archive

How to survive solitary confinement

Laura L. Rovner (Denver): Dignity and the Eighth Amendment: A New Approach to Challenging Solitary Confinement. Dickens, Tocqueville, and the U.N. all agree about this American invention — it’s torture: The introduction to Hell is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement, ed. Jean Casella, James Ridgeway, and Sarah Shourd (and more). Eight principles for reforming solitary confinement: Margo Schlanger and Amy Fettig on how we can reduce, make more humane, and ultimately eliminate a practice that, in Justice Kennedy's words, drives prisoners “to the edge of madness”. Susie Neilson on how to survive solitary confinement. Carimah Townes on what happens when you’re exonerated after 30 years of solitary confinement. President Obama on why we must rethink solitary confinement. What happens when inmates in solitary confinement blow the whistle on their abuse? Molly Crabapple investigates. Jennifer Gonnerman on James Ridgeway’s solitary reporting.