ZEKE Magazine: Special Summer 2025 Issue

ZEKE

THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL

SPECIAL SUMMER 2025 ISSUE $15 US

DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY

The Solitary Confinement Issue

ZEKETHE MAGAZINE OF

GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY

PHOTOGRAPHY

Published by Social Documentary Network

02 | WINDOW INTO SOLITARY

Stories of solitary confinement by 17 formerly

incarcerated individuals

Photographs by Brian Branch-Price, Deborah Espinosa, Brian Frank, Lori Waselchuk

Writing and Editing by Deborah Zalesne

Photo of Arthur “Cetewayo” Johnson by Lori

Waselchuk

Photo of Gail Brashear by Deborah Espinosa

Photo of Kwaneta Harris by Ariana Gomez

30 | THE PHOTOGRAPHERS

32 | BEHIND THE WALLS

A Woman’s Perspective on Solitary Confinement

By Kwaneta Harris

34 | IN THE HOLE

Five incarcerated men on the minute-by-minute experience of

solitary confinement

By Christopher Blackwell, Aaron Edward Olson, Antoine Davis,

Raymond Williams, and Jonathan Kirkpatrick

42 | BOOK REVIEWS

SOLITARY: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation and How

We Can Abolish It

By Terry Allen Kupers

Review by E. Paris Whitfield

SOLITARY: Unbroken by four decades in solitary confinement.

My story of transformation and hope.

By Albert Woodfox with Leslie George

Review by Antoine E. Davis

Illustration by Hector Ortiz

ENDING ISOLATION: The Case Against

Solitary Confinement

By Christopher Blackwell and Deborah Zalesne with

Kwaneta Harris and Terry Allen Kupers

Review by Sarah Sax

From cover to SOLITARY: The Inside Story of

Supermax Isolation and How We Can Abolish It

Cover Photograph by

Lori Waselchuk

Joyce Starr Granger

photographed at Eastern

State Penitentiary.

SPECIAL SUMMER 2025 ISSUE

$15 US

Dear ZEKE Readers:

I am excited to have been offered this role as guest editor for this special

issue of ZEKE Magazine dedicated to the people who have experienced

tortures of solitary confinement. Many of you may not think of solitary

as something that has an impact on your life, but you would be wrong.

Solitary affects all of society in some form. And honestly, it has no real

benefit aside from benefitting the prison guards and administrators who

use it as a weapon of control and abuse.

I’ve spent many months of my decades of incarceration in solitary,

starting at 12 years old when I was arrested for stealing a car. Often

I’d act out, struggling to understand the exceptional amounts of trauma

I was experiencing—something I didn’t know how to process. Did I do

something wrong? Yes, sometimes I did. But certainly not always, and I

know it was never a benefit to my well-being or development to be placed

in solitary during these early stages of my life.

It’s also important to know that solitary is not reserved only for the

so-called “worst of the worst.” Often people who end up in solitary are

there for minor infractions: swearing at a guard after being told they are

violating a simple prison rule like wearing a baseball hat in a building or

being deemed disruptive during a daily count.

Solitary has also become a regular placement for incarcerated people

who suffer from mental illness, despite the fact that in many states it

violates policies against use for people with mental illness. Juveniles are

also not meant to be placed in solitary in many states, but when they are

tried as adults, they are treated as adults!

Organizations across the country are striving to end the use of this

barbaric practice that is rooted in racism, abuse, and 100% cruel and

unusual punishment by all accounts.

While recent reforms would have us believe that solitary doesn’t

exist in some states, legislation only tells half the story. Even progressive

states like New York, New Jersey, and others that have claimed to have

abolished solitary in fact have not. Most states where these reforms have

taken place have simply changed the name of solitary to things like

Restorative Housing or Special Offender Units. But it doesn’t matter what

it’s called, if you are isolated in a cell with nothing for 20+ hours a day –

you are in solitary confinement!

Through testimony and imagery, this issue of ZEKE will give you a

deep look into the lives of those most impacted. The photos will display

the rawness of those who’ve suffered from solitary. I hope in seeing their

suffering it will inspire you to fight against this draconian structure.

We are in this fight together, so let’s educate ourselves about the

harms being inflicted in our name, and let’s stand united in demanding

something better.

Christopher Blackwell

Guest Editor

Dear ZEKE Readers:

After 21 bi-annual issues of ZEKE Magazine, we

are very excited to publish our first special issue.

The focus of this issue is the scourge of solitary

confinement in the U.S., a practice defined as

torture but regularly used across this nation as the

pages of this magazine will attest. The purpose

of this issue is to act as a catalyst to abolish

solitary confinement in the U.S. in collaboration

with Look2Justice, Unlock the Box, and other

organizations that are part of a nation-wide

campaign.

This issue of ZEKE began as an exhibition on

solitary confinement that Christoper Blackwell–an

incarcerated journalist and executive director

of Look2Justice–asked me to create focusing on

individuals now living in the community but with

extensive experience with solitary confinement.

I reached out to four photographers from across

the U.S.: Lori Waselchuk in Philadelphia, Brian

Frank in San Francisco, Deborah Espinosa in

Washington State, and Brian Branch-Price in

New Jersey. Together they photographed a total

of 17 people, some in their homes, some in

public spaces, and some at both Alcatraz Island

in the San Francisco Bay and at Eastern State

Penitentiary in Philadelphia—the birthplace of

solitary confinement. Both prisons used solitary

confinement extensively and are now museums.

While the exhibition will have a life of its

own at galleries, libraries, universities, and other

public spaces, the photographic work was so

extraordinary that we decided to also publish it

for this special issue of ZEKE.

Our subscribers may remember that Christopher

Blackwell was the guest editor of the Incarceration

Issue of ZEKE published in Fall 2023. I also

want to recognize Prof. Deborah Zalesne for

editing, and in some cases writing, the text that

accompanies the interviews. And I especially

want to thank the subjects of the photographs, all

who have spent extensive time in solitary and all

who bravely told their stories for this project.

Glenn Ruga

Executive Editor

ZEKE SUMMER 2025 / 1

After spending years of my life

caged in solitary confinement,

beginning at age 12, I felt the

stories of those subjected to

solitary had to be shared. I

asked Glenn Ruga, the founder

of the nonprofit Social Documentary

Network and ZEKE Magazine, to take

on this project to photograph 17 people

across the United States who have

experience with solitary confinement.

Glenn reached out to four photographers

in different parts of the country—Lori

Waselchuk in Philadelphia and

New Orleans, Brian Branch-Price in

New York, Brian Frank in San Francisco,

and Deborah Espinosa in Washington

state—to photograph people now in

their communities after being released

from prison, and talk with them about

their experiences with solitary. Deborah

Zalesne, co-author of Ending Isolation:

The Case Against Solitary Confinement,

wrote the testimonies and provided

invaluable editing support.

All of the people photographed

have spent portions of their lives, some

short and some long-lasting, in solitary

confinement, some as adolescents and

others as young adults. All of them have

experienced life-altering moments while

trapped behind that thick steel door.

—Christopher Blackwell

2 / ZEKE SUMMER 2025

Subscribe to ZEKE today and

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Richard Johnson photographed

at Alcatraz by

Brian Frank. See page 28

for his story.

Window Into Solitary

Stories of solitary confinement by 17 formerly

incarcerated individuals

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/3


Arthur “Cetewayo” Johnson

Photograph by Lori Waselchuk

Cetewayo spent 44 of his 51 years incarcerated in

solitary confinement at six different state prisons in

Pennsylvania. Now living in North Philadelphia, he

continues to mentor incarcerated men and advocate

for the rights of the incarcerated and their families

through the Human Rights Coalition in Philadelphia.

Arthur “Cetewayo” Johnson spent 51 years

in prison on a wrongful conviction — 44 of

those years in solitary confinement. He was

arrested for murder in 1970, just after turning

18. The case against him relied on a coerced

statement from a 15-year-old boy interrogated

by police for 21 hours and a “confession” he

was manipulated into signing that he was unable to

understand because of an intellectual disability and

lack of education.

“The hole was brutal,” he says. “We were kept in

filthy cells. One pair of boxers, one t-shirt, a toothbrush

with the handle cut off. You couldn’t have books,

newspapers — only a pen and ten sheets of paper. I

was hungry every day. Starvation diets were part of

the punishment.”

Guards beat people without cause. Johnson tried to

file legal complaints, but the courts denied them, and

his letters were often destroyed. His persistence made

him a target.

In 2016, the Abolitionist Law Center filed for relief,

citing a psychiatrist’s testimony that Johnson had experienced

“social death.” The Department of Corrections

fought to keep him in isolation, but the judge ruled in

Johnson’s favor. He was moved into a step-down unit

and eventually returned to general population.

The Abolitionist Law Center then began

investigating his original conviction. They uncovered

withheld evidence and a coerced, retracted witness

statement. Working with the Philadelphia DA’s office,

they secured his release in 2021.

Cetewayo lives up to the nickname, which comes

from a Zulu leader in recognition of his strength, and

he continues to fight for vindication for those who are

wrongfully imprisoned. “There’s still so many innocent

people inside. I want to help them come home.”

“I was hungry every day. Starvation diets

were part of the punishment.”

Arthur “Cetewayo” Johnson photographed at Eastern State Penitentiary,

the first facility in the U.S. to use solitary confinement. It is now a museum.

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/ 5

Consuela Gaines


Consuela was incarcerated for 22 years at the

Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in

St. Gabriel. She spent 26 months in solitary

confinement. Today, Consuela lives in Lafayette,

Louisiana, where she dreams of opening transitional

homes for people returning from prison.

Consuela Gaines was just 23 when she

helped her boyfriend escape from prison

using a sawed-off shotgun. They were

soon caught in Georgia, and Consuela

was sent to the Louisiana Correctional

Institute for Women in St. Gabriel. There,

she was placed in a death row cellblock — one

of the prison’s most extreme solitary confinement

units. “They thought I was an escape threat,” she

says. Over her 22 years in prison, she spent 26

months in solitary confinement.

To access the one hour of daily outdoor

time, Consuela had to be shackled and

manacled, then marched through the general

population compound. “The shackles would

cut my skin. It was degrading,” she recalls.

“They kept me in handcuffs and shackles even

while outside.” Her yard time was carefully

scheduled so no one else would be present.

“I didn’t want to be treated like that, so I

went five months without fresh air.”

There was one other woman in Death Row

#6 Cellblock with her, but they weren’t allowed

to speak. “I was once written up just for having

her DOC number — and they used that to keep

me in #6 even longer.”

The isolation, silence, and humiliation of

solitary still haunt Consuela. “I don’t like quiet.

I need to hear people. I leave the TV on. I have

anxiety attacks in unfamiliar places.”

“Prison taught us to suppress our feelings. If

we cried, we’d be put on suicide watch.”

Today, Consuela is a chapter organizer

with VOTE (Voice of the Experienced). She

advocates for voting, healthcare, housing, and

employment rights for formerly incarcerated

women.

“They kept me in handcuffs and

shackles even while outside. I didn’t

want to be treated like that, so I went

five months without fresh air.”

Consuela Gains in front of

the Louisiana State Capitol

in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.




Kiana Calloway


Kiana was incarcerated at Angola prison

from 1994 to 2001where he spent 16 months

in Camp J, the notorious solitary confinement

unit. After that, he went to Hunt Correctional

Center and a number of private prisons until

2011. Of the 17 years that he served for a

wrongful conviction, he was in and out of solitary

confinement for a total of nine years.

Kiana Calloway was first incarcerated at

age 12 in New Orleans for a schoolyard

fight. “I spent ten terrifying hours in

solitary confinement, locked away from

the world, feeling afraid and alone. I

had the shakes the entire time. That was

my introduction to the carceral system.”

In 1997, Kiana was falsely accused of

murder and convicted by a non-unanimous

jury—a practice Louisiana allowed for over a

century, rooted in Jim Crow laws. He was sentenced

to two life terms and sent to Angola’s

notorious Camp J, where he cycled in and out

of solitary confinement from 1994 to 2011.

“I was often sent to the hole for petty

things, like not having my shoes lined up

under my bed,” he recalls. But it was his 18

months in Camp J that left the deepest scars.

“You spend 23 hours alone in your cell.

