left. (11) Chris Craig and I then caught a bus to Croydon. (12) We got off at West Croydon and then walked down the road where the toilets are - I think it is Tamworth Road. (13) When we came to the place where you found me, Chris looked in the window. (14) There was a little iron gate at the side. (15) Chris then jumped over and I followed. (16) Chris then climbed up the drainpipe to the roof and I followed. (17) Up to then Chris had not said anything. (18) We both got out on to the flat roof at the top. (19) Then someone in a garden on the opposite side shone a torch up towards us. (20) Chris said: 'It's a copper, hide behind here.' (21) We hid behind a shelter arrangement on the roof. (22) We were there waiting for about ten minutes. (23) I did not know he was going to use the gun. (24) A plain clothes man climbed up the drainpipe and on to the roof. (25) The man said: 'I am a police officer - the place is surrounded.' (26) He caught hold of me and as we walked away Chris fired. (27) There was nobody else there at the time. (28) The policeman and I then went round a corner by a door. (29) A little later the door opened and a policeman in uniform came out. (30) Chris fired again then and this policeman fell down. (31) I could see that he was hurt as a lot of blood came from his forehead just above his nose. (32) The policeman dragged him round the corner behind the brickwork entrance to the door. (33) I remember I shouted something but I forgot what it was. (34) I could not see Chris when I shouted to him - he was behind a wall. (35) I heard some more policemen behind the door and the policeman with me said: 'I don't think he has many more bullets left.' (36) Chris shouted 'Oh yes I have' and he fired again. (37) I think I heard him fire three times altogether. (38) The policeman then pushed me down the stairs and I did not see any more. (39) I knew we were going to break into the place. (40) I did not know what we were going to get - just anything that was going. (41) I did not have a gun and I did not know Chris had one until he shot. (42) I now know that the policeman in uniform that was shot is dead. (43) I should have mentioned that after the plain clothes policeman got up the drainpipe and arrested me, another policeman in uniform followed and I heard someone call him 'Mac'. (44) He was with us when the other policeman was killed.

Dad, Help Me Please: The Story of Derek Bentley by Christopher Berry-Dee and Robin Odell
My Son's Execution by William George Bentley
The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook by Gisli H. Gudjonsson
Gangland: The Case of Bentley and Craig by Francis Selwyn
Whose text is it? On the linguistic investigation of authorship by Malcolm Coulthard
An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence by Malcolm Coulthard, Alison Johnson and David Wright

The PEACE model of interviewing
The COBUILD corpus

Case S01E01 - Derek Bentley.

It's the 02 nd of November, 1952. We're just south of London, in a large town called Croydon.

It's been an unseasonably wet winter, and right now, it's around 9pm at night, but despite the darkness and the winter weather, two teenagers are walking up Tamworth Road. One is Chris Craig, aged 16. The other is Derek Bentley, aged 19. They stop outside of Barlow & Parker's wholesale shop and warehouse. Their intention is to burgle the warehouse - for money, goods, whatever they can find. Both are armed. Craig is carrying a revolver with a shortened barrel, and several undersized revolver rounds. And he has given Bentley a sheath knife, and a spiked knuckle-duster.

After checking the scene, they scramble over the fence, and begin climbing a drainpipe that runs up the side of the building to the rooftop. It's a tense climb, some thirty feet to the top. A fall could easily kill. Unbeknown to them, in the houses opposite, a nine-year-old girl has been staring out of her bedroom window, and she has seen them. She tells her parents, and her father runs to the nearest phonebox and calls the police. Within minutes, officers arrive and surround the building.

They begin shouting at the two to come back down. Instead, Craig and Bentley hide behind the lift housing on the roof, and Craig even starts to yell abuse and taunts at the officers. As this is going on, Detective Sergeant Frederick Fairfax is climbing the drainpipe. Once on the roof, he makes a grab for Bentley, and briefly captures him, but Bentley wrenches free and escapes.

On the ground, the police are trying to get into Barlow & Parker's. Their intention is to find the stairs that lead up the lift shaft and exit at the housing on the roof-top - the same lift housing that Bentley and Craig have put between themselves and the police.

At this point in the story, back on the rooftop, controversy sets in about precisely what happens next. Accounts from the police and the teenagers differ in a crucial detail. According to statements given by the police, Fairfax tells Craig to "Hand over the gun, lad".

Bentley shouts, "Let him have it, Chris!"

In response, Craig shoots at Detective Sergeant Fairfax, hitting him in the shoulder.

Later in court, both Craig and Bentley will strenuously deny that this phrase was ever uttered. Indeed, Craig continues to deny it to this day. However, we will deal with this controversy in due time. Back in the midst of what is now a gunfight, injured, and at risk of being shot again, Fairfax makes a desperate move. He lunges and manages to grab Bentley again, and this time, he isn't letting go. Fairfax will later be awarded the George Cross - the UK's second highest honour - given "for most conspicuous courage in circumstance of extreme danger".

Now in custody, Bentley is entirely compliant. He tells Fairfax about the extra ammunition that Craig has for the gun, and he makes to attempt to use either the sheath knife or the knuckleduster that Craig gave him.

On the ground, the police have been struggling in the dark and cold against the locked windows and doors, and finally, they have managed to get inside. A group of them are racing up the stairs. Craig is still shooting wildly. It is now around fifteen minutes after Bentley supposedly shouted at Craig to "let him have it". The first officer to burst out of the lift housing door and onto the roof is Police Constable Sidney Miles.

Craig kills him with a single shot to the head.

As the officers take cover, Craig continues shooting until, finally, his rounds are spent. He is now cornered. There is no safe way down. He can choose handcuffs and the mercy of the officers he has just taunted, shot at, and possible even killed. Or he can take another way out. Turning, Craig runs, and leaps off the roof. It is a thirty foot fall - ten metres straight down - and he crashes onto a glass greenhouse. Incredibly, he survives the impact, but he is badly injured. He will later be found to have a fractured spine and broken left wrist.

For the police, however, the incident is now under control. The shooting is over, and both Craig and Bentley are in custody. Craig is taken to hospital, and Bentley is taken to the police station. There, he gives a statement.

A month after the failed burglary, on the 09 th to the 11 th of December 1952, both teenagers are tried for murder. Even though Craig pulled the trigger, even though Bentley was under arrest when PC Miles was killed, and even though this death occurred around fifteen minutes after Bentley's alleged shout of, "Let him have it Chris!", after only 75 minutes of deliberation, the jury finds both Craig and Bentley guilty of the murder of PC Sidney Miles.

Because he is only 16 years old, Craig is classed as a minor. As such, under English law as it stood in 1952, the maximum penalty that can be imposed upon him is a jail sentence at Her Majesty's Pleasure - effectively an indefinite sentence that ends when he is deemed to have been rehabilitated. He will finally be released in 1963 after serving eleven years.

However, at 19 years old, Bentley is over the age of majority. He can be given the most severe penalty available under English law, and in 1952, this was the death sentence.

Bentley lodges an appeal. The news breaks across the country to widespread dismay. Politicians submit signed memoranda disputing the verdict, and the public protest the trial outcome. Bentley's father makes a desperate visit to the Home Secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe. The Home Secretary has the power to recommend that a death sentence be commuted into life imprisonment. However, Fyfe is concerned that the victim was a police officer, and what message might be sent if he is seen to interfere in due legal process.

In the end, all of these efforts, protests, and appeals are to no avail. On the 28 th of January 1953, outside of the walls of Wandsworth Prison, there is a public protest so volatile that it results in arrests, assaults, and property damage. Inside the prison grounds, however, events move inexorably forward, and at 9am, 19-year-old Derek Bentley is hanged.

Welcome

Welcome to en clair, an archive of forensic linguistic cases, literary detection, and language mysteries, myths, and legends. You can find case notes about this episode, including credits, acknowledgements, and links to further reading at my blog. The web address is given at the end of the podcast.

Context and history

Derek Bentley was born on the 30 th of June 1933. He was just six when the second world war started, and by the time he reached that fateful night in November in 1952, he had already a difficult life. As a child, during a WWII bombing, a house that Bentley was sheltering inside collapsed on him. Some accounts suggest that Bentley suffered head injuries, but whether this is true or not, a range of medical and cognitive tests administered to Bentley through his life suggest that he had developmental problems.

At the age of 11, in 1944, Bentley failed his 11+ examinations. In 1948, aged 14, he is found guilty of theft and sentenced to three years in Kingswood Approved School. This is . It is here that he first meets Christopher Craig. Whilst at the school, in December of 1948, the then 15-year-old Bentley is diagnosed with a mental age of 10y 6m, and a reading age of 4y 6m. In case you're not familiar with how well a four-year-old reads, the answer is: not very. A child of this age might recognise some letters of the alphabet, and perhaps even be able to read a few very short words. He also scores 66 on an IQ test. Only ~2% have a score this low, and only ~1% score lower.

At the age of 16, he is diagnosed with epilepsy, and another EEG shortly afterwards returns an abnormal reading. After serving only two years of his sentence, now aged 17, Bentley is released from Kingswood, and he has apparently been so traumatised by his time there that he spends the rest of the year as a recluse. Finally, almost a year later in 1951, he manages to secure employment with a furniture removal business. A few months later he undergoes a medical exam for national service, but he is found to be unfit for military service because he is "mentally substandard". In March of 1952, aged 18, he quits his furniture removal job after hurting his back. A couple of months later, in May, he is hired as a waste collector, but only two months after that, just after his 19 th birthday, he is demoted to street-cleaning, and finally two months later, in September, he is sacked for "unsatisfactory performance".

As the winter of 1952 sets in, Bentley finds himself unemployed, with no income, few prospects, and an early track record for struggling with school and work. In Brixton Prison only a few weeks later he will be diagnosed with a mental age of 11 or 12. With all of these details in mind, it's easy to see why the idea of accompanying his friend on a warehouse burglary might have appealed to Bentley.

Evidence and data

Part of the evidence used to convict Bentley was linguistic in nature. There are two parts to this. The first is the ambiguity of Bentley's alleged shout of "Let him have it, Chris". If we believe that this sentence was ever uttered, was Bentley urging Craig to kill? Or we he urging him to surrender the gun? We will return to this issue later.

The second part of the linguistic evidence involves a key sentence in the statement that Bentley supposedly dictated to the police shortly after being arrested. In the 23 rd sentence of this statement, the police claim that Bentley said to them, "I did not know he was going to use the gun". What's the issue here? Well, it will sound trivial and pedantic, but it revolves around the use of the word, the.

Imagine I say to you, "have you seen the eclipse?" Notice how the sentence effectively asserts that there is an eclipse - a specific one - possibly even one that is happening right now. The existence of the eclipse is given as uncontroversial information that we both accept. It has the air of definiteness, and all of this background information is carried by the definite article; that tiny, inconspicuous word, the.

Contrast that to the sentence, "have you seen an eclipse?" Everything has changed. Now there is no longer a specific eclipse in mind. It certainly doesn't sound like an eclipse is necessarily happening right at the moment that I ask you. The indefinite article, as its name suggests, introduces a strong sense of the indefinite into the sentence.

The prosecution's argument rested on the idea that by using the definite article - by saying the gun - Bentley had inadvertently revealed the fact that he actually, really did have prior knowledge that Craig had a gun. Their position was that, had he been genuinely unaware of it, he would have used the in definite article, and said, "I did not know he was going to use a gun".

The importance of this argument is easy to overlook, so at the risk of going into too much detail, I will spell it out. If Bentley had not known about the gun, he could not be accessory to murder, or, in a peculiar twist of English law, effectively, a co-murderer of PC Miles. They would have to drop his charges down substantially, perhaps only to attempted burglary - a crime for which there is certainly no death sentence.

Since an officer of the law has been shot, there is a lot of personal grievance involved in the case, and it would have been easy for some of those involved to develop tunnel vision - to want an eye for an eye - revenge for their fallen friend. They would never be able to hang Craig for PC Miles' death. As I've said, as a minor he simply cannot be given the death sentence. But Bentley is not so safe. If he could be convicted of the higher level offence of murder, he could hang for it, and for some this would seem like the only kind of justice for the death of PC Miles. The prosecution, then, laboured this argument hard, and pushed the jury to believe that Bentley was indeed a knowing co-conspirator and fellow murderer.

So much rests on tiny matters of linguistics. Bentley's life is beginning to depend upon some the smallest words in the English language. But how faithful was this statement?

Remember that Bentley was said to have dictated it to the police in the hours after the shooting, so for a moment, it's worth considering how police in the 1950s, collected evidence.

Firstly, the police did not have quite the same reputation for exemplary levels of fairness and thoroughness that they have today. As in many countries, police brutality was certainly not unheard of, but more than this, in some forces, there was a toxic culture between officers, where status was scored by counting who had the most "coughs" - that is, which officer could get the most confessions. This was before the advent of video cameras and legal requirements to record all interviews from start to finish. It was also before many laws came into place regarding the fair and humane treatment of suspects. The process of being interviewed back then could be extremely unpleasant and many suspects later argued that they had given confessions under duress. There was a period of crisis across several forces where countless confessions were either subsequently recanted or found to be false in the light of further evidence.

Britain's police forces would eventually introduce the PEACE model of interviewing suspects and witnesses in 1984. This approach, which is collaborative and cooperative in nature, has proven eminently more successful in producing high quality information from interviewees, so much so that it is now adopted in various forms around the world. But at the time of this case, such enlightened ideas are thirty years away into the future. In short, we can't know for sure, but Bentley is not likely to have found his treatment at the hands of the police to be especially friendly.

Any issues of coercion aside, what was the actual process of taking statements supposed to look like on paper? In the 1950s, the police procedure for collecting verbal evidence could take two directions. On the one hands, the police could conduct an interview, that is, a dialogue. The officers were required firstly to write down their questions long-hand - this was before the modern technology of tape recorders and so forth, of course - and then they would record the suspect's answers word-for-word directly underneath.

On the other hand, they could take a statement, that is, a monologue. The suspect could either write this themselves, or they could dictate it to an officer who would write it out for them. The catch with this form of verbal evidence is that the officers were not to ask substantive questions. They could ask the suspect to repeat themselves, for instance, but they could not probe, direct, interrogate, or otherwise steer the statement.

It's worth noting here, that whilst in Brixton Prison awaiting trial, Dr Matheson, the Principal Medical Officer took a detailed history from Bentley, noting that, he "cannot even recognise or write down all the letters of the alphabet". In other words, Bentley is almost entirely illiterate and would therefore not be able to write his own statement, nor read and check the accuracy of one written on his behalf.

At the trial, three officers swore that Bentley's statement was of this second type - that it was an unaided monologue dictated to an officer who then wrote it out faithfully, word-for-word. However, Bentley asserted that his statement was at least partially an interview-style dialogue. He said that questions had been put to him, and when he had given the answers, the words had been turned into a statement accredited to him as a monologue. For instance, an officer might have asked, "Did you know he was going to use the gun?" Bentley would have replied, "No". And the officer would have written down, "I did not know he was going to use the gun." You can see the problem here. Bentley's life is currently in the balance over his supposed use of the word the, but what if this was never his word in the first place? What if it belonged to an officer?

Despite Bentley's protests, the statement was admitted in court and taken to represent Bentley's exact words as spoken in the hours after the shooting. Does Bentley's argument have any merit? Well, within the statement, we can find evidence to support his claims. It's only a short document, at 588 words, or 44 sentences, and you can find the whole thing in the case notes at my blog, but I'll read some select parts of it now. Whilst listening to this, remember that it has supposedly been dictated by someone with a mental age of 10 or 11, and a reading age of around 4y 6m:

(11) Chris Craig and I then caught a bus to Croydon. (12) We got off at West Croydon and then walked down the road where the toilets are - I think it is Tamworth Road. (13) When we came to the place where you found me, Chris looked in the window. (14) There was a little iron gate at the side. (15) Chris then jumped over and I followed. (16) Chris then climbed up the drainpipe to the roof and I followed. (17) Up to then Chris had not said anything. (18) We both got out on to the flat roof at the top. (19) Then someone in a garden on the opposite side shone a torch up towards us. (20) Chris said: 'It's a copper, hide behind here.' (21) We hid behind a shelter arrangement on the roof. (22) We were there waiting for about ten minutes. (23) I did not know he was going to use the gun. (24) A plain clothes man climbed up the drainpipe and on to the roof. (25) The man said: 'I am a police officer - the place is surrounded.' (26) He caught hold of me and as we walked away Chris fired. (27) There was nobody else there at the time. (28) The policeman and I then went round a corner by a door. (29) A little later the door opened and a policeman in uniform came out. (30) Chris fired again then and this policeman fell down. (31) I could see that he was hurt as a lot of blood came from his forehead just above his nose. (32) The policeman dragged him round the corner behind the brickwork entrance to the door. (33) I remember I shouted something but I forgot what it was. [emphasis added]

There's a little that comes before and after this but as I said, you can read the rest of it in the case notes. Within this statement, what might we focus on to question its veracity? Well, one of the most prominent features to a linguist at least is the prominent use of the temporal then. In fact, then occurs eleven times in this statement.

Initially, you might think, well of course it does. He's recounting a chronological sequence of events, and it's useful to put in little linguistic markers that make the ordering of the events as clear as possible. But, when we look at other, genuinely monologic witness statements, we start to see how odd the frequency of this word is.

As part of a later appeal, forensic linguist Malcolm Coulthard undertook a formal analysis of Bentley's statement, and compared it with two other sets of data. On the one hand he gathered three ordinary witness statements - one from a woman in the Bentley case, and two from men in unrelated cases. This came to some 930 words. On the other hand, he gathered three statements by police officers, two from the Bentley case, and one from an unrelated case. This totalled some 2,270 words. Additionally, as an external measure, he also compared Bentley's statement with COBUILD, a giant dataset of around 1.5 million words of spoken English.

Now, in the current legal climate, with standards of evidence and proof climbing ever higher, we could poke several holes in these datasets. They're all very tiny. If the police interfered in Bentley's statement, what's to say that these other witness statements have not also been interfered with. Different officers might have very different styles and the three that Coulthard chose for his police dataset might not reflect whoever supposedly interfered with Bentley's statement. And so on. However, I would also stress that this is one of the earliest recorded uses, if not the earliest, of forensic linguistics being used in the courtroom, and with continued practice, inevitably, there come advances and improvements. Even with the limitations noted here, Coulthard found some very interesting results.

The short version is that, on average, Bentley uses the word then 19 times in every thousand words. By contrast, ordinary witness statements only produce the word then around once every thousand words. And in police statements, then occurs around 13 times per thousand words. In other words, the frequency of the word then in Bentley's statement is much more like the police dataset, than the witness dataset.

Whilst compelling, this isn't enough by itself, however, and an appeal lodged on this basis alone might have struggled. However something else is happening with the word then. Let's just take a few examples from the statement:

(8) ...I then ran out after them.

(11) ...I then caught a bus to Croydon.

(15) Chris then jumped over and I followed.

(16) Chris then climbed up the drainpipe...

(28) ...I then went round a corner by a door.

(30) Chris fired again then and this policeman fell down.

(38) The policeman then pushed me down the stairs...

What's going on here? It's something called post-positioning. The then is occurring after the subject, and this construction is pretty unusual. In casual, comfortable conversation, we're much more likely to say then I - then I caught the bus, then I went around the corner, and so on. We're far less likely to say I then caught the bus, I then went around the corner. In fact, Coulthard noted that in the COBUILD dataset of 1.5 million words of spoken English, then I - the more typical pre-positioning - occurs ten times more than I then, this unusual post-positioned construction.

What's more, this post-positioning never occurs in the witness dataset that Coulthard looks at, but it occurs nine times in the police dataset. In short, this high frequency of then, and it's unusual post-positioning turns out to be a particular feature of the police officer's (written) register. When officers are trained on how to take verbal evidence, and how to ensure that the sequence of events is preserved and made clear, this is one of the strategies that is used.

The fact that we find so much evidence of this police register in Bentley's statement certainly does cast some serious doubts over its status as an unaided, verbatim account of the events of that night. In short, the evidence suggests that at the very least, the police have substantially interfered with Bentley's statement, presumably to ensure that it said whatever they needed it to say.

This takes us back to sentence 23, where Bentley supposedly said " the gun". We now have compelling evidence to suggest that this definite article was never Bentley's word. And if we cannot trust the officers' claims, made under oath, that Bentley's statement was a faithful account of his words, can we trust their assertion that Bentley shouted, "Let him have it, Chris"? Remember that this is an aspect of the case that Chris Craig continues to deny to this day.

Conclusion

Bentley's family spend the next 45 years campaigning for justice. Their aim was to have the guilty verdict quashed and Bentley fully pardoned. In the 1970s, when Bentley's parents pass away, his sister continues the fight. In July of 1993, Bentley's family achieve a royal pardon. This is not a legal pardon, however. It is, effectively, a way of saying "You are forgiven by the crown" rather than "We no longer believe that you are guilty". Unsurprisingly, this is not enough, and Bentley's family carry on with their campaign, however, in 1997, Bentley's sister, Iris, dies of cancer. Undeterred, her daughter Maria takes up the fight. As part of the appeal, Malcolm Coulthard's forensic linguistics analysis is presented and his view that Bentley's statement has been interfered with by the police is taken into consideration.

In 1998, when the case is further reviewed, after criticising his predecessor's summing-up, Lord Chief Justice allows the Appeal.

And finally, on the 30 th of July, 1998, 45 years after his execution, Derek Bentley's conviction for murder is quashed, and he is fully pardoned.

Outro

En clair is entirely researched, narrated, and produced by me, Dr Claire Hardaker. However this work wouldn't exist in its current form without the prior effort of many others. You can find acknowledgements and references for those people at the blog. Also there you can find data, links, articles, pictures, older cases, media interviews, and analyses of breaking news data. The address for the blog is wp.lancs.ac.uk/enclair. And you can follow the podcast on Twitter at _enclair, or if you like, you can follow me on Twitter at DrClaireH.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 1953, 19-year-old Derek Bentley was hanged for murder, but did the police interfere with his statement to make him look guilty? Below you will find the data, audio credits, sources, and a transcript of the podcast.

# data[].attributes.body
This document has lots of statements from Derek, the police officers, the executioner. Could you base your whole piece around Derek? You could use the cells metaphorically - the girls being Dereks sister/mother - his whole family were effective ‘jailed’ when he was as their lives changed so much. Evan or Ruairidh could be Derek, other could be Craig? The 3 who aren’t Derek could multiple as other people too? There is so much material out there on the Craig and Bentley case

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If a relative is wrongly convicted, the effects can last for generations. Joanna Moorhead meets three campaigners who have dedicated their lives to clearing the family name

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Until recently, very little attention was paid to the women embroiled in the UK's criminal justice system. Men make up the vast majority of the country's prison inmates (95%) and there are currently just 12 women-only prisons in England and one in Scotland, which may explain why so many of us know very little about them and what goes on inside their walls.

As tempting as it may be to infer things from film and TV, we shouldn't base our understanding on Orange Is The New Black or our memories of watching ITV's Bad Girls. The reality is mightily different - apparently there's nowhere near as much violence - as one women's prison officer revealed to Refinery29.

Michelle Leary, 34, is a senior officer at HMP Downview women's prison in Surrey. She has been in the role for over a decade and also has experience in men's prisons. Day to day, it's her job to create a safe, secure prison environment that supports and encourages prisoner rehabilitation, empowering women to fend for themselves once they leave prison. She currently supervises a wing that holds just over 200 women and manages between 10 and 15 staff on any given day. When she's not at work, Leary is a single mum to three daughters. Here, she talks candidly about the realities of working in a women's prison.

I make sure that the whole regime runs smoothly - that all the staff are in the right place and are doing the right thing, and making sure all the prisoners are well cared for. I'm basically in charge of the daily running of what happens in my unit. In my prison, I take every single crime you can imagine, from petty thieves and shoplifters to murderers, and everything that goes in between. I speak to the prisoners every day. Sometimes it can be incredibly hard because there's only one of me and 205 of them, and the vast majority of them feel like they need to talk to me because if they need something like emergency phone credit, I'm the only person who's allowed to sign it off.

A lot of people ask me if 'Orange Is The New Black' is anything like my job and no, it's not that exciting

Our staff are a higher percentage female, which is how it's supposed to be within a female estate, but issues with recruitment have meant it hasn't always been easy to recruit women into the job. I think that's probably because of the bad press, because all people seem to know about prisons is that they seem to be violent places, but luckily there's very little violence where I work.

