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 […]
Originally published in Issue 3 of the Social Workers Against Solitary Confinement newsletter End Solitary!, the following account was written by Tracey Morgan, who was first sent to jail as a teenager. At age 21, upon her arrival at Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (MCIW), Morgan was placed in solitary confinement. The reason, she says, was that she cried […]
The following account was written by Laura Purviance, who is currently serving a 50 to life sentence for murder at Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla. In her writing, Purviance describes her experience at Lynwood Jail for women in Los Angeles. After revealing her mental health history, Purviance was placed on “suicide watch” in […]
Although men far outnumber women when it comes to people held in solitary confinement, there are still thousands of women across the country in solitary as well, and their experience is often overlooked. According to the recent report Prison Within Prison: Voices of Women Held in Isolated Confinement in New York, in addition to the well-known psychological damage that […]
The author of the following poem, William Blake, has spent 31 continuous years in solitary confinement in New York State prisons. Sentenced to 77 years to life for killing a sheriff’s deputy in a failed escape attempt when he was 23 years old, Blake is being held in administrative segregation, meaning there is no clear […]
The following account was written by John Jay (Jack) Powers, who was arrested in 1989 for what he describes as “unarmed bank robbery, possession of a stolen motor vehicle, and illegal firearms found in a closet in the house.” After representing himself, Powers was “given a very lengthy sentence and sent to USP-Leavenworth” where he […]
In 2013, tens of thousands of people incarcerated throughout California launched a hunger strike to protest the polices of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) around indefinite isolation in solitary confinement (also known as indeterminate sentences). The strike lasted nearly 60 days and ended only after state lawmakers promised to hold hearings around […]
The following account is written by Daniel Holland, who is serving a sentence of life without parole in Massachusetts at MCI Norfolk prison. After eight years of good behavior, he had earned the privilege of a single cell. But his clean disciplinary record was broken when he was placed in solitary confinement after being interrogated […]
The following account was written last year by Roger Uvalle, who has been in solitary confinement in Texas for more than two decades. He says he has spent most of his life since the age of nine in “some kind of institution,” and he has been in adult prisons since he was a teenager. He […]