No programs, no stimulation — just your

own thoughts and the cries of men who had

already gone mad. I watched people ram

their heads into bars, play with their feces,

throw urine.”

Even now, the trauma lingers. “I struggle with

anxiety, depression, and trust. I wake up in cold

sweats, my body still remembering the pain of

confinement. It’s hard to connect with people.

Sometimes I feel like I’m still in that cell.”

Kiana was released in 2011 after 17 years.

“Freedom is indescribable. It’s lightness, it’s

purpose. But it’s also a responsibility—to

speak out for others who are still trapped, to

fight for justice, and to never take a single

breath of free air for granted.”

“Freedom is indescribable. It’s a

responsibility to speak out for others

who are still trapped, to fight for justice,

and to never take a single breath

of free air for granted.”

Kiana Calloway in front

of Solitary Gardens on St.

Charles Avenue in New

Orleans. Solitary Gardens,

a project led by multidisciplinary

artist Jackie Sumell,

is designed by prisoners

serving their sentences in

isolation. The gardens are

created using the exact

footprint of a solitary cell.

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/7

Joyce Starr Granger


Joyce came home in 2018 after serving 35 years

at SCI Muncy in Pennsylvania. She endured

nearly five years in isolation. Joyce is now a

human rights activist, supporting women who are

re-entering society, and she’s studying for her

bachelor’s degree in mass communications.

Joyce Starr Granger was 17 when she

was arrested for first-degree murder. She

was tried as an adult and sent to the adult

female prison. “The first stop was three days

in the hole, which we call ‘The Hill.’ It was

an outside structure in the woods, a half mile

from the main prison campus. Bears would rifle

through the garbage and snakes would come up

through the toilet. It was diabolical.”

Joyce admits to being rough in her young

years. She was involved in fights which led to

extended time sentenced to solitary confinement.

Her longest stint in solitary was 96 consecutive

days. “It’s a jail inside of a jail. They got their

own rules. If you got hurt, it would take a nurse at

least an hour to get there. The water was tainted.

I developed kidney stones. They told me I had

uterine cancer, then took out my uterus.”

“All of this plays in your head. The second you

open your eyes you ask yourself, ‘Am I going to

see the end of the day?’”

Eventually, Joyce stopped fighting and started

reading. She earned her GED in 1989, became

active in supporting the rights of other incarcerated

women, and became a certified peer specialist.

“When I read the handbook, I became a prison

lawyer! A lot of CO’s supported me.”

Joyce co-founded SWAG (Sisters With A

Goal) and leads life skills workshops for incarcerated

women. She co-wrote and is featured

in the short PBS film, The Command Center to

Bring Women Home, an imagined space run

by formerly incarcerated women for those with

nowhere else to turn but to each other.

“All of this plays in your head. The

second you open your eyes you ask

yourself, ‘Am I going to see the end of

the day?’”

Joyce Starr Granger photographed at Eastern State

Penitentiary.


ZEKE SUMMER 2025/9


Donald Atilla Reese


Donald was incarcerated for 46 years. He began

his sentence at Holmesburg Prison and was transferred

to Eastern State Penitentiary in 1969, where

he was the youngest person incarcerated at the

time. He spent 19 years in solitary confinement.

Today, Donald does advocacy work, particularly

on behalf of people sentenced to life as juveniles

and those impacted by solitary confinement.

Donald Atilla Reese was born in

Philadelphia in 1951. After his mother

died when he was 14, he joined a gang

for protection during a time of rising violence.

At 16, he shot and killed a man in

self-defense and was tried as an adult.

Donald spent 46 years in prison, 19 of them

in solitary confinement. He was sent to solitary

confinement for the first time at age 17 “for taking

two slices of bread from the kitchen.” His longest

continuous stretch was eight years. “Throughout

my incarceration, I stayed in and out of the hole,”

he says. “There were no Black guards. I was

physically abused in solitary. I heard others being

beaten. I still remember the screams.”

When he was 21, another young man,

Arnold Chapman, was held in the next cell over.

“I’ll never forget this. He only had 90 days in

solitary but he lost his mind and killed himself. I

still think about him. The guards said they thought

he was faking it.”

Inspired by civil rights movements like the

Black Panthers and the Young Lords, Donald

participated in the 1978 Huntingdon Prison riot

and engaged in hunger strikes to protest solitary

conditions. “Solitary is designed to destroy the

minds of men.”

Released in 2015, Donald still battles the

“ghosts of solitary.” “I sought therapy, but I’m

still a recluse. I get agitated easily.” Today, he

is an active member of the Coalition to Abolish

Death By Incarceration and the Human Rights

Council, and regularly attends parole meetings

for juvenile lifers.

“I was physically abused in solitary.

I heard others being beaten. I still

remember the screams.”

Donald Atilla Reese photographed at Eastern State

Penitentiary.

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/11

Darryl Hill


Darryl Hill was incarcerated for fifteen years at

several prisons in Louisiana, spending over nine

of those years in solitary confinement. Coming

home in 2022, he is now a construction

worker and studying business administration at

Delgado Community College.

Darryl Hill was just twelve when he first

experienced solitary confinement. After

skipping school and walking home with

friends, the group was stopped by New

Orleans police, handcuffed, and taken

to the police station. There, each child

was placed alone in a 6’ x 6’ holding cell for

hours. “It felt like it was a place for animals,”

Darryl recalls. The trauma stuck with him.

At thirteen, Darryl was arrested again

after unknowingly getting into a stolen car.

Though he didn’t commit the robbery, he was

charged and sent to the New Orleans Youth

Study Center. He remained there for five years

awaiting trial, ultimately spending nearly all of

his teenage years in solitary confinement.

“You’re stuck in the cell; some people commit

suicide from just being in a cell,” he says.

“The walls start talking to you. I wouldn’t trust

nobody. I was all alone, having conversations

with myself.” Locked in his cell 23 hours a day,

he had one hour for phone calls or a shower,

during which he was shackled. His visits were

behind glass. His parents weren’t allowed

contact visits for five years.

Solitary confinement didn’t end there. Of his

15 years of incarceration, Darryl spent at least

nine years in solitary across multiple prisons.

In one, the lights were on 24 hours a day. In

another, it was pitch black. “I didn’t know what

time of day it was. It’s not human.” Reflecting

on the years lost, Darryl says, “Solitary

confinement was the most difficult experience

of my life.”

“It felt like it was a place for animals.

I was all alone, having conversations

with myself.”

Darryl Hill sits at

the water’s edge at

Lakeshore Park in New

Orleans, which is on the

southern shore of Lake

Pontchartrain.




Dana Lomax-Ayler


Dana Lomax-Ayler spent decades at SCI

Muncie in Pennsylvania, twenty years of which

were spent in solitary. Since getting home

in 2017, she created Dana’s Mobile Manna

Mission that cooks meals for unhoused people

who have been impacted by the carceral state,

and DLA Consultants, an agency that helps

people navigate re-entry.

Dana Lomax-Ayler is a wife, mother,

Navy veteran, advocate, organizer,

motivational speaker, and educator.

When you meet Dana, you immediately

feel her energy, positivity, and

intelligence, and you might even think

she’s fearless.

Dana grew up in a loving home, but her

brothers involved her in crime early on. “As a

kid, I was taught how to steal. They’d pull the

fire alarm and instruct me to go into classrooms

and steal teachers’ wallets.” She spent 27

years in and out of prison.

In 2012, Dana was sent to solitary

confinement for refusing to let a male guard

frisk her. “The manual said searches must be

by someone of the same gender. I resisted. A

team of guards dragged me to the hole. I spent

a year there.”

She had heard many stories of male guards

abusing women during searches. “I was trying

to establish my own power.” While in solitary,

she published Sound Off, exposing illegal

searches in Pennsylvania prisons.

Back in general population, Dana organized

women to resist sexual violence, encouraging

them to bathe in their cells, covering the small

windows, instead of in monitored washrooms.

For this, she was sent to solitary again. “I

wasn’t scared. My family, husband, and church

supported me. They were upset because I got

my sentence extended, but I stayed and I made

a difference.”

Because of her outspokenness, Dana spent

20 years in solitary. During that time, she

launched a campaign, writing state officials

to raise awareness. After visits from State Rep.

Ronald Waters and U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters,

changes followed: prisons hired female guards

and Pennsylvania passed a law banning male

guards from searching women.

Dana Lomax-Ayler at her

home in Philadelphia,

PA, where she works as

an advocate and activist

for incarcerated people

and for those who are

re-entering society.

“The manual said

searches must be

by someone of

the same gender.

I refused to allow

a male guard to

frisk me. I resisted.

I fought for our

rights.”

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/13

Gail Brashear

Photograph by Deborah Espinosa

Gail was incarcerated at the age of 15 at the

Washington Corrections Center for Women

from 1996 until 2019. Throughout her first 15

years, she spent almost a decade in and out of

isolation. Gail is now a paralegal at the Seattle

Clemency Project and uses her lived experience

to advocate for dignity, transparency, and

redemption within our criminal justice system.

Gail Brashear spent years in and out of

solitary confinement. As a juvenile “I

had a life sentence,” she says, “and I

started doing ridiculous things to go to

segregation.” She describes juvenile

antics — jumping on tables, faking

bomb threats — not out of malice, but as a

way to escape. “They didn’t know what to do

with me because I didn’t mind going to seg.

They couldn’t use it as leverage.”

For Gail, solitary became a place where

she felt oddly free: “They couldn’t take

anything from me and I could just speak

my mind.” But the harm was real. “I started

coexisting only in my head,” she says. “I was

dissociating… not feeling my body.” She

spent years in isolation, sometimes restrained,

stripped naked, denied even basic hygiene. “If

I was on my period, I had to prove it and wait

for headquarters to approve maxi pads.”

She describes being kept in dry cells,

pepper sprayed, strapped down, and thrown

in padded suicide rooms. “It chemically affects

your brain,” she says. “I had chronic amnesia.

I was in a constant state of crisis.”

Even so, she held on to hope. “I grew a tree

from an apple seed in a paper cup. It became

a symbol for me—that life could grow in these

dark, concrete rooms.”

Today, Gail uses her voice to advocate for

others. “Solitary doesn’t make anybody safer,”

she says of solitary. “What made me dangerous

was when I lost my humanity — when

nothing could phase me anymore. That’s when

people should be paying attention.”

“I grew a tree from an apple seed in

a paper cup. It became a symbol for

me—that life could grow in these dark,

concrete rooms.”

Gail Brashear photographed in an alley in downtown Olympia, WA.

Arthur Cetewayo Johnson photographed at Eastern State Penitentiary, the first facility in

the US to use solitary confinement and now a museum.


ZEKE SPRING 2025/ 15

Jessica Sylvia


Jessica was incarcerated for eight and a half

years in multiple prisons across Washington

State. At each prison, she was in solitary

confinement for multiple six-month periods.

Today, Jessica is a community organizer and

activist and works for Study and Struggle, a

collective that organizes for abolition through

political education, mutual aid, and community

building

Jessica was 26 when she went to prison.

As a trans woman, she was placed

in solitary confinement “for her protection”

— without her consent and

without an end date. She spent more

than six months in a windowless cell,

illuminated by buzzing fluorescent lights that

never turned off. She was forbidden from

speaking to or touching anyone. “Eventually, I

stopped talking altogether,” she said. “I forgot

what it felt like to be heard.”

Solitary confinement was a slow

unraveling. Time lost meaning. Her sense of

self began to dim. She started hallucinating

footsteps and voices — anything to feel less

alone. To pass time, she watched ants she

lured in with syrup from her food trays —

the only signs of life in a space she calls a

“concrete coffin.”

When she was finally released from

solitary, the world outside felt too bright, too

loud. Even sunlight was overwhelming. It took

weeks before she could sleep through the

night again, and months before she felt safe in

her own body. “I had to learn how to use my

voice again,” she said. “It took a long time.”

“I eventually found my voice again,” she

says. “Now I use it to make sure people know

what’s still happening behind those walls.

Because no one deserves to disappear.”

Today, Jessica is a published author, community

organizer, and abolitionist. While incarcerated,

she earned her associate’s degree

and began writing as a form of resistance. She

now works with Study and Struggle, a national

collective supporting incarcerated women

and queer people. Her organizing centers on

ending solitary confinement and all forms of

torturous punishment.

