In recent weeks, the nation has turned its eyes to the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), the federal jail in Manhattan where Jeffrey Epstein died earlier this month. But some reformers and journalists have been ringing the alarm bell over conditions in MCC for years. In an investigation for Gothamist last year, Aviva Stahl described filthy conditions, substandard […]
The following piece was written by Kiana Calloway, a formerly incarcerated organizer with Voice of the Experienced (VOTE), a grassroots organization in New Orleans made up of formerly incarcerated people and their allies that works for policy change and for full civil and human rights for people impacted by the criminal justice system. He is also […]
In the following piece, Ryan Brown describes the conditions he faced during his three years in solitary confinement at Missouri’s Jefferson City Correctional Center. According to the most recent data from the Prison Policy Initiative, 32,000 people are currently incarcerated in the Missouri state prison system, with about an additional 20,000 people held in local […]
Ivan Denison is the pen name of a man currently held at Indiana State Prison (ISP), who has served 30 years of a 71-year sentence for attempted murder and resisting arrest. Three and a half of those years he spent in solitary confinement. In the following piece, Denison writes about his experiences as a “suicide […]
The following piece was written by LaDon Sean, who has been incarcerated in Michigan state prisons since 1993, serving a sentence of life without parole for felony murder. Sean says he was convicted of “aiding and abetting” a robbery attempt in which someone was killed, though he maintains he possessed no weapons during the incident. The Miller v. […]
John Jay Powers, the author of this piece and a prolific prison writer, spent over twelve years isolated at the notorious ADX federal supermax facility in Florence, Colorado. The severity of the conditions in solitary confinement led him to develop critical mental health conditions and engage in dire acts of self-harm. Overall, Powers has spent […]
The following accounts have been excerpted from Six by Ten: Stories from Solitary, a recently published collection of thirteen oral history narratives from people impacted by solitary confinement. Part of the Voice of Witness series published by Haymarket Books, the volume was compiled and edited by ACLU attorney and campaign strategist Taylor Pendergrass and multimedia journalist […]
The following piece was compiled from a series of letters written to Solitary Watch by Tashon Burke, a 26-year-old man who describes himself as having “mental health issues,” and who is serving time on a firearms charge at State Correctional Institution (SCI) Houtzdale in Pennsylvania. He has been in prison for six years, but once he […]
The following account was published anonymously in the report Solitary at Southport, which was released last December by the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit organization that monitors conditions in the state’s prisons and advocates for a more humane and effective criminal justice system. Southport is one of New York’s two supermax prisons, and […]
With the help of two remarkable men who have survived years in solitary confinement, Solitary Watch recently published a special supplement to our newsletter, featuring guides to yoga and meditation written for people in solitary, by people in solitary. The yoga guide, written by John Jay Powers, shares excerpts from Powers’ complete guidebook Yoga in 7 […]
Branton Noojin received an Honorable Mention for Nonfiction in PEN America’s 2018 Prison Writing Contest for authoring the following piece, “Solitary Confinement,” which is republished here by permission of the author and PEN. Noojin, currently serving a 100-year sentence for murder and voluntary manslaughter, has spent seven years in solitary confinement overall. Here, he provides a striking […]