Isolated or solitary confinement is the practice of placing incarcerated people for weeks, months, and often years at a time in cells that are about 6 feet by 8 feet, or the size of an elevator or an apartment’s bathroom, for 22-24 hours a day with the remaining hours in a small fenced-in cage attached to the cell. The practice was discredited and then discarded in American prisons in the 19th century and was almost never used until the 1970s, but with the growth of mass incarceration then and into the 1980s it became an everyday staple of prison life. It’s especially prevalent in state prisons (like the 25 here in Pennsylvania), despite universal condemnation from medical experts and institutions, nearly all mental health professionals, leaders of faith communities, and people who experienced and survived isolated confinement.  The lack of human interaction and sensory, physical, and social deprivation is known to initiate and exacerbate a host of mental health issues, to create indelible trauma, and to stunt body and brain functions that healthy and thriving humans need.

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In 2012, the United Nations Special Rapporteur declared the use of regular long-term solitary torture and thus far too damaging to be used for corrections purposes. Prisons in the US have continued to use it every day, though.