Jessica Sylvia photographed

at Oakland Bay in Shelton,

WA, also known as ancestral

land of The Squaxin

Island Tribe (People of the

Water).

“I had to learn how

to use my voice

again. It took a long

time.”


Eugene Youngblood


Sentenced as a teenager to a de facto life sentence,

Youngblood spent 30 years at Walla

Walla Prison in Washington, much of that time

in solitary confinement. He was later granted

clemency and released in 2021. Today he

is the director of Community Organizing for

Look2Justice. He advocates for compassion

and mercy, especially for those whom society

deems least deserving.

Eugene Youngblood spent nearly 30

years in prison — much of it in solitary

confinement — longing for connection,

dignity, and recognition. “I just wanted

people to see me as a person,” he says,

reflecting on the struggle to hold on to

his humanity.

In segregation, “everything becomes

weaponized,” he explains. Guards control

access to water, hygiene, and even sleep.

“They take your bedding, your clothing, and

leave you in the cell with nothing.”

At Walla Walla, where he did most of his

segregation time, supplies were only distributed

at midnight. “Sheet exchange is once

a week — miss it, and you’re stuck. Same

with toothpaste or soap. So you had to be

up at midnight.” That rhythm flipped the daily

schedule: “Ninety percent of people sleep all

day and stay up all night — talking, yelling,

trying to get some socialization.” Breakfast is

at 6 a.m. Miss it, and it’s counted as a refusal.

“They just walk right past you.”

Movement requires full restraints. “They

handcuff you behind your back, put the doggie

leash on you — two guards per person.

If you’re acting up, they have electric shields.

They’ll hit you with one if they come in to

extract you.”

Sometimes guards would lock him in the

shower and leave him there. “It’s as small as

that bathroom you just used. Cramped up,

you know? For 30 minutes or longer.”

This kind of treatment, he says, breaks a

person down. “There was a time where I

didn’t see my own humanity.”

“I wanted society to see my

humanity. I just wanted people to see

me as a person.”

Eugene Youngblood

photographed at his home

in Tacoma, WA.

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/17

Marriam Oliver


Convicted at the age of 14, Marriam spent

the first six months of incarceration in solitary

confinement. She spent a total of 22 years

incarcerated at the Washington Corrections

Center for Women. Today, Marriam is home

and thriving. She works for the Washington

Innocence Project and is a devoted mother to

her daughter, Freedom.

Marriam was just 15 years old when

she was sentenced to 22 years in

prison. Days after arriving at prison,

she was placed in solitary confinement

at the Washington Correction

Center for Women. Alone, frightened,

and still reeling from her sentencing,

Marriam didn’t yet understand what isolation

meant – but she understood that it would

break her.

“I didn’t know how to be alone. I didn’t know

how to cope. I didn’t know how to hope.”

She spent 30 days isolated in a cell. The

lights never turned off. Voices echoed through

the tiers. That first experience in solitary set

the tone for the years to come. Over time,

Marriam came to understand how easily

even small infractions could land her back in

“the hole.” Once, it was for a splash of water.

Another time, it was for shielding another

woman from an assault - an act of protection

twisted into “unauthorized use of force.”

Each time, the isolation chipped away at

her sense of safety and humanity. Even now,

years later, she struggles to sleep in silence or

darkness.

Now, she’s speaking out to raise awareness

about the torture of solitary confinement and

the lasting harm it causes. She credits her

resilience to a strong support network of family

and loved ones who helped carry her through.

“What solitary does is deliberate. It’s about

power. It’s about fear. And they know exactly

what they’re doing.”

“What solitary does is deliberate. It’s

about power. It’s about fear. And they

know exactly what they’re doing.”

Marriam Oliver photographed at her home on

Lake Washington, Seattle, WA.


ZEKE SUMMER 2025/19

John “Divine G” Whitfield

Photograph by Brian Branch-Price

Divine G was incarcerated in New York for 25

years. He spent time in solitary confinement at

the Green Haven Correctional Facility. While

incarcerated, he co-founded the RTA program at

Sing Sing Prison. He is now an award-winning

writer, filmmaker, and activist. He was executive

producer and co-writer for the movie “Sing

Sing,” and he founded Divine G Entertainment.

John “Divine G” Whitfield, from Brooklyn,

New York, spent 25 years in prison for a

crime he didn’t commit, including significant

time in solitary confinement at

Green Haven and a brief stint at Attica.

He describes solitary as “the equivalent

of being buried alive” — a place where time

freezes and contact with the world is reduced to

the sound of a meal tray sliding under the door.

“If you could visualize extreme loneliness,” he

says, “that’s solitary confinement.” He likens

the experience to claustrophobia: a crushing

darkness and silence that wraps around you like

a tomb.

When he was finally released from solitary,

he says it felt like being “born alive.” But the

fear of going back never left him. That fear, he

says, is deliberately weaponized: solitary is

used not just as punishment, but as a threat — a

tool of control.

Divine G challenges the myth of “due

process” in prison disciplinary hearings. In

theory, there are protections. In practice, he

says, they are hollow. Hearings are rushed,

evidence is ignored, and outcomes are often

pre-determined. “There’s a system in place,”

he says, “but it’s not built for fairness. It’s built to

maintain power.”

Today, Divine G is a powerful voice for justice

and reform. He has written multiple novels and

plays and was the inspiration for the central

character in the acclaimed film Sing Sing, which

tells the story of transformation and resilience

inside the prison system. Since his release, he has

become an advocate, using his story to push for

a system rooted in dignity, not punishment.

“If you could visualize extreme

loneliness, that’s solitary confinement.”

John “Divine G” Whitfield photographed in Saratoga Park in Brooklyn, NY.



Anisah Sabur


Anisah was incarcerated for eight years at various

prisons around New York. Over the course

of her incarceration, she spent several months in

solitary confinement. Today Anisah lives in the

Bronx and is a leader in the movement to end

solitary confinement.

Across multiple stints in New York State’s

jails and prisons, Anisah Sabur was

sentenced twice to “the box” — a

6 ft x 9 ft cinderblock cell with no

windows, no belongings, and almost

no human contact. “They strip you of

everything,” she said. “It’s torture.”

She remembers one night when a woman set

her mattress on fire. Smoke filled the unit, but the

officers left them locked in their cells, forced to

breathe burning plastic through the night.

Infractions for speaking up often extended

people’s time in solitary indefinitely. She

watched women disappear — assaulted,

silenced, or driven to take their own lives. “This

is where all the prison sexual assaults happen,”

Anisah said. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

Rather than let the trauma consume her,

Anisah turned it into fuel. She became a fierce

policy advocate for human rights and gender

justice and a truth-teller, co-authoring A Prison

Within a Prison, a groundbreaking report that

centers the voices of women in solitary. She

interviews survivors, builds campaigns, and

organizes exhibits that bring these hidden

stories to light.

Today Anisah is the National Coordinator

for the Unlock the Box Campaign and she was

instrumental in the fight to pass the HALT Solitary

Confinement Act in New York. Her work is a

lifeline for women who are still inside, and a

powerful reminder that their stories matter.

“What makes me different?” she asked. “I

chose to heal, to fight back, and to help others

do the same.”

“This is where all the prison sexual

assaults happen. Out of sight, out of

mind.”

Anisah Sabur photographed

in a women’s

support office in Harlem,

NY.




Dolores Canales


Dolores was incarcerated for 20 years,

including time in solitary confinement

at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison.

Drawing from her own experience

as well as having a son who is incarcerated,

Dolores is now an activist,

organizer and Director of Community

Outreach for The Bail Project. She

currently lives in Los Angeles with her

husband and fellow survivor and

organizer, Jack Morris.

Dolores Canales is a nationally

recognized advocate and

movement leader whose fight

against solitary confinement

is deeply rooted in personal

experience. She describes the

system’s use of isolation as “a method

of warehousing people, discarding

them into silence for months at a time.”

In 2001, Dolores was facing a

potential 25-years-to-life sentence

under California’s three-strikes law,

while her son Johnny had already spent

nearly six years in solitary confinement

at Pelican Bay. “When I was in the

hole, it was a nine-month maximum.

I knew I’d get out. For my son, it was

indefinite, because he was ‘validated’

as a gang associate,” she explains.

The only evidence used to justify his

placement in solitary was his name

written in someone else’s note. “People

hear this and they don’t want to believe

it — that in California, someone can be

put in solitary indefinitely for something

so small, not even close to violent.”

Dolores became a leader in the

grassroots movement supporting the

historic hunger strikes at Pelican Bay,

organizing from the outside as families

demanded an end to indefinite solitary.

She connected with Jack Morris, who

was participating in the strikes from

within the SHU (Special Housing

Unit) at Pelican Bay. Their shared

commitment to ending extreme isolation

built a powerful partnership, and later,

a deep love. They eventually married.

Following her release, Dolores

co-founded California Families Against

Solitary Confinement. She has since

become a powerful force in organizing,

policy, and outreach, uplifting the voices

of those most impacted by incarceration.

For Dolores, the fight is personal. She

knows how deeply isolation fractures the

human spirit, and she’s dedicated her

life to ensuring others are not lost in the

same darkness.

“People … don’t want to

believe it — that in California

someone can be put in solitary

confinement indefinitely for

something so small – not even

close to violent.”

Dolores Canales photographed in Central

Park, New York City.

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/23

Troy Williams

Photograph by Brian Frank

Troy Williams was incarcerated for 25 years,

mostly at San Quentin Prison, where he spent

over a year in solitary confinement. He now

lives in Oakland, California and he is the

founder of Restorative Media, using storytelling

to inspire change.

From the age of 15 to 21, Troy Williams

was incarcerated at the California Youth

Authority, spending years in solitary

confinement. “The small rectangular

window was painted over,” he recalls.

“I couldn’t look out, except for a chip

the size of a quarter. That was the only place I

could see the Sun.”

Isolated in the Security Housing Unit (SHU),

“a prison inside the prison,” as he calls it,

Troy was surrounded by despair. “I saw a lot

of people succumb to the pressures of that

environment,” he says. “I started meditating

because I thought I was losing my mind.”

To cope, he began writing a list of people

he blamed for his incarceration. “My father

should have stopped me… My mother should

have told me she loved me more…” That list

grew to 90 names.

“After 30 days I ran outta names,” Troy

says. “I realized one name was missing — Troy

Williams. I had to look inside myself. At the

end of the day, I had to live in my truth.”

Through the San Quentin Prison Report,

he found his voice and a passion for guiding

others away from the path he once walked. But

the trauma left scars. “I struggle with relationships.

I’m a loner. I like being alone. I’ve gotten

comfortable. I don’t like concrete buildings. I

don’t like concrete at all.”

He adds, “I’m comfortable being vulnerable,

but I overthink. If I don’t get the same

energy back, I walk away.”

Out since 2014, he is now passionate about

inspiring future youth.

“I started meditating because I

thought I was losing my mind.”

Troy Williams photographed at Alcatraz, a former

maximum-security federal prison located in the San

Francisco Bay. It is now a museum.





Rubin Lee Williams Jr.


Rubin Lee Williams Jr., also known as Kubwa

Jitu, spent 44 years incarcerated, 33 of which

were spent in solitary confinement. Today, he

lives at Canticle Farm in Oakland, working with

high school students to promote healing, communication,

and better decision-making.

Rubin Williams, known to friends as

Kubwa Jitu, spent 44 years incarcerated

in the California Department of

Corrections. Thirty-three of those years

were spent in Security Housing Units

(SHU) — isolation cells in facilities like

Vacaville, Folsom, San Quentin, Corcoran,

Tehachapi, and Ironwood.

“Most of my time in SHU was during the

height of racial tension,” he recalls. “My days

were spent preparing for attacks.” He lived in

a constant state of hypervigilance. But even

in isolation, Rubin resisted dehumanization by

turning inward. “I studied dialectics, philosophy,

African history, Swahili, and survival techniques.

That was how I survived the loneliness

and the violence.”

On July 19, 2019, Rubin was released. He

now lives in a community dedicated to healing

and social transformation and the core values

of service, spirituality, and nonviolence. Since

2020, he’s worked with local high school students,

sharing his story and encouraging alternatives

to violence. “I talk to young people

about communication and making better decisions.

I try to give them the right information,

what I wish I’d had when I was their age.”

Rubin also works in the culinary field, sharing

meals as a form of care and community.

