Sean Chaney is a formerly incarcerated artist who served a total of 18 years in various federal prisons before returning home in January 2025. Chaney spent significant time in solitary confinement, including a total of 12 years isolated at Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Lewisburg in Pennsylvania. While FCI Lewisburg is infamous for its brutal use of four-point restraints and fatal double-celling solitary, Chaney says that the 15 months he spent awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), a federal jail in Brooklyn, were the worst conditions of his confinement.

During his time at MDC, Chaney says that, despite what a federal judge described as “dangerous, barbaric” conditions, he aimed to be a role model and set an example of strength for younger incarcerated men. He said, “You never know the life you might be saving by giving someone a minute [of your time]. You might be saving another person’s life. It might be the dude you’re talking to, it might be the dude he plans on going to hurt.”

Yesterday, an article by Solitary Watch’s Katie Rose Quandt and Maeve Brennan exposed of the chronically “unconscionable” conditions, deaths, and lockdowns at MDC, underlying the mainstream news coverage of celebrities housed there, such as Sean Combs, Luigi Mangione, and R. Kelly. The article, featuring an interview with Chaney, was co-published on Solitary Watch and the Appeal. —Valerie Kiebala

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I recently walked out of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, but the horrors I witnessed behind those walls will never leave me. The conditions inside are beyond inhumane—they are deliberately cruel. Every day, incarcerated individuals at MDC are subjected to physical and psychological abuse, neglect, and a level of disregard for human life that should shock the conscience of any decent person.

The systematic mistreatment begins with the officers themselves. I have personally seen correctional staff orchestrate violence by placing individuals in units where they knew there was an imminent threat to their lives. These moves weren’t oversights—they were intentional. The result? Multiple deaths, preventable tragedies that happened simply because officers played god with human lives. The blood of these men stains the hands of a system designed to dehumanize and destroy.

Lockdowns are another weapon used to break spirits. Imagine being confined to a cell for 24 hours a day, sometimes for weeks on end. No showers, no fresh air, no access to even the most basic necessities. The adults in custody would be locked down 24 hours a day for weeks at a time without the chance to purchase commissary, and would be forced to eat a goulash of mystery meat that must violate national nutrition standards.

The water runs brown from the taps, making it impossible to drink or even cook the limited commissary food we manage to obtain. Tablets—our only link to the outside world—often sit dead because we are given no opportunity to charge them. We are only allowed to shower if the officers feel like conducting showers, and even then, many times the showers are broken and cold with leaky ceilings. The toilets have timers on them and can only be flushed twice every five minutes. If this pattern is over-used, the toilets’ timers shut down for one hour! Sometimes waste will be sitting in the toilet for an hour until the timer resets. We have to be fed in these conditions during a lockdown. During the lockdowns, there is no phone access. In the 15 months that I was housed at MDC, we were locked down more often than not.

Sadly, during my time at MDC, my mother passed away, and I was unable to attend her service. Locked in for the majority of the time, I was also unable to call home and grieve with my family. The isolation and helplessness were unbearable—enough to drive a person to the brink of suicide.

I have watched these conditions chip away at men’s mental stability. The lack of fresh air, movement, and even basic hygiene creates an environment of desperation and volatility. The system seems to thrive on this instability, creating a cycle where hopelessness breeds conflict, and then that conflict is used as an excuse to impose even harsher conditions.

MDC Brooklyn is not an outlier—it is a reflection of the federal prison system as a whole. The cruelty is not accidental; it is embedded into the very foundation of mass incarceration in this country. People are sent to these facilities to await trial, serve their time, or fight their cases—not to be subjected to conditions that break their minds and bodies beyond repair.

We cannot allow this to continue in silence. Lawmakers, human rights advocates, and the public must demand oversight, accountability, and real change. How many more men must die before we recognize that this system is functioning exactly as it was designed: to destroy rather than rehabilitate? The crisis at MDC is not just a prison issue; it is a moral failure of our society.

For those of us who have survived it, the fight for justice does not end at the prison gates. The voices of the incarcerated must be heard, and the brutality within these institutions must be exposed. But will anyone listen before more lives are lost? One urgent step toward real change would be the enactment of the End Solitary Confinement Act, a federal bill that aims to end the torture of isolation. Yet, this is just one piece of the broader fight. True justice demands immediate action to release people from these abusive prisons and invest in real pathways to healing, support, and freedom.

Banner Photo: Free Press /Global Panorama on Flickr