I watched the first two series of Orange Is The New Black. I don't think it made any difference to how much interest people showed in my job. Our prison had really bad staffing issues when the show first aired and it's only because of pay increases and similar policies that things have changed. It wasn't as if Orange Is The New Black came on Netflix and everybody was like, 'I want a job doing that,' because they didn't. A lot of people ask me if Orange Is The New Black is anything like my job and no, it's not that exciting.

The biggest challenge is that women don't like the word 'no'

The difference between men and women's prisons is that women like to talk while male prisoners tend to be more physical. Women like to moan and they like you to hear about it, so they will be extremely vocal rather than want to fight with you. Something like the kitchen getting somebody's food wrong by accident can create issues among women. When you go to prison, particularly for women, the things you get given and what you're entitled to are very important to you, and if I or another member of staff accidentally makes a mistake or forgets to do something, that can create a big issue. They get pissed off with each other - as anyone would if they had to live in a house with 200 other women they'd never met before. There's always going to be at least one person who irritates you.

The biggest challenge is that women don't like the word 'no'. That starts a lot of arguments. I'm a very fair person and very black and white, so if you're not allowed something you're not going to get it. It doesn't matter how many times you stand at my office door asking me the same question, I'm not going to change my mind. Sometimes that can be really hard work and very frustrating.

The other hard thing is dealing with people who self-harm, because it's sad and upsetting. I've done this job for nearly 14 years, so I know what's professional and what's not professional. I have a duty of care towards them; it's my responsibility that they're well cared for and it can be incredibly hard to deal with some of the things they say. I'm responsible for dealing with anybody who might have suicidal thoughts and I have to listen to things like that. A lot of women in my care have been through some horrific experiences and it's not stuff you really want to hear every day, but in the time I've worked in the prison I've developed a calm mindset.

I found it quite hard going from a female prison to a male prison because I talk a lot. With every woman on my unit I can guarantee that when I see them in the morning or outside they'll say 'Good morning miss, how are you?' There will be a little bit of conversation, whereas men don't do things like that. I remember on my first day working at High Down [a men's prison in Sutton], opening the cell doors and just being like 'Morning!' and the looks on their faces were of, 'Why are you saying good morning to me? Go away'. I also had a few wolf whistles while working there. Would I call that sexist behaviour? Maybe a little bit, but would I pay any attention to it? No. I'd just tell them it wasn't appropriate. If anything, I'd say male prisoners are more respectful of female prison officers then they are of male prison officers.

One of the best things about the job is seeing a prisoner get parole after working with them for so long. It's a great sense of achievement when you finally get somebody in the right place and rehabilitate them, putting them back out in the community so they can be a decent person. Some of them stay in touch with me once they leave; I've had lots of thank you letters. I set up an industrial cleaning course at the prison which gives prisoners proper qualifications and set some of the women up with that.

If you're thinking about doing this job, you need to be tough, be confident within yourself, have integrity, and you can't be intimidated by people

The vast majority of women are going to go out into the community and see jobs available at places like Tesco, but that doesn't always work for people. With the industrial cleaning course we wanted to give them the opportunity to set up their own business and be their own boss - we've managed to get some contracts together, to get them into hospitals. Three of the women still have their own businesses which they run very successfully.

I'd recommend the prison service as an employer of women. I don't think people realise how family-friendly they are. I manage to fit my job around my childcare needs and the prison service understands this. If you're thinking about doing this job, you need to be tough, be confident within yourself, have integrity, and you can't be intimidated by people. It also has a caring side to it and you need to be able to empathise with people who may have come from a completely different walk of life. It's a very safe, stable job in our current economy - there are always going to be people who commit a crime.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Confessions Of A...Women's Prison Officer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Until recently, very little attention was paid to the women embroiled in the UK's criminal justice system. Men make up the vast majority of the country's prison inmates (95%) and there are currently just 12 women-only prisons in England and one in Scotland, which may explain why so many of us know very little about them and what goes on inside their walls.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nothing is achieved by locking up women for minor offences. We might as well set fire to a big pile of banknotes and dance around them.

There are approximately 3,800 women in prison today, depriving 17,000 children of their mothers. Children who have to be shunted around family members or placed in care, eating up even more limited resources than the £36,000 it costs to imprison someone for a year. Children who will be stigmatised through no fault of their own.

There are two issues here. First, is it cost effective to stick someone in a cell when there might be cheaper and possibly more effective options? And second, in the 21st century, sending someone to prison is no deterrent and statistics prove it doesn't change their future behaviour.

Successive home secretaries' determination to be "tough on crime" with stiffer sentences has increased the prison population by a third - the vast majority of whom will reoffend, having children who will probably follow in their footsteps. This cycle needs to be broken, and I can't believe that a female drug carrier or a shoplifter, who is probably the victim of abuse herself, will learn anything from prison other than the chance to meet others in the same boat.

David Cameron offered some thoughts about penal reform last week, commenting it was "absolutely terrible" that small children were incarcerated with their mothers - women who had themselves been born in jail 20 years earlier. When a pregnant prisoner gives birth, the child can stay with her for up to 18 months. Last year, about 100 babies were living with their mothers in prison. Cameron has ordered a review to determine whether mothers and babies could be housed in resettlement units or tagged. You could argue that this is sexual discrimination: why treat mums differently from fathers? Surely there are plenty of men in prison who would like to bond with their children and they are not being considered for special treatment. At the risk of enraging you, I'd argue that women deserve to be treated differently.

The majority (80 per cent) of women prisoners have not committed a violent crime; 60 per cent are serving sentences of six months or less, of which almost half are for theft and handling stolen goods or drugs. A large number of female prisoners have committed their crime to support someone else - often a man who controls them - and a third will lose their homes while they are in jail.

Research shows that a large number of women in prison suffered physical or sexual abuse as children, and a third have been in care. These are damaged people who are illiterate and under-educated, with low self-esteem. If someone brought you a dog with a broken leg, would you lock it up because it had nicked a plate of food? Yet we treat female prisoners worse than our pets.

It's not being soft on crime to try - as Cameron seems to be articulating - to find a more constructive way to break the cycle of reoffending, which is rooted in social and emotional deprivation. Prisoners should be at the top of our agenda. More people are incarcerated (100,000) than live in Doncaster or Eastbourne, and the problem won't be solved by building bigger jails.

In Sweden, the reoffending rate stands at between 30 per cent and 40 per cent over three years - half that of the UK - and they have been closing jails, not building new ones. There, a prisoner is categorised by their "needs", with appropriate intensive support.

Would you pay slightly more tax to remove women from prison, offer them mentoring, education and training in residential units with their children, with the goal of getting them off benefits and out of a cycle of petty crime? I can't see any other humane answer to the time bomb that's ticking away inside our prisons.

Rock gods don't always have the best taste in design

In late 1966, I was a second-year student at the Architectural Association in London. I could pretend I worked hard, but these were exciting times and a huge amount of time was spent at parties, art happenings and gigs. Pink Floyd even played at one of our college events.

The highlight was seeing Jimi Hendrix perform at a dance at Imperial College - and by then I'd seen the Stones and the Yardbirds in tiny venues. On stage he surpassed them all, a powerhouse of energy and brilliance.

By 1968, Jimi was well established in London and moved into a top-floor flat at 23 Brook Street - next door to the former home of another musical legend, Handel. Now the museum premises have been renamed Handel and Hendrix, and the rock god's bedroom has been lovingly re-created, complete with embroidered silk shawls, wall hangings and a shell-encrusted stash box.

Having hauled myself up the narrow stairs past Handel's music room, dressing room and bedroom to the third floor, I was rather disappointed to discover it has cost millions (courtesy of a Heritage Lottery grant) to lovingly craft an interior that looks exactly like my first scruffy bedroom in a shared flat in Earl's Court in 1966.

If I had known that scratchy tapestry cushions, Moroccan fabrics and half-drunk bottles of Mateus rosé were to become fetishised objects of worship like holy relics, then I wouldn't have put the whole lot in a skip and replaced it with Art Deco by 1970. The late Sixties produced memorable music, but appalling taste in interiors.

How to turn fictional agony into concrete help for women

Listening to The Archers is like eavesdropping on the most subtle and horrifying form of domestic abuse happening right in your kitchen, and you're powerless to intervene. The legal definition of abuse was recently widened to include "controlling behaviour". Having experienced this myself a long time ago, I can testify that abuse doesn't mean you are being physically touched, but your mind is no longer your own.

It is utterly evil and cruel, and three cheers for the scriptwriters who have highlighted this through Helen and Rob's ghastly relationship. She is slowly losing the strength to argue, as he systematically takes over every aspect of her life. One fan had the brilliant idea of setting up a JustGiving page to raise money for Refuge, calling the page "The Helen Titchener Rescue Fund", and almost £50,000 has been received in a week - money which will help real-life victims of domestic abuse find somewhere safe to go.

We need to think more about how we leave this planet

I've been to two funerals this week. First a memorial service immediately after the cremation of my friend Charlie Courtauld, who died after a long illness. We sang along to the Pogues and heard a poem about pugs, a moving celebration of a funny bloke who was devoted to his family.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to my only nephew Kerry, whose life tragically ended after a stroke in his thirties. The only consolation I have is that he leaves a gorgeous little boy, Owen, who looks exactly like him. Saying anything on these occasions is difficult; I wish there was another way to leave this planet instead of a funeral. Following a body in a box just seems not good enough.

I haven't planned my own funeral. (Maybe you could come up with appropriate suggestions.) The Natural Death Centre issued a crass quote this week about the need to get "value for money" when planning a funeral. Perhaps my body could go straight to bags of compost.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why we should stop filling our prisons with women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nothing is achieved by locking up women for minor offences. We might as well set fire to a big pile of banknotes and dance around them. There are approximately 3,800 women in prison today, depriving 17,000 children of their mothers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Women almost never scare us; commit random acts of serious violence; violate our sexual integrity; or form organised crime networks and yet their prisons numbers are now the highest in recorded history.

The homogeneity of the human species breaks down when it comes to criminal behaviour. Women, who constitute slightly more than 50% of population, commit only about 20% of all crime. They commit even a lower portion of all serious crime.

Hillary Clinton is right to assert that the sentencing system should be reformed to reduce the growing number of female prisoners but the changes should go much further than has been suggested. We should implement concrete targets to remove the stains on our landscape and societal ethic that are women's prisons.

There are remarkably similar patterns of female offending and incarceration in the United States and Australia. In the United States women commit only 17% of felonies, while in Australia they commit about 13% of the crimes dealt with in the higher courts.

Moreover, when it comes to sexual offences, rounded off to the nearest whole number, women constitute 0% of all offenders - that's right, zero. The crimes they most commonly commit are drug and property offences. Thus, in the US, approximately 30% of female prisoners are incarcerated for property offences, and a further 26% for drug offences. The percentages for these offences are 26% and 17%, respectively, in Australia.

Women do of course commit homicide offences, but nearly always the victim is a relative and the crime was committed against the backdrop of an abusive relationship or depressive mindset. All homicides are heinous crimes but the types of homicides committed by women rarely involve random victims and hence do not engender community fear.

Despite this, the rate of female incarceration in both the United States and Australia is on the increase - far outstripping the increase in male incarceration levels. Women now comprise 8% of prisoners in the United States and Australia, which amounts to more than 200,000 incarcerated inmates in the US and 3,000 in Australia.

Nearly every one of these incarcerated women is the victim of a perverse and lazy policy disfigurement that fails to acknowledge the marked differences between female and male offenders. The differences are so stark that not only should women be treated more leniently because they commit less serious crime but they should also be treated more leniently when they commit the same crime as a man.

There are four major differences between male and female offenders. First, women are much less likely to reoffend than men. Their recidivism levels are at least 10% lower in both the US and Australia.

Second, when women are imprisoned they suffer more. They have higher rates of mental illness, making it more difficult for them to adapt to and cope with the prison setting. And US studies show that when in prison they are three times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse than male prisoners.

Third, society suffers more when we remove a female from it and place her behind a prison wall. More than 50% of incarcerated women are single parents and even in two-parent households, female prisoners typically assume the main child nurturing role. In relation to non-parental dependency, the majority of carers (60%) are females.

Finally, women are often less culpable when they commit crime. There is a profoundly devastating link between child sexual and violent victimisation and female offending. US studies show that 23% to 37% of female prisoners reported that they had been physically or sexually abused prior to the age of 18. The rate is even higher in Australia. Incarcerating females is often simply a lamentable case of victimising the victimised.

The sentencing system should be reformed radically to deal more fairly with female offending. The starting position is that no female offender should be imprisoned. In relation to most forms of crime, they should be dealt with by way of intermediate sanctions including the greater use of electronic monitoring.

In the rare instances that women commit heinous crimes, community protection and the need to impose proportionate penalties requires a prison term but this should be the exception, not the increasing norm. The exception is so rare that the utopia of closing prisons would readily become a reality.

Implementing these changes will not prejudice male offenders. In fact, it is likely that the opposite will occur. It will encourage a normatively sound and empirically grounded assessment of sentencing law and policy. This would result in a bifurcated sentencing system, whereby imprisonment was largely reserved for only serious sexual and violent offenders. This approach would greatly benefit the approximately 50% of male US and Australian inmates who are imprisoned for other types of crimes, such as drug and property offences.

The approach would save the community billions of dollars annually and go a long way to correcting the unfathomable public policy misstep which has resulted in 10 American states spending more on prisons than higher education. Best of all, it would not cause the slightest reduction to community safety.
Professor Mirko Bagaric, is the Director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Sentencing at Deakin University, Melbourne. This is a summary of his article Mitigating the Crime that is the Over-Imprisonment of Women: Why Orange Should Not Be the New Black which will be published in a forthcoming edition of the Vermont Law Review. Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why we should close women's prisons and treat their crimes more fairly | Mirko Bagaric

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Women almost never scare us; commit random acts of serious violence; violate our sexual integrity; or form organised crime networks and yet their prisons numbers are now the highest in recorded history. The homogeneity of the human species breaks down when it comes to criminal behaviour.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Women/why%20women_final.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
Thinking about the girls...could their ‘cells’ be more of a metaphor for the lives of the women on the outside when their partners are in prison? Finding it hard to find examples of women wrongfully imprisoned - only 5% prison population is women

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
PUTTING on her best top, ripped jeans and adding a swipe of lipstick, 29-year-old Carmen smiles in the mirror before heading out.
She's meeting her partner of 11 years, Ben, but they're not heading on a date night - he's banged up in prison, and she's dutifully off to visit him, like she does every two weeks, with her kids Olivia, 12, and Brody, eight.

There are currently over 80,000 men locked up in the UK - but it's often their innocent partners who end up paying the real price for their bad behaviour.

"Life on the outside is harder than in. They're the ones that deal with the backlash, continue to go to work, continue to take the children to school - they have to deal with people's judgement," says HMP Manchester prison worker Debbie.

The visiting room is packed with women, all supporting their loved ones.

For many, seeing their other halves banged up would see them packing their bags - but for the women interviewed for a new documentary, Prisoners' Wives, this isn't an option.

Speaking as part of the Channel 5 series three women reveal what life is really like left on the outside...

'My son was in nappies the first time his dad was in prison'

This is the fourth stint Carmen's boyfriend Ben has had in prison in their 11-year relationship, this time doing five-and-a-half years for conspiracy to burgle.

Carmen's serving her own sentence - with her life repeatedly put on hold while her partner unashamedly disregarding the law, meaning he's spent half their relationship locked up.

The mum-of-two, who has been left bringing up Olivia, 12, and eight-year-old Brody on her own, says: "I don't remember the first visit, but I remember [one when] Brody was 18 months and still in nappies. That was hard work."

It's clear the 60-mile round trip for two-hour prison visits she does every other week is taking its toll on Carmen.
"I don't want to spend my 30s like I've spent my 20s - backwards and forwards to prison," she says.

"Ben has put me in this position and that's not what I wanted."

Even though it's Ben behind bars, Carmen can't enjoy freedom either - and is made to feel bad if she enjoys herself.

She says: "If I go out while he's in there, it's a major thing. He makes all these crazy stories up and then every minute he can he'll phone me.

"Even before I go out he says I'm going out to dance with boys. I start laughing and say obviously not - I go out to have a break from the kids, and a catch up with my friends.

"Obviously it's because he's locked in there - but that's not my fault. I've still got to enjoy myself."

'I don't want my children to take after their dad'

The disruption also has an impact on the kids, with Brody lashing out, swearing and smashing things up.

"I think he's upset and sad and angry," Carmen explains. "I do hope he's learnt from seeing his dad in there that it's not a good life. I hope that he thinks, 'I want to be different to my dad,' and I would try my ultimate best to make sure he's not like that.

"I feel sorry for them. I do give them a choice. I never force them to go [to visit]."

Carmen also hopes for a different life for her daughter, admitting she wishes time and again that Olivia never ends up with a criminal.

"If [her partner] does go to prison she's to leave them at the first hurdle," Carmen says. "I don't want her to waste her life on that."

But it's not advice the mum takes for herself, explaining that "family is family" and that when Ben's around things are good - it's just not as much as she'd like.

'We get treated like criminals'

Jaymee, 40, from Bolton, has been left to raise ten-year-old daughter Brooklyn alone after her partner Gary was caught in possession of 4.5 kilograms of heroin.

He's currently two years into an 11-year sentence, and Jaymee says: "We get treated like a criminal even though we're not. They're still your family. They're still your partner and you still will support them.

"It felt like my world had ended, it was awful. My world revolves around my kid, obviously. She's a little girl who loves her dad.
"Explaining to her that her dad's not going to be around to do the things they normally do is hard."

Brooklyn adds: "I do get a bit upset because he's done something that's made him get put into prison. Everyone else gets family time... and I can't because of where he is."

To make matters worse, at one point Jaymee was also arrested under suspicion of being connected to Gary's crime - but while she was eventually cleared she had her benefits sanctioned and ended up in debt. She now works at the local cafe to make ends meet.

It wasn't the first time Jaymee had been arrested because of Gary's crimes either - when Brooklyn was a baby she was remanded in prison for 14 months, with her mum looking after the tot.

"I know we're in this situation because of him [but] it's so hard to blame him," Jaymee says. "I wouldn't want him to get depressed in there because that will have an effect on us as a family anyway.

"Some people might think I'm stupid for staying with him but I actually love the guy.

"He's been stupid. It is what it is and if we're together we've just got to deal with it."

'I've changed every single nappy'

Laura's partner of four years, Lee, is serving four years for dealing class A drugs.

It's his second stint in jail, but his first since he's been with Laura, 33. They have 14-month-old Ava together, and she also has two older kids from a previous relationship.

Cradling Ava, Laura says: "Everything is on hold. I don't really have a life now. I just get by the best I can until Lee gets home.

"It's like groundhog day. Every day is the same.

"We wait for phone calls, we wait for letters, we wait for news."

Ava was just a week old when Lee was sent down.

"It's me doing absolutely everything," she says. "I've changed every single nappy, given her every bottle, I've fed her every meal - I don't get any help with it.

"Lee hasn't even pushed Ava on the swings. It is a little bit gut-wrenching.

"In that first year there's so many new things, so many changes. You can't help but think, 'Lee should be here to see this.'"

Despite the hardship, Laura's still dedicated to her criminal partner.

She says: "He's obviously committed to being good in there to give us what we want as a family.

"I think Lee did what he was doing because he wanted to make things a little easier for us but it's had the opposite effect.

"The fact is Lee committed a crime and that crime required him to do a sentence that he deserved - but it's hard, it's really hard."
Prisoner's Wives: Visiting airs tomorrow, Thursday September 5, at 10pm on Channel 5.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Prisoners' wives reveal torment of bringing up babies alone, drowning in debt and being bossed around from behind bars

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PUTTING on her best top, ripped jeans and adding a swipe of lipstick, 29-year-old Carmen smiles in the mirror before heading out. She's meeting her partner of 11 years, Ben, but they're not heading on a date night - he's banged up in prison, and she's dutifully off to visit him, like she does every two weeks, with her kids Olivia, 12, and Brody, eight.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/cathy-woods-woman-cleared-of-murder-after-35-years-in-jail-gets-3m-11796782

# data[].attributes.body
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bentley_case

# data[].attributes.body
We could have this picture projected onto the back of the cell wall when the character is presented in their cell to enhance the institutionalised feel of the space for the audience and the lack of space the inmates had.

# data[].attributes.headline
WATCH THIS GUYS IT'S A DOCUMENTARY ON SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

# data[].attributes.subject
WATCH THIS GUYS IT'S A DOCUMENTARY ON SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

# data[].attributes.headline
WATCH THIS GUYS IT'S A PLAY ON SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

# data[].attributes.subject
WATCH THIS GUYS IT'S A PLAY ON SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Box - A Play About Solitary Confinement

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/05/solitary
I found an article on the mental health effects of solitary confinement titled ‘Alone, in ‘the hole’ which I thought we could use to help us represent the character we are going to present moments of trauma/psychological torment throughout the piece when incorporating the style of Artaud and abstract theatre.

# data[].attributes.headline
"I wanted to know that I was human. I wanted to feel alive. And that's the only means I [could] do it." 

# data[].attributes.subject
"I wanted to know that I was human. I wanted to feel alive. And that's the only means I [could] do it." 

# data[].attributes.body
Thought this was a significant piece of verbatim from the article about the case study of Anthony Gay and could possibly use this within our performance in order to influence the audience’s views on whether solitary confinement is just or not.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/01/11/anthony-gay-solitary-confinement

# data[].attributes.body
I also thought whoever sent that video of the guy with the 11 razors in his cell on his birthday, that was a difficult video to watch and we should consider using that too

# data[].attributes.body
That is honestly really good, everyone take a read of it and we can discuss it tomorrow, I couldn’t access the link so if u can’t either just search on google ChicagoTribune how solitary confinement drove a young inmate to the brink of insanity

# data[].attributes.body
Evan is this bloody brilliant or what this is basically our story!!!!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With his mental state deteriorating as he sat in the crushing isolation of solitary confinement, a desperate inmate named Anthony Gay saw a temporary way out.

Sometimes it came in the form of a contraband razor blade. Occasionally it was a staple from a legal document or a small shard of something he had broken.

He would mutilate himself in his Illinois prison cell, slicing open his neck, forearms, legs and genitals hundreds of times over two decades in solitary confinement. Once, he packed a fan motor inside a gaping leg wound; another time he cut open his scrotum and inserted a zipper.

Each time he harmed himself, he knew that, at least for a little while, the extreme step would bring contact with other human beings. Therapists would rush to calm him. Nurses would offer kind words as they took his pulse and stitched him up.

"It's kind of like being locked in the basement, and then emerging from the basement and being put on the center stage," he said. "It made me feel alive."

Gay entered the Illinois Department of Corrections in 1994 as a young man, convicted of robbery after brawling with another teen who told police that Gay took his hat and stole a single dollar bill. He expected to serve as little as three and a half years.

Instead, a fight with a fellow inmate led to Gay's first stint in segregation, pushing him into a downward spiral that resulted in 22 years in solitary confinement. Shortly after the segregation started, the cutting and suicide attempts began.

The Illinois Department of Corrections would later identify Gay in court filings as one of a few dozen inmates whose mental illnesses were so acute and dangerous that they required full in-patient care. His psychiatric treatment, however, often consisted of a therapist shouting questions to him through a door.

By keeping Gay in isolation, the state continued the increasingly discredited practice of segregating prisoners from others for long stretches. The American Correctional Association - the organization that provides expected practices for prisons across the country - issued new standards in 2016 that called for limits on restricted housing, including a provision that prisoners with mental illnesses should not be placed in solitary confinement for an extended period.

An IDOC spokeswoman declined to comment on Gay's incarceration or the treatment he received. The agency also refused to release any records related to Gay's confinement, saying it would be an invasion of his privacy. The Tribune established a timeline of his confinement by reviewing thousands of pages of court documents, medical records and testimony transcripts and conducting interviews with Gay, his relatives, his lawyers, prosecutors and prison experts. Taken in their totality, the paperwork and interviews paint a disturbing portrait of a man whose prolonged isolation caused him to mentally deteriorate to the point where he would do just about anything - including mutilate himself - for human contact.

Gay, now 44, recently filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming that his treatment amounted to torture and that he was denied proper mental health care.

His case comes amid a broader rethinking around the country of solitary confinement, and whether it amounts to excessive punishment.

At any given time, about 67,000 inmates nationwide are spending up to 22 hours a day alone in a cell, according to a joint study by Yale University and the Association of State Correctional Administrators.