He remains committed to the work of prevention:

“It’s not just about getting people out

of prison—it’s about keeping them from ever

going in.”

Thirty-three years in solitary confinement

could have left Rubin bitter or broken. Instead,

he’s chosen to lead with wisdom, compassion,

and purpose.

“I studied dialectics, philosophy,

African history, Swahili, and survival

techniques. That was how I survived

the loneliness and the violence.”

Rubin Lee Williams Jr. photographed at Alcatraz.





Richard “Razor” Johnson


Johnson spent 19 years in solitary confinement

at Pelican Bay State Prison before he was

transferred to San Quentin where he served an

additional nine years. He now lives in California

working on criminal justice reform, enjoying time

with his family, and reclaiming the life that was

once confined.

Richard Johnson’s time in solitary confinement

began on day one when he

was escorted naked into a windowless

cell at Pelican Bay State Prison in 1997.

Labeled a gang member, he spent over

19 years in some form of isolation. “I

remember mostly the darkness,” he says. The

absence of natural light in the 8-person pod

still haunts him: “You never forget.”

Through programs like GRIP (Guiding Rage

Into Power) and Nonviolent Communication,

Richard began to confront his trauma and

rebuild. “These programs made us take the

mask off,” he says. “I learned about myself.”

He cried with fellow prisoners as he reckoned

with the pain of separation from his family —

especially his son, who was just two years old

when Richard was incarcerated.

Even after his release in 2021, the impact of

isolation lingers. “I can spend days in my room.

You become accustomed to it. I slow down

while walking to let people pass. It’s part of my

trauma.” And still, he says, “You never really

get over it.”

But Richard refuses to be defined by his

sentence. “I came in who I was. Imma leave

who I was. Imma do me.” On May 29, 2025,

he released his memoir Learning Life Lessons,

which began as a letter to his son and now

speaks to “every young man walking through

life with the steady voice of a father in his ear.”

His advice: “Never allow nobody to make you

less than what you are.”

Richard is a writer, speaker, and advocate

for criminal justice reform. A lifelong reader

and lover of Afrocentric literature and politics,

he is currently working on a book of poetry.

“Never allow nobody to make you less

than what you are.”

Consuela

Richard

Gains

“Razor”

photographed

Johnson

photographed

in front of the

at Alcatraz.

XXX

buiding, New Orlean, LA.


Thank you!

Look2Justice graciously thanks the following

organizations for their support for this campaign to

end solitary confinement in the United States.

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/29

The Photographers

Brian Branch-Price

The four photographers for the Windows into Solitary

project discuss their thoughts about photographing the

18 men and women in this issue of ZEKE Magazine

Deborah Espinosa

Iman Mohamed

My conception of solitary

confinement is a small cell

with no light, no view to

the outside world, and dark and

dreary.

What I wanted to show in

the portraits was space—ever

ending space—that contradicted

the experienced confinement.

But after interviewing Whitfield,

Sabur, and Canales, the reality

is that solitary confinement was

much more than being separated

from their peers or general

population.

All three complained that

the cells were a torture chamber,

meals were sporadic, the

bedding unclean, and overrun

with rodents. It was a relentless

cycle of inhumane treatment

Anisah Sabur was in solitary

throughout her incarceration for

different periods. She described

the cell as a “box” with a metal

bed frame attached to the

wall along with a thin plastic

mattress and the women were

forced to wear a thin paper

knee-length gown. Now that she

is out, Sabur is strong, persevering

and a remarkable leader in

her community, mentoring young

women to a successful path thus

wiping away stereotypes about

the formerly incarcerated.

Brian Branch-Price is a native

of Plainfield, New Jersey and a

Howard University graduate with

a degree in geology and fine arts

photography. He is a photographer

and photo editor whose career has

ranged from photojournalism to

commissioned fine arts projects.

His career as a photojournalist

began at The Hilltop (Howard

University) as well as a freelancer

for The Washington Post. He had

five photo internships before

staffing for the Trenton Times,

The News Journal, the Associated

Press, Public Square Amplified

and Zuma Press.

Brian was selected as a DOD

Embed for the Iraq War for AP.

His work includes reportage on

Obataan Mobilization Against

Poverty, an orphanage in Ghana,

January 6 riots, Super Bowl,

World Series, and world cycling

championships.

His current project, “The

Original Cowboy, An American

Institution” takes a deep look into

the Black cowboy culture. Other

projects include Black maternal

health and infant mortality, vanishing

communities, Major Taylor

Legacies, BLM, and Black Gospel

legends.

Collaborating on this project

with Jessica, Gail, Marriam,

and Youngblood has been a

privilege. I am in awe of their

strength. I am in awe of their

ability and commitment to keep

their hearts open when they

have been subject to such inhumane

treatment. The paths that

each of them have taken following

incarceration is a testament

to that commitment.

I don’t know if I would have

been able to survive what they

did and still care.

This project speaks truth to

power. It shines a light on the

abuse of power by the state.

We are all responsible for

allowing this inhumane treatment

to continue, which is an

attempt to break the human

spirit. I have to hope that it’s

out of ignorance that solitary

confinement has been allowed

to continue and that this project

will be the catalyst for the

abolishment of what can only be

described as torture.

Deborah Espinosa is an attorneyat-law

and an artist at heart. She

combines her legal and multimedia

storytelling skills to advocate for

the rights of people from poor

and marginalized communities, in

both the United States and African

countries. She knows that collaborative

storytelling is the most

compelling and impactful advocacy

tool for reform of unjust law.

Deborah is former staff attorney

and staff photographer for the

international NGO Landesa. She is

a member of the inaugural cohort

of We, Women, a project of

women and gender-nonconforming

artists whose photo practice

is grounded in collaboration and

community engagement. She

turned her personal photography

project, Living with Conviction:

Sentenced to Debt for Life in

Washington State into a nonprofit

organization that is leading a

movement to equip and empower

people to know, use, and shape

their post-conviction rights.

Community-driven storytelling is

core to Living with Conviction’s

mission to secure economic and

racial justice with and for marginalized

communities.

Deborah was born and

raised in southern California to a

Mexican father and Norwegian

mother. She currently lives in

Seattle, Washington.




Brian Frank

Lori Waselchuk

This project evolved beyond

documenting those who

endured solitary confinement;

it became a collaborative

act of empowerment.

As someone formerly incarcerated,

my shared experience

built trust and allowed for

honest collaboration, giving the

men agency in their representation.

Ferry rides to Alcatraz and

many phone calls helped me

understand them and lay the

foundation for these meaningful

images. Their stories and activism

were central, shifting the

narrative away from stereotype

to strength and dignity.

Beyond my subjects, I saw

the penitentiary not just as a

backdrop but as a character,

its history and consequences

echoing throughout. For me, the

project was both healing and

empowering; a way to reclaim

control in a space that once held

power over me.

The project and these men

were inspiring, proof that even

after incarceration, there is

room for transformation and

hope.

Brian Frank documents cultural

identity, social inequality,

violence, workers’ rights, and the

environment across the Americas.

Recently, Brian received a For

Freedoms/National Geographic

grant to work on faith and

labor among California Central

Valley migrant workers. He is

a Journalism Professor and a

Catchlight Global Fellow. His

work with Catchlight, the Pulitzer

Center, and the Marshall Project

documents mass incarceration

and develops visual education

programs in juvenile centers and

impacted communities.

He has led visual storytelling

workshops for educators, journalists,

and youth across the U.S.

and Mexico and lectured on visual

curricula at universities, including

Harvard.

His two-year project,

Downstream, Death of the

Colorado, is in the collection of the

United States Library of Congress

and won POYi’s Global Vision

Award. La Guerra Mexicana, a

project on Mexico’s violence and

drug war, won NPPA’s Domestic

News Picture Story of the Year. His

work has appeared in publications

nationwide.

After graduating from SFSU’s

Journalism program, Brian worked

for The Wall Street Journal and

now focuses on documentary

work in California, the Southwest,

and Mexico.

I

am so grateful for the opportunity

to work on Windows

Into Solitary. I witnessed and

learned about the deep solidarity

between survivors of solitary

confinement—between those

who are now home and those

who are still incarcerated.

I think about the courage and

resilience of the survivors I met

on this project who continue

to process the dehumanizing

impacts of solitary confinement.

Once home, they face incredible

challenges to rebuild their lives.

Nevertheless, they continue

to dedicate tremendous

energy organizing to end this

cruel practice. It’s important

for us ‘free’ people to realize

that there are critical networks

and organizations in each of

our communities that we can

support in the movement to end

solitary confinement.

Lori Waselchuk is a photographer,

filmmaker, curator, and

socially engaged artist. Her artistic

practice is rooted in community,

the possibilities, the tensions and

challenges of working together for

a common idea or good.

Past collaborative projects

include Grace Before Dying,

about a hospice program in the

Louisiana State Penitentiary,

where both the caregivers and

the patients are serving long-term

prison sentences.

Lori is also a curator and

coordinator of numerous

exhibition projects including the

Women’s Mobile Museum, cocreated

with Zanele Muholi, and

produced by TILT Institute for the

Contemporary Image. Lori is the

recipient of Leeway Foundation’s

Media Artist & Activist Residency

and the Transformation Award,

Velocity Fund Grant, Pew

Fellowship for the Arts, Aaron

Siskind Foundation’s Individual

Photographer, and the Southern

African Gender and Media Award.

Her projects have been exhibited

in Africa, South America, North

America and Europe and her work

is published widely in books and

publications.

Lori is currently the curator-inresidence

at the Writers Room in

Philadelphia and the director/producer

of the upcoming film series,

Abolition Conversations.

ZEKE SUMMER 2025/ 31

Behind the Walls

A Woman’s Perspective on Solitary Confinement

by Kwaneta Harris

Solitary confinement transforms

already vulnerable women into

perfect targets for institutional

violence. During my eight and a

half years in solitary, I witnessed

firsthand how this supposedly

protective measure became

the perfect breeding ground for abuse.

The isolation, the dependency, and the

power imbalance create conditions

where sexual and physical violence

aren’t just possible, they’re inevitable.

In Texas, where summer temperatures

regularly reach triple digits and concrete

cells become ovens, I learned that

everything from basic necessities to

human dignity comes with a price.

The architecture of solitary confinement

deliberately creates complete

dependency on guards, who are

predominantly young males overseeing

mostly young women. When you’re

locked in a cell for 23 hours a day,

fundamental needs such as food, water,

and hygiene products must pass through

the hands of someone with total power

over you. This reliance isn’t accidental,

it’s a feature of the system.

I remember days when asking for an

extra roll of toilet paper was met with

the familiar refrain: “What you gonna

do for it?” The question lingered in the

air, heavy with implication. When your

access to tampons or pads depends on

the whims of male guards, your body

becomes currency in a transaction you

never agreed to.

By design, the isolation is a fertile

hunting ground for sexual predators

costumed as corrections officers.

Without functioning cameras or with

cameras monitored by colleagues

equally guilty of misconduct, privacy

doesn’t exist. My cell in the hole had

a mesh viewing window that I wasn’t

allowed to cover, even while using

the toilet. I can’t count how many

times I found myself trying to use the

bathroom while a male guard stood

outside making trivial conversation, his

eyes never leaving my exposed body.

Some women resort to deliberate poor

hygiene, going weeks without bathing,

hoping that body odor might serve as

a deterrent against unwanted attention.

My neighbor tried this once, but the

tactic backfired when a guard wrote her

up for “Failing to Obey a Direct Order”

by failing to maintain proper hygiene,

a disciplinary infraction that would later

be cited in her parole denial.

The power wielded by guards

extends beyond simple observation to

active humiliation and coercion. Male

guards routinely watched us shower,

twirling their fingers to instruct us to turn

around so they could get a better view.

During mandatory searches, they would

deliberately brush against us or, when

we were handcuffed, position themselves

so our restrained hands would

brush against their genitals. One week

after I refused a guard’s advances, my

water was mysteriously “malfunctioning,”

unable to flush my toilet or drink

tap water, I endured three days of

dehydration and humiliation before an

indifferent maintenance worker fixed the

“problem” with a simple turn of a valve

that had been deliberately shut off.

The threat of retaliation makes reporting

abuse a dangerous proposition that

few dare to attempt. According to the

Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 70%

of incarcerated women have histories

of physical and sexual abuse prior to

entering prison, making them particularly

vulnerable to continuing cycles of victimization.

