For the past eleven years, Mason Swanson has been incarcerated in Pennsylvania. He spent seven of those years in solitary confinement. He began writing regularly because letters were the only means of outside contact. Over time, Swanson says, writing became a way to maintain his mental health and create a record of his experiences. Swanson notes that in addition to the written word, he has a passion for computer programming and mathematics, specifically numerical computing, calculus, and mathematical physics. He is the proud father of two daughters. 

In the following piece, Swanson writes about his experience in solitary in the Special Management Unit at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Camp Hill in 2016. SCI Camp Hill has a tumultuous history underscored by the uprising in October 1989, which was sparked by massive overcrowding, the elimination of prison programming, the denial of adequate medical care, and the eradication of family visits. Since then, the prison has faced several investigations and lawsuits, highlighting dangerously negligent and abusive treatment. Between 2019 and 2026, more than 60 incarcerated men have died at Camp Hill—including nine deaths officially ruled as suicides. In 2025 alone, two of these suicides occurred in camera observation “suicide watch” cells similar to the one described by Swanson. 

Mason Swanson can be reached by mail at: Smart Communications/PADOC, Mason Swanson QQ0929, SCI Forest, PO Box 33028, St. Petersburg, FL 33733. —Kilhah St. Fort

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For the final four months of 2016, I was tortured at the hands of prison guards in the Special Management Unit, or SMU, at SCI Camp Hill in Pennsylvania. I was completely naked because I was on “suicide watch,” yet I never spoke to a psychologist, psychiatrist, or doctor. I was also on property restriction because of the suicide watch, so I had nothing at all in my cell. No books, no pictures, no clothes, no shoes, no mattress, no blankets, no sheets—nothing. Not even any toilet paper or soap! When mail came for me, the correctional officers (COs) would let me know, then make a big show of throwing it away. 

Now during this time, I was aware that my mother was battling stage four cancer because I had been getting mail before I had everything taken (before I was transferred to Camp Hill). So about a month into my suicide watch, COs announced over the PA system: “Swanson, the chaplain said your mom passed away in the hospital from cancer. He said it was really bad, and that he should talk to you about it, but we told him you refused.” I didn’t say anything in response, just stayed under the bed and cried. 

The reason I was under the bed is simple: the bed is cold, hard steel about two feet off the concrete floor, and I’m butt naked. There’s a vent above the sink blowing freezing cold air all day, everyday. So even though the steel bunk, inches above me, does nothing to help hold in the heat coming off of my body, it prevents me from being exposed to the wind chill. By the way, that’s no exaggeration. The force of the air being blown out of that vent was like that coming out of an air compressor. 

When the COs passed out food, they made everybody stand at the back of our cells with our hands in front of us, waiting for their permission to come get the food out of the slot. I was, quite frequently, not fed for days at a time. And the days I was fed, it ALWAYS tasted like some kind of cleaning chemicals—a disinfectant or detergent. My water had been turned off, so the only way I could drink was if I lowered my face into the toilet bowl and took a sip. Because the toilet was usually my only source of water, I couldn’t pee or poop in it, so I did that out the door and made a big stinky mess out the front of my door!

I generally stayed under the bed for most of the day, trying to sleep, but the COs would come around every 15 minutes and bang on my cell door to wake me up. “Get up Swanson, you stupid piece of shit! You don’t get to sleep, pussy.” It went on like that for months and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t have a pen and paper to file a grievance. I asked my upstairs neighbor, “Pistol,” to write a letter to the Pennsylvania Prison Society about me, and he did. The Prison Society is an organization that has access—protected by state law—to visit confidentially with anyone in the custody of the state’s prison or jail system to monitor the conditions and conduct wellness checks. After Pistol reached out to them, someone from the Prison Society came to see me, but the COs told them that I refused the visit. Pistol talked to the Prison Society about me, but nothing happened. 

They let me out to shower one day. Four COs escorted me to the shower with my hands cuffed behind my back. When we got to the shower, instead of closing the door and taking off the cuffs, they pushed me and followed me in. Two COs then lifted me up and “hung me” by the cuffs on the shower spout. Then they closed and locked the shower stall. It took maybe ten minutes for me to get down from that very painful position, and as soon as I did, the COs came to put me back in my cell. “I bet that little bitch doesn’t sign up for showers again,” one of the COs said. He was right too; I didn’t sign up for showers again. 

One of the other prisoners, “Mafia,” was so moved by my situation that he wrote down everything they were doing to me. He was apparently proficient in the law and wrote up a federal lawsuit in my name from scratch, including a motion to proceed as an indigent prisoner, so I wouldn’t have to pay any filing fees up front. When all was said and done, he had prepared 84 pages worth of legal work for me for free. Then he got a CO on third shift to pass me the envelope full of his legal work, as well as a pen and cash slip to mail it out. When I read all of the signed statements from the men on the block about what they witnessed happening to me, I was moved to tears. I signed the parts I needed to sign, sealed up the envelope, and waited for the first shift to put it in the mailbox. (Only the first shift put mail in the box). When the CO came, I said “Mail.” He opened the slot. I put the mail in. He took the envelope, walked straight to the garbage, and threw it away.

I was finally transferred on December 28, 2016—my mother’s birthday—to SCI Benner Township in Bellefonte, PA. After a couple weeks at Benner, I got letters from my brothers, my grandma (Nana), my daughters, my dad, and my mother. She didn’t die, the COs just said she did to hurt me. 

Ever since those six terrible months, I haven’t been able to sleep through the night. I’m terrified of prison staff, and every time the COs come around, my fight or flight response is triggered by the sound of them punching in, playing with handcuffs, or even just walking by with their keys jingling. 

Banner Photo: Cell in SCI Camp Hill following the 1989 uprising, PA Patriot-News