A significant number of those have mental illnesses, though estimates vary. A federal judge recently found that of the roughly 1,100 Illinois prisoners in solitary confinement, more than 900 of them have been diagnosed with mental illnesses. Another measure, provided last month by the Illinois Department of Corrections, found that nearly 1 in 3 prisoners in segregation have a mental illness categorized as serious.

The issue has prompted several states to reform their segregation policies in recent years, though Illinois lags behind. While Illinois has significantly reduced the number of days juvenile offenders spend in isolation and no longer uses segregation as a punishment for young people as part of a consent decree between the department and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, those policies do not extend to the adult population. That, however, could change following a blistering report from a federal monitor charged with reviewing the treatment of mentally ill inmates in restrictive housing.

Released from prison in August, Gay said he hopes his lawsuit helps change the system, and in some ways he already has. A federal judge ordered the Illinois Department of Corrections in October to improve its mental health services - a groundbreaking ruling made after Gay testified about his troubling treatment in solitary.

With Gay's intelligence and an extraordinary ability to articulate his mental deterioration in solitary confinement, his lawyers believe he could be a pivotal voice in the growing prison reform movement.

"I'm more focused on loving the guys that's still left behind," Gay told the Tribune, "and throwing a rope to pull them out of the ditch."
A rough beginning
Gay's early family life in his native Rock Island wasn't always steady.

He was raised in a working class neighborhood by an aunt and uncle who adopted him, although his biological mother, who had endured struggles of her own, lived in the same Quad Cities town along the Mississippi River. He sat at the dining room table of his aunt's home on a recent day, surrounded by family pictures, and recalled how as he was entering his teen years he made the fateful choice to leave.

His maternal aunt's home meant stiff rules, homework and curfews, while his mother's two-room apartment meant freedom to come and go as he pleased.

"If I had stayed here, I don't think I would've gotten into trouble," he said. "Went downhill when I left here."

Gay said he had difficulties with discipline when he wasn't wrestling for his school team, at one point being sent to a juvenile home.

He avoided a serious criminal record until age 18, when he fought another young man from a nearby block after Gay says the teen insulted his sister. Gay was accused of taking the other man's hat and $1 after beating him.

Gay pleaded guilty to robbery in exchange for a sentence of probation, but that was soon revoked after he was caught driving without a license. Suddenly his life was taking a detour into the Illinois Department of Corrections, where he found himself sentenced to seven years in prison.

Still, with time off for good behavior, the sentence could have meant as little as three and a half years in medium-security facilities such as the Shawnee Correctional Center downstate, where he was sent in his earliest days. But shortly after arriving he had a fistfight with another inmate. Gay was transferred to the tougher Menard Correctional Center, as was the prisoner he fought with. The two soon brawled again, Gay said.

That second fight put Gay into solitary confinement for the first time. And it was in solitary confinement - in one Illinois prison or another - where Gay would remain for more than 8,000 days.

With panic setting in during those early weeks, he first sought attention by remembering something he had done when he was 12 years old back in Rock Island. He had taken a bunch of pills, prompting him to be rushed to the hospital.

"It garnered a lot of sympathy," he said. "Everyone was so concerned about me. ... It felt nice to have people care for me."

Sitting alone in his cell, he recalled the childhood episode and the resulting attention fondly. So without much hesitation, he said he opened the pack of medication he had been given by prison medical staff, and swallowed all of it.
'I was sinking'
Gay's next transfer was to an Illinois facility synonymous with tough prison life - the sprawling Pontiac Correctional Center in Livingston County, where Gay said conditions in the prison were worse and he spent most of his time alone and struggling with his mental state. The situation grew so intolerable, he says, that he repeatedly attacked guards and disobeyed orders, extending his time in segregation over and over again.

"I don't think I understood it," he said of his steady deterioration. "I was sinking then but not really realizing it."

He would become enraged by simple things, he said, like a guard giving him one piece of bread on his meal plate and not two. By repeatedly earning disciplinary tickets, Gay was slowly eating through all the good time built into his sentence, pushing his release date up to, and eventually beyond, his seven-year maximum.

By 1998, Gay's conduct resulted in his transfer to what was then the newly opened Tamms Correctional Center, a maximum-security facility essentially designed to house the state's worst offenders. For at least 23 hours a day, inmates sat in 7-by-12-foot cells. Meals were served through a "chuck hole" and contact with outside world was sharply restricted.

There were no jobs, no vocational training and, for Anthony Gay, no hope. In continued isolation, he gravitated further toward self-destruction.

"I remember tearing the light switch out, sticking a screw in my ear," he said. "It felt good."

But it took another inmate on his wing seriously injuring himself for Gay's behavior to worsen. The inmate had somehow managed to cut himself, Gay learned, and the incident prompted an emergency response by the staff unlike anything he had ever seen. He watched through the dime-sized holes in his cell's metal door as concerned prison employees rushed to the man's aid.

"Nurses come at the speed of light. Mental health and security," he recalled. "They come running, and ... it hit me. These people really love this dude, they really care. I wanted that kind of attention."

In a twisted plan to receive some of that same comfort and human interaction, Gay tried to mimic his fellow inmate. He threatened suicide with a noose that another inmate had made him and left in the shower area. He was bounced out of Tamms to other facilities and then back, all the while hurting himself more and more extremely.

At one point he removed part of one of his testicles and hung it on his cell door, according to court records, as a kind of demented message to his captors. He only left Tamms a second time in late 2012 because the notorious facility shut its doors for good.

"Kind of like a drug addict - you have to up the ante," Gay said. "I learned to tolerate the physical pain. So the physical pain would alleviate the psychological pain."
Lawyers intervene
Therapists diagnosed Gay with antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, describing him as manipulative and anxious in their notes. He believed himself to be in love with his Tamms psychologist.

The Department of Corrections responded by putting him on medication and providing occasional therapy. He continued to mutilate himself, but corrections officials typically dismissed it as a manipulative gesture.

While there's no doubt Gay was trying to manipulate the corrections staff to elicit their concern, the extreme self-harm was also - and simultaneously - a symptom of a major psychiatric disorder, his attorneys say.

"The Illinois Department of Corrections was well aware that solitary confinement was driving Anthony insane, but throughout nearly his entire incarceration they did almost nothing to ameliorate it," said attorney Antonio Romanucci, who is representing Gay in his federal lawsuit.

Indeed, a federal monitor blasted the state Department of Corrections in a report released in 2018, decrying the conditions for mentally ill inmates. The 105-page review details how segregated inmates languish in "filthy, loud" cells that are inappropriate for housing the seriously mentally ill. By not addressing the isolated prisoners' needs, the department is causing problems for both itself and the inmates, according to Dr. Pablo Stewart's report.

"The placement of seriously mentally ill offenders in segregation exacerbates their pre-existing mental illness as well as causing the development of new forms of psychiatric pathology," Stewart wrote. "It is imperative that the department fully embraces the reality that it is the largest provider of mental health care in the state of Illinois. As such, outdated correctional notions about the use of segregation need to be completely rethought."

Gay garnered the attention of prison reform advocates as far back as his earliest time at Tamms, as lawyers monitored the conditions there and expressed concern about years of isolation for inmates in court filings.

And he caught the notice of downstate prosecutors, who also wanted to make a statement about prison culture.

In Livingston County, where Pontiac Correctional Center is situated, the state's attorney's office lodged a series of 21 indictments against Gay between 2000 and 2004 for the many times he threw his own excrement at guards. In what some call "picket fencing," the cases were often stacked separately as the statute of limitations for each charge was about to expire, so the convictions led to consecutive sentences.

The charges were intended to send a clear message to both the public and the nearly 3,000 inmates housed at Pontiac: In a county where the prison employs hundred of residents, prosecutors would seek tough punishments against anyone caught abusing staff members.

Gay stood trial on many of the counts, typically acting as his own attorney. Ultimately, his 10-month stay in Pontiac resulted in another 97 years tacked on to his sentence.

A judge handling one of the cases noted the unusual nature of the Gay prosecution in a memo to another judge in May 2004.

"The sad thing about this case is that at the age of 19, Mr. Gay committed a minor theft in Rock Island County and was sentenced. ... Because of all of the incidents at Pontiac Correctional Center, he probably will never be released," wrote Judge Charles Frank, according to court records. "I would think a $2 piece of plastic draping would have prevented all of these. Apparently, no one out there understands that."

Desperate for help and now looking at a lifetime of solitary confinement, Gay began writing lawyers and begging for assistance. Among those willing to take up his cause was Scott Main of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University. Main and a colleague challenged how the sentence was structured and were eventually able to get Gay out of prison.

Main had gone to the Livingston state's attorney at the time, Seth Uphoff, when he took over the office in 2012 and asked him to review his predecessor's actions. The sentences should have been "presumptively concurrent," Main argued, because Gay had been in custody the whole time and not on bond, as spelled out in state statutes.

Uphoff eventually looked at the law himself and agreed with Main's argument. The prosecutor didn't condone what Gay had done, but he also did not want Gay and his lawyers to wage a protracted legal battle when he could quickly rectify the sentencing error.

"My main job was to do justice," Uphoff told the Tribune.

Uphoff and Main entered a joint motion to have Gay resentenced, a move that significantly shortened Gay's punishment. Uphoff lost his re-election bid in 2016 after his opponent received the endorsement of the union representing Pontiac corrections officers.

With real hope of freedom for the first time in decades, Gay stopped harming himself as much in his final months of incarceration. Not coincidentally, he was transferred to Dixon Correctional Center, where he was allowed to interact with other inmates, taken off his medication and received intensive daily therapy. He was released this past August.

Just days later, Gay told his complete story in court for the first time, testifying in a class-action lawsuit filed more than 10 years ago by another inmate named Ashoor Rasho, a case that has led to the federal monitoring of the state Department of Corrections.

Lawyers have called Gay's poise and ability to articulate his experiences remarkable, considering his history. After Gay's testimony in the Rasho case, the federal judge issued a new order finding the state was "deliberately indifferent" to mentally ill inmates' needs and requiring state prison officials to address "constitutional deficiencies" in its treatment of those prisoners. He cited Gay in his ruling.

"Part of the reason prisons are as far away as they are is because we don't want to see it, we don't want to look at it, we don't want to know about it," Main said as he reflected on Gay's case.

The state has been ordered to pay $3.8 million for the inmates' legal fees in the decade-old case, an amount finalized by federal Judge Michael Mihm in late December.
Gay files suit
In addition to the Rasho case, another downstate suit from 2016 filed by inmate Henry Davis is seeking class-action status and a requirement that the state apply new standards that limit the use of extreme isolation in state prisons.

And Gay in October filed his own lawsuit against the state of Illinois and its prisons officials in U.S. District Court in Chicago, forming a third prong in the series of legal challenges buffeting IDOC.

"It was plain for anyone to see that solitary confinement was ravaging Anthony's mind, and that he was in desperate need of appropriate mental health care," Gay's lawsuit reads. "But instead of placing Anthony in a setting that would alleviate the impact on his mind, or providing him treatment to get better, the defendants responded by prolonging Anthony's extreme isolation, depriving him of access to human contact, programming, mental health care, and activities - for decades."

Alan Mills of the Uptown People's Law Center is an attorney on both the Rasho and Davis cases, and he said those suits together with Gay's case could provide the momentum needed to bring real reform to Illinois. Mills said Gay's suit is notable because he is seeking damages for what happened to him as an individual.

"What Anthony shows is why the other two are important," Mills said. "It shows the depth of damage that can be done to a person if we don't fix this system. There will be more Anthony Gays coming down the pike."

Recent proposals to limit solitary confinement for adult inmates in Illinois died without even making it out of the General Assembly. More than 30 states - including Texas, California, North Dakota and New York - have taken steps toward reducing the number of inmates held in segregated cells for punitive reasons. And Colorado, once notorious for holding inmates in solitary confinement, now has a policy that bans solitary confinement for longer than 15 days and requires most inmates must be out of their cells for at least four hours a day.

Both the Association of State Correctional Administrators and the American Corrections Association have championed reforms, acknowledging that such practices do not serve the best interests of inmates or staff. A 2016 joint study by the administrators association and Yale Law School concluded that segregation should be used when "absolutely necessary and for only as long as absolutely required."

"I think there is momentum (for reform). When states both large and small start making these changes, it's hard for other states to ignore it," said Leann Bertsch, the ASCA immediate past president and director of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. "Administrative segregation places substantial stress on both the staff working in those settings as well as the prisoners housed in those units. Our highest priority is to operate institutions that are safe for staff and inmates and to keep communities to which prisoners will return safe."
A new life
Anthony Gay no longer treads anxiously or lives in isolation.

He has a home now, with friends and family. He has a half-dozen lawyers, all of whom are concerned about how he adjusts amid his newfound freedom.

"For the past year and a half I've been worried to death about what's going to happen when Anthony comes out, because what the hell?, what has the state done to this person and then said, 'All right, go forth?' " Main asked. "So there has to be some acknowledgement and some awareness and some reckoning to address what we, the state of Illinois, 200 years old, are in the process of doing and have done and will continue to do unless there are conversations like this."

After his release, Gay moved in with his aging aunt and uncle, who see him as their son. His aunt often looks at him for long stretches without saying a word, just shaking her head and smiling as if she can't believe he has come home.

At his adoptive parents' dining room table, Gay offers guests root beer and shows them where he'd been painting their kitchen. He cannot sit still for long stretches, often finding excuses - Come look at this picture of fourth-grade me in the front room! Do you want to see the handiwork I've done in the basement? - to stand up and walk around.

There were no baths in prison, so he prefers them to showers, he said. Over the holidays, Gay picked out many of the favorite recipes he had missed for so long, first and foremost his aunt's caramel cake.

He has marveled at the advancement of technology, and has learned to text. Though his uncle bought him a subscription to the local newspaper while he was still in prison, there's still a lot he has to catch up on.

He does get therapy, and he shrugs when a lawyer sitting with him talked about how he might be the one to shed light on a dark part of the Illinois prison system and help others who now find themselves where he was.

There are deep scars, both physical and emotional, but Gay insists he doesn't hate anyone he believes did him wrong. He won't let himself be eaten up by anger thinking about those who ignored him except when they were pushing food through a slit in a steel door.

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate," he said, paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr. "Only love can drive out hate."

He might write a long piece about his experiences, he said, and if not, he would like to get into publishing somehow.

But for now Gay marvels at the small things, like mowing a lawn, having new shoes, and taking out the garbage. Even a stroll to a small coffee shop in his old hometown is something to be savored.

"The other day, I walked down to the corner, and I just stopped and was like, 'Are you serious?' " he said.

"I'm here."
jcoen@chicagotribune.com sstclair@chicagotribune.com Twitter @JeffCoen Twitter @StacyStClair

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How solitary confinement drove a young inmate to the brink of insanity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With his mental state deteriorating as he sat in the crushing isolation of solitary confinement, a desperate inmate named Anthony Gay saw a temporary way out. Sometimes it came in the form of a contraband razor blade. Occasionally it was a staple from a legal document or a small shard of something he had broken.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Children are being held in "harmful" solitary confinement in prison with some let out of their cells for just 15 minutes a day, a damning report from jail inspectors said.

Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons, has called for a "major overhaul" of the policy of separating children in young offender institutions (HMYOIs). He said this in effect amounted to them being held in "harmful solitary confinement with little human contact and in conditions which risk damaging their mental health".
The Guardian view on youth jails: Feltham isn't the only problem | Editorial
He called for an entirely new approach after his report found fundamental flaws in the use of separation at the five establishments in England and Wales, which hold about 600 offenders aged 15-18.

About one in 10 young offenders spoken to by inspectors had been separated during their time in custody and "in the worst cases children left their cells for just 15 minutes a day".

In one case, a child in crisis was "left to lie on a mattress on the floor of a filthy cell for more than 22 hours a day with no meaningful contact", the report says.

Responding to the findings, Anne Longfield, the children's commissioner for England, told the Guardian: "This report paints a grim picture of the treatment of some of the most vulnerable children in YOIs. My office published a report on segregation in 2018 which raised many of these issues and the HMIP report supports our finding that some children segregated in YOIs are subject to conditions amounting to solitary confinement.

"Separation can have a profound impact on the mental health of young people and these harmful practices are not being properly recorded. Some of the conditions described in the HMIP report are dreadful and show a system which too often is failing to rehabilitate young people in prison.

"The whole system needs to be overhauled and data on these practices should be published in order to provide better oversight and improve chances of rehabilitation."

The five YOIs were: Cookham Wood in Kent, Feltham A in west London, Parc in south Wales, Werrington in Staffordshire, and Wetherby and Keppel in West Yorkshire.

The report, based on an inspection in May and June, found "multiple and widespread failings", although it said there were some areas of better practice, such as in HMYOI Parc.

Inspectors found "significant" cause for concern in 57 cases it reviewed and 85 interviews it conducted with inmates and staff.

Clarke said: "The regime offered to most separated children was inadequate. Nearly all separated children spent long periods of time in their cell without any meaningful human interaction.

"We found children who were unable to access the very basics of everyday life, including a daily shower and telephone call."

Managers asked bosses for authorisation to hold children in separation for more than 21 days on 346 occasions between May 2018 and April 2019 and none of the requests were rejected, the report says.

Other findings revealed eight children who had spent a combined total of 373 days in separation and were waiting to be taken to a secure hospital for treatment for mental health conditions.

Children who had self-harmed were left "isolated in unfurnished accommodation" and had been restrained, contrary to rules.

There would be occasions when it was in a child's best interests to be separated for the risk they posed to others, or for their own protection, inspectors said. But staff should still ensure they have access to daily activities during this time and work to reintroduce them to a normal regime, the report recommends.

The justice minister, Wendy Morton, said: "It is difficult to read this report and not conclude that we are failing some of the children in our care - that is completely unacceptable and I am determined it will not continue."

She said separation could be "necessary" but "there is absolutely no excuse for some of the practices highlighted in this report, and I have asked my officials to urgently set out the steps we need to take to stop them happening".
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Children in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, says report

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Children are being held in "harmful" solitary confinement in prison with some let out of their cells for just 15 minutes a day, a damning report from jail inspectors said. Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons, has called for a "major overhaul" of the policy of separating children in young offender institutions (HMYOIs).

# data[].attributes.body
Watch this guys I think it could be good to use as a story in our piece

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Inmates Act Out In Solitary Confinement | Stephen's Story | FRONTLINE

# data[].attributes.body
This is a short film which shows examples of people’s experiences in solitary confinement and i thought it would be helpful because it says some interesting things we could use in our piece like “the only thing I seen is a spider in the corner and I find them little bugs sometimes and I feed the spider, that’s about the closest thing to nature I have”

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Stories of Life in Solitary Confinement | Short Film Showcase

# data[].attributes.body
Facts and statistics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Q: What is solitary confinement?

A: Solitary confinement of prisoners goes by a number of names-isolation, SHU (special housing units), administrative segregation, supermax prisons, the hole, MCU (management control units), CMU (communications management units), STGMU (security threat group management units), voluntary or involuntary protective custody, special needs units, or permanent lockdown.

Although solitary confinement conditions vary from state to state and among correctional facilities, systematic policies and conditions include:

Confinement behind a solid steel door for 22 to 24 hours a day

Severely limited contact with other human beings

Infrequent phone calls and rare non-contact family visits

Extremely limited access to rehabilitative or educational programming

Grossly inadequate medical and mental health treatment

Restricted reading material and personal property

Physical torture such as hog-tying, restraint chairs, forced cell extraction

"No-touch torture," such as sensory deprivation, permanent bright lighting, extreme temperatures, and forced insomnia

Chemical torture, such as stun grenades and stun guns

Sexual intimidation and other forms of brutality and humiliation

Beginning in the early 1970s, prison and jail administrators at the federal, state, and local level have relied increasingly on isolation and segregation to control men, women, and youth in their custody. In 1985, there were a handful of control units across the county. Today, more than 40 states have super-maximum security-or "supermax"-facilities primarily designed to hold people in long-term isolation.

Q: How many people are in solitary confinement in the U.S.?

A: There are more than 80,000 men, women, and children in solitary confinement in prisons across the United States, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Note that figure is a decade old and doesn't include people in jails, juvenile facilities, and immigrant detention centers. Nearly every state uses some form of solitary confinement, but there's no federal reporting system that tracks how many people are isolated at any given time.

Prisoners are often confined for months or even years, with some spending more than 25 years in segregated prison settings. As with the overall prison population, people of color are disproportionately represented in isolation units.

Q: Why are people placed in solitary confinement?

A: Prisoners can be placed in isolation for many reasons, from serious infractions, such as fighting with another inmate, to minor ones, like talking back to a guard or getting caught with a pack of cigarettes.

Other times, prisoners are thrown into solitary confinement for not breaking any rules at all. Prisons have used solitary confinement as a tool to manage gangs, isolating people for simply talking to a suspected gang member. Prisons have also used solitary confinement as retribution for political activism.

Q: How does long-term solitary confinement affect a person?

A: Numerous studies have documented the harmful psychological effects of long-term solitary confinement, which can produce debilitating symptoms, such as:

Visual and auditory hallucinations

Hypersensitivity to noise and touch

Insomnia and paranoia

Uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear

Distortions of time and perception

Increased risk of suicide

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

These effects are magnified for two particularly vulnerable populations: juveniles, whose brains are still developing, and people with mental health issues, who are estimated to make up one-third of all prisoners in isolation.

Q: Is solitary confinement considered "torture?"

A: Yes. Prison isolation fits the definition of torture as stated in several international human rights treaties, and thus constitutes a violation of human rights law. The U.N. Convention Against Torture defines torture as any state-sanctioned act "by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person" for information, punishment, intimidation, or for a reason based on discrimination.

Since the 1990s, the U.N. Committee Against Torture has repeatedly condemned the use of solitary confinement in the U.S. In 2011, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture warned that solitary confinement "can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities, or juveniles."

In 2014, AFSC submitted a "shadow report" to the U.N. Committee Against Torture, featuring testimonies from people subjected to long-term isolation.

If a person isn't mentally ill when entering an isolation unit, by the time they are released, their mental health has been severely compromised. Many prisoners are released directly to the streets after spending years in isolation. Because of this, long-term solitary confinement goes beyond a problem of prison conditions, to pose a formidable public safety and community health problem.

Q: What is being done to end solitary confinement in the U.S.?

A: Prisoners and their families have taken the lead in making the public and policymakers aware of this cruelty taking place in U.S. correctional facilities, forming coalitions and working to ensure their stories are told in the news media. Several faith-based organizations, including AFSC, have accompanied survivors of solitary confinement in calling for an end to the practice.

Politicians and other public figures-such as President Obama, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Pope Francis have denounced long-term solitary confinement, while the U.S. Senate has called for reforms from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

In recent years, several states have reexamined the use of solitary confinement in state prisons, but we are far from abolishing this shameful practice in the U.S.

Prison isolation must end-for the safety of our communities, to respect our responsibility to follow international human rights law, to take a stand against torture wherever it occurs, and for the sake of our common humanity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Q: What is solitary confinement? A: Solitary confinement of prisoners goes by a number of names-isolation, SHU (special housing units), administrative segregation, supermax prisons, the hole, MCU (management control units), CMU (communications management units), STGMU (security threat group management units), voluntary or involuntary protective custody, special needs units, or permanent lockdown.

# data[].attributes.body
Information on Solitary confinement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment distinguished by living in single cells with little or no meaningful contact to other inmates, strict measures to control contraband, and the use of additional security measures and equipment. It is specifically designed for disruptive inmates who are security risks to other inmates, the prison staff, or the prison itself. It is mostly employed for violations of discipline, such as murder, hostage-taking, deadly assault, and rioting. However, it is also used as a measure of protection for inmates whose safety is threatened by other inmates.