When my friend finally gathered

the courage to report a guard who had

been forcing her to perform sexual acts

in exchange for her mail, the investigation

was conducted by his relative within

a week. She received three disciplinary

infractions, all falsified, each one a clear

message: stay silent or suffer. Her hunger

pains that followed as her food trays

mysteriously contained half portions were

so loud she mistook them for thunder.

We suffer unique psychological

consequences compared to our male

counterparts in solitary.

When your access to tampons or

pads depends on the whims of male

guards, your body becomes currency

in a transaction you never agreed to.

Studies show incarcerated women

are prescribed psychotropic medications

at significantly higher rates than

incarcerated men. We also exhibit

higher rates of self-harm and suicide

attempts than men in similar conditions.

During my time in solitary, I witnessed,

almost daily, suicide attempts and

several completions. One woman,

barely nineteen, slashed her wrists after

a guard threatened to “lose” her parole

paperwork if she didn’t comply with his

demands. Those of us with developmental

challenges or mental health issues

are particularly vulnerable to manipulation.

Another neighbor, a woman with

clear cognitive disabilities, believed a

guard’s promises that he would help

with her appeal, if she performed sexual

favors, only to discover he had no

influence whatsoever on her sentence.

This infliction of emotional trauma isn’t

limited to people but structures too.

The geographic isolation of women’s

prisons compounds the emotional toll

of solitary confinement in ways unique

Ariana Gomez




to females. Over 80% of incarcerated

women are mothers, yet most prisons are

built in rural, isolated areas deliberately

difficult for families to visit. The desperation

to return to our children creates a

powerful leverage point for abusive

staff. I’ve witnessed women endure

unimaginable degradation, silently

accepting sexual assault in exchange for

a favorable disciplinary record so they

can leave solitary. My own daughter

grew from an infant to being a college

freshman during my incarceration. I’m

imprisoned in Texas and my entire family

resides in Michigan, so I’ve only seen

her twice. For my first seven years in the

hole, I was only allowed a five-minute

call every three to four months and that’s

only if my disciplinary record was good.

It was. But when a guard implied he

could arrange extra phone privileges,

the temptation to compromise my dignity

was almost overwhelming.

Female guards, far from being allies,

often become complicit in maintaining

this abusive system. The few women who

worked in solitary during my confinement

were more concerned with fitting in with

their male colleagues than advocating

for us. I remember when a female officer

witnessed a male guard making explicit

comments about my body as I showered.

Rather than intervene, she laughed

along, later telling me I should be “flattered

by the attention.” Female staff who

did show compassion quickly learned to

suppress it or found themselves transferred

to a different building. The culture

of corruption and abuse envelopes

everyone, transforming even potential

allies into participants or silent witnesses.

The consequences of this environment

extend far beyond the sentence itself,

creating lasting trauma that follows

women like me long after release. In

solitary, we aren’t just punished with

isolation, we’re also forced to witness

and experience cycles of abuse so

routinely that they become normalized.

Like domesticated animals, we learn that

resistance brings pain and compliance

brings relief. This conditioning, this

breaking of the spirits, is perhaps the

cruelest aspect of solitary confinement

for women. When I finally left isolation

after eight and a half years, I found

myself flinching at kindness, suspicious

of generosity, and incapable of trust.

The walls of my cell may have

fallen away, but the psychological

prison remains, a testament to a system

designed not to rehabilitate women, but

to break them.

Social Documentary Network

Visual Stories Exploring Global Themes

SDN Website: A web portal for

documentary photographers to

create online galleries and make

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In the Hole

Five incarcerated men

on the minute-byminute

experience of

solitary confinement


Aaron Edward Olson

Antoine Davis

Raymond Williams

Jonathan Kirkpatrick

Illustrations by Hector Ortiz

This article was originally published

by Jewish Currents and won the 2024

Media For A Just Society Award from

Evident Change.

In 1829, at Philadelphia’s

Eastern State

Penitentiary, commonly

known as Cherry

Hill, descendants of

Pennsylvania’s Quaker

founders conceived the barbaric

practice of isolating humans in

cold concrete cells, the first experiment

in a punitive practice now

known as “solitary confinement.”

They thought that isolation might

sever those subjected to it from

their deviant behaviors by giving

them time to reflect, study, and

pray. Cherry Hill’s administrators

learned almost immediately that

the practice did not reform men but

instead drove them crazy. In 1842,

upon visiting Cherry Hill, Charles

Dickens said, “I believe that very

few men are capable of estimating

the immense amount of torture

and agony which this dreadful

punishment, prolonged for years,

inflicts upon the sufferers.”

Yet today, solitary confinement

persists as a common tactic in

U.S. prisons. It can be difficult to

get an accurate sense of just how

widespread this practice is, due to

shortcomings in available data.

But the numbers we do have are

staggering. The most recent prison

census, released in 2021 by the

Bureau of Justice Statistics, found

that more than 75,000 people

were being held in solitary confinement—defined

as being

confined to a cell for 22 hours


a day—when the census was

taken in 2019. (These numbers

included state and federal prisons

but not jails—which hold people

awaiting trial or serving some

short sentences—likely making

the real number much higher.)

A more recent study, released

in 2022 and co-authored by the

Correctional Leaders Association

and the Arthur Liman Center

for Public Interest Law at Yale

Law School, suggested that the

number of people held in solitary

seemed to have declined to

roughly 41,000–48,000 when

they collected their numbers in

July 2021. But clearly, tens of

thousands of incarcerated people

are still regularly forced to

endure the grueling experience

of solitary almost 200 years after

it proved to be a failed experiment.

The consequences are

devastating: Just last week, newly

released footage from an Indiana

jail showed that 29-year-old

Joshua McLemore died of malnutrition

there during a schizophrenic

episode in summer 2021

after being left in solitary confinement

for 20 days without mental

health treatment.

After spending years of my life

caged in solitary confinement,

beginning at age 12, I felt the stories

of those subjected to solitary

had to be shared. So I encouraged

participants in the writer development

program I created at the

prison where I live in Washington

State to write about it, with each of

them examining different aspects

of the experience.

Our narrative takes you chronologically

from the moment of

being taken away to solitary, to

the slog of bearing the isolation

itself, to the aftermath of seeking

healing amid persistent trauma.

All of the men who participated

in this piece have spent portions

of their lives, some short and

some long-lasting, in solitary

confinement, some as adolescents

and others as young adults. All

of them have experienced lifealtering

moments while trapped

behind that thick steel door. The

process of constructing these short

stories left each of the men in a

troubled state, forced to dredge

up some of the bleakest moments

of their lives—times where feelings

of hope, belonging, and

love were pushed deep down

and walled up, while feelings

of depression and loneliness

reigned. But they wanted to write

about it anyway. Only through

sharing our stories and educating

the public can we work to end

the practice that caused us all this

harm.

— Christopher Blackwell

Before Solitary

Aaron Edward Olson

“Cuff up!” demanded a raspy baritone

voice. The eight-member goon squad of

guards clad in riot gear, fit with shock

shields and batons, crowded outside my

cell door in battle formation. I sat up on

the cold steel bunk, slid into state-issued

foam sandals, and shuffled over to my

new nemesis. “Name’s Parkinson,”

growled the lead guard, “like the

disease! This is a cell extraction!” he

barked. A glob of chewing tobacco

hung from a front tooth, one of the few

yellow survivors of a hard life.

Before this rude interruption, life at

Stafford Creek Correctional Center in

Washington State, where I had arrived

11 months earlier, seemed to be looking

up after an awful start. I’d been

attacked the day I arrived by another

prisoner who had stopped taking his

court-ordered meds, and the brutal

prison gossip mill had been passing

around information on my criminal history,

earning me derogatory nicknames.

But now, my reputation was beginning

to rebound, as more prisoners got to

know me. Since the attack, I have been

required to meet weekly with a mental


In the Hole

health counselor—an elderly man with a

long, silver beard whom I privately nicknamed

Santa—and though he sometimes

acted temperamental and angry

with me for reasons I couldn’t understand,

we’d just had our best appointment

yet. On Super Bowl Sunday, the

prison hosted an event selling pizzas to

fundraise for veterans—a rare perk in

an otherwise gloomy place. I splurged

and bought a soda and large pizza. I’d

have savored it more had I known what

lay ahead.

Being escorted from my cell in cuffs

was humiliating. When I opened my

cell door, the goon squad recoiled, all

eight guards tensing into a slight crouch.

“Face the wall, and stand for search!”

barked the Disease. He leaned on my

back with one forearm, his gut pushing

against my waistline as he patted my

side and legs. I could smell his body

odor, a mix of stale tobacco, coffee,

and tooth decay that he attempted to

cover up with cheap aftershave. This

was turning into a spectacle, with 120

men watching from the day room.

Even though many of these men have

endured similar cell extractions for

various reasons, their faces said exactly

what I would be thinking if the roles

were reversed: What did he do? I was

asking myself the same question, racking

my memory for anything that made

sense. As a prisoner, you are conditioned

to believe you’ve done something

wrong, but I could think of nothing.

My routine was simple: work, school,

exercise, and church. That was it.

It was a half-mile walk to solitary

confinement, stretching almost the entire

length of the compound from my living

unit. One guard led the parade, with

another in the back, holding a video

camera. I was flanked by six others, three

on each side. They could have just asked

me to report to solitary, and I would have

complied, knowing that refusal would

only get me pepper-sprayed, gang-tackled,

and tased. But the message intended

by my perp walk was clear: We can

crush you whenever we want.

Solitary confinement has many

names: Officially it’s the SHU

(Segregated Housing Unit) or IMU

(Intensive Management Unit), but it’s

also called The Hole or Iso or Lock-Up,

among other unsavory terms. At this

prison, The Hole was an entirely separate

unit and housed over 200 prisoners.

As if the prison’s gun towers, razor

wire, attack dogs, and army of guards

are not enough, the process of entering

the Hole involves passing through

another set of sliding gates, and then

half a dozen or more doors that must be

buzzed open from some distant control

booth.

I was placed in a holding cell and

told to strip naked as two guards I had

never seen before stared at me, visibly

irritated at my hesitation. First I had to

open my mouth, swipe my gums, and

wiggle my tongue, then hold my arms

high, lift my testicles, spread my butt

cheeks, and show the bottoms of my

feet. I felt numb; it was hard to think.

Only one thought kept piercing my

delirium: This is your life.

The steel door slammed shut, and I

entered my new home: a six-by-eightfoot

concrete box, with none of my

books, clothes, or basic personal items

to soften the hard steel and concrete.

The drab room, barely bigger than

a closet, held a steel bunk on a bare

concrete floor. The toilet was a hunk of

metal, a hole, with no lid. The cell was

musty, with wafts of mildew and urine.

I would wait there in suspense for

the next ten days before I received a

hearing. That day, I was ushered into

the court by two guards; I wore a bright

orange jumpsuit, belly chains, wrist

cuffs, leg irons, and a chain that swept

the floor with every step. My attire

could not hope to inspire an unbiased

verdict. “Do you know why you are

here?” asked the hearings officer. “No,”

I replied. He proceeded to read a

report and formal accusation: “Inmate

Olson has become fixated on a female

staff member, and exhibited predatory

behavior.”

I was stunned. I scanned the room,

seeing eyes of disgust and contempt.

I was scum to them, and surely guilty

of the accusation. I cleared my throat

and mustered a plea to every person

present. “Please, investigate this. This is

not true. I would never do this,” I said.

“That’s not what your criminal history

suggests,” smirked the case manager—

the man appointed to advocate for my

best interest.

When you’ve been guilty of something

before, it’s not hard to believe

you’ve done it again. The accusation

had come from “Santa,” my mental

health counselor, who now recommended

I be referred for a six-month

Intensive Management Unit (IMU) program,

which included a facility separation

requirement, meaning I had to serve

the solitary time at a different prison and

could never return to Stafford Creek. (I

learned only much later, after I got legal

help to investigate the charges, that

Santa’s animosity toward me appeared

rooted in his disagreements with other

staff members over how best to treat me;

I was a casualty of longstanding office

politics.) I had thought he was trying to

help me. Instead, he acted as an agent

of modern slavery, an administrator

of the plantation where I was being

kept. He punished me for my past and

crippled my hope for the future.

