Hell is a very small place
Subtitle: voices from solitary confinement
By: edited by Jean Casella, James Ridgeway, and Sarah Shourd ; preface by Sarah Shourd ; introduction by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway ; afterword by Juan E. Méndez
Publisher: The New Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 226
ISBN-13: 9781620971376
Subjects: Imprisonment; Solitary confinement
Description: "The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has denounced the use of solitary confinement beyond fifteen days as a form of cruel and degrading treatment that often rises to the level of torture. Yet the United States holds more than eighty thousand people in isolation on any given day. Now sixteen authors vividly describe the miserable realities of life in solitary. In a book that will add a startling new dimension to the debates around human rights and prison reform, former and current prisoners describe the devastating effects of solitary confinement on their minds and bodies, the solidarity expressed between individuals who live side by side for years without ever meeting one another face to face, the ever-present specters of madness and suicide, and the struggle to maintain hope and humanity. These firsthand accounts are supplemented by the writing of noted experts, exploring the psychological, legal, ethical, and political dimensions of solitary confinement, and a comprehensive introduction by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella. Sarah Shourd, herself a survivor of more than a year of solitary confinement, writes eloquently in a preface about an experience that changed her life. "--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: A sentence worse than death  -- William Blake; title: Living in the SHU  -- C.F. Villa; title: Innocent in the eyes of the law  -- Uzair Paracha; title: On the verge of hell  -- Judith Vazquez; title: Supermax diary  -- Joseph Dole; title: Writing out of solitude  -- Shaka Senghor; title: Loneliness is a destroyer of humanity  -- Jesse Wilson; title: A tale of evolving resistance  -- Todd Lewis Ashker; title: Dream house  -- Herman Wallace; title: A nothing would do as well  -- Thomas Bartlett Whitaker; title: Weak as motherfuckers  -- Brian Nelson; title: Scarred by solitary  -- Enceno Macy; title: A fragile shell of who I used to be  -- Barbra Perez; title: The freshman  -- Galen Baughman; title: Because I could laugh  -- Dolores Canales; title: Invisible  -- Five Mualimm-ak; title: Psychiatric effects of solitary confinement  -- Stuart Grassian; title: How to create madness in prison  -- Terry Kupers; title: Solitary confinement and the law  -- Laura Rovner; title: Torture of a student  -- Jeanne Theoharis; title: The California SHU and the end of the world  -- Lisa Guenther -- Afterword:; title: Exposing torture -- Juan E. Méndez.