Solitary confinement is colloquially referred to in American English as "the hotbox", "the hole", "AdSeg" (administrative segregation), the "SHU" (pronounced "shoe"), an acronym for "Special Housing Unit" or "Security Housing Unit"; in Australian English as "the Slot" or "the Pound"; in British English as "the block", "The Segregation Unit", or "the cooler".[1][2] It has also been called prison "'segregation' and 'restrictive housing.'"[3]

Solitary confinement has received severe criticism for having detrimental psychological effects[4] and, to some and in some cases, constituting torture.[5] According to a 2017 review study, "a robust scientific literature has established the negative psychological effects of solitary confinement", leading to "an emerging consensus among correctional as well as professional, mental health, legal, and human rights organizations to drastically limit the use of solitary confinement."[6]

The practice of solitary confinement traces its origins back to the 19th century when Quakers in Pennsylvania used this method as a substitution for public punishments. Research surrounding the possible psychological and physiological effects of solitary confinement dates back to the 1830s. When the new prison discipline of separate confinement was introduced at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia in 1829, commentators attributed the high rates of mental breakdown to the system of isolating prisoners in their cells. Charles Dickens, who visited the Philadelphia Penitentiary during his travels to America, described the "slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body".[7] Prison records from the Denmark institute in 1870 to 1920 indicate that staff noticed inmates were exhibiting signs of mental illnesses while in isolation, revealing that the persistent problem has been around for decades.[8]

The first comment by the Supreme Court of the United States about solitary confinement's effect on prisoner mental status was made in 1890 (In re Medley 134 U.S. 160).[9][4] In it the court found that the use of solitary confinement produced reduced mental and physical capabilities.[4] The use of solitary confinement in prisons was first introduced to regulate unruly prisoners and keep them away from the rest of the prison society (Haney, Craig; Lynch, Mona). However, solitary confinement has been linked to several developments of mental disorders, one of which being Ganser syndrome. A man developed Ganser syndrome after being held in solitary confinement for a long-term sentence; however, that development is seen as rare and is unlikely in most cases.

The effects of solitary confinement on mental health are undeniable. According to the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, solitary confinement can cause an array of mental disorders, as well as provoke an already existing mental disorder in a prisoner, causing more trauma and symptoms. Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment practiced worldwide, but no positive effects of the punishment have been proven (Jaapl).

The penal system in the United States developed under two separate systems known as the Auburn system and Pennsylvania system.[4] The current system of solitary confinement was derived originally from the Pennsylvania model which was characterized by "isolation and seclusion." [4] Evidence has shown that Quakers and Calvinists supported solitary confinement as an alternative form of punishment. At the time it was meant to provide a prisoner with solitude "to reflect on his misdeeds" and restore his relationship with God.[4][14] Solitary confinement was intended as an alternative to public floggings which were common at the time. In 1818, New York reformer and Friend, Thomas Eddy, lobbied for inmate labor and solitary confinement in place of other forms of punishment such as hanging. Shortly after, New York decided to include solitary confinement and inmate labor into their penal system.[15]

In the US Federal Prison system, solitary confinement is known as the Special Housing Unit (SHU),[16] pronounced like "shoe" (). California's prison system also uses the abbreviation SHU, but it stands for Security Housing Units.[17] In other states, it is known as the Special Management Unit (SMU).[18] Current estimates of the number of inmates held in solitary confinement are difficult to determine, though generally the minimum held at any given time has been determined to be 20,000, with estimates as high as 80,000.[19]

The inmate held in solitary confinement for the longest time in U.S. federal prison was Thomas Silverstein, held in solitary confinement at the ADX Florence federal penitentiary in Colorado.[20][21] beginning in 1983. Silverstein died in late May 2019.[22] The inmate held in solitary confinement for the longest time in the United States is Albert Woodfox, the last of the Angola Three, in solitary in Louisiana State Penitentiary from 1972 to 2016.[23] A May 2013 report on California's Pelican Bay State Prison in Mother Jones magazine also cites one inmate there who "recently marked his 40th year in solitary".[24]

Juveniles are held in solitary confinement in jails and prisons across the United States, often for days, weeks, months, or even years in the name of punishing, protecting, or housing, some of the youth held there.[10]:2 There is significant controversy surrounding the use of solitary confinement in cases of juveniles.

The Troubled Teen Industry is a loosely connected series of for-profit wilderness therapy programs, boot camps, therapeutic boarding schools, and residential treatment centers. These facilities house youth after parents sign away custody of their children. These children can be sent to these facilities for any reason, without committing a crime, without a trial, and without legal representation. Solitary confinement is used widely in these programs, including wilderness programs, where children are left alone for weeks in the wilderness. Some programs place children in solitary rooms. Other times, "code silence," or "comm block," is used, which means that the child is not allowed to speak, and the other inmates must ignore them and pretend they do not exist. This practice was documented at Island View Residential Treatment Center.[25]

Patients in psychiatric hospitals are often put into solitary confinement, usually for 15 minutes at a time, when staff members determine that they are a danger to themselves or others.

The use of SHUs within the Federal Bureau of Prisons is regulated under 28 C.F.R. 541. When placed in the SHU, prisoners are either in "administrative detention status", a non-punitive status which removes prisoners from the general population when necessary to ensure the safety, security, and orderly operation of correctional facilities, or protect the public, or "disciplinary segregation status", a punitive status imposed only by a Discipline Hearing Officer (DHO) as a sanction for committing prohibited acts.[26] There are more than 100 prohibited acts, all of which may result in solitary confinement, including unauthorized physical contact such as kissing, using abusive or obscene language, feigning illness, circulating a petition, insolence towards a staff member, engaging in or encouraging a group demonstration or protest, and participating in or encouraging a labor strike (also known as a prison strike), gang activity, among others.[27]

Woodbourne Correctional Facility houses the inmate in with the most time spent in New York state's solitary confinement units. Inmate Willie Bosket, now suffering mental and health problems, was confined in Woodbourne Correctional Facility. He has been in SHU for over 20 years after violent incidents directed at prison staff. Allowed no physical contact with humans, he is watched on camera at all times, takes showers in his cell (the water turns on for 10 minutes every two days) and is fed through a metal slot. He is currently serving a sentence of 82 years to life at Five Points Correctional Facility. Luis Rosado, known as 'Blue Boy', is another prisoner with a violent history facing indefinite solitary confinement in New York State's Correctional system. Pavle Stanimirovic writes about both inmates or as he distinguishes between convict and inmate in a book about his 4 years time in Solitary Confinement and long term keep lock . True Crime Author Burl Barer talks about Pavle "Punch" Stanimirovic and how it was in SHU with Blue Boy, in Danamora Clinton CF, Upstate NY. This is the only known comprehensive first hand account about treatment in Solitary Confinement in the NYSDOCS.

When California opened its first "adjustment center", the goal was to return prisoners to the mainline prison population and ultimately to a society through an enrichment program of psychological and social services.[30] However, the plan was never executed. In 1983, George Deukmejian was elected as the California governor and during his time, he formed what was then the state's newest prison - a massive, windowless "security housing unit" (SHU). SHU was intended to segregate over a thousand prisoners from the rest of the prison system through isolation. Deukmejian boasted that the Pelican Bay State Prison was a "state-of-the-art prison that will serve as a model for the rest of the nation...".[30]

One of the policies of supermax confinement among other policies is designed to increase punishment by removing gang members from the mainline population and subject them to solitary confinement, whether it is for a set amount of time or an indefinite duration. In a recent study, it noted that the California Department of corrections has implemented ways to fix their alleged gang problem, such as using 'confidential informants,' segregating gang members, intercepting gang communications, setting up task forces to monitor and track gang members, locking up gang leaders in high security prisons, and 'locking down' entire institutions.[30]

These facilities, supermax prisons, were originally designed to contain and control the worst criminals and those who did not adhere to the rules of prisons, AKA "the worst of the worst".[31] As of 2001, the count of inmates in administrative segregation in California was 5,982 representing an 80.2% change over time, but this number is not quite correct due to deficient files provided.[19] Increasingly, the practice of using solitary confinement long term, instead of the intended three-month period, in the supermax prisons as inmate management has become the norm.[31] The selected inmates, who wear jumpsuits that differentiate them from the general population, will spend around 23 hours a day alone in a cell where they are offered very little and fully monitored as is procedure at Pelican Bay State Prison which is one of the largest supermax prisons in the United States.[31] In order to be sent to Pelican Bay, the inmate has either committed murder, assault, riots, threatening staff or fellow inmates, and even gang affiliation which must be validated by the prison staff.[31]

In San Quentin State Prison, the violence rates were still high in the 1980s despite the similar lockdowns and procedures of Pelican Bay because these prisoners use the small windows out of lockdown to either harm themselves or others.[32] They typically will try not to harm themselves while in the psychiatric hospital ward either, but they will plan out while in lockdown until they can see their plan through.[32] However even as they near their release dates, they are moved to "prerelease programs" out of the SHU which are successful with some prisoners, but it causes most others to become even more uncontrollable and unpredictable due to their mental states that aren't properly cared for or screened.[32]

In September 2014, easing some conditions for inmates in near-solitary confinement in California prisons has died in the state legislature. The bill was among others supposed to reform Security Housing Units rules to allow the inmates to keep photographs and make a phone call after three months of good behavior was listed as inactive on Friday after a decision on Thursday evening by state Senator Loni Hancock to drop it.[34]

In 2012, a report was conducted by the Vera Institute of Justice revealed that Maryland's use of restricted housing was twice the national average (8.5% versus an average of 4%).[35] Legislation was introduced in [36] in 2015.

Since the 1980s, the New York City Department of Correction has increased the use of segregation as a discipline and management tool. In effect, segregation is a secondary sentence imposed by the correctional facility, which is usually unrelated to the conviction for which the person is incarcerated.[38] There are high rates of use of solitary confinement in New York when compared to other U.S. states. Within the New York prison system, solitary confinement is frequently imposed for nonviolent, "trivial prisoner offenses." Usually the common misconception is that solitary confinement is a punishment of last resort, reserved for inmates who present a threat of violence or escape.[39] Inmates that are released from solitary confinement go through a "transitional unit" but failure in the program results in their return to solitary confinement. Overall, most of the inmates fail and return to solitary confinement.[40] New York has the highest rate of "disciplinary segregation" in the country, making solitary confinement a regular every day action among the prison. Although prisons nationwide have decreased use of solitary confinement, the New York City Department of Correction expanded its capacity by 27 percent in 2011 and another 44 percent in 2012, according to the NYC Jails Action Coalition. Although the DOC housed 1,000 more inmates in 1990 than it does today, its jails have more solitary cells now. Due to this the city is topping the charts of municipalities with a high rate of solitary confinement.[41] On any given day, there are about 4,500 men, women, and children in some form of isolated confinement in New York State prisons. This is not including New York City's jails, which are run under a separate system, where those in solitary confinement reach close to 1,000 or more.[39]

A new bill was introduced by Councilman Danny Dromm would require the Department of Correction to post a monthly report on its website about punitive segregation. It would also require data on the number of people in punitive segregation, the length of time in this setting, the nature of the infractions, age, mental health, if they were prescribed medication or moved to a hospital, violence against others and inmate requests.[41] Many are supportive of this bill with the goal being to make jail facilities safer for inmates and correction officers.Individuals who are released and experience solitary confinement go back into their communities and reoffend at higher rates than general population prisoners causing them to land back into prison. Policy changes that will reduce the use and long-term impact of segregation will benefit not only the staff and prisoners in these units but also ultimately the well-being of facilities, systems, and the community.[38] Councilman Dromm also issued a separate resolution seeking to end the practice of the time owed. For example, an inmate, because of good behavior or other reasons, might only have served 100 of his or her 180-day sentence in solitary and then was released. A few years or even decades later the person is rearrested. Under current rules he or she must complete those unserved 80 days in solitary. This resolution however is only a request since the Council does not have the authority to make the Department of Correction adhere.[41]

New York City: Rikers Island Edit

The New York City Department of Corrections reported that in fiscal year 2012 more than 14.4 percent of all adolescents detained at Rikers Island between the ages of 16 and 18 were held in at least one period of solitary confinement while detained.[10]:131-132 The average length of time young people spent in solitary confinement at Rikers Island was 43 days. More than 48 percent of adolescents at this institution have diagnosed mental health problems.[10]:132 As violence associated with the crack epidemic became increasingly common, new measures were taken. The Red ID card system, instituted in the early 1990s, was a way of identifying inmates with histories of inciting riots, cuttings, stabbings, and other dangerous behaviors. It almost always meant the convict had spent time in a notorious ward designated for punitive confinement called "The Bing" (HDM 5 Block). Prisoners Pavle Stanimirović, James Rosado, Tyrone Green, Pedro Hernandez, Willie Bosket, Hector Rivera, Ángel Díaz, John Maldonado and Dominick Pollatti all spent time in "The Bing."

The New York City Department of Correction ended punitive segregation for adolescents in December 2014,[42] and ended punitive segregation for young adults, 18 to 21, in October 2016.[43] This is partly due to the case of Kalief Browder. Browder was falsely accused of and arrested for stealing a backpack in March 2010. He was placed in confinement for 3 years and would eventually commit suicide soon after his release, unable to cope with the traumatic psychological effects of confinement. [44]

The European Court of Human Rights has three labels for solitary confinement: complete sensory isolation, total social isolation and relative social isolation.[45]

In Italy, a person sentenced to more than one life sentence is required to serve a period of between 6 months to 3 years in solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure for prisoners in Europe was largely reduced or eliminated during the twentieth century.[5] In 2004, only 40 out of 75,000 inmates held in England and Wales were placed in solitary confinement cells.[46]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

The headquarters for the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) in Plaza Venezuela, Caracas, have an underground detention facility that has been dubbed La Tumba (The Tomb). The facility is located where the underground parking for the Metro Caracas were to be located. The cells are two by three meters that have a cement bed, white walls, security cameras, no windows and barred doors, with each cell aligned next to one another so there are no interactions between prisoners.[47] Such conditions have caused prisoners to become very ill, though they are denied medical treatment.[48] Bright lights in the cells are kept on so prisoners lose their sense of time, with the only sounds heard being from the nearby Caracas Metro trains.[49][47][50] Those who visit the prisoners are subjected to strip searches by multiple SEBIN personnel.[49]

Allegations of torture in La Tumba, specifically white torture, are also common, with some prisoners attempting to commit suicide.[47][51][50] Such conditions according to NGO Justice and Process are to force prisoners to plead guilty to crimes they are accused of.[47]

The most "notorious example of the extreme social isolation found in supermaximum custody units" is the SHU at SouthPort NYDOCS Upstate Correctional Facility & Pelican Bay State Prison.[4] From studying conditions at Pelican Bay, researchers argue that long-term social isolation "carries major psychiatric risks." [4] Prisoners are susceptible to developing mental illnesses because they are confined to coffin-like conditions and denied access to basic health services.[4] Illnesses range from anxiety, clinical depression, and self-mutilation to suicidal thoughts and SHU syndrome.[4] Yet, it is important to note that the duration of the isolation is the most important factor in determining the effects of solitary confinement.[4]

Supermax prisons, large-scale implementations of secure housing units, employ solitary confinement to isolate predatory, disorderly inmates from the rest of the prison community.[31] Federal Bureau of Prisons create special supermax facilities to contain the most aggressive inmates in a protective effort.[31] Kate King, professor and director of Criminal Justice at Murray State University, Benjamin Steiner, professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati, and Stephanie Ritchie Breach, director of the Third District Youth Court, explain how while violence has always been a factor in prison life, the level of aggression is magnified in facilities where all such members of the prison system are concentrated.[31] These scholars argue that the violent nature of supermax prisons such as Pelican Bay State Prison are perpetrated by prison culture itself.[31] King, Steiner, and Breach question the effectiveness of these institutions and claim the violent reputation of American prisons stems from this departure from the treatment model.[31] Supermax prisons are also scrutinized on legal and ethical bases. Scholars Jesenia Pizarro and Vanja Stenius note that the overall constitutionality of these prisons are still quite unclear.[54] Many argue the conditions in which these inmates live do not meet the standards of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[54]

Shira E. Gordon, a University of Michigan Law Student, argues that solitary confinement leads to an increase in recidivism and violence. To substantiate this conclusion, she cites two quantitative research based studies that support this nexus and counters those who argue that solitary confinement deters recidivism.[55] Daniel Mears and William Bales "compared recidivism rates by matching...prisoners who were incarcerated in solitary confinement with prisoners who had been in the general prison population."[55] They found that "24.2 percent of the prisoners held in solitary confinement were reconvicted of a violent crime compared to 20.5 percent of prisoners held in population."[55] And this behavior may be attributed to the mental illnesses prisoners may develop, as well as the dehumanizing treatment they are subject to.[55]

According to a March 2014 article in American Journal of Public Health, "Inmates in jails and prisons attempt to harm themselves in many ways, resulting in outcomes ranging from trivial to fatal."[56] Self-harm is greatly increased amongst inmates who are in solitary confinement. Self harm was seven times higher among the inmates where seven percent of the jail population was confined in isolation. Fifty-three percent of all acts of self harm took place in jail. 'Self-harm' included, but was not limited to, cutting, banging heads, self-amputations of fingers and/or testicles. These inmates were in bare cells, and were prone to jumping off their beds head first into the floor or even biting through their veins in their wrists.[3] While some inmates are known to have psychiatric disorders prior to entering the prison, others develop mental disorders as a result of being placed in solitary confinement. A main issue within the prison system and solitary confinement is the high number of inmates who turn to self-harm.[56] Studies have shown that the longer one stays in the prison, the more at risk he or she is to self-harm.

Physicians have concluded that for those inmates who enter the prison already diagnosed with a mental illness, the punishment of solitary confinement is extremely dangerous in that the inmates are more susceptible to exacerbating the symptoms.[57] Professional organizations, like the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), the American College of Correctional Physicians,[58] and American Psychiatric Association (APA), work to improve the mental health services, however, the systems within the prisons "remain woefully inadequate."[57] "Psychological effects can include anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis."[57] These studies suggest that a main issue with isolating prisoners who are known to have mental illnesses is that it prevents the inmates from ever possibly recovering. Instead, many "mentally ill prisoners decompensate in isolation, requiring crisis care or psychiatric hospitalization." It is also noted that if a prisoner is restrained from interacting with the individuals they wish to have contact with they exhibit similar effects.[57]

"Prisoner mental health is becoming increasingly important," and has caught the attention of the World Health Organization, which aims to reduce the "effects of imprisonment on mental health." One study focused on the "prison environment rather than on individual factors."[61] The study tested two time periods, short-term and long-term, that evaluated the "mental state changes in response to changes in the environment or prison setting."[61] It ultimately concluded that solitary confinement was "associated with negative effects on mental health."[61] Segregation, though similar to solitary confinement, could not be proven to have lasting negative effects on inmates, although those who were segregated had worse mental health than those who were not segregated. The study also concluded that crowding had its own problems, as "increased levels of social density had negative effects on the mental health of inmates."[61]

In 2002, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America, chaired by John Joseph Gibbons and Nicholas Katzenbach found that: "The increasing use of high-security segregation is counter-productive, often causing violence inside facilities and contributing to recidivism after release."[64]

Solitary confinement has been traditionally used as a behavioral reform of isolating prisoners physically, emotionally and mentally in order to control and change inmate behavior. Recently arrived inmates are more likely to violate prison rules than their inmate counterparts and thus are more likely to be put in solitary confinement. Additionally, individual attributes and environmental factors combine to increase an inmate's likelihood of being put into solitary confinement.[65]

Solitary confinement is considered to be a form of psychological torture with measurable long-term physiological effects when the period of confinement is longer than a few weeks or is continued indefinitely.[5][66][67][68] According to a law review article by Elizabeth Vasiliades, America's detention system is far below the basic minimum standards for treatment of prisoners under international law and has caused an international human rights concern: "U.S. solitary confinement practices contravene international treaty law, violate established international norms, and do not represent sound foreign policy."[69]

In October 2011, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez, told the General Assembly's third committee, which deals with social, humanitarian, and cultural affairs, that the practice could amount to torture.[72]

"Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles," he warned.[72]

Misuse of solitary confinement has been widely controversial. In immigration detention centers, reports have surfaced concerning its use against detainees in order to keep those knowledgeable about their rights away from other detainees.[75] In the prison-industrial complex itself, reports of solitary confinement as punishment in work labor prisons have also summoned much criticism.[76] One issue prison reform activists have fought against is the use of Security Housing Units (extreme forms of solitary confinement). They argue that they do not rehabilitate inmates but rather serve only to cause inmates psychological harm.[77] Further reports of placing prisoners into solitary confinement based on sexual orientation, race and religion have been an ongoing but very contentious subject in the last century.[38]

Opponents of solitary confinement hold that it is a form of cruel and unusual punishment[78] and torture[79] because the lack of human contact, and the sensory deprivation that often go with solitary confinement, can have a severe negative impact on a prisoner's mental state[80] that may lead to certain mental illnesses such as depression, permanent or semi-permanent changes to brain physiology,[68] an existential crisis,[81][82][83][84] and death.[79]

The legality of solitary confinement has been frequently challenged over the past sixty years as conceptions surrounding the practice have changed. Much of the legal discussion concerning solitary confinement has centered on whether or not it constitutes torture or cruel and unusual punishment. While international law has generally begun to discourage solitary confinement's use in penal institutions,[88] opponents of solitary confinement have been less successful at challenging it within the United States legal system.

In 1949, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. Although the Declaration is non-binding, the basic human rights outlined within it have served as the foundation of customary international law.[88] The relevance of the Declaration to solitary confinement is found in Article 5, which states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."[89] Thus, if solitary confinement is believed to constitute torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, then the country practicing solitary confinement is violating the provisions set by the UDHR.

At the time that the UDHR and ICCPR were adopted, solitary confinement was not yet believed to constitute torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.[88] Its practice, therefore, was not believed to violate international law. This changed, however, after the UN definition of torture was outlined in detail in the 1984 Convention Against Torture (CAT); Article 1.1 of the CAT states that torture is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person" for any reason such as obtaining information or punishment, and Article 16 of the same convention prohibits "other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". Based on these provisions, many members of the UN began to believe that solitary confinement's detrimental psychological effects could, indeed, constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, if not, torture.[88] In the years following the CAT, UN representatives "have publicly decried the use of solitary confinement as a violation of the CAT and ICCPR," as well as the UDHR.[88]

In more recent years, UN representatives have strengthened their efforts to stop solitary confinement from being used worldwide.[88] The urgency with which representatives have undertaken these efforts is largely due to the UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture, Manfred Nowak and Juan Méndez.[88] Nowak and Méndez have both "repeatedly unequivocally stated that prolonged solitary confinement is cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and may amount to torture".[88] Nowak and Méndez have been especially critical of long-term or prolonged solitary confinement, which they define as lasting fifteen days or more.[88] Their authority and explicit characterization of solitary confinement as cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment has led the UN to include long-term to indefinite solitary confinement in the group of practices that violate the provisions outlined in the UDHR, ICCPR, and CAT. Solitary confinement lasting for a short period of time, however, is allowed under international law when used as a last resort, though Nowak, Mendez, and many other UN representatives believe that the practice should be abolished altogether.[88]

In the U.S., opponents of solitary confinement have argued (with varying success) that the practice violates prisoners' Constitutional rights. Despite the long history of litigation over the practice, the Supreme Court has yet to definitively state whether or not solitary confinement is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of long-term solitary confinement only once in the '' Wilkinson v. Austin'' case. In contrast to the Supreme Court's inaction, lower courts of the U.S. have imposed constitutional limitations on the use of solitary confinement.[55] Despite such limitations, the federal courts have refused to find that solitary confinement is per se unconstitutional.[55] The U.S. has also effectively "insulated itself from any official sanction for international violations by not submitting to the jurisdiction" of committees that enforce the ICCPR or CAT.[88]

Since solitary confinement has been designated as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" under international law, many lawyers have argued that it is also the kind of "cruel and unusual punishments" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Proving this to be the case, however, has been a difficult task for attorneys at every level of the court system. The lack of clarity of the Eighth Amendment has raised questions with the use of solitary confinement that specifically constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."

Showing that solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment has proven difficult for inmates and their attorneys. The Supreme Court requires 'extreme deprivations' in order to have merits for a 'conditions-of-confinement claim' and courts have also held that inmates are only protected against "certain kinds of extreme deprivations" by the Eighth Amendment.[94] In '' Farmer v. Brennan'', the Supreme Court set two requirements that must be fulfilled in order to challenge solitary confinement as "cruel and unusual".[94] First, prisoners must show that a "substantial risk of serious harm to inmates" and second, that the prison officials were "deliberately indifferent" to such risk.[94] To prove a prison official's "deliberate indifference," the prisoner must "show evidence that the official was 'actually' aware of a prisoner's serious need and chose to ignore it".[55] Since the psychological impact of solitary confinement is not believed to be "objectively" cruel and unusual within the U.S. legal system, and because it is difficult to establish that prison officials are "indifferent" to prisoner health and safety, inmates and attorneys alleging these two requirements have faced limited success.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) further complicates inmates' ability to claim that solitary confinement's psychological damage constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Section 1997e(e) of the PLRA states that

no Federal civil action may be brought by a prisoner confined in a jail, prison, or other correctional facility, for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury.[94]

This demonstrates that the Eighth Amendment provides "greater protection" against physical injury than against mental pain.[94] Therefore, unless a prisoner can demonstrate physical injury as a result of solitary confinement, he or she is unable to recover damages for any "mental or emotional injury" the confinement causes. As a result, the Eighth Amendment has not always been proven to be the most effective approach to argue against the practice of solitary confinement.