Though Santa’s accusation was

recorded in a note on my permanent

record—meaning I am still dealing

with the consequences over a decade

later—I received no official infraction,

and therefore no option to appeal. No

accusation was ever made against me

by any female staff member. Yet I was

still sentenced to eight months in solitary

confinement. So much for mental health

treatment. The dark, cold, lonely concrete

walls of isolation was my counselor’s

“prescription.” With the judgment

decreed, I was escorted back to my

solitary cell, where I spent the next 50

days until being transferred to another

facility several hours away for another

six months in the hole.


Day One of Solitary

Antoine Davis

Boom, boom, boom! The loud noise

echoed down the hallway as the two

prison guards escorted me to the cell

I had been assigned. It was a summer

afternoon, and the sunlight coming

through the gray-coated windows

reminded me of the freedoms I couldn’t

reach. The oversized orange jumpsuit

draped over my body felt like a metaphor:

This place didn’t fit; I didn’t belong

there. As we moved past one cell door

after another, I could feel the eyes of

some of the men watching me through

plexiglass windows behind paintchipped

bars. Solitary confinement felt

like a place for animals.

I winced as the guards sped up,

causing the steel cuffs to bite into the

back of my ankles. As we passed

another cell, a strong whiff of urine

made me nauseous. “How long am

I supposed to be here?” I asked the

guard. “Don’t know—it depends,” he

responded.

Boom, boom, boom! Somewhere

toward the end of the tier, the stranger

responsible for the noise kept pounding

on what I later learned was the cell’s toilet.

The man burst into maniacal laughter

as if he had accomplished something

he’d been working on for decades. The

cell door in front of me slid open and the

guard to my right tightened his grip to

steady me. The other guard bent down to

remove the cuffs from my feet before tapping

my back as a signal for me to step

in. With a humming sound, the cell door

slid closed and locked with a loud clank.

“Hey there’s no mattress in here!”

I yelled. “We’ll get you one when we

have time,” a guard snapped back. I let

out a sigh, trying not to let my frustrations

get the best of me. I’d never been

in the hole before. I observed the room.

The bunk was coated in dust and pieces

of dry food. The corners of the frame

were rusted. The walls were covered

with gang-related and racist writings,

including a drawing of a woman with

swastikas all over her body.

Within 30 minutes the cell door slid

open again and the guard handed me

an old mattress. I tossed the plastic mat

onto the steel bunk, in utter disbelief that

I was to sleep on something so unsanitary.

I asked for something to wipe

down the bedding with, but the guard

told me that cleaning supplies would

have to wait. His tone implied I should

be grateful for having anything to sleep

on at all. When the cell door closed

again, I stood there for a moment, leaning

against the wall, wondering how

many bodies this mattress had been

subjected to. It was deflated. The cotton

inside puffed through the countless

cracks that lined it from top to bottom.

The sheets and blankets were hardly in

better condition.

I wanted to cry. Left to myself,

trapped in the filthy little cage, I had the

perfect opportunity to do so. No one

would know; no one would see; no one

would hear. It was then that I realized

that solitary confinement is designed to

break our spirits. It’s an excuse for the

system to treat us the way it truly sees us,

unworthy of human dignity and unfit for

society. If the following days were anything

like today, this would be one of the

lowest moments of my entire life.

The Endless Middle

Aaron Edward Olson

From the outside, the transport bus that

carried me from one solitary unit to

another at a different facility resembled

a Greyhound, but the seats were hard

plastic. In the back, in the place of

where a seat would be, there was an

open toilet that sloshed on every bump,

filling the air with the pungent scent of

urinal cake and pounds of ripe excrement.

I was one of 40 prisoners wearing

an orange jumpsuit, belly chains, wrists

cuffed to the waist, and leg irons. None

of us had seat belts. When I arrived at

my new destination, it looked exactly

like the Segregation Unit I had just left:

another prison within a prison. Did they

just drive in a big circle? I wondered.

As I settled into my new cell, lunch

arrived, according to the typical

solitary mealtime process: The guard

screams “mainline!” and if you’re not

standing on a yellow line near the


In the Hole

door as the meal cart goes by, it keeps

going. Food portions were small, and

I remained hungry from one tray to the

next, waiting for my next meal like a

starved dog in a kennel. One bright

spot was that my window was not

completely blacked out. A thick, long

scratch in the exterior latex coating

offered a glimpse of a different reality.

Standing on tiptoes on my bunk, I

could make out people walking to and

from their cars in a distant parking lot.

I imagined what their lives were like,

and if they even knew I existed. Hours

would pass, and my toes went numb.

Human contact was sparse. Each

week offered five one-hour sessions

of recreation, and three ten-minute

opportunities to shower. I was placed

on a leash by the guards and walked

like a dog to my destination. Before the

leash could be attached, I had to squat

awkwardly, extending my arms straight

back through the food port in the center

of the door so they could handcuff me

from the outside. Before escorting me

to or from my cell, the two-man team

would perform a dehumanizing strip

search. “Show me the nasty,” they’d

say, laughing.

Recreation involved being taken

to another concrete box called “the

yard,” which, despite its name, had

no grass. The ’80s style payphone

housed in a crude steel cage by the

door was our only means of contacting

the outside world. I spent most of my

hour on the phone or sometimes doing

a few pull-ups on a bar in the yard.

All year round, an old dirty jacket lay

on the ground, for use by all in case it

got cold. A small mesh grate in the top

corner of the room provided a peek at

the sky, where I hoped to see a plane

or bird. I never did. Occasionally,

instead of recreation time, I might have

a one-hour visit with my mom and little

sister, separated by glass.

The screams and rants of other

prisoners echoed into the night, accompanied

by the pounding on their steel

doors. Walkie-talkies crackled, keys

jingled, a fluorescent light that never

went dark hummed incessantly, and

more and more often, I thought of killing

myself. Maybe I was already dead

and this was hell, I thought. At some

point, I don’t remember when, I realized

I needed a routine to stay alive

and sane. So I created one. I woke up

to guards slamming steel trap doors

and yelling several pods away, giving

me a 10-to-15-minute head start on a

workout: push-ups and sit-ups one day,

and squats and calf raises the next.

Afterwards, I would read the Bible, one

of only two books allowed in my cell.

I spent the next several hours writing,

recording my dreams, ambitions, and

thoughts, and periodically stretching.

After lunch I would read the second

book, a novel, which I got to switch out

once a week: I usually picked a western,

sometimes sci-fi if I felt like taking a

risk. As I read, some men played chess

from cell to cell, yelling the piece and

space number back and forth. After

recreation time, I spent my evenings with

a disappointing dinner and my book.

Then, I tried to sleep under the fluorescent

lights.

My family doesn’t understand when

I explain that my memories of that time

are blurred. They have months or years

of distinct memories. In solitary, I only

had one. Each day was the same and

began with the worst part: waking up.

“Nothing” happens each moment of

every day. Yet in those moments of


nothingness, the absence of life, happiness,

and experience gives birth

to misery and despair—the torture of

knowing that your life is worth nothing,

that it holds nothing: no casual conversations

with a neighbor or coworker, no

hugs from friends and family, no kisses

from a spouse. There is nothing left but

bare survival.

Juvenile in Solitary

Raymond Williams

The door slammed behind me. I looked

across the room in confusion. This wasn’t

a cell; it couldn’t be. There was no bed,

no sink, and no toilet. There was a mattress

thrown on the ground at the far

end of the cell. And there was a smell.

Sewage?

I looked at the floor. It was different,

covered in a rubbery material instead

of the bare refined concrete I’d grown

accustomed to in my cell. In the center

of the room there was a barred grate

over a hole in the floor. I realized with

horror that the cell had a toilet after all.

It was like something from medieval

times.

There is no polite way to tell this story.

Imagine defecating through that barred

grate in the middle of a floor. As disgusting

as you imagine it, it’s worse. Your

waste doesn’t simply fall through. It rests

on top of the grate leaving you with a

choice no human should be forced to

make: Take the small individual squares

of toilet paper they give you and push

the feces through the grate into the hole,

or live with the stench and horror of a

log sitting in the middle of your floor

like some unholy shrine. If you choose

the former, like I did, you will want to

be extra careful not to get any on your

fingers. There is no sink to wash with,

and the squares of toilet paper are perilously

thin. Do not worry too much about

what’s left along the edges of the bars.

Soon enough you will urinate, and if

your aim is good enough, you can blast

the remaining matter away.

This was solitary in the Thurston

County Juvenile Detention Facility in

Olympia Washington in the 1990s. I

was 14 years old. I spent weeks at a

time in that cell over the years of my

youth. At the time, like other youth, I

was seeking a sense of self, my place

in the world and in society. The brutality

of juvenile solitary diminished my

self-worth, already fragile after an early

childhood of abuse at home and in various

foster placements. It set the stage for

the adult I would become: #767974.

Last Day of Solitary


One day, around 8:00 pm, two guards

finally came to my door. I was starting

to lose hope that I was even getting

out that day. As they looked in the tiny

window, one of the guards asked if I

was ready to be returned to mainline.

I thought: What a stupid question. I

didn’t say this out loud, for fear that they

might change their minds and leave me

trapped in the cold, dingy cell. “All my

stuff is in the paper bag and I’m ready,”

I told them.

The guards asked me to come to the

door so I could be cuffed. You leave

how you enter: tightly bound. One last

reminder that they are in control. But

I was just happy to be getting out. I

would do what they wanted, willingly

toss my humanity aside like an empty

wrapper.

I was cuffed and brought to the

solitary visit room, where I sat for a

while. Finally, a guard arrived. He told

me to strip; my body was inspected

from top to bottom, not missing a crack

or crevice. They had to make sure I

didn’t take anything from the bare cell

I had just left, as if there was anything

to take. I got dressed and waited for

an escort to take me back to the main

prison. Twenty more minutes, then the

escort arrived, and I was again cuffed

tightly with my hands behind my back.

The door opened and we proceeded

through three sets of large steel doors.

The last one exposed me to the fresh

open air, crisp and inviting. Standing

there, cuffed, in a bright orange

jumpsuit many sizes too large, I pulled

deep breaths into my lungs, as if the air

would cease to exist at any moment. It

felt like I hadn’t been outside for years,

though it had only been weeks.

Still, the demonstration of power

wasn’t over. Not long after we entered

the open air, I was instructed by one of

the guards to bend over and face the

ground. Confused by this command, I

ask the guard to repeat what he’d said.

He repeated himself in a more aggressive

tone, putting his large frame directly

in front of me, eyes locked on mine.

I quickly followed his directive. I was

immediately surrounded by all three

guards. Two of them placed their hands

firmly on my back, making sure it was

impossible to stand up straight. After

a couple of minutes bent over like this,

I was directed to return to an upright

position. Unable to help myself, I asked

why that was necessary. The guards told

me not to worry about security procedures.

I said nothing more.

We traveled through openings in a

couple of towering fences laced with

shiny razor wire. Everyone was quiet.

All I could think about was how badly

I wanted to be released from their

company. Eventually, we came to a side

gate, and I recognized the large concrete

steps that led to the main prison.

My heart started to race. This nightmare

was finally about to end. I could go

back to my regular program: school,

visits, and phone time. I’d finally get a

full night’s sleep.

We proceeded through the large

gate; the cuffs were removed from my

sore wrists, and I was instructed to return

to my regular living unit. Just like that,

I was released. I took the stairs two at

a time, as if trying to escape capture. I

had no clue why I was doing this, since

the guards had no reason to grab me

and return me to solitary. It just felt right

to put as much distance between us as

possible. My friends in the living unit

were excited to see me. It felt good

to see them. Some of these guys have

been my friends for decades, and the

reality is, in this world, when people


In the Hole

go to solitary, they often never return.

Friends simply disappear, and we’re left

to wonder what happened—where they

were sent, how much trouble they got in.

All we have is rumors and speculation.

This time, though, I was lucky enough

to return to where I‘d come from. As I

settled in my cell that night, I took my

shoes off and extended my legs across

my bunk. The unit was silent: no screams

from prisoners suffering from the isolation,

no kicking of doors and yelling

at taunting guards. I rolled over and

quickly fell asleep.

