UPDATE, FEBRUARY 22: Thomas Whitaker will serve life in prison without parole rather than facing the death penalty for the 2003 murder-for-hire of his mother and brother, in a rare commutation by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. The decision was communicated to Whitaker, his attorneys, and his father—the sole survivor of the 2003 attack, who had forgiven his son […]
Years ago, when we were down in Louisiana working on a story about the notorious plantation prison called Angola, a man who had served nearly 20 years shared with us what he thought to be a common misconception about prisons. He knew that most people looked at the wall around the perimeter of a prison, and […]
Francis Bauer Harris has been on Death Row at Greene State Correctional Institution for 19 years. He was convicted of first degree murder in 1997, though he continues to maintain his innocence. On Death Row, Harris spends 23 to 24 hours a day in solitary confinement. According to a friend with whom he corresponds, “he feels […]
After spending nearly three decades in solitary confinement, William “Billy” Blake has learned a few things about staying sane. For Blake, who is serving a sentence of 77 years to life in conditions known to cause psychological breakdown, self-harm, and suicide, sanity is survival. He reads, he dreams, but most of the time, he writes. […]
Thomas Bartlett Whitaker is serving time in solitary confinement on Death Row at the Polunksy Unit in Livingston, Texas, after being convicted in 2007 of hiring a gunman to kill his family. While in prison, Whitaker, now 36, completed a bachelor’s degree in English and sociology, graduating summa cum laude, and he is studying toward a master’s […]
UPDATE — UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS: After a standing-room-only launch at the Open Society Foundations in New York on March 15, we are planning several more book events/readings in the coming months. Stay tuned for future updates. Wednesday, April 13, 6-8 pm: Launch Event and Reading at Busboys & Poets, 14th and V Streets, Washington, DC. Click […]
William Blake has been in solitary confinement for 27 years. When he was 23 years old and in county court on a drug charge, Blake murdered one deputy and wounded another in a failed escape attempt. He was sentenced to 77 years to life. This essay earned Blake an Honorable Mention in the Yale Law Journal’s Prison […]
This story was funded by the Alicia Patterson Foundation. It originally appeared on CounterPunch. “While waiting for an officer to handcuff and escort me back to the cell that awaited me after showering, I sat on the floor holding a razor used for shaving,” W writes to me. “Today was the day I decided to end my […]
Solitary Watch frequently receives notes from prisoners, many of them in solitary. From time to time, we want to share excerpts some of these with our readers. Names of prisoners and prisons have been removed to protect the writers of these letters. I have been in lockup for a year and a half and I have […]
In 1895, Oscar Wilde, who was arguably Britain’s most famous literary and cultural figure, was sentenced to two years’ hard labor in solitary confinement for the crime of “acts of gross indecency with other males.” He served most of that time in Reading Gaol, subject of his famous ballad. In petitioning the government for his release, Wilde wrote that “while […]
Charles Patrick Norman, who has served more than 30 years in Florida’s prisons, is an eloquent and accomplished writer whose poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs, and plays have won several awards, including first place in the memoir category in the 2008 PEN Prison Writing Contest. After reading some of his work, I wrote to him to tell him […]