Litigating against solitary confinement on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment and due process is another less common strategy inmates have used. The Fourteenth Amendment limits the "types of prisoners" that can be placed in solitary confinement and the time the prisoners can be confined.[55] The due process clause within the Fourteenth Amendment also regulates solitary confinement in that prisoners must be given reviews before and during their placement in solitary confinement.[55] Court cases made on these bases do not necessarily address any "underlying problems" of solitary confinement, but they do call for increased monitoring, hearing, and reviews.[55]

Inmates who are placed in solitary confinement "must be accorded meaningful periodic review to ensure that segregation [solitary confinement] is not a 'pretext for indefinite confinement'".[93] As Jules Lobel, professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, explains,

When a prisoner is placed in a supermax, the due process requirement of meaningful periodic review requires that his or her behavior be re-evaluated at regular intervals to determine whether supermax confinement is still warranted.

Lobel contends that the trend in U.S. supermax prisons is to not submit these reviews at all or to provide a review with a predetermined outcome to keep the prisoner in solitary confinement.[93] If this is indeed the case, then such inmates' due process rights are violated.

In Wilkinson v. Austin, the Supreme Court held that, in addition to the due process right to meaningful review, prisoners also have a due process right to "a statement of the reasons why they were placed or retained at the supermax" so they can better understand how to behave in the future in order to be released from solitary confinement.[93] Lobel argues that this "implies that the officials must provide something more than a general statement that the prisoner is very dangerous".[93] According to Lobel this is not what usually happens at supermax facilities, so the inmates' due process rights are violated in this way as well.[93]

In recent circuit court cases, courts have ruled that solitary confinement of 305 days or more constitutes an "atypical and significant hardship" that implicates due process.[55]

When claims under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments fail, Title II [of the ADA] may offer an avenue to improve the provision of services to the mentally ill in prisons and solitary confinement, but ipso facto improving the conditions under which all inmates in solitary confinement live.

In the past few years, several internal committees and administrative bodies involved in the United States prison and legal systems have also begun to question solitary confinement's legality. In June 2012, for example, the US Senate Judiciary Committee held its first hearing on solitary confinement.[88] Likewise, as of 2013, the US Bureau of Prisons has announced that it will conduct its first review of how solitary confinement is used in federal prisons.[88] Additionally, the US Department of Justice found multiple violations of the Constitution and ADA after investigating the use of solitary confinement for mentally ill inmates in two Pennsylvania prisons.[88] The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has also revised segregation procedures for detainees.[88]

Studies have illustrated that mentally ill inmates and juveniles are two groups more severely affected by solitary confinement than other prisoners. As such, the solitary confinement of mentally ill inmates and juveniles has been upheld as cruel and unusual in both international and US courts.

The UN has "expressly prohibit[ed] solitary confinement of juveniles and individuals with mental illness".[88] The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Convention on the Rights of the Child have played major roles in establishing the UN's position on solitary confinement of mentally ill inmates and juveniles respectively.

Within the US legal system, too, courts have held that the solitary confinement of the mentally ill is "cruel and unusual".[88] In fact, David Fathi, Director of the ACLU's National Prison Project, found that "every federal court that has considered claims by severely mentally ill prisoners held in solitary confinement has found this treatment unconstitutional".[55] These court rulings are significant in light of the fact that more than half of the prisoners currently serving jail time in the US are mentally ill according to the US Bureau of Prisons.[88] Furthermore, approximately 30% or more of prisoners in solitary confinement are mentally ill.[88] These rulings have the potential to dramatically change how prisons deal with mentally ill inmates, as prison officials would no longer be able to "warehouse" "difficult" prisoners if they have a preexisting mental illness.[88] These rulings do not guarantee that the mentally ill will not be put in solitary confinement; although they are considered a vulnerable group, these prisoners still have "limited" recourse to the Eighth Amendment.[94]

One landmark case, Madrid v. Gomez, challenged the conditions of the Security Housing Unit (SHU) in the Pelican Bay State Prison. The court ruled that the current conditions were not "per se violative of the Eighth Amendment" with respect to all inmates.[94] However, in regard to SHU's isolation of the mentally ill and the conditions of their solitary confinement, the court found that the prison had violated the Eighth Amendment. Despite it being a landmark case, the rulings of the case have yet to set a trend among cases against other prison systems because SHU's conditions were known to be more extreme and harsh than other supermax prisons.

Juveniles who are charged as adults and placed in adult prisons are usually put in protective custody, and often the conditions of protective custody are similar to those of solitary confinement.[55] Juvenile justice experts, social scientists, and national correctional standards all agree that solitary confinement is an "ineffective therapeutic tool" that is detrimental to juveniles who are still in an "uncertain, unformed state of social identity".[55] Given that they are developing mentally and physically, some experts have suggested that "they are severely and permanently damaged by such conditions to a greater extent than adults".[88]

The 2013 California prisoner hunger strike saw approximately 29,000 prisoners protesting conditions.[96] This statewide hunger strike reaching 2/3 of California's prisons began with the organizing of inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison. On 11 July 2011, prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison began a hunger strike to "protest torturous conditions in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) there"...and to advocate for procedural and policy changes like the termination of the "debriefing process" which forces prisoners "to name themselves or others as gang members as a condition of access to food or release from isolation".[97] Nearly 7,000 inmates throughout the California prison system stood in solidarity with these Pelican State Bay prisoners in 2011 by also refusing their food.[97] Also in solidarity with the 2011 Pelican Bay prisoners on strike is the Bay Area coalition of grassroots organizations known as the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition. This coalition has aided the prisoners in their strike by providing a legal support force for their negotiations with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and by creating and running a media based platform to raise support and awareness for the strikers and their demands among the general public.[97]

The CDCR's failure to meet the demands of the Pelican State Bay Prison hunger strikers in 2011 resulted in the aforementioned 2013 California prisoner hunger strike. Similar to the Pelican Bay State Prison hunger strike is the organizing of January 2011 in the supermax Ohio State Penitentiary, where prisoners Bomani Shakur, Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Jason Robb, and Namir Abdul Mateen began a hunger strike "to protest what they call their harsh mistreatment under solitary confinement".[98] These prisoners decided to start rejecting their meals until they could be relocated from solitary confinement to death row where their treatment as prisoners would improve. Another example took place in Fall of 2010, when prisoners throughout Georgia's prison system organized a strike in opposition to violations of the US Constitution 8th amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment for minute infractions of rules.[99] Inmates throughout the state, in facilities like Rogers State Prison and Hays State Prison engaged in a "self-imposed lockdown" to incite action from the Georgia Department of Corrections in meeting their demands.[99] Similar to other prison strikes demanding systemic change in the policing and policies of prisons like the Pelican State Bay hunger strike, this self-imposed lockdown strike has reached "across multiple facilities and across racial and factional lines".[99]

Organizing against the use of solitary confinement isn't limited to the work of prisoners subject to or at risk for this treatment. Community organizing outside of prisons has also occurred to shed light on the use of solitary confinement in prisons and work towards its abolition or highly refined use. Free and accessible journals like "Turning the Tide: Journal of Anti-Racist Action, Research, & Education" and web-based projects like Solitary Watch and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition website also work to disseminate information about the use of solitary confinement in prisons and support actions to bring about the end of this practice in prisons.

Scrutiny of super-maximum security prisons and the institutionalization of solitary confinement is accompanied by suggestions for alternative methods. One alternative is to administer medical treatment for disorderly inmates who display signs of mental illness.[102] The Correction Department of New York City implemented plans to transfer mentally ill inmates to an internal facility for further help rather than solitary confinement in 2013.[102] Dora B. Schriro, correction commissioner, said that treatment would help turn a "one size fits all" policy into a program to promote success in jail and the outside world.[102] A second alternative is to deal with long-term inmates by promoting familial and social relationships through the encouragement of visitations which may help boost morale.[31] Carl Kummerlowe believes that familial counseling and support may be useful for inmates nearing the end of a long-term sentence that may otherwise exhibit signs of aggression.[31] This alternative would help inmates cope with extreme long term sentences in prisons such as those harbored in Pelican Bay.[31] A third alternative would involve regular reevaluation and accelerated transition of isolated inmates back to prison population to help curb long-term effects of solitary confinement.[31] These alternative methods suggest a more restorative justice approach to handling high-security offenders.

Many states such as Colorado, Mississippi, and Maine have implemented plans to reduce use of supermax prisons and solitary confinement and have begun to show signs of reform.[102] Joseph Ponte, Corrections Commissioner of Maine, cut supermax prison population by half.[102] Colorado has announced reforms to limit the use of solitary confinement in prisons following a study that showed significant levels of confinement and isolation in prisons.[102] Washington has also showed signs of decreased use of solitary confinement, low segregation of overall prison population, and emphasis on alternative methods.[102]

There have been studies that have shown no difference between inmates in solitary confinement and those in normal lockup. For example, "Effect of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners" examines a study that compared twenty prison inmates that were put into isolation to twenty inmates from general population that were used as the controls. The subjects were tested immediately before and after being put into isolation and the results showed that although there was a slight difference in subjective feelings, there were no mental or psychomotor changes.[103] "Effect of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners" argues that the negative effects of solitary have often been overemphasized and that the reason these negative findings are often reported is due to the characteristic difference between those who end up in solitary confinement and those who do not.[103]

"Reactions and Attributes of Prisoners in Solitary Confinement," analyzes multiple studies conducted at different prisons throughout the United States. There was no difference found in the stress levels between the inmates inside of solitary confinement and those in general lockup according to this study.[104] Interviews were conducted that showed that inmates had a fear of the mental effects that solitary confinement would have, but that mental harm rarely occurred.[104] There was also no significant difference between the results of the CPI Scale between the control and the experimental group according to "Reactions and Attributes of Prisoners in Solitary Confinement."[104] This article proposes the idea that some inmates have inherent characteristics that allow them to better adapt to solitary confinement while others do not, similar to the ability to adapt to any new environment.[104] Furthermore, it showed that the majority of inmates adapted to solitary confinement within a few days finding ways to pass time such as sleeping, thinking about the future, and exercising.[104] This article argues that this study gives a better representation of the effects of solitary confinement as it claims the participants are average inmates in traditional solitary confinement conditions, rather than controlled experimental conditions. The conclusions drawn from this study include the argument of consistency; that in order to prove that solitary confinement is harmful to inmates, there needs to be some sort of consistent negative result and their findings do not match this.[104]

While studies have shown the effects of solitary confinement to be detrimental to all inmates, solitary confinement of women has particular consequences for women that may differ from the way it affects men. Solitary confinement rates for women in the United States are roughly comparable to those for men[105][106] and about 20% of prisoners will be in solitary confinement at some point during their prison career.

Inmates who are considered to be politically threatening are sometimes put into isolation; although the United States does not officially hold political prisoners, some inmates in solitary confinement are there because of their political activism. This justification often means that minorities are more likely to end up in solitary confinement.[112]

Solitary confinement has been shown to be detrimental to the mental and physical well-being of all inmates, but there are some ways in which being put into segregation can be more harmful for women than for men. They "experience segregation as women"; they are both subjected to slightly different treatment than men are and their perception of this treatment may differ as well.[108]

Studies of the conditions of segregation, and interviews with the women who are subjected to them, have shown that women may also experience a collapse or confusion of identity while in prison because of their removal from their community and because of the unusual experience of space and time while in solitary confinement.[114] Prisoners attach a lot of importance to the items that they have in their rooms; when they are placed into solitary confinement and no longer allowed to keep these identifying objects with them, they begin to lose their sense of self.[114] Further, because prisoners kept in segregation often interact little with the outside world, and because the routines of eating and cleaning may be different from in general confinement, the women lose their ability to mark time.[114] The Fire Inside magazine, written by offenders in California women's prisons, quotes one prisoner as saying that her recommendation for those held in solitary confinement is "to create a schedule" and figure out the time of day, because it "helps to assert control over your own life and not be totally defined by whatever 'routine' the prison is forcing on you."[118]

Another aspect of their identity that is destroyed is their ability to form relationships with others. In most societies, women are perceived as being particularly social; having relationships with other people is seen as an essential element of their role as women in particular. This is of course impossible when in solitary confinement. It has been argued that this has a harmful effect on women especially. These conclusions were drawn from interviews with women who were still in solitary confinement, women who had been in solitary but had since been transferred back to the general prison population, and women who had been in solitary but had been released from incarceration, suggesting that these effects carry over beyond their time in segregation.[108]

Similarly, the clothing the women are required to wear is sexualized and humiliating.[108] In some prisons, women in segregation wear a "baby doll," a long shapeless dress, with no underclothes.[108] Although men sometimes are required to wear the "baby doll" as well, women find that wearing it while being watched by their male guards is degrading and makes them feel powerless.[108]

Women have also reported stories of being publicly humiliated when asking for additional sanitary pads during their menstrual periods,[108] or being forced to hand in their used pads in order to acquire a new one, according to the women who contributed to The Fire Inside magazine.[118] They are entirely dependent on male guards, even for such personal needs as this.[117]

Once they are released from prison, too, they often have a harder time adjusting to being a part of society again, and frequently end up back in prison.[110] Ex-offenders who were held in solitary confinement are more likely to commit violent acts against others once released than those who spent all their time in the general prison population.[112] As one California prisoner who wrote for The Fire Inside prison magazine put it, "We go through these kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual stages. At first when you get here you're angry and disoriented...Paranoia sets in...I slowly began to think of this cell as my safe place...What happens next year when they take the box away?" She, and other women in solitary confinement, become unequipped to deal with the outside world and the knowledge of technological advancement, social interaction skills, and mental stability that it requires.[119]

Although the number of people of color in isolation is only slightly higher than the number of white people, their experiences in solitary confinement may differ. Women in solitary confinement are treated as less than human, in ways which parallel not only the larger societal degradation of women but also that of people of color. The sexually abusive nature of their interactions with the guards, and the denial of medical care, social contact, and resources, can be seen as racialized. In particular, guards often refer to women in solitary confinement using slurs that are both misogynist and racist.[107]

Women who are put into solitary confinement are often isolated because of actions that challenge dominant perspectives of femininity. Because women of color are often seen as possessing these non-feminine qualities already, they are more susceptible to being put into solitary confinement because of this kind of behavior. Black women are often perceived as "aggressive and recalcitrant," Latina women are thought to be "loud and belligerent, sexually aggressive, or...unable to speak English," and Native American women are seen as "backward, savage, and/or primitive." Because of these preconceptions, women of color are thought to deviate strongly from the feminine ideal, which can be grounds for putting them in solitary confinement.[107]

1. Bottos, Shauna. 2007. Profile of Offenders in Administrative Segregation: A Review of the Literature. Research Report No. B-39. Ottawa: Research Branch, Correctional Service of Canada.

2. ^

3. ^ Dickens, Charles (1842). American Notes. Chapman and Hall.

4. ^ Smith, Peter Scharff (August 2008). "'Degenerate Criminals': Mental Health and Psychiatric Studies of Danish Prisoners in Solitary Confinement, 1870-1920". Criminal Justice and Behavior. 35 (8): 1048-1064. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.559.5564. doi:10.1177/0093854808318782.

5. ^ ACLU/Human Rights Watch (2012). Growing Up Locked Down: Youth in Solitary Confinement in Jails and Prisons in the United States (PDF). United States of America. p. 76. ISBN 1-56432-949-6.

6. ^

7. ^ Graber, Jennifer (Fall 2008). "'When Friends Had the Management It Was Entirely Different': Quakers and Calvinists in the Making of New York Prison Discipline". Quaker History. 97 (2): 19-40. doi:10.1353/qkh.0.0011.

8. ^ Visitors, State Prison, Corcoran (CSP-COR), from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website. (Retrieved 12 June 2016.)

9. ^ Ridgeway, James; Casella, Jean (22 May 2011). "Voices from Solitary: An Insane Asylum Disguised As an SMU". Solitary Watch.

10. ^

11. ^ Stephanie Chen. "'Terrible Tommy' spends 27 years in solitary confinement". CNN.

12. ^ 28 C.F.R. 541.22

13. ^ 28 C.F.R. 541.3

14. ^ "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Supermax Prisons" (PDF). 4 June 2016.

15. Haney, Craig; Lynch, Mona (1997). "Regulating Prisons of the Future: A Psychological Analysis of Supermax and Solitary Confinement". NYU Rev. Law & Social Change. 23: 478-558.

16. 2014 bill

17. ^ O'Keefe, Maureen L. (March 2008). "Administrative Segregation from within: A Corrections Perspective". The Prison Journal. 88 (1): 123-143. doi:10.1177/0032885507310999.

18. ^ Weiser, Benjamin (24 January 2019). "Kalief Browder's Suicide Brought Changes to Rikers. Now It Has Led to a $3 Million Settlement". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

19. Oslo District Court declaratory judgement for breach of the ECHR art. 3 & 8; Anders Behring Breivik plaintiff (PDF) (Report). 20 April 2016. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 April 2016.

20. Cite error: The named reference ^ USsenate was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

21. ^ "UNEARTHING THE TOMB: INSIDE VENEZUELA'S SECRET UNDERGROUND TORTURE CHAMBER". Fusion. 2015. Archived from the original on 29 July 2015.

22. Pizarro, Jesenia; Stenius, Vanja M. K. (June 2004). "Supermax Prisons: Their Rise, Current Practices, and Effect on inmates". The Prison Journal. 84 (2): 248-264. doi:10.1177/0032885504265080.

23. Kaba, Fatos; et al. (March 2014). "Solitary Confinement and Risk of Self-Harm Among Jail Inmates". American Journal of Public Health. 104 (3): 442-447. doi:10.2105/ajph.2013.301742. PMC 3953781. PMID 24521238.

24. ^ Stern, Marc F. (1 April 2014). "Society of Correctional Physicians Calls for Caution Placing Mentally Ill in Segregation An Important Band-Aid". Journal of Correctional Health Care. 20 (2): 92-94. doi:10.1177/1078345814522959. ISSN 1078-3458. PMID 24659757.

25. ^ "Alone, in 'the hole'". apa.org.

26. ^

27. Goode, Erica (3 August 2015). "Solitary Confinement: Punished for Life". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

28. ^ John J. Gibbons; Nicholas de B. Katzenbach (8 June 2006). "Confronting Confinement: A Report of The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 February 2013.

29. ^

30. . This is the study of 57 Yugoslav POWs referenced in Atul Gawande's 2009 ^ New Yorker article.

31. Grassian, Stuart (January 2006). "Psychiatric effects of solitary confinement" (PDF). Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y. 22: 325.

32. ^ Vasiliades, Elizabeth (2005). "Solitary Confinement and International Human Rights: Why the US Prison System Fails Global Standards" (PDF). Amer. U. Int'l Law Rev. 21: 71-101.

33. ^ Ruiz v. Johnson, 154 F.Supp.2d 975 (S.D.Tex.2001)

34. ^ Ramin Skibba (22 June 2018). "The hidden damage of solitary confinement". Knowable Magazine. doi:10.1146/knowable-062118-065101.

35. ^

36. ^

37. ^ Liebling, Alison (1999). "Prison Suicide and Prisoner Coping". Crime and Justice. 26: 283-359. doi:10.1086/449299. JSTOR 1147688.

38. ^ Tyre, Peg (9 January 1998). "Trend toward solitary confinement worries experts". CNN. New York City.

39. Direct link to audio file[permanent dead link ] .

40. ^ Grassian, Stuart (November 1983). "Psychopathological effects of solitary confinement". American Journal of Psychiatry. 140 (11): 1450-1454. doi:10.1176/ajp.140.11.1450. PMID 6624990.

41. ^ Haney, Craig (January 2003). "Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and "Supermax" Confinement". Crime & Delinquency. 49 (1): 124-156. doi:10.1177/0011128702239239.

42. ^

43. ^

44. ^

45. ^ Freudenberg, Nicholas; et al. (October 2005). "Coming Home From Jail: The Social and Health Consequences of Community Reentry for Women, Male Adolescents, and Their Families and Communities". Am J Public Health. 95 (10): 1725-1736. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2004.056325. PMC 1449427. PMID 16186451.

46. ^ Metzner, Jeffrey L.; Fellner, Jamie (1 March 2010). "Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons: A Challengefor Medical Ethics". The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. 38 (1): 104-108. ISSN 1093-6793. PMID 20305083.

47. ^

48. Eisenman, Stephen (November 2009). "The Resistible Rise and Predictable Fall of the US Supermax". Monthly Review. 61 (6): 31-45. doi:10.14452/mr-061-06-2009-10_4.

49. Walters, Richard; Callagan, John; Newman, Albert (February 1963). "Effect of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners". American Journal of Psychiatry. 119 (8): 771-73. doi:10.1176/ajp.119.8.771. PMID 13998703.

50. ^

51. ^

52. Arkles, Gabriel. 2009. "Safety and Solidarity Across Gender Lines: Rethinking Segregation of Transgender People in Detention." Temple ^ Political & Civil Rights Law Review 18(2):515-560.

53. ^

54. ^ Margo, Schlanger (1 January 2013). "Prison Segregation: Symposium Introduction and Preliminary Data on Racial Disparities". Michigan Journal of Race and Law. 18 (2).

Birckhead, T. R. (2015). Children in isolation: The solitary confinement of youth. Wake Forest Law Review 50(1), 1-80.

The practice is used when a prisoner is considered dangerous to themselves or to others, is suspected of organizing or being engaged in illegal activities outside of the prison, or, as in the case of a prisoner such as a pedophile or witness, is at a high risk of being harmed by another inmate or inmates. The latter example is a form of protective custody. Solitary confinement is also the norm in supermax prisons where prisoners who are deemed dangerous or of high risk are held. It may be hard to determine the number of people currently being held in solitary confinement because some prisons have a hard time defining it. However, it is estimated that 80,000 to 100,000 people are currently in solitary confinement within the USA.[3]

The effects of solitary confinement on juveniles can be highly detrimental to their growth. The isolation of solitary confinement can cause anguish, provoke serious mental and physical health problems, and work against rehabilitation for juveniles.[10]:77 Because young people are still developing, traumatic experiences like solitary confinement may have a profound effect on their chance to rehabilitate and grow.[10] Solitary confinement can worsen both short- and long-term psychological and physical problems or make it more likely that such problems will develop.[10]:22 The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights Watch created a report that incorporated the testimony of some juvenile inmates. Many interviews described how their placement in solitary confinement exacerbated the stresses of being in jail or prison. Many spoke of harming themselves with staples, razors, even plastic eating utensils, having hallucinations, losing touch with reality, and having thoughts of or attempting suicide - all this while having very limited access to health care.[10]:29-35

Juveniles in solitary confinement are routinely denied access to treatment, services, and programming required to meet their medical, psychological, developmental, social, and rehabilitative needs.[10]:3,92 The ACLU and the Human Rights Watch have made recommendations at both a State and Federal level regarding their lack of access to medical services etc.

As well as severe and damaging psychological effects, solitary confinement manifests physiologically as well. Solitary confinement has been reported to cause hypertension, headaches and migraines, profuse sweating, dizziness, and heart palpitations. Many inmates also experience extreme weight loss due to digestion complications and abdominal pain. Many of these symptoms are due to the intense anxiety and sensory deprivation. Inmates can also experience neck and back pain and muscle stiffness due to long periods of little to no physical activity. These symptoms often worsen with repeated visit to solitary confinement.[11]

The penal system has been cited as failing to protect juveniles in custody.[13] In the UK, "twenty-nine children have died in penal custody in 1990. Some 41% of the children in custody were officially designated as being vulnerable."[13] This is attributed to the fact that isolation and physical restraint are being used as the first response to punish them for simple rule infractions.[13] Moreover, Frances Crook argues that these punitive policies not only violate their basic rights, but also leave the children mentally unstable and left with illnesses that are often ignored.[13] Overall, the solitary confinement of youth is considered to be counterproductive because the "restrictive environment...and intense regulation of children" aggravates them, instead of addressing the issue of rehabilitation.[13]

United States Edit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment distinguished by living in single cells with little or no meaningful contact to other inmates, strict measures to control contraband, and the use of additional security measures and equipment. It is specifically designed for disruptive inmates who are security risks to other inmates, the prison staff, or the prison itself.