After Solitary

Jonathan Kirkpatrick

I looked out my window. It was still

early. I might have been able to see the

sunrise, but my cell window didn’t have

a view that far east; the trees were in the

way. No one else was awake, only me.

I had just been released from almost 18

months in solitary confinement.

Now that I was back in my general

population unit, I was having a hard

time sleeping. It wasn’t the noise; our tier

was generally quiet. The problem was I

was having a hard time winding down.

The days were filled with so many sights

and sounds that I wasn’t used to. When

people tried to talk to me, I just heard

meaningless babble, like the adults in

a Charlie Brown cartoon. Everything

seemed so large and oppressive: A

walk to the chow hall was an ordeal

that required the preparation of a road

trip. I would lay in my bunk at night

just trying to catch up with the day. A

few minutes of conversation could take

me hours to process, as I tried to figure

out what everyone wanted. And so I

couldn’t sleep.

In my mind, I knew I probably had

some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder.

A lot had happened: Two summers

before, I had been brutally stabbed due

to a gang conflict. My lung collapsed

and my carotid artery nearly severed.

I was airlifted from the remote prison

in Clallam Bay on the northwest tip of

Washington to Harborview Hospital

in Seattle 100 miles away, where I

underwent surgery. I spent the next year

in solitary, which was the prison’s way

of protecting me from my assailants.

During that time I received no counseling

to address what had happened to

me, just dead time for my mind to race

with negative thoughts. I spent all of

that time nursing my grudge against the

people who had stabbed me, promising

myself some sort of retribution.

Someone had to pay for the harm I

suffered. When I returned back to the

prison where I’d been attacked, I felt

surrounded by enemies. As I sat up each

night, looking out my window, I could

sense that something was wrong with

me, but I didn’t know how to fix it.

The high levels of stress began to take

a toll; soon my body began to fail. I had

been diagnosed with HIV in 1992. By

1999, before I was stabbed, my illness

was under control, and I was in good

health. I was no longer on any medications

and I was physically fit. After almost

a year in isolation, recovering from the

stabbing wounds, my T-cell count began

to drop. Medication stabilized me, but

also came with frustrating side effects,

like vomiting and headaches. Still, I

strove to maintain a rigorous exercise

regimen. By the time they released me

from solitary, I was in excellent condition,

given the circumstances.

But now, two weeks after leaving

solitary, I had suddenly developed an

extreme case of shingles, blanketing

most of my body, and causing so much

pain I had to be sedated with morphine.

I began to lose weight at an alarming

rate, ten pounds every few weeks. Prison

health officials called it wasting disease.

My muscle mass diminished and I came

down with pneumonia, which seemed to

fill my lungs with molasses. As each day

passed and I became weaker, I felt more

like the end was coming. Desperation

and paranoia settled over me like a cloud

that wouldn’t blow away. While I’d been

unable to sleep just weeks ago, right after

my release from solitary, now I could

hardly find the energy to stay awake.

The doctors told me that I would

be okay. They didn’t even keep me in

the infirmary. I didn’t believe them. I

was scared and tired and lonely. They

tried to explain how stress could have

a physical effect on the body. I followed

the conversation but didn’t really

understand at first. But when you can’t

do anything else, sometimes the only

thing left is self-reflection. I came to

understand that I was killing myself—the

hate I had spent so much time feeding

on in solitary was now eating me from

the inside out.


Solitary’s Long

Shadow

Raymond Williams

Authors

Christopher Blackwell, 44, is an

award-winning journalist currently

incarcerated in Washington state.

He is a contributing writer at Jewish

Currents and the co-founder

of Look2Justice. Follow his work

on his website at

www.christopher-blackwell.com.

Aaron Edward Olson is an author,

journalist, and podcast host (listen at

AaronEdwardOlson.com). Sentenced

to life at age 19, Aaron chronicles 17

years of life behind bars and his hope

for prison and sentencing reform.

By age 17, I was out of juvie and in the

adult prison system; I spent the year I

turned 18 in solitary in the Washington

Department of Corrections. When the

guards placed me there, my first thought

was how much nicer the cell was than

the juvenile facility. I had a toilet, sink,

a desk, a bed, and even a mirror. There

was a small window looking outside.

Everything was clean. But these impressions

soon gave way to a colder reality,

an isolation and loneliness no human

being should taste.

It was hard to maintain sanity when

the lights never shut off. I had a neighbor

once who beat the metal toilet night

after night with his sandal. Gong-gonggong!

All night long, night after night.

Prisoners also banged on doors. I did

too. Why? Stimulation. Attention. To

prove I was alive. Three months into the

madness I couldn’t sleep even on good

days. I started hearing voices.

Six months in, the isolation and loneliness

started to eat me. As a former foster

youth, I had no family to call and no one

to write me, and I grew desperate for

support and friendship. When I gained

access to a phone I started dialing random

numbers collect. I hoped someone

would answer and I would make a

friend. But people rarely answered, and

when they did, I didn’t find what I was

Antoine Davis, 37, is an incarcerated

husband, father, and awardwinning

journalist in Washington

state. He mentors at-risk youth

through Black Equality Coalitions

Unstoppable Mentoring Program.

Raymond Williams is an awardwinning

formally incarcerated journalist

who spent over 20 years in the

Washington state prison system.

Jonathan Kirkpatrick is an

incarcerated writer at Washington

Corrections Center. He does HIV/

HCV harm reduction work inside.

looking for. Eventually, I stopped calling

out. I turned inward, and I have never

been the same. I cannot forget the years

in solitary I endured as a youth. I can’t

shake the sense of loneliness that lingers

to this day. The long-term effects of solitary

live on in me.


BOOK

REVIEWS

SOLITARY: The Inside Story of

Supermax Isolation and How

We Can Abolish It

By Terry Allen Kupers

University of California Press

2017 | 304 pages

You never forget walking into an

animal shelter for the first time; the

stench alone is nauseating. But

seeing dogs, old and young, sitting in

kennels for far too long, with the look of

despondency and rejection… It’s soulcrushing.

Some respond by calling their local

elected representative to file a report.

Others call PETA and demand an end to

animal cruelty.

But when this form of isolation

involves incarcerated people placed in

solitary confinement for nearly 23 hours

a day, society barely even notices, let

alone calls to put an end to it.

Terry Allen Kupers’ Solitary explores

isolation through solitary confinement,

albeit not about our furry friends. He

attributes human solitary confinement

as part architecture, part socialization,

part systemic, part historical, part

unnecessary, part punitive, part (lazy)

administration. He emphasizes that it is

profoundly dehumanizing and erosive

to the human, holistically in the body,

spirit, and mind.

Crushing the human body, spirit, and

mind has a historical context. “Racism

is a pervasive and deeply entrenched

problem in American society,” Kupers

writes, “And there are few places where

it is more apparent and grotesque than

in American prisons.”

What a racist cannot do in society,

they can get away with in prisons. More

specifically, in solitary confinement, they

have an unfettered opportunity to enact

their cruelty. Through state-sanctioned

power, who can prove that they are the

criminals?

I retort that the problem is not merely

solitary confinement, but the slow death

that comes through isolation, often used

as a method to solve mental health

issues and the disposal of “problem

inmates.” When you think about it, Black

and brown people’s bodies within any

space controlled by the dominant culture

is in itself racial violence.

Kupers gives ample examples of

correctional control, including the use

of food. The consumption process is a

vital tool, providing institutional captors

the ability to transform individuals into

inmates, because this process creates

a sense of food estrangement between

one’s self and one’s body. Kupers

describes how the officer “kept messing

with the [food] trays and required them

[prisoners] to get on their knees at the

back of the cell... We ain’t no dogs, one

prisoner exclaimed.”

Another issue that resonated with

me: “When departments of corrections

use isolation as a solution to behavioral

problems and assaults within prison,

they only make the problem worse

because the harsh conditions of isolation

and idleness predictably make prisoners

chronically disturbed and disruptive,”

Kupers writes.

After lengthy facility lockdowns,

people return to the general population,

with an uptick in drug use and violence.

When some people come straight from

the box (Special Housing Unit or SHU)

to the general population, they often

overdose — what we call having an

“eppy,” shortened from “episode”.

Kupers’ book tiptoes right up to the

line of radical change to the broader

prison system, but fades away. In my

opinion, solitary confinement cannot

be abolished until we fully protect the

incarcerated people under state human

rights laws (in every state) and remove

the lynchpin that holds those in “slavery”

and “involuntary servitude” for

their crimes, as secondary citizens (for

those who are citizens), as proscribed

through the U.S. Constitution’s Thirteenth

Amendment, which allows the courts to

institutionalize isolation.

Kupers mentions social death, drawing

from the philosopher Lisa Guenther.

“The men interviewed reported that they

felt more and more that there was no

use doing anything because nothing

would ever change... they shut down...

they grew listless... Some of the prisoners

described this as depression, some

as deadness,” it reads.

What can’t be said is often beyond

language: cell walls feel like the inside

of a coffin, the ceiling a nailed-shut lid.

This isn’t a quick death; it is slowly

losing touch with reality, because your

voice is the only linguistic sound you

hear, which becomes the social death.

You feel below humanity. That kind of

isolation, if you survive, changes how

you see yourself, the people around

you, and the rules of society… because

you know depravity at a sublevel, a

lowness which you wouldn’t wish on

your enemy.

Kupers challenges us to grapple

with what we humans do to ourselves,

so we can afford more grace for those

who live in prison. His book nods to the

highly marginalized in a marginalizing

system, including trans and less masculine

people navigating a hypermasculine

prison culture.

This book creates the conversation

we fail to have on our own: None of us

are disposable, or we all are. Human

cruelty doesn’t exist without society

agreeing that it’s okay if people are

forced to be in human cages for 23

hours a day in deplorable conditions.

—E. Paris Whitfield




SOLITARY: Unbroken by

Four Decades in Solitary

Confinement. My Story of

Transformation and Hope

By Albert Woodfox with

Leslie George

Grove | 2019 | 448 pages

Imagine being locked in a prison cell

no bigger than a closet. For 23 hours

a day, thick concrete walls isolate

you from any human connection. Your

food is “served” on a dirty floor riddled

with rats and roaches. For your one

hour outside, you’re forced to strip

naked in front of strangers.

Would such treatment be cruel and

unusual punishment if it lasted a week?

A month? Imagine enduring these

conditions for four decades after being

convicted of a murder you didn’t commit.

Albert Woodfox’s book Solitary

allows us to imagine that horror.

Woodfox begins by describing the

harsh realities of poverty, segregation,

and systemic racism faced during the

Jim Crow era in Louisiana. Woodfox

survived violence with his neighborhood

gang, leading him to serve time

in Angola, Louisiana’s notorious slave

plantation turned prison. Sexual slavery,

extreme violence, and corruption were

“normal” in Angola, and Woodfox did

what was necessary to survive.

After his release, Woodfox returned

to his usual hustle. After an armed robbery,

he was jailed in New York City,

where he met members of the Black

Panther Party. Woodfox embraced the

Panthers’ 10-point program, focused on

Black self-determination, employment,

education, housing, police brutality, and

the criminal justice system.

Extradited to Angola, Woodfox

became an influential activist, teaching

prisoners their worth, urging self-education,

and collaboration. He discouraged

violence, explaining how prison officials

wanted them divided to distract from the

oppressive and inhumane conditions.

Despite Woodfox’s positive impact,

those who profited from drugs,

violence, and rape within the prison

hated him and his followers. Woodfox

couldn’t have foreseen the retaliation

for his activism.

On April 17, 1972, Woodfox was

violently pulled from his bed and

ordered to strip. A deputy sheriff placed

a revolver to Woodfox’s face,cursing

him for being a Black Panther. After a

brutal beating, he was sent to solitary

confinement. Woodfox described the

conditions as morally reprehensible—

rats coming through shower drains and

red ants invading his clothes, sheets,

mail, toiletries, and food.

Eventually, Woodfox learned that

he, Herman Wallace, and Robert King

were charged with the murder of Brent

Miller, a 23-year-old white prison

guard who was stabbed 32 times.

Despite the mountain of evidence that

pointed to the defendants’ innocence,

an all-white jury found them guilty,

sentencing them to life in prison. No

one questioned why King was charged,

even though he arrived at the prison 30

days after Miller’s death.

Angola’s prison officials forced

Woodfox and the others into solitary

confinement, despite no justifiable reasons

to isolate them.

