Voices from Solitary Confinement
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Los Angeles Review of Books
July 20, 2016

“What is solitary confinement? It is the Bing, Box, Hole, Block; a cage, cave, shoe box, ice box, oven, grave; a “grey, limitless ocean,” “an island surrounded by vicious sharks,” a “sea of madness during an eternal perfect storm of despair and heartache”; an unimaginable terror, an austere sameness, an immense darkness, a timeless place, a terrible endurance; it is social death, the slow march of death, a sentence worse than death, a thousand internal deaths. It is disciplinary segregation, punitive segregation, administrative segregation, involuntary segregation. Isolated confinement, involuntary protective custody. Assignment to Special Housing Units, Security Housing Units, Special Management Units, Intensive Management Units, Behavioral Management Units. Special Administrative Measures.”

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