# data[].attributes.body
https://youtu.be/Uk7MdKMfypM

# data[].attributes.body
Look it up though, it’s actually terrifying

# data[].attributes.body
Guys search up this, it’s called the Rake and there’s loads of stuff on forums about nightmares and encounters people claim to have had with this thing, it seams very similar to the character we created today, it’s like a human and a dog

# data[].attributes.body
https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Shug_Monkey

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.monkeyonmyback.org.uk/

# data[].attributes.body
https://youtu.be/Spyqgpm2-8M

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks_7KG0hMuA&feature=share

# data[].attributes.body
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_cannibalism

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/europes-hypocritical-history-of-cannibalism-42642371/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2015/2/17/8052239/cannibalism-surprising-facts

# data[].attributes.body
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/brain-chemistry/201902/the-effects-solitary-confinement-the-brain%3famp

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.penalreform.org/issues/prison-conditions/key-facts/solitary-confinement/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.knowablemagazine.org/article/society/2018/hidden-damage-solitary-confinement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Years ago, when we were down in Louisiana working on a story about the notorious plantation prison called Angola, a man who had served nearly 20 years shared with us what he thought to be a common misconception about prisons. He knew that most people looked at the wall around the perimeter of a prison, and believed its purpose was to keep the incarcerated from escaping. But the wall "isn't there to keep prisoners in," he said. "It's to keep the rest of you out."

This has nowhere been more true than in solitary confinement units, the "prisons within prisons" that are kept strictly off limits to the public and the press, where tens of thousands of people have suffered in silence for years or even decades. That silence has been broken only by individuals with the fortitude to reach out-and to risk retaliation from prison staff-in order to share their stories of life in solitary.

Over the last eight years, we have been privileged to receive more and more of these stories-most of them sent to us by handwritten letter-and to develop relationships with hundreds of people in solitary confinement. Their writing has informed our reporting, and has been published on our site in the series we call "Voices from Solitary." Last year, some of them were compiled in the first anthology of writing from solitary, Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement. Today, we feature the five stories that you have chosen as the most compelling-the ones most read, most shared, and most commented upon.

The work we do-shining a light on one of the darkest corners of the U.S. criminal justice system, and connecting with the people who experience it first-hand-is made possible only through the support of our readers. If you believe this work is important, we hope you will consider making a gift to Solitary Watch this year-perhaps tomorrow, on #GivingTuesday. Through December 31st, every donation you make up to $1,000 will be doubled through the News Match program, funded by the Democracy Fund, Knight Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation. So please read these stories, share them-and donate what you can to ensure that they keep coming across the prison walls.

5. WHERE COLD, QUIET, AND EMPTINESS COME TOGETHER by Cesar Villa

Cesar Villa wrote this essay in 2013 while in his twelfth year of solitary confinement in the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU). Like thousands of others in California prisons, Villa had been placed in solitary indefinitely after being "validated" as a gang member on questionable evidence. A longer version of this piece, which traces the gradual breakdown of the mind and spirit in isolation, appears in our 2016 book Hell Is a Very Small Place.

Nothing can really prepare you for entering the SHU. It's a world unto itself where cold, quiet and emptiness come together, seeping into your bones, then eventually the mind. The first week I told myself: It isn't that bad, I could do this. The second week, I stood outside in my underwear shivering as I was pelted with hail and rain. By the third week, I found myself squatting in a corner of the yard, filing fingernails down over coarse concrete walls. My sense of human decency dissipating with each day. At the end of the first year, my feet and hands began to split open from the cold. I bled over my clothes, my food, between my sheets. Band-aids were not allowed, even confiscated when found. My sense of normalcy began to wane after just 3 years of confinement. Now I was asking myself, can I do this? Not sure about anything anymore. Though I didn't realize it at the time-looking back now-the unraveling must've begun then. My psyche had changed-I would never be the same. The ability to hold a single good thought left me, as easily as if it was a simple shift of wind sifting over tired, battered bones.

4. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WOMAN IN SOLITARY by Sarah Jo Pender

While most individuals in solitary are men, women are not immune from being placed in long-term isolation. Some, as we have reported, are sent to solitary in retaliation for exposing abuse and sexual assault by prison staff. And because incarcerated women are even more likely than incarcerated men to have a history of trauma and underlying mental illness, they often break down in solitary. Sarah Jo Pender, who spent five years in solitary at the Indiana Women's Prison after a nonviolent prison escape, wrote a detailed account of a typical day in the prison's isolation unit.

Women who enter sane will become so depressed that they shut down or hurt themselves. I watched a woman claw chunks of flesh from her cheeks and nose and write on the window with her blood. My neighbor bashed her head against the concrete until officers dragged her to a padded cell...Right across from my cell, a woman slit her own throat with a razor and was wheeled out on a gurney. Two others tried to asphyxiate themselves with bras and shoestrings. Now no one has shoestrings and we shuffle around in floppy tennis shoes with loose tongues...Another woman cut her wrists using the metal band around a pencil eraser. Now, all our pencils are stripped naked. It is always the poor prisoner porter who is forced to clean up the blood puddles and shit smears left behind when someone's mind spirals down the rabbit hole.

3. THE WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL by Thomas Bartlett Whitaker

Writing from Texas Death Row, where he has been held in solitary confinement for more than 12 years, Thomas Bartlett Whitaker describes the impact of living in isolation while awaiting execution. The title of his piece comes from the description that 17th-Century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes gave to human existence in a state of nature. The founder of a blog for prison writing and winner of several awards for his own writing from prison, Whitaker also contributed a (different) essay to Hell Is a Very Small Place.

It's not always easy to see how this place creeps up on you...It twists you up in contradictions. I have to stalk myself almost constantly, to make sure that I don't say or do anything dishonorable. I was messed up when I came here, and in many ways I have far more self-control. But at the same time, I feel frayed, like I've been living in the face of this sandstorm for 11 years, and it's worn my soul down to a pathetic little nub. They don't really kill you when they give you a date. You are pretty much already dead by that point...This place ruins people. Some it makes insane. Some, like me, it forces to go so deep that they aren't ever able to crawl back out again. Some people get so hard that discipline simply can't ever imprint on them again...The irony is that they built these places to house a theoretical super-predator that didn't really exist at the time, and ended up actually building that very individual...[The men on death row] have seen through that to the truth, that it's just one group applying power over another, and this just makes them laugh. Once you truly see the world as bellum omnium contra omnes [the war of all against all] you don't ever really come back from that.

2. AMERICA'S MOST ISOLATED MAN DESCRIBES 10,220 DAYS IN EXTREME SOLITARY CONFINEMENT by Thomas Silverstein
Thomas Silverstein (who created the drawings above) has been held in solitary confinement under a "no human contact" order for more than three decades. He is currently at ADX Florence, the federal government's notorious supermax prison in the mountains of Colorado. Earlier, he was housed at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, where he was placed in a windowless underground cell measuring 6 x 7 feet and denied any possessions, including reading materials or clothing other than underwear. The following comes from a lengthy declaration written for a 2011 federal lawsuit, in which Silverstein argued that his record of prison violence more than 20 years earlier did not entitle the state to subject him to torture. The suit was dismissed by the court.

The cell was so small that I could stand in one place and touch both walls simultaneously. The ceiling was so low that I could reach up and touch the hot light fixture. My bed took up the length of the cell, and there was no other furniture at all...The walls were solid steel and painted all white...Shortly after I arrived, the prison staff began construction, adding more bars and other security measures to the cell while I was within it...It is hard to describe the horror I experienced during this construction process. As they built new walls around me it felt like I was being buried alive...Due to the unchanging bright artificial lights and not having a wristwatch or clock, I couldn't tell if it was day or night. Frequently, I would fall asleep and when I woke up I would not know if I had slept for five minutes or five hours, and would have no idea of what day or time of day it was...I now know that I was housed there for about four years, but I would have believed it was a decade if that is what I was told. It seemed eternal and endless and immeasurable.

1. A SENTENCE WORSE THAN DEATH by William Blake
First published in 2013, this shattering account of 25 years spent in continuous solitary confinement in New York has received more than half a million hits on Solitary Watch alone, and was republished on dozens of other sites around the world. Thousands more have read it as the lead essay in Hell Is a Very Small Place. Blake sets out to convey "what year after year of abject isolation can do to that immaterial part in our middle where hopes survive or die and the spirit resides"-and succeeds, as few others have before or since, in describing the visceral experience of living for decades in the Special Housing Unit, or SHU. Nearly five years after the essay's publication, Billy Blake is still in solitary-and still writing.

I've experienced times so difficult and felt boredom and loneliness to such a degree that it seemed to be a physical thing inside-so thick it felt like it was choking me, trying to squeeze the sanity from my mind, the spirit from my soul, and the life from my body. I've seen and felt hope becoming like a foggy ephemeral thing, hard to get a hold of, even harder to keep a hold of as the years and then decades disappeared while I stayed trapped in the emptiness of the SHU world. I've seen minds slipping down the slope of sanity, descending into insanity, and I've been terrified that I would end up like the guys around me that have cracked and become nuts. It's a sad thing to watch a human being go insane before your eyes because he can't handle the pressure that the box exerts on the mind, but it is sadder still to see the spirit shaken from a soul. And it is more disastrous. Sometimes the prison guards find them hanging and blue; sometimes their necks get broken when they jump from their bed, the sheet tied around the neck that's also wrapped around the grate covering the light in the ceiling snapping taut with a pop. I've seen the spirit leaving men in SHU and have witnessed the results.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Five Unforgettable Stories From Inside Solitary Confinement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Years ago, when we were down in Louisiana working on a story about the notorious plantation prison called Angola, a man who had served nearly 20 years shared with us what he thought to be a common misconception about prisons.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Perspectives from those who work and live in the criminal justice system. Sign up to receive "Life Inside" emailed to you every week.

I spent 22 years and 36 days in solitary confinement. They sent me there on the Feb. 3, 1992, to separate me from some new, young gang members arriving at the prison. Then they kept me in segregation after I attempted to strangle a guard. For the last five of those years in solitary, I never once came out of my cell.

I used to go out to the exercise yard completely alone. But one day when I was out there, it was suddenly like all the air around me became a pressure force. I felt like I was between two pillars of concrete that were moving and crushing me, like I was having a heart attack. I couldn't breathe. I started banging on the door to the yard to go back inside. I knew I needed to get out of this open area. I ran back to my cell. And within minutes, I was okay again.

It happened again when I went to the shower room. It felt like so much open space, my heart was exploding, my brain was exploding. I had the opposite of claustrophobia. I realized if it wasn't a small, small cell, it was too much for me. I was content in there, so I didn't leave. Then the light started bothering me, so I covered that one window. I didn't turn on the lights unless I absolutely had to. I lived in darkness. I was happy like that. Nobody bothered me.

Eventually, just the thought of coming out of my cell for any reason would send me into a panic. Some of the guards used that to their advantage. They'd say, "We're gonna pull you out of your cell," just to play with me. Finally they got to a point where they were like: Just leave him there.

Sometimes I wouldn't be given a toothbrush or toothpaste, so my teeth started to rot. Some of them got abscessed, and it would hurt so bad, but I couldn't leave to go to the dentist. So I would just get the nylon out of the mattress-strong nylon string-and I'd force it up into my molars and tie it really tight. I would keep working and working and most times I would get the molar out by the root. I pulled four teeth that way.

Little by little I started divorcing myself from everyone I had known in my life before solitary. I would live in fantasies. I would create relationships with imaginary people, and I'd fall in love with them, sometimes for months. Like, I'd be in a store, knocking on melons to find a ripe one, and that's how I would meet somebody. We'd have a date, and I'd be a regular person. I imagined what kind of husband I'd be, what kind of father. Even that got to be so painful because there's nothing so miserable as unrequited love.

My memories of my real life started to fade. I began shutting everything out. I didn't feel anymore. I just went away. I literally forgot that I had a family. There was no day or night. That nothingness, emptiness, became my whole life. The chaplain told me he would come to visit me, and I wouldn't even realize he was there.

They came and got me from Ely Maximum Security Prison on Tuesday, March 11, 2014. The warden, psychologist, a couple guys from the emergency response team came up to the cell. They found out I would soon be getting out of prison, otherwise I'm sure they wouldn't have remembered me. They had to try to get me to be around people again and not hurt anybody, to be a regular person. I was basically their test case, a guy who they'd thrown away but were now picking up out of the garbage can.

When they came to my cell, I could barely speak. In my head, I knew the words I was saying, and I thought I was speaking them, but they were coming out as garbled because I hadn't talked to anyone for so long. My vocal chords were weak. I literally begged them, please don't make me come out of my shell. It took them more than seven hours to get me to come out. When I had to pack up my things, I didn't know where to begin, so I just started spinning in circles. One of the officers came in and helped roll up my property. He said, "Just keep your eyes closed, and hold onto me."

They put the belly-chains on me, and I grabbed ahold of his belt. I kept my eyes closed the whole way, because I knew that if I opened them, I'd get crushed. They put the black box handcuffs on me real tight, and my wrists swelled up. Then they put me in a van with just me and two guards up front. We drove for nearly seven hours to Northern Nevada Correctional Center, where the psychiatric unit is. I kept my eyes closed the whole time. I just focused on the pain in my wrists so I wouldn't think about anything else.

I was in the psych ward for 10 months. The first time I met the associate warden, I asked her to send me back to Ely. I didn't want to be there. I had developed a real mental illness. Being in a cell like that with nothing, all you got is your mind, and it's already warped from years of fighting to stay alive, it's not right. It's not human, it's not normal. But I had to learn to adjust.

I started by coming out of my cell for two minutes at a time, when no one else was on the tier. They had steel tables, so I'd come outside and wipe them down to keep myself busy. When I thought it had been about two minutes, I would run back. It's like holding your breath, you can only hold it for so long. The next day they'd open the door, leave the tier, and I knew I had to do it again. I'd do it a little bit longer, count a little higher. I slowly got more comfortable. I spent more and more time around the guards and other inmates. One day, they let me tour the exercise yard while everyone else was locked up, to get a feel for it. Then they moved me to general population.

I was still afraid of people, though, because I felt so disconnected. It was like oil and water. I would be in the chow hall, and there would be a couple hundred people in there but it felt like 20,000. The noise became a cacophony of sounds that was so intense I wanted to cover my ears. I can't stand to have anybody behind me. There were times I had to stand up and eat so I could constantly turn around. The officer would say, you're sitting down or you're not eating, so I put my tray away and left.

I got out of prison on Dec. 21, 2018, after serving 42 years, 9 months and 15 days. I wear a smile on my face, but there's a war going on inside. Someone got me a hoodie, and the other night, I was standing outside the door of the halfway house, just feeling the air. I saw somebody's head behind me. It was so intense, I turned around and drove my body towards it. I fell down, because there was nobody there. It was the hood of the hoodie that had come over to the side. It looked like a head behind me.

Another time I went to Walmart, I walked in and there's a big screen TV. All of a sudden, I was on it. I saw myself. I said, "What the hell?" I started walking down the aisles. I was trying on tennis shoes, then there was another TV, and there I was. I'm looking around thinking, "What did they do, put me in a computer?" I walked to the aisle, and it looked like it stretched out for miles. I couldn't breathe. I saw a restroom sign, and I just went and locked myself in a stall for 15 minutes, yelling at myself in my head. I eventually steeled myself and left. But I was bothered by how I lost control like that. I've been in life and death situations numerous times, and it didn't bother me like this did.

Sometimes I will go into the bathroom to relax. When you go in there and turn the light off, it's completely dark. You can't see nothing. And I just ... sigh. I feel so calm and peaceful. Isn't that sad? That I feel at home, in blackness? Something's wrong there. And that bothers me. I feel like an alien. It's like I have so much conditioning from all those years where I didn't think, I just acted instinctively. Now I'm out here trying to re-pattern the grooves in my brain.

Even now, there's still a part of me that wants that abyss. Where there's no thought, no feeling. I just want to be gone, away from everybody and everything. And that's where I feel safe. Prison has been my whole life. Am I too damaged to ever belong? Am I gonna make it out here? It's a scary feeling.
Frank De Palma served more than four decades in Nevada state prison for grand larceny, battery, second-degree murder and attempted murder. He was released in December.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
I Spent 22 Years in Solitary Confinement. Then I Didn't Want to Leave

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Perspectives from those who work and live in the criminal justice system. Sign up to receive "Life Inside" emailed to you every week. I spent 22 years and 36 days in solitary confinement. They sent me there on the Feb. 3, 1992, to separate me from some new, young gang members arriving at the prison.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.joinonelove.org/learn/inside-the-mind-of-a-stalker/

# data[].attributes.body
It’s a hell of a feeling to stand when you know you’re going to be beaten; you know there will be pain but your moral principles won’t let you back down’

# data[].attributes.body
‘the following of a person about or the watching or frequenting of the vicinity of, or an approach to a person’s place of residence, business or work or any place that a person frequents for the purposes of any social or leisure activity’.

# data[].attributes.body
Mrs Garbett

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Solitary confinement, or segregation as it is known in British prisons, is used fairly sparingly in prisons in England and Wales, according to the European Prison Observatory.

Solitary confinement, or segregation as it is known in British prisons, is used fairly sparingly in prisons in England and Wales, according to the European Prison Observatory.

The total segregation capacity of prisons in England and Wales was 1,586 cells in 2015, including 54 places in "close supervision centres", which house some of the most dangerous men in the system. Not every prison has a segregation unit.

British penal practice differs from that of many other European countries in that segregation units are used not only to isolate inmates for reasons of order and discipline, but also to separate vulnerable prisoners who are at risk of self-harm or harm from others.

More than a third of 50 prisoners interviewed for a 2015 Prison Reform Trust (PRT) study, Deep Custody, said they had deliberately engineered a move into segregation in order to escape violence or lack of discipline on general prison wings or to raise concerns about their treatment and conditions.

The PRT study found that almost one in 10 prisoners had spent at least one night in segregation, which it described as "complex places where some of the prison's most challenging individuals are confined alongside some of the most vulnerable people, within a small enclosed space".

The specialist close supervision centres (CSCs), or "prisons within a prison", are sometimes referred as "a secret world within the high-security estate" and described as "like a submarine", with little light and austere cages for exercise yards.

Prisoners' complaints about their isolation are often couched in terms of mental torture. A recent prison inspectors' report highlighted concerns about potential mental health problems and the disproportionate number of black and Muslim men held in the system, but also described the humanity and care of staff as impressive.

The report concluded that CSCs provided the means to manage the most dangerous men in a way that minimised the risks to others, while offering them decent and safe basic conditions.

The PRT report said those in the more general segregation units also experienced a combination of social isolation, inactivity and increased control that was proven to harm mental health and wellbeing.

The average stay in CSCs is more than 40 months, but the overwhelming majority - 71% - of those on the general units spend less than 14 days in segregation.

They often endure impoverished regimes comprising little more than a short period of exercise, a shower, a phone call and meals. The 20 to 30 minutes of exercise is well short of the UN's Mandela rules, which require a minimum of 60 minutes.
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
UK's most vulnerable and dangerous inmates live side by side in solitary

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Solitary confinement, or segregation as it is known in British prisons, is used fairly sparingly in prisons in England and Wales, according to the European Prison Observatory. Solitary confinement, or segregation as it is known in British prisons, is used fairly sparingly in prisons in England and Wales, according to the European Prison Observatory.

# data[].attributes.body
Mrs Garbett

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
y wrists were handcuffed to my waist by a leather strap. These restraints would become standard for me for decades to come. They walked me to a car and I got in. A captain next to me started elbowing me in my chest, face, and ribs. They drove me to a building just inside the front gate that housed the reception center and death row. Inside was a cellblock called closed cell restricted, or CCR: another name for solitary confinement. In the stairwell they beat me viciously. I couldn't fight back or defend myself because of the restraints.

My body was badly bruised from being beaten but I was still able to move around the cell on my own. I walked to shake off the pain. The cell was 9ft long and 6ft wide. I could take four or five steps up and back the length of the cell.

In the late afternoon of 17 April 1972, the guards brought my friend Herman Wallace in and put him in the cell next to me. He had been beaten badly in the dungeon and in the stairwell of CCR. I couldn't see him but we stood at our bars next to each other and talked. We talked about how we could let our families and party members know what happened to us. We both thought that the Black Panther party would save us and there would be a movement to free us. I thought there would be mass protests in the street. "The people will rise up and not let us be railroaded," Herman said. That's how naive we were.

We were locked down 23 hours a day. There was no outside exercise yard for CCR prisoners. There were prisoners in CCR who hadn't been outside in years. We couldn't make or receive phone calls. We weren't allowed books, magazines, newspapers, or radios. There were no fans on the tier; there was no access to ice, no hot water in the sinks in our cells. There was no hot plate to heat water on the tier. Needless to say, we were not allowed educational, social, vocational, or religious programs; we weren't allowed to do hobby crafts (leatherwork, painting, woodwork). Rats came up the shower drain at the end of the hall and would run down the tier. We threw things at them to keep them from coming into our cells. Mice came out at night. When the red ants invaded they were everywhere all at once, in clothes, sheets, mail, toiletries, food.

Our meals were put on the floor outside our cell doors. We stuck our hands through the bars to pull the trays underneath the door into our cell. Anytime we were taken off the tier, even if we were moving just outside the door to the bridge, we were forced to strip, bend over, and spread our buttocks for a "visual cavity search", then after we got dressed we were put in full restraints.

If there is one word to describe the next years of my life it would be "defiance". White inmate guards virtually ran CCR at the time. These inmate guards were brutal in their treatment of prisoners housed in CCR. They liked to threaten and taunt us, but they made sure to do it only if they were outside our cells or when we were in restraints. They weren't stupid enough to put their hands on us if we weren't restrained. They hated me and Herman because we didn't put up with their racist comments. If they talked trash to us we talked trash back just as bad.

We talked down to them. We resisted orders. If they were jumping a prisoner we shook the bars and yelled. Any act of resistance ended the same way: four or five of them would come into the cell and jump us. It's a hell of a feeling to stand when you know you're going to be beaten; you know there will be pain but your moral principles won't let you back down. I was always scared shitless. Sometimes my knees would shake and almost buckle. I forced myself to learn how not to give in to fear. That was one of my greatest achievements in those years. I didn't let fear rule me. We were always outnumbered. I was scared, but I was mentally strong.

Gassing prisoners was the number one response by security to deal with any prisoner at Angola who demanded to be treated with dignity. In the 70s we were gassed so often every prisoner in CCR almost became immune to the teargas.

The most effective way of protesting was the hunger strike. If we didn't eat for three days prison officials were required by law to notify the Louisiana department of public safety and corrections. Ranking officers didn't want state officials called to the prison. They might find something wrong besides what the prisoners were protesting. Once we voted to go on a hunger strike to get toilet paper that wasn't being passed out. Just the threat of a hunger strike, that time, got the tier guard to pass out the toilet paper. Our victories were few, but each victory made up for the losses before it. It was an adrenaline rush to win.

Herman, Robert King, and I had so many battles with the administration during the 70s that they run together in my mind now. Any one of our protests could have gone on for a few hours or a whole day, and there were some that lasted day and night.

There was a prisoner on D tier named Arthur Mitchell who had a lot of success filing lawsuits against the prison. For that reason, the guards didn't fuck with him. I borrowed a dictionary of law terms from Arthur and started checking law books out of the prison library. I read case law, day and night, standing, sitting, or lying in my bunk. Some days I sat on the floor of my cell with four or five law books open around me.

Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox in the early 1970s. Photograph: In the Land of the Free film still

The first lawsuit I won, around 1974 or 1975, was against the department of corrections rule that didn't allow prisoners to wear any items of clothing with brand names or logos.

Between filing grievances, going to court, and our constant protests on the tier to be treated humanely, we gradually gained privileges that had not been allowed in CCR before. Over time we were granted permission to have individual fans, radios, and books in our cells. We could subscribe to newspapers and magazines. In the mid-70s, we got screens on the windows that kept the mosquitoes out. Sometime in the late 70s, Herman, King, and I were actually allowed to share a record player.

My proudest achievement in all my years in solitary was teaching a man how to read. His name was Charles. We called him Goldy because his mouth was full of gold teeth. The first time I heard Goldy read a sentence out of a book I told him how proud I was of all he'd learned. He thanked me and I told him to thank himself. "Ninety-nine per cent of your success was because you really wanted to read," I said. Within a year he was reading at a high school level. The world was now open to him.

Solitary confinement is used as a punishment for the specific purpose of breaking a prisoner. Nothing relieved the pressure of being locked in a cell 23 hours a day. In 1982, after 10 years, I still had to fight an unconscious urge to get up, open the door, and walk out.