While in solitary confinement,

Woodfox witnessed countless prisoners

experience panic, paranoia, hallucinations,

depression, and thoughts of

suicide. When Woodfox, Wallace,

and King— known as the Angola 3—

advocated for better conditions, prison

officials retaliated violently. The prisoners

were maced regularly, fed spoiled

food, denied showers, stripped naked,

and examined like slaves. Prison guards

sometimes shut off running water for as

long as ten days, forcing prisoners to

drink from their toilets.

Decades later, advocates uncovered

that the state had withheld evidence,

including fingerprints, clothes,

and shoes found at the crime scene.

Angola’s warden bribed prisoners with

cigarettes and pardons to testify that

the Angola 3 had murdered the guard,

threatening to withhold parole for prisoners

who refused. Officials railroaded

Woodfox, Wallace, and King because

their political views were disruptive to

the white supremacist system.

King’s conviction was overturned

in 2001, and he accepted a plea deal.

In 2013, Wallace was granted a new

trial but died of liver cancer days after

he was released. Woodfox’s conviction

was overturned three times, and

he was finally released in 2016 on his

69th birthday after 43 years of living

in solitary confinement.

Solitary, co-written by Woodfox

and Leslie George, was published in

2019. Though Woodfox died in 2022 at

age 75, the insights of the book, sadly,

remain relevant today. Woodfox notes

that there are more than 80,000 men,

women, and children in solitary confinement

in prisons across the United States,

according to the Bureau of Justice

Statistics, excluding county jails, juvenile

facilities, or immigrant detention centers.

In the Epilogue, Woodfox quotes

then-U.S. Rep. Cedric Richmond: “We

have abused the practice of solitary

confinement to the point where it has

become modern-day torture. Too many

prisoners, including the seriously mentally

ill and juveniles, are locked away

for 23 hours a day, often with little to no

due process and at a steep cost to the

taxpayer.”

This book offers ample evidence

to support Richmond’s analysis and

Woodfox’s blunt conclusion: “Solitary

confinement is immoral.”

—Antoine E. Davis


ENDING ISOLATION:

The Case Against Solitary

Confinement

By Christopher Blackwell and

Deborah Zalesne with Kwaneta

Harris and Dr. Terry Kupers

Pluto Press | 2025 | 272 pages

“

Take a moment and try to imagine

being placed in a box the size of

a small bathroom. You’re stuck in

this box for at least 90 straight days, and

you’re allowed to leave this box for an

hour once a day,” begins John “Divine

G” Whitfield’s description of solitary

confinement. “Confinement in the box is

like being buried alive,” he writes. “The

only difference between the box and the

coffin is the size of the container.”

Ending Isolation: The Case Against

Solitary Confinement centers voices

like Whitfield’s—those who have lived

through America’s most hidden and

arguably cruelest punishment: solitary

confinement. Chris Blackwell, currently

incarcerated and writing from inside the

system, collaborates with law professor

Deborah Zalesne alongside journalist

Kwaneta Harris, who spent over

eight years in solitary confinement, and

psychiatrist Dr. Terry Kupers. Together,

they provide a rigorously researched

and devastatingly personal account of

solitary confinement in this country.

With over 122,000 people held in

solitary confinement in American prisons

daily, the practice remains largely invisible

and carefully controlled. As early

as 1890, the Supreme Court recognized

solitary confinement as “too severe,”

noting that prisoners “fell into a semifatuous

condition” or “became violently

insane,” yet today, solitary confinement

is used more than ever. This book

offers an in-depth exploration into the

devastating consequences and possible

solutions, written by those affected and

imprisoned.

The individual examples stand on

their own, but together they make

this 196-page book a heavy read.

These include cases like Willie Russell,

who spent two years at Mississippi’s

Parchman prison in a cell with plexiglass

doors, sleeping on bare concrete, in

torturous humidity. The authors describe

this as “barbaric... punitive degradation...

shocking to human sensibilities.”

The book also includes testimonies from

officials like the former assistant mental

health chief in the solitary unit at Rikers,

who describes “deadlocking” mentally

ill individuals, which consists of locking

them for days or weeks in solitary

confinement while blocking their access

to healthcare, often resulting in schizophrenic

episodes.

The book’s structure amplifies its

impact and message. The middle chapters

proceed with methodical precision:

“The Physical and Psychological Harms

of Solitary,” “Mental Illness and Solitary

Confinement,” “Juveniles in Solitary,”

“Racism,” “Sexual Assault and

Gender-Based Injustices in the Hole,”

“Environmental Injustice and Its Effect

on Solitary.” Each section builds an

increasingly overwhelming case against

the practice.

Solitary confinement causes severe

psychological damage, rewiring the

brain, causing damage equivalent to

traumatic brain injury. Contributors

describe a complete cognitive breakdown,

losing the ability to read, concentrate,

or distinguish dreams from reality.

The statistics are stark: fifty percent of

prison suicides occur among the roughly

five percent of prisoners in solitary

confinement, and those who experience

any time in isolation are nearly eighty

percent more likely to commit suicide in

their first year after release.

Such solitary placements have

become more routine, with people sent to

solitary confinement for minor infractions

like cheering too loudly during the Super

Bowl or having an “inappropriate” hairstyle.

The majority of people in solitary

confinement haven’t been “officially designated

as exhibiting violent or serious

and disruptive behavior while incarcerated.”

Instead, solitary confinement, as

the book alludes to, is a systemic cruelty

causing more violence and trauma, never

a solution meant to quell it.

The authors argue that prolonged

solitary confinement is torture, causing

devastating harm to those who endure it

and others affected. Research found that

solitary confinement worsens violence

within prisons and in public, as people

are eventually released “more dangerous

than they left due to the psychological

torture they went through.”

Currently, the most effective policy

approaches are proposed by those

who have intimately endured solitary

confinement. The national Unlock the

Box campaign, founded by survivors,

advocates, and watchdog groups, has

expanded from a four-state pilot project

to a 23-state network fighting to ban

solitary confinement. As the authors

write, ending solitary confinement

represents “a critical step in transforming

the penal system of abuse into a

system of accountability and healing

where real rehabilitation is possible.”

The fight against solitary confinement

reveals how policy shifts when suffering

is made visible, giving way to breathing,

thinking, and breaking human beings.

By exposing the cruelty, this book

doesn’t just indict a system—it reclaims

the narrative. In amplifying the voices of

those the system tries to silence, Ending

Isolation becomes more than a case

against torture—it becomes an act of

rejoining, a call to conscience, and a

blueprint for change.

—Sarah Sax


Join Us in Ending a Human Rights

Crisis in the United States

Imagine living in a space no bigger than a parking spot, isolated

from all human contact for days, months, years, or even decades.

This is the horrifying reality of solitary confinement—a

torment that inflicts profound psychological and physical

harm, widely recognized as torture. It’s a human rights crisis

unfolding on U.S. soil. And we have the power to end it.

The Unlock the Box campaign is a national movement dedicated

to ending this inhumane practice. Join us in demanding an

end to solitary confinement and advocating for more humane,

effective, and rehabilitative

alternatives that

truly serve justice and

our communities.

www.unlocktheboxcampaign.org

A film that goes beyond making a case

against solitary confinement.

THE STRIKE illuminates the power of

organizing and resistance led by

those incarcerated. Scan to learn

more about the largest prison hunger

strike in U.S. history and how 30,000

incarcerated individuals took a stance

against this brutal practice to

preserve their humanity.

Scan to learn more

repjustice.org/thestrike

thestrikefilm.com

2025 IMPACT CAMPAIGN AWARDEE


Nationwide Abolitionist Bus Tour

September 4–October 31, 2025

Berkeley > Sacramento > Tacoma > Seattle > Reno > Las Vegas > Albuquerque, > Sante Fe > New

Orleans > Madison > Chicago > Lansing > Ann Arbor > Buffalo > New York City > Philadelphia > Washington D.C.

The Journey to Justice Bus Tour is a first-of-its-kind

national artivism and public education tour led by survivors

of solitary confinement and currently incarcerated

people, alongside other directly impacted individuals.

Powered by the Unlock the Box Campaign and Look2Justice, the

tour brings together powerful storytelling and movement building

from Ending Isolation—the forthcoming book co-authored

by currently and formerly incarcerated writers Christopher Blackwell,

Kwaneta Harris, and experts Prof. Deborah

Zalesne and Dr. Terry Kupers.

We hit the road this fall with our converted

school bus, traveling coast to coast to mobilize

the next generation of changemakers

to end the practice of solitary confinement.

www.journeytojusticetour.com

Can a podcast partly recorded behind prison

walls help us uncover what truly connects us?


Incarcerated Journalist

Katherin Hervey

Documentary Filmmaker, Lawyer

Available On:

www.brokenisbeautifulpod.com



Content Contributors

Christopher Blackwell is an awardwinning

journalist currently incarcerated

in Washington state. His writing has been

featured in The New York Times, The

Washington Post, and many more. He was

awarded the 2024 Incarcerated Journalist

of the Year award by Prison Journalism

Project through their Stillwater Awards. Chris

dedicates his time to advocacy, education,

and storytelling, amplifying the voices of

those impacted by the criminal legal system.

Follow his work on Blue Sky:

@chriswblackwell.bsky.social or on his website

at www.christopher-blackwell.com.

Antoine E. Davis, 37, is an incarcerated

husband, father, and award-winning

journalist in Washington state. He earned

his Certification in Christian Leadership

through the Urban Ministry Institute, and

received his pastoral license from Freedom

Church of Seattle. He is the Inside Director

of Organizing for Look2Justice, an organization

that provides civic education to

system-impacted communities. He mentors

at-risk youth through Black Equality

Coalition’s Unstoppable Mentoring

Program. His writing has been published

by Christianity Today, The Guardian, The

Defector, and more.

Kwaneta Harris is an incarcerated

journalist, Haymarket Writing Freedom

Fellow, and former nurse. She spent over

eight years in solitary confinement and

writes about its impact as a co-author

of Ending Isolation: The Case Against

Solitary Confinement. Her work explores

how incarceration in Texas targets women

through a lens of misogyny, race, and

place. Published in Solitary Watch, Rolling

Stone, The Marshall Project, and more,

Harris exposes state violence and envisions

non-carceral solutions through her newsletter

Write or Die.

Sarah Sax is a climate journalist and

researcher with over a decade of experience

at the intersection of climate change,

human rights, and natural resources,

primarily in the Americas. Her awardwinning

investigative work spans industrial

agriculture, Indigenous rights, and climate

impacts on prisons. She has produced two

docu-series for Vice World News/SBS

and a documentary on land defenders in

the Ecuadorian Amazon. Previously, she

worked in Nicaragua on food security and

biodiver sity.

Eric Paris Whitfield is the co-founder of

Prisoners’ Brain Trust, a Study & Struggle

radical book reviewer, and resident

poet for “What’s the Tea.” In 2023 Paris

graduated from Bard College with a BA

in sociology. Find Paris on IG/Linktree @

freeericwhitfield.

Deborah Zalesne is a Professor of

Law at CUNY School of Law, where she

teaches contract law through a social justice

lens. With Christopher Blackwell, she cofounded

a Writers Development Program

for incarcerated writers and co-authored

Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary

Confinement. Her writing focuses on criminal

justice, race and gender justice, legal

pedagogy, and issues relating to the use

of contracts to empower disenfranchised

groups, and has appeared in The Marshall

Project, The Appeal, and dozens of law

journals.

Winners of 2025 ZEKE Awards and

SDN staff at Photoville, Brooklyn, NY

June 2025

Barbara Ayotte


SPECIAL SUMMER 2025 ISSUE $15 US

ZEKE

THE MAGAZINE OF GLOBAL DOCUMENTARY

PHOTOGRAPHY

Published by Social Documentary Network

ZEKE is published by Social Documentary Network (SDN),

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Look2Justice

“Educate to Liberate”

Look2Justice provides peer-led civic education and

empowerment programs to currently and formerly

incarcerated people and their families. We work to

empower directly impacted people with the skills and

knowledge to navigate legislative, policy, and narrative

change so that they may advocate on their own behalf.

We operate on an inside-out organizing model, meaning

our organization is led by currently incarcerated people.

www.look2justice.org

@look2justice

ZEKE Magazine: Special Summer 2025 Issue

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