On any given day, the United States holds more than eighty-thousand people in solitary confinement, a punishment that-beyond fifteen days-has been denounced as a form of cruel and degrading treatment by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Now, in a book that will add a startling new dimension to the debates around human rights and prison reform, former and current prisoners describe the devastating effects of isolation on their minds and bodies, the solidarity expressed between individuals who live side by side for years without ever meeting one another face to face, the ever-present specters of madness and suicide, and the struggle to maintain hope and humanity. As Chelsea Manning wrote from her own solitary confinement cell, "The personal accounts by prisoners are some of the most disturbing that I have ever read."
These firsthand accounts are supplemented by the writing of noted experts, exploring the psychological, legal, ethical, and political dimensions of solitary confinement.