The only way you can survive in these cells is by adapting to the painfulness. The pressure of the cell changed most men. I'd see men who'd lived for years with high moral principles and values suddenly become destructive, chaotic.

You look for the good. This can set you up for disappointment. Once I did some legal work for a prisoner that reduced his sentence to "time served". He was going to be released from prison because of the work I did for him. The day after he found out he came to the door of my cell and threw human waste at me. He was pissed off because I was watching the news and I wouldn't let him change the TV channel to a different program. You can't hold on to those experiences or you become bitter. Every day you start over. You look for the humanity in each individual.

I made my bed every morning. I cleaned the cell. I had my own cleanup rag I used to wipe down the walls. When they passed out a broom and mop I swept and mopped the floor of my cell. I worked out at least an hour every morning in my cell.

By the time I was 40 I saw how I had transformed my cell, which was supposed to be a confined space of destruction and punishment, into something positive. I used that space to educate myself, I used that space to build strong moral character, I used that space to develop principles and a code of conduct, I used that space for everything other than what my captors intended it to be.

In my forties, I saw how I'd developed a moral compass that was unbreakable, a strong sense of what was right or wrong, even when other people didn't feel it. I saw it. I felt it. I tasted it. If something didn't feel right, then no threat, no amount of pressure could make me do it. I knew that my life was the result of a conscious choice I made every minute of the day. A choice to make myself better. A choice to make things better for others. I made a choice not to break. I made a choice to change my environment. I knew I had not only survived 15 years of solitary confinement, I'd honored my commitment to the Black Panther party. I helped other prisoners understand they had value as human beings, that they were worth something.

Malcolm X wrote, "Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time." Malcolm gave me direction. He gave me vision. The civil rights leader Whitney Young said of being black: "Look at me, I'm here. I have dignity. I have pride. I have roots. I insist, I demand that I participate in those decisions that affect my life and the lives of my children. It means that I am somebody." There wasn't one saying that carried me for all my years in solitary confinement, there were one thousand, ten thousand. I pored over the books that spoke to me. They comforted me.

The closest I ever came to breaking in prison was after my mom died, on 27 December 1994. I used to tell myself, "If you can breathe you can get through anything." When my mom died my breath was snatched from me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't catch my breath. I always thought if I lived long enough, I'd win. But now she was gone and I could never have her in my life again, no matter how long I lived. I wondered if, without my mom, I would ever be able to breathe again.

A year after my mom passed away I was sitting on my bunk trying to figure something out when I heard my mom's voice in my head. It was like her voice echoed through the years to speak to me.

On my release, on 19 February 2016, my brother Michael took me home and I lived with him and his wife and son in their house for almost a year. I got medical care that I needed. In my mind, heart, soul, and spirit I always felt free, so my attitudes and thoughts didn't change much after I was released. But to be in my physical body in the physical world again was like being newly born. I had to learn to use my hands in new ways - for seat belts, for cellphones, to close doors behind me, to push buttons in an elevator, to drive. I had to relearn how to walk down stairs, how to walk without leg irons, how to sit without being shackled.

Albert Woodfox accompanied by his brother Michael Mable on his release from prison. Photograph: BILLY SOTHERN/EPA

It took about a year for my body to relax from the positions I had gotten used to holding while being restrained. I allowed myself to eat when I was hungry. Gradually, over two years, I let go of the grip I held against feeling pleasure, and of the unconscious fear that I would lose everything I loved.

Michael told me I needed to make new memories, and I did. I'd always dreamed of going to Yosemite national park after seeing a National Geographic special about it years before in CCR. At the invitation of old friends and former Panthers Gail Shaw and BJ, I flew to Sacramento. Scott Fleming came up from Oakland to meet us and we drove to Yosemite together. We hiked to the falls I wanted to see, and we stayed in the park overnight.

A great joy has been getting to know my daughter and her children. My great-grandchildren are my hope. The innocence, intelligence, and happiness in their eyes give me strength. I want to keep going for them, keep speaking out, keep fighting. I hope to leave them a better world than the one I had. I hope they can find the spirit of my mom, their great-great-grandmother, when they need her, as I did.

I bought a house. I'm still a news junkie and usually have news on the TV. I can still only sleep a few hours at a time. I am often wide awake around 3am, when I used to get some "quiet time" in prison. Many people ask me if I ever wake up and think I'm still in prison. I always know where I am when I wake up. But sometimes I walk into a room in my house and I don't know why, and then I walk into all the rooms for I don't know what reason. I still get claustrophobic attacks. Now I have more space to walk them off. For peace of mind, I mop the floors in my home.

Excerpted from Solitary, copyright © 2019 by Albert Woodfox. Reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. Solitary will be published in the UK in March 2019 by Text Publishing. All rights reserved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
After 40 years in solitary confinement, activist Albert Woodfox tells his story of survival

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
y wrists were handcuffed to my waist by a leather strap. These restraints would become standard for me for decades to come. They walked me to a car and I got in. A captain next to me started elbowing me in my chest, face, and ribs.

# data[].attributes.body
https://youtu.be/Q7ajzsh-i54

# data[].attributes.body
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment distinguished by living in single cells with little or no meaningful contact to other inmates, strict measures to control contraband, and the use of additional security measures and equipment.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is a list of incidents of cannibalism, or anthropophagy, as the consumption of human flesh or internal organs by other human beings. Accounts of cannibalism date back as far as prehistoric times, and some anthropologists suggest that cannibalism was common in human societies as early as the Paleolithic Era.

# data[].attributes.body
About solitary confinement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers.... I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body.
-Charles Dickens, on visiting prisoners in solitary confinement at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, 1842
Any imposition of solitary confinement beyond 15 days constitutes torture.
-Juan E. Méndez, United Nations special rapporteur, August 5, 2011
Javier Panuco (over 5 years in solitary): Sometimes I can still smell it: the same soap everybody used, the smell of mildew, the smell of the algae that we had on our concrete yard.

Jacob Barrett (over 20 years in solitary): It smells like the toilet of a men's locker room at a run-down YMCA. It's people farting, burping, and sweating, smearing shit on their walls and windows, flooding toilets full of piss and shit.

Shawn Smith (15 years in solitary): I've had these cell walls make me see delusions. I've tried to kill myself a few times. I've smeared my own blood on my cell walls and ceiling. I would cut myself just to see my own blood.

Danny Johnson (24 years in solitary): The worst thing that's ever happened to me in solitary confinement happens every day. It's when I wake up.

Steven Czifra (8 years in solitary): That's what people don't understand when you try to explain. I'm there for eight years, and in that eight years, they have eight years of experiences. I have one day of experiences. Every day is the same.

There are two kinds of solitary confinement in the United States. One starves a prisoner's senses. The other overwhelms them. In a Supermax-a high-tech dungeon specifically designed to warehouse men in isolation-a prisoner has virtually no contact with other human beings. Locked behind a slab of steel into a cell smaller than a parking space, he smells and touches only cement. He hears only the incessant hum of a dim fluorescent light that never goes off. If he's fortunate, he'll have a window.

Alternatively, in seg-an isolation cell in a max-security prison-he hears the screams and rants of other convicts echoing through the tier, morning and night. He smells it when those prisoners smear their cell walls with their own shit, when they puke, piss, or bleed. His eyes sting when a neighbor on the tier refuses to obey an order and armed guards storm his cell, beat him, and spray him with mace. Sometimes the prisoner is so cold that he wears both his jacket and his shoes to bed, or so hot he wraps his body in wet rags. All day long, doors slam, walkie-talkies crackle, keys jingle. If he ever gets out of prison, these sounds will trigger him for the rest of his life.

In the age of mass incarceration, solitary confinement-the practice of isolating a human being in a cell for 22 to 24 hours a day-has become a punishment of first resort in America. It's the prison of the prison system, and like the larger institution that feeds it, it is rife with cruelty, racism, and Constitutional violations. Though it was created to reduce violence, solitary increases it. Though it is meant to be a deterrent, solitary promotes recidivism. Though some authorities still believe the medieval fiction that it fosters personal redemption through habits of meditation and penitence, solitary irreparably harms the human psyche. Researchers believe it damages the body and brain as well, but they can't test this hypothesis, because what we do to prisoners every day-house them in prolonged isolation-is illegal to do to laboratory animals. It is against the law to treat rats the way we treat people in solitary.

A convict can be banished to solitary at a correctional officer's whim, for nearly any reason: assault, gambling, mouthing off, failing to clean his cell, singing, filing grievances, even (incredibly) attempting suicide. He can also be sent there for activism or holding unpopular views-essentially, as a political prisoner. "I told them, 'I haven't done anything,'" says Ojore Lutalo, a black revolutionary who, while serving a sentence in New Jersey for bank robbery, was banished to solitary for 22 years. "They said, 'You could if you wanted to.'" Once in solitary, the prisoner is under extreme scrutiny and may easily incur further violations that extend his term. He can of course file a grievance if his Constitutional rights have been breached; I spoke with one man who says he filed hundreds. But mail mysteriously gets lost in solitary, and litigious prisoners face retaliation.

Solitary has become an American gulag- "the place they dump the trash they most want to be forgotten," as one convict put it to me. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of prisoners in solitary on any given day is approximately 90,000. No national database exists to track who they are, how long they've been held there, or why. Compared with free citizens, they are at least five times as likely to be mentally ill. A City of New York study suggests they are nearly three times as likely as prisoners in the general population to be black and nearly twice as likely to be Latino.

Under President Obama, who called solitary "an affront to our common humanity," the federal government and about half of the states in the country began restricting their use of solitary. These efforts gained bipartisan support for economical, not compassionate, reasons: Solitary is twice as expensive per capita as maximum-security prison. But change must come separately to hundreds of individual jurisdictions across the country-federal, state, and county-and addressing the problem in one place may only mean shifting it onto another. Particularly in states with powerful unions, such as New York and Illinois, correctional officers often condemn and obstruct reform. Their ability to send a prisoner to seg makes them feel safer, even if studies show they probably aren't.

For this article, GQ interviewed 48 current and former prisoners, as well as corrections officials, lawyers, researchers, and activists. Some of these prisoners committed heinous crimes; many did not. Their offenses range from murder to burglary to carjacking to extortion to drug possession or distribution. "I did deserve to go to prison," one man told me, "but I didn't deserve to be tortured." This is what one day, every day, of their lives is like. ( ❖2)

Glenn Turner (24 years in solitary): My breakfast consists of a kid's meal. Two half bowls of cereal, a juice or milk, and a package of sugar.

Clint Terrell (4 years in solitary): Most of the time you were starving. From the time I finished one meal, I'd be looking forward to the next. As soon as it came, I would just devour it. It would be gone in two seconds.

Panuco: Every time you think they're going to open the door, you run to it.

Dennis Hope (22 years in solitary): My palms and feet get moist. I start to pace. I truly know how a dog feels when they are waiting for you to take them outside.

Robert Saleem Holbrook (10 years in solitary): If you are not standing at your door when the guards come, you'll be denied your yard opportunity.

Panuco: I would get lightheaded. My vision would be blurry, because I would be used to only seeing six to ten feet in front of me.

George Hernandez (over 10 years in solitary): They handcuff you through your food port.

Gerard Schultz (18 years in solitary): We must open our mouths to show our gums and under our tongues and lips. We have to run our fingers through our hair, show the backs of our ears, raise our hands, wiggle our fingers, and lift our testicles. If you are uncircumcised, you are told to pull your foreskin back.

Hope: Some inmates are required to wear leg cuffs and paper masks, too.

Holbrook: The guards radio to the booth to open my door. I have to back out of the door as both guards, positioned on my flanks, grab an arm and escort me to the yard.

Hope: The walls of the outside rec area are about 30 feet tall and the roof is open with bars going over the top of it.

Federico Flores (16 years in solitary): Our vision is only a little square on the top of the wall. You hope a plane flies over.

Danny Murillo (7 years in solitary): They used to call the yard "the Dark Ages."

Cesar Francisco Villa (15 years in solitary): Our time is spent pacing the length of the yard, which is approximately 26 feet.

Panuco: Those guys in Guantanamo Bay had soccer balls. They had exercise equipment. We had none of that.

Victoria Brown (5 years in solitary): You're supposed to get an hour a day, but that never happens. It might happen once a week. That just depends on the shift commander and the weather. If there's a raindrop, it's canceled.

Johnson: That's the end of my out-of-cell movement for the day.

Federico Flores: When I got here, I was told by other prisoners, "Find something to do. If you like to read, read. If you like to draw, draw." I would read a lot of things, but it wasn't the best things. Now I pick what I read. I'm older. I've got time, and I've got to use it wisely.

Terrell: I read Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet. I read the Iliad, parts of Dante's Inferno, parts of the Aeneid. You've got to read the same page 50 times to understand it, but you got nothing to do but read.

Chris Medina-Kirchner (6 months in solitary): In my program, they would only give us access to treatment books. Chicken Soup for the Soul-that was a popular one.

Nelson: I used to be able to recite what was on a tube of Colgate toothpaste off the top of my head.

Barrett: In Florida, people will pay just to look at a stinking bargain-books catalog.

Holbrook: I pity the person who is in solitary who cannot read. ( ❖5) There is no other real stimulation.

Ryan Rising (4 years in solitary): You have to work out. If you ain't working out, then your anger is going to boil up. We'd roll up our mats and hang them from the light and punch them like a punching bag.

Turner: We're allowed a television or radio in some places, yet not in others. ( ❖6)

Schultz: Prisoners without TVs or radios act out more-mutilate themselves, try to commit suicide.

Ray Luc Levasseur (13 years in solitary): The idea is TV acts as a pacifier. You could have a flooding toilet and be hollering three days to get them to fix it. But that TV goes out? The guards'll come right in with another one.

From its earliest use in this country, we've known what isolation does to the minds of human beings. The first all-solitary-confinement prison in the U.S., in Auburn, New York, was shut down in 1822, after only 18 months of operation, when the governor visited and saw that every one of its 26 prisoners had become psychotic. Solitary didn't come back into widespread use until the 1970s, when officials deployed it to suppress an exploding prison population that was agitating, sometimes violently, for its civil rights: decent medical care, a fair parole policy, and an end to slave wages.

The officials began to envision a new kind of facility-a building that would itself be a tool to suppress rebellion. Principles of control, isolation, surveillance, and subjugation would be embodied in its very architecture. Lighting and design would be calculated to skirt as closely as possible, without violating it, the Eighth Amendment's "cruel and unusual" standard: As Sharon Shalev observes in Supermax: Controlling Risk Through Solitary Confinement, the building's constitutionality itself was at issue. In 1987, Arizona opened a high-tech, all-solitary-confinement dungeon: the first supermax. The impact on human beings was scarcely any different than it had been in 1822, except that now we had modern tools to measure it: "Even a few days of solitary confinement," researcher Stuart Grassian writes, will transform a prisoner's EEG into "an abnormal pattern characteristic of stupor and delirium."

A prisoner held in solitary confinement often feels he has ceased to exist to his loved ones, whose lives have gone on without him. Craig Haney of UC Santa Cruz, a pioneer in the field, calls this "social death": "The prisoner," he explains, "grieves for the person he used to be." One prisoner put it to me this way: "Solitary confinement feels like like you're at a funeral of someone you loved dearly, but you can't cry."

A body of literature going back decades documents the psychic anguish of isolation- severe depression, rage, panic attacks, PTSD, paranoia, hallucinations, self-mutilation. The suicide rate in solitary is five to ten times higher than it is in the general prison population. In studies, only a few groups have ever reported feeling as crushed by loneliness as these prisoners do-among them terminally ill cancer patients and people in rural communities who are suffering from AIDS. "Solitary confinement," Justice Anthony Kennedy told Congress in March of 2015, "literally drives men mad." ( ❖7)

I asked a staff psychiatrist at Pelican Bay State Prison how he helps prisoners whose suffering is compounded each day they spend in isolation. With his salt-and-pepper beard and sweater, he was a familiar, reassuring figure. But when I suggested that solitary confinement causes mental illness, he retorted, "Bunch of bull." Some prisoners, he assured me, actually prefer solitary to general population: "The SHU is very comforting. You've got your little corner. You just stay out of trouble." Just yesterday, he said, he'd taken some court-compliance people around the SHU to interview prisoners-"the guys"-about their living conditions. "I told the guys, 'I want your honest opinions: What makes you uncomfortable? Are you eating right, sleeping right, exercising? Are you being treated properly?' [They replied,] 'I'm being treated great! Oh, I'm highly satisfied!' I told the guys to be honest," he repeated.

During that visit to Pelican Bay, I glimpsed one prisoner's "little corner." This was in a nearly vacant unit of the SHU reserved for the floridly psychotic, where the perforated doors are lined with Plexiglas to prevent the flinging of bodily fluids. Placards alert female guards that certain prisoners will masturbate if they approach. Through the door of his cell, the man-thick dark hair, glasses, mid 20s, Latino-looked impatient or annoyed. He was gesturing with one hand, explaining something to an audience that wasn't there. On my side of the Plexiglas, not a word was audible. This was beyond solitude. It was like glimpsing someone through the porthole of a capsule just before he's swept away forever into outer space.

Nelson: Within the first week, I started talking to myself. I would think I was seeing stuff out of the corner of my eye. I would turn my head real fast, like I saw something in my cell. The hallucinations-it's not something a lot of us talk about, but all of us had them real bad. You see somebody else in your cell. You hear voices on the stair or coming through the vent.

Turner: My obsessive thoughts are primarily about cleanliness and poison. I know that the staff are watching me and listening to me. I know they have prisoner informants and listening devices directed toward me. I can take measures towards these things. But they will try to poison me by some means or another. I doubt that it will be by food. It'll most likely be from something being put in or onto my sheets, pillowcase, toilet seat, door, etc. So I try to take reasonable cleaning measures to minimize these liabilities or weak spots.

Jose Flores (11 years in solitary): You get a lot of OCD in the SHU. I've got blisters from wringing out towels and laundry. But I mean, that's normal.

Lutalo: First, the prisoner starts neglecting their personal hygiene. He'll withdraw. You'll start seeing a distant look in their eyes: They're going through the changes. You try to talk to the prisoner, encourage him to come outside. Stop talking to a psychologist, because they're trying to get you on psychotropic drugs. And once they got you on the drugs, you do the smack-mouth [ makes rapid lip-smacking noise]. Your hands lock up. You do the shuffle. You develop a potbelly. And you're gone.

Holbrook: To witness this is like being in a troop line marching across a parched desert and seeing a man collapse out of the line from thirst. The line keeps on moving because it has to in order to survive.

Panuco: There's this stigma about seeking help, so none of us ever did it. There's this macho culture, so if someone sees that you're depressed, you're a potential informant. You don't want to be the guy who's saying how bad SHU is. Those are the dudes that don't make it. Saying, "It's not that bad" is a survival mechanism. You have to believe your own lie.

Sarah Jo Pender (over 5 years in solitary): After nine months of isolation I started taking psychiatric medication. Then a different medication. Then I'd change meds because of intolerable side effects at high doses. After 15 months, I had what the psychiatrist called a psychotic break. I am two years free of solitary confinement, but I am still a slave to little green pills. My personality has essentially been amputated.

Federico Flores: The SHU makes you a different person. You start talking to yourself like they do in the soap operas. I've been with people that were the brightest people. One day they just started having conversations with nobody. Next thing you know, they're banging on the walls or throwing feces. You start thinking, I've got to keep myself focused.

Panuco: A friend had some psychological problems. He refused medication because he didn't want nobody to think that he was weak. We knew something was wrong with him, so we would always check on him. One day, he just snapped. He wouldn't come out to the rec yard. He wouldn't eat. One day he just rubbed feces all over the cell and on himself. They were going to send him to the psych ward. I never heard from him after that.

Lutalo: The feces thing-that's a common practice. Some mentally ill prisoners would defecate in the shower. Some would put their feces on the dinner tray and pass it back.

Gregory Koger (over 7 years in solitary): They used to give you these little pens called security pens, a tiny ink cartridge in this clear plastic tube. You could connect those tubes together to make a hose. I've heard of guys who made a long-ass hose to the guy that's in the cell next to him and shot him down with piss and shit. They would do it to COs [correctional officers], too.

Todd Ashker (28 years in solitary): Staff were only giving us half of the rations we were supposed to get*, so we filled milk cartons with shit and flung it all over every time we'd come out for showers. After about two weeks, they began giving us our full issue.

Nelson: The rule was nobody could be there with a [previously diagnosed] mental illness. What happens when you develop a mental illness while you're there? There was a guy who was there because he'd smoked marijuana while he was on probation; he cut off part of one of his testicles, and he also cut off some of his fingers. Another guy stood on top of the cement bunk and dove headfirst into the toilet, over and over, until he crushed his skull in.

Turner: I once stood at my cell door attempting to engage a young kid in conversation, only to witness him slit his own throat in the middle of answering a question.

William Casiano (18 months in solitary): An older man cut his wrists. He filled a Styrofoam cup with blood and flung it on the glass of the door and all over his room, then lay down and died. I watched all of this through the crack on the side of my cell door.

Levasseur: A guard at [the federal supermax] ADX told me there was a prisoner they had in four-point restraints because he kept eating his own flesh.

Lutalo: They're trying to break you psychologically. There's a change you have to go through. You have to suppress all your emotions. You develop a calculated hate for your adversary.

Richard Wembe Johnson (19 years in solitary): I was taken down to the lieutenant's office and told that my sister was on the speakerphone at that very moment. I knew something was wrong; you hardly ever get access to a phone. As my sister described the events that led up to my brother's death, the two guards were watching me intently. I knew that they were looking for that clue in my eyes of complete surrender, tapping out. They asked me did I want to talk or see the chaplain. I said no and asked to go back to my cell. To this day I've yet to mourn properly.

Hope: My biggest fear is losing my sanity. I've seen countless men lose touch with reality and go crazy. I often think that some actions in here are part of a conspiracy to drive me insane. But that's the catch: If you lose your mind, then they discredit your account of things. If you maintain your sanity, they say that's proof that solitary doesn't drive men crazy.

Leon Benson (11 years in solitary): I was so full of indigant rage I would black out sometimes.

Turner: What methods do I use to maintain my self-possession and dignity? I can't say that I have. I simply have remained alive.

Hope: Lunch usually is some form of "pot meal" that has noodles in it. The vegetables are canned and often have insects-grasshoppers, crickets-or their body parts inside. The servings are so small you're lucky to get five bites.

Casiano: When we get beans, we are liable to get rocks or pebbles with them. We get watered-down tea or juice, which the other day we were advised not to drink because roaches were found in the juice cooler.*

Rising: Everything changes in your diet when you go back there. They take little things out-cheese, fruits, cake, juices.* I lost a lot of weight.

Barrett: I've been put on half rations, where I only get half the food.* I've been put on Nutraloaf-a foul food loaf of I don't know what the fuck. ( ❖9)

Rising: You can sell your shower to the guards: In exchange for not having to take you to the shower, they'll give you an extra tray.

Holbrook: After lunch, depending on my mood, I either continue reading or lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling for an hour or so.

Schultz: There's no school or self-help programs allowed, nor are we allowed to work or have a job. One time at a hearing they had the audacity to ask me "what have I done in [solitary] to earn my way out."

Reginald Dwayne Betts (1 year in solitary): I spent a lot of time obsessing over a future that I could neither predict nor imagine but at least I hoped I prepared myself for. Sometimes it was just really basic things: Can I do 100 pushups in a day? Can I do 200? Solitary was managing the tedium, it was managing minutiae, and it was finding a way to get lost in that.

Casiano: We write "kites," or notes.

Terrell: We would spin the elastic out of the waistbands of our boxers. You would tie that line to a piece of soap or a peanut-butter packet and slide it out your door, and then your neighbor throws his line out the door, and the two lines get tangled up together, and he pulls it into his cell. I'd bang on the floor or the wall to let them know that I got it. You can pass coffee like that, notes, soups, weapons, whatever.

Carlos "Mr. Bigmann" Grier (5 years in solitary): I could talk through the ventilation system to [another prisoner] whose cell was under mine. We'd have to stand on top of the sinks.

Levasseur: If you take the water out of the toilet and holler into it, it acts as a megaphone, and the prisoner in the next cell can hear you through the other toilet a little bit.

Benson: The oppressive environment causes many solitary prisoners to have verbal diarrhea. As if making noise will somehow drown out their loneliness and fear, the way a superstitious person would whistle or whisper a religious verse when passing a graveyard.

Casiano: When the inmates are upset about something or are trying to get the attention of officers they do what is called "bucking," which is when they all gather at their doors and kick the door repeatedly while yelling.

Koger: Say you and me are in a cell next to each other. And for whatever reason I don't like you. So I will spend 24 hours straight banging on your wall. You try to talk to someone down the gallery, and I'll do what's called "shutting it down"-make so much noise it's impossible for that person to talk to someone else.

Holbrook: The noise in solitary is the contained energy of men literally buried alive.

Holbrook: If you want to wash your hair, you have to have the shampoo in your hair when the guards arrive at your door.

Canales: You have no control of the temperature of the water. When it was too hot, it was like torture.

Medina-Kirchner: We got five-minute showers,* freezing cold. People would get stuck with soap in their face and eyes.

Ty Evans (3 years in solitary): I've had to shower while handcuffed. To wash my hair, I'd scrape the cuffs on my scalp.

III. Captives and Captors

No one involved with mass incarceration escapes being dehumanized by it. That includes COs, who experience high rates of depression, domestic violence, substance abuse, and suicide. A third of them suffer from PTSD. "Going into hell for decades at a time will wear you out," says Lance Lowry, president of AFSCME Local 3807, a CO union in Huntsville, Texas. There is reason to believe that these effects may be even more pronounced in COs assigned to isolation units.

In states where turnover is high and salaries are low, prisons may be so desperate to hire guards that they will do very little vetting, if any. In other states, powerful unions may make it all but impossible to get bad COs fired. Human Rights Watch has written that correctional officers "know they can get away with excessive, unnecessary, or even purely malicious violence." Indeed, during the reporting of this piece, GQ heard numerous claims of predatory behavior by guards in isolation units, including beatings, rapes, torture, and even a kind of human cockfighting in which the doors of rival prisoners are "accidentally" popped open.

Frankie Guzman (13 months in solitary): If you were being a little jerk, the guards would handcuff you behind your back, tilt you forward, and let you go. They would call it "tipping." People would often break their nose, cheekbones, crush their face, lose some teeth. They were communicating to us: This is what happens to people who misbehave.

Czifra: You weren't allowed to talk to anybody after lights-out. The guard would open your door in the morning-at that point, you wouldn't know if you'd been caught or not. Then he would shoot you in the face with mace. He'd close the door, let you sizzle for an hour, then come back and take you to the shower, and you'd be grateful and everybody would be happy. I was 16. My first stretch in solitary was supposed to be four months, but my program was reset hundreds of times, because it would happen every week. That was how I did four years.

Thomas Bartlett Whitaker (10 years in solitary): It gets even worse when you have the temerity to file a Section 1983 [asserting a violation of your constitutional rights]. All of a sudden, your mail starts to disappear. You start catching infractions that aren't even physically possible. You get moved to sections filled with psych patients who bang on their walls all night, smear their feces, and breed clouds of gnats that descend upon you like a plague out of Egypt. If you're dumb enough to wonder why you have such an unfortunate new address, they'll just smile at you and remark that maybe you ought to write to someone about it.

Brown: There was this girl that the guard was going to send to the hole, and she was fragile. We were like, "Why are you picking on her? You know she ain't wrapped right." He was like, "Somebody's got to do something for me." So I let this guy touch me, because I didn't want him to send somebody else to seg. I used to tell myself that it wasn't rape because I said, I will.

In 2013, the SHU at California's Pelican Bay State Prison was the site of the signal event in the history of solitary-confinement activism: a hunger strike, organized by men communicating through drainpipes in the yard, that spread across the state to include 30,000 prisoners of all races. "That was the beginning of a national conversation," says Keramet Reiter, author of 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement. "People began to grasp that prisoners in the United States have been in isolation not for just 30 days or a year, but decades." The resulting publicity sparked a federal lawsuit, Ashker v. California, which the state settled in 2015 by agreeing to end both indefinite solitary and solitary based on gang association. California had used solitary more than any other state in America, in part because of gang-related violence. Today, more than two-thirds of solitary prisoners at Pelican Bay have been returned to the general population. But in the zero-sum equation of corrections, the prisoners' gain has been the COs' loss. Guards must now contend with frequent court audits of prison conditions, increased workloads, and staffing shortages. They warn that removing gang members from solitary confinement is a grave mistake.

Officer Justin Cooper (correctional officer at Pelican Bay for 23 years): To send these people back into the general population creates some feelings of apprehension. These people have power and influence. They will undoubtedly be out there recruiting. A lot of them don't even have to carry out the crime anymore. It might be as simple as hanging his rain jacket on the pull-up bar- that's the signal for his entire gang to attack every person on that yard.

Cooper: If these people were able to get my earlobe off me by biting me, they'd wear that as a badge. They are in restraints, but they train to get out of them from the very first day. People with hep C brew cups of feces and throw it into your face. These people have been known to remove one cord at a time out of their elastic boxers, so that we don't notice it during the cell search, to make a bow. ( ❖12) They are constantly assessing you by asking you questions that they already know the answer to, to feel you out, to check your ego, see if you'll admit that you don't know, see if you care enough that you will find out. They're trying to figure out your strengths and weaknesses. Maybe they're even listening to see if you have money problems.

Powell: Some officers feel the inmates are getting everything. I'm trying to keep up morale, but we're seeing safety be diminished. There's the nervous laughter: "When are they going to just close this place down?" And if they do, where do we all go?

Barrett: On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I get a PB&J sandwich for dinner. That's better than the regular dinner, which is highly processed food, rotten veggies, and a red juice we call "red death." It will stain cement.

Koger: You get all your meals in a nine-hour period. Then you don't eat again for like 15 hours. You can't buy commissary in seg.

Brown: In the general population, mice will get in your noodles or cookies [from commissary]. You'll bitch about it. But in seg, we would just watch them: They'd get in the room, realize there's no food there, and just back out.

Brown: Mail is always tricky in prison, but in solitary it's super tricky. It is used as a weapon against you. Your mail disappears. You'll get an envelope with your name on it, but somebody else's mail in it.

Rising: You start feeling abandoned. You start feeling, ain't nobody know what's going on with me. If you don't stay on your routine, you'd get real aggressive. Because you ain't getting your mail.

Hope: Once mail is passed out, it signifies the end of the day. There's little else to look forward to.

Panuco: Solitary didn't reduce your sexual urges. I think I masturbated more in prison than I did as a teenager.

Rising: You can go crazy doing that shit, too. It could just be something that you want to do all day long, just to kill the time.

Lutalo: Some people get addicted. The women in the magazines, they get names: "She's talking to me tonight."

Canales: I used to look at all the little holes in the bricks and try to connect them.

Turner: You rerun every conversation you've ever had and dwell upon every major or minor slight or dis you feel was sent your way, real or imagined.

Schultz: I find myself ruminating obsessively. I find myself recreating all of my would'ves, could'ves, and should'ves. Before I know it, I have been pacing for a few hours. I sort of act out whatever I am thinking about. I have thoughts of my enemies and violent encounters with them. Sometimes I catch myself moving my hands. It's embarrassing to admit. I don't know how to stop it.

Guzman: I couldn't make sense of what was happening to me, and I had no power over it. I thought about it constantly: I am nothing.

Barrett: After over 20 years in solitary I can sleep through the noise. I have homemade earplugs. Still, even though you know the motherfucker screaming is probably mentally ill, you want to smother him with a pillow.

Scott: If they want to, the officers will keep your lights on through the night. * Guys used to break the light just so they could sleep. You'd get punished for that. ( ❖14)

Panuco: We would put toothpaste on the light and block it out.

Holbrook: How did one go to sleep? You became accustomed to the noise or you requested psychotropic medication.

IV. "I Plan Some Payback"

The pod contained sixteen men, half of whom were locked down in their cells in the bilevel tier at the back of the unit. Eight others were gathered in the day hall, a high-ceilinged "congregate area." They wore immaculately white sneakers; these men never go outdoors. Some of them played dominoes at a metal picnic table, but most stood motionless on their side of the door, eyeing visitors with hostility. Correctional officers aren't allowed to interact in person with any of the prisoners here. "In every one of these day halls there is a staff predator," an official told me.

This was a Management Control Unit (MCU) at the Colorado State Penitentiary, the most secure level of a stepdown program designed to move the state's most dangerous prisoners from seg back to the general population.

Rick Raemisch, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, got his job because his predecessor, Tom Clements, was murdered-shot and killed on his doorstep by a white supremacist recently paroled from seven years in solitary. Clements's killer had blamed his deteriorating mental state on his time in isolation. After locking himself in a supermax cell for 20 hours and writing about it in the New York Times, Raemisch became an international voice for reform, and with the governor's support, he began moving the state's most dangerous offenders out of solitary. " It was the most radical change by far I've seen in 22 years," says Travis Trani, then CSP's warden. "I'm a soldier, but I'm thinking, No way." Today, Colorado holds 160 men in seg, down from 1,500 in 2011. Contrary to the fears of staff members, rates of violence, including self-harm, have dramatically declined. But there are still doubters in the ranks: "I'm not going to say that 100 percent of us put our arms around each other's shoulders and skipped down the hallway singing 'Kumbaya,'" Raemisch told me.

Men in the MCU spend four hours a day in the day hall, where they can socialize, use a phone, play games like chess or cards, or work out on stationery exercise equipment. They also participate in educational and self-help programming meant to assist them in their transition to the next, less restrictive level. About thirty other states in the nation are experimenting with similar programs.

A prisoner recognized Trani, who was in our group. Pressing his mouth to the seams of the thick glass door to make himself audible, the man pleaded to be returned to the lower transitional level he had just been "regressed" from. Trani told me that the man had violently resisted being locked up while drunk on homemade alcohol. This was his second time in the MCU. Of Colorado's nearly 20,000 prisoners, seventy-four percent are addicted to drugs, alcohol, or both. More than thirty percent have mental health issues ( ❖15). The ACLU has contended that prisoners in the MCU don't always receive their stipulated four hours of daily out-of-cell time; too many men get stuck there, the organization argues, in a kind of long-term solitary confinement. Raemisch denies this. He does acknowledge, however, that the program may be, at least for some offenders, a kind of revolving door. He says, "You've heard that adage, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink?' I've kind of pushed the philosophy that if you take that horse and throw him in the pond, they're going to get some water just trying to get the hell out of the pond."

When Raemisch first opened their cell doors, 200 men in solitary refused to come out. They had to be coaxed by clinicians using commissary treats and therapy dogs. "Some of these guys will never be ready for being around other inmates," a guard on duty named Seth Kelley told me. "They've been institutionalized for a very long time. A lot of them I think will purposely act out just to stay locked down." It's the first paradox of solitary-confinement reform: officials may want to move men out of solitary, but prisoners, knowing that the general population is where most assaults occur, feel safest in their cells. "Prison is hell," Raemisch says. "I don't care what prison you're in or where you're at."

And then there are the prisoners who go straight from solitary back to the outside world. A Marshall Project/NPR investigation found that 24 states released at least 10,000 convicts from solitary directly to the street in 2014. This is what happened with Tom Clements's killer, and it's the second paradox of solitary confinement: We deem men too dangerous even for a maximum-security prison, we cage and manacle them, we assign armed guards to surveil them, and then, many months or years later, we suddenly unshackle them and dump them onto a bus. ("If I was the bus driver," Raemisch says, "I'd stand up and scream at the top of my lungs, 'Run!'") Today, Colorado is one of a handful of states in the country that does not release men from close custody directly to the street. Instead, Raemisch has created a reentry program of cognitive therapy, vocational programs, and education, the last of which reduces recidivism by 40%. "How do you want them to come back?" Raemisch asks. "Our mission is public safety, and it's our duty to ensure that we send someone out better than when they came in."

Raemisch talks with admiration about Scandinavian correctional philosophy. In recent years, numerous American prison officials have made pilgrimages to one particular Norwegian prison, Halden, to study its methods. At Halden, prisoners wear no restraints, and inhabit bright, airy rooms with private toilets, refrigerators, and flatscreen TVs. Staff, who are unarmed, function as social workers, mentors, and employment counselors. There is virtually no violence. In the U.S., studies suggest that between 60 and 90 percent of prisoners released directly from solitary will reoffend within five years. The recidivism rate at Halden-which uses isolation only as a cooling-off program lasting between several hours and, in rare circumstances, three days-is 20 percent.

In the state of Colorado, just one man remains in indefinite solitary confinement. "We all have our Hannibal Lecters. He's mine," Raemisch told me. "He has said, 'I will come out if you want me to, but if I do, I will kill someone'."

Evans: I'll be released just shy of 75 years old. I don't plan to "re-adjust." I plan some payback. What else is there?

Panuco: I went from absolute solitary confinement to complete freedom. When the parole officer picked me up, I really had nowhere to go. He brought me to a homeless shelter. He goes, "Go inside there, and if you don't like it, I'll get you a hotel voucher." I went in and saw that I didn't want to be there. When I went back outside, we made eye contact, then he burned rubber and left me there. All I could do was laugh.

Rising: They just opened the door one day, gave me $200, and sent me to the Greyhound station. I get off the bus, you look to the right, and there's a bunch of homeless kids. You look to the left, there's all the drugs in the world that you could ask for.

Azul: Three times I was released directly from the SHU. It felt like going to a jungle. Snakes, lions, tigers, you name it. All this movement. It's too fast.

Koger: Three-dimensional stuff was shocking-driving down a street while the trees are moving at one speed and the houses behind them are moving at another speed.

Nelson: My family took me out to a Hooters. I ate a spicy piece of chicken and I couldn't breathe because of the heat and the spices. We never got anything hot in solitary, anything cold. They had to spray some baby formula on my throat.

Azul: The hardest thing is being around people, man. I was at the point where I would piss in a container because I don't like to go out of my room. I heard too much noise out there.

Nelson: Right now I think I have 17 watches in working order. I'm obsessed with knowing what time it is.

Murillo: I clean my fucking room like a motherfucker. I think I have anxiety out here about not having control. In the cell, they can just come in and kick your shit all over the place.

Panuco: I can't be alone, even when I'm in the bathroom. I've been out of Pelican Bay since 2008, and I still cannot use the bathroom with the door closed. I have to be in a room with a toilet while I gather my thoughts, do my self-inventory. I'll go hang out in my friend's bathroom when I'm at his house. I really don't see a problem with it, but other people do.

Nelson: My girlfriend yelled at me a couple months ago. I'm cleaning the house, and I'm dunking the mop in the toilet. In prison, the cleanest spot in your cell is your toilet. You scrub the toilet all day and night, because that's where you wash your sheets, your clothes.

Koger: There was one period I couldn't even get in the bathtub because I had this vision of me bleeding and dying in a fucking bathtub. There's weeks on end I don't even leave my room.

Levasseur: I have violent flashbacks. Rage is a major thing, even with people I'm close to. If I just lay it all out I think people would get scared. They'll say I'm really violent, I'm barely keeping a lid on it. I don't want to scare people, so I keep most of it back. The first year I was out, I was in a store aisle, and all of a sudden I'm looking at a severed head where a cereal box should be. It was somebody I saw undergo one of the most brutal beatings I've ever seen.

Rising: You grow a hatred toward people in general that are outside of your group. You start to really get mad at the world. That's why a lot of people, when they come out, they don't know how to act. I'm very aggressive out here still. I'm very alert. I'm a very defensive thinker. I look everyone in the eyes to size them up. Whenever I enter a room, I look for a way out.

Czifra: It took my partner five years before she could touch me on almost any part of my body that wasn't painful. It was agony. I couldn't be touched. If somebody goosed me, I would punch them in their fucking face. I'm getting a lot better, going to massages and just bearing through. I can tolerate being touched by my kids, but I haven't always.

Koger: I'll see a couple walking down the street being a couple and that makes me feel like shit, because I can't even talk to women.

Rising: I do struggle to fall in love with women. I don't put myself out there. My heart is still rock solid and hard.

Czifra: I anticipate that at some point, the rug is going to be pulled out from underneath me. It always has, and it always will. Every single person in my life except my kids has left me at some point. Everybody's going to leave, everything's temporary. The thing about going to prison and to solitary is they're pulling the rug out from underneath you. There's no buildup. One day you're among the living, and the next you're not.

Nathaniel Penn is a GQ correspondent.

GQ would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Solitary Watch in connecting us with numerous participants in this story. Solitary Watch has produced a new book, Hell Is a Very Small Place, that is a powerful and important collection of first-person narratives about life in solitary confinement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Buried Alive: Stories From Inside Solitary Confinement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is brutal. It is torture by definition. It destroys the mind, body, and soul, making rehabilitation next to impossible. It is also outrageously expensive, and it doesn't work. Yet at the end of the Obama era, and the dawn of Trump's, isolation is as widely used as ever in the American penal system.

# data[].attributes.body
Cannibalism is just an idea, oh and it's Ruairidh by the way

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Alexander "Sawney" Bean was said to be the head of a 45-member clan in Scotland in the 16th century who were reportedly executed for the mass murder and cannibalization of over 1000 people.

The story appears in The Newgate Calendar, a crime catalogue of Newgate Prison in London. While historians tend to believe Bean never existed or that his story has been greatly exaggerated, it has passed into local folklore and become part of the Edinburgh tourism circuit.

According to The Newgate Calendar, Alexander Bean was born in East Lothian during the 16th century.[1] His father was a ditch-digger and hedge-trimmer and Bean tried to take up the family trade, but quickly realized that he had little taste for honest labour.

He left home with a vicious woman named "Black" Agnes Douglas, who apparently shared his inclinations and was accused of being a witch. After some robbing and the cannibalization of one of their victims, the couple ended up at a coastal cave in Bennane Head between Girvan and Ballantrae where they lived undiscovered for some 25 years. The cave was 200 yards deep and the entrance was blocked by water during high tide.

Sawney and Agnes produced eight sons, six daughters, 18 grandsons and 14 granddaughters. Various grandchildren were products of incest between their children.

Lacking the inclination for regular labour, the Bean clan thrived by laying careful ambushes at night to rob and murder individuals or small groups. The bodies were brought back to the cave where they were dismembered and eaten. Leftovers were pickled in barrels and discarded body parts would sometimes wash up on nearby beaches as part of the clan's way of making the people think a wild animal was responsible.

The body parts and disappearances did not go unnoticed by the local villagers, but the Bean clan stayed in their cave by day and took their victims at night. The Bean clan was so secretive that the villagers were unaware of the murderers living nearby.

As more significant notice was taken of the disappearances, several organized searches were launched to find the culprits. One search took note of the cave but the men refused to believe anything human could live in it. Frustrated and in a frenetic quest for justice, the townspeople lynched several innocents and the disappearances continued. Suspicion often fell on local innkeepers since they were the last known to have seen many of the missing people alive.

One fateful night, the Bean clan ambushed a married couple riding from a fayre on one horse, but the man was skilled in combat, thus he deftly held off the clan with sword and pistol. The Bean clan fatally mauled the wife when she fell to the ground in the conflict. Before they could take the resilient husband, a large group of fayre-goers appeared on the trail and the Beans fled. The fayre-goers took the survivor to the local magistrate who was informed of this experience.

With the Beans' existence finally revealed, it was not long before the King (likely James VI of Scotland in tales linked to the 16th century, though other tales are from the 15th) heard of the atrocities and decided to lead a manhunt with a team of 400 men and several bloodhounds. They soon found the Bean clan's previously overlooked cave in Bennane Head thanks to the bloodhounds. Upon entering the cave by torchlight, the searchers found the Bean clan surrounded by human remains with some body parts hanging from the wall, barrels filled with limbs, and piles of stolen heirlooms and jewellery.

There were two versions on what happened next:

The most common of the two is that the Bean clan was captured alive where they gave up without a fight. They were taken in chains to the Tolbooth Jail in Edinburgh, then transferred to Leith or Glasgow, where they were promptly executed without trial as they were seen as subhuman and unfit for one. Sawney and his fellow men had their genitalia cut off and thrown into the fires, their hands and feet severed, and were allowed to bleed to death, with Sawney shouting his dying words: "It isn't over, it will never be over." After watching the men die, Agnes, her fellow women, and the children were burned alive on the stakes from which they were tied to. This recalls, in essence if not in detail, the punishments of hanging, drawing and quartering decreed for men convicted of treason, while women convicted of the same were burned.

There was another claim that gunpowder was placed at the entrance of their cave where they faced the fate of suffocation.

The town of Girvan, located near the macabre scene of murder and debauchery, has another legend about the Bean clan. It is said that one of Bean's daughters eventually left the clan and settled in Girvan where she planted a Dule tree that became known as "The Hairy Tree." After her family's capture and exposure, the daughter's identity was revealed by angry locals who hanged her from the bough of the Hairy Tree.

Sources and veracity Edit

Sawney Bean is often considered a mythical figure. Citing an account of 1843, Dorothy L. Sayers included a gruesome narrative in her anthology Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (Gollancz, 1928. The book was a best-seller in Britain, reprinted seven times in the next five years.)[2] A 2005 article by Sean Thomas[3] notes that historical documents, such as newspapers and diaries during the era in which Sawney Bean was supposedly active, make no mention of ongoing disappearances of hundreds of people. Additionally, Thomas notes inconsistencies in the stories but speculates that kernels of truth might have inspired the legend:

... from broadsheet to broadsheet, the precise dating of Sawney Bean's reign of anthropophagic terror varies wildly: sometimes the atrocities occurred during the reign of James VI [ca. early 1600s], whilst other versions claim the Beans lived centuries before. Viewed in this light, it is arguable that the Bean story may have a basis of truth but the precise dating of events has become obscured over the years. Perhaps the dating of the murders was brought forward by the editors and writer of the broadsheets, so as to make the story appear more relevant to the readership ... To add to the intrigue, we do know that cannibalism was not unknown in mediaeval Scotland and that Galloway was in mediaeval times a very lawless place; perhaps nothing on the scale of the Bean legend took place, but every story grows and is embroidered over time.

The Sawney Bean legend closely resembles the story of Christie-Cleek, which is attested much earlier in the early 15th century.

The legend of Sawney Bean first appeared in the British chapbooks (rumour magazines of the day), which today leads many to argue that the story was a political propaganda tool to denigrate the Scots after the Jacobite rebellions. Thomas disagrees, noting:

If the Sawney Bean story is to be read as deliberately anti-Scottish, how do we explain the equal emphasis on English criminals in the same publications? Wouldn't such an approach rather blunt the point? (See also " Sawney" for this theory).

Another cannibal story from Scotland, even more redolent of the Sawney Bean tale than the Christie-Cleek story, is contained in the 1696 work of Nathaniel Crouch, a compiler and popular history writer publishing under the pseudonym "Richard Burton".[4] In this tale, the following happened in 1459, the year before James II of Scotland's death:[5]

..about which time a certain thief who lived privately in a den, with his wife and children, were all burned alive, they having made it their practice for many years to kill young people and eat them; one girl only of a year old was saved, and brought up at Dundee, who at twelve years of age being found guilty of the same horrid crime, was condemned to the same punishment, and when the people followed her in great multitudes to execution, wondering at her unnatural villainy, she turned toward them, and with a cruel countenance said, "What do you thus rail at me, as if I had done such an heinous act, contrary to the nature of man? I tell you that if you did but know how pleasant the taste of man's flesh was, none of you all would forbear to eat it;" and thus with an impenitent and stubborn mind she suffered deserved death.

Hector Boece relates that the infant daughter of a Scotch brigand, who was executed with his family for cannibalism, though raised by foster parents, developed the cannibal appetite at 12, and was put to death for it. This was summarised by George M. Gould and Walter Pyle in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine.[6]

Popular culture Edit

Wes Craven used Sawney Bean as the inspiration for his film The Hills Have Eyes.[7]

Sawney Bean is used as direct inspiration for the name of two titans in the manga and anime series Attack on Titan written by Hajime Isayama.

References Edit

1. ^ "Sawney Beane". Archived from the original on 2010-06-10.

2. ^ http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1066965

3. ^ Thomas, Sean (April 2005). "In Search of Sawney Bean". Fortean Times. Archived from the original on May 19, 2008.

4. For bio and works: ^ http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/E680001-001/header.html

5. ^ Stace, Machell (1813). The History of the Kingdom of Scotland. p. 135.

6. ^ Gould, George M.; Pyle, Walter L. (1896). Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: W.B. Saunders. p. 409. OCLC 07028696.

7. ^ Maddrey, Joseph (2004). Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. p. 163. ISBN 978-0-7864-1860-2.

External links Edit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alexander "Sawney" Bean was said to be the head of a 45-member clan in Scotland in the 16th century who were reportedly executed for the mass murder and cannibalization of over 1000 people. The story appears in The Newgate Calendar , a crime catalogue of Newgate Prison in London.