Solitary confinement requires that an inmate be restricted to one cell and has no contact,
or at least very little contact, with other inmates.
Kinds of solitary confinement differ all over the world, and no doubt in some countries
you still have what might better be called dungeons.
In most developed countries these days such segregation units are not as barbaric and
prisoners should have some time outside of the cell as well as receive enough nourishment
that they won’t be looking forward to the next time an insect gets into their cell.
Nonetheless, many critics call it an inhumane, psychological torture that is hardly in line
with rehabilitation.
Let’s now see how you might deal with it, in this episode of the Infographics Show,
How to get through time in solitary confinement.
First of all, the amount of time you spend in what some people call ‘the box’ is
important when we are discussing how you might get through it.
Spending one day in there can’t be compared to spending one year in there.
Some inmates might find themselves doing a temporary stay in solitary for what authorities
call their own good.
Maybe guards believed they were a danger to themselves and had to be under constant supervision.
Other inmates might have hurt someone else and needed to be immediately separated from
the other people.
Then there are high profile prisoners, perhaps prisoners who have great power still even
on the inside, and often they can spend a long time in solitary.
We might look at Mexican drug kingpins, such as Félix Gallardo (aka The Godfather) or
Joaquin Archivaldo “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, who have complained about being in their cells,
all day, every day.
Look at former Aryan Brotherhood leader and prison guard killer, Thomas Edward Silverstein,
whose been in solitary in the U.S. since 1983.
In the UK, you have Robert Maudsley, aka Hannibal the Cannibal, whose been in solitary almost
40 years.
He’d killed three prisoners while locked up, and the stories were gruesome.
The media writes, “He spends 23 hours a day in ‘the cage’ — a cell made of bulletproof
glass which was built specifically for him in 1983 after he was officially classed Britain’s
most dangerous prisoner.”
But as you probably know, it’s not always inmate or guard killers that end up in solitary,
and some less dangerous people have spent a long time locked in those cells.
We might look at the story of Albert Woodfox, sometimes called the man who spent the most
years in solitary in American prison history.
The former Black Panther, part of what became known as The Angola Three, was arrested in
1971 for armed robbery.
Prior to that he had been fighting racism in Angola, Louisiana, and ended up in the
prison there.
We should add that he was certainly no angel, having been involved with other robberies.
In 1972, he was accused of killing a prison guard along with two others and he would end
up spending the next 43 years in solitary.
Amnesty International writes, “State authorities kept Albert in a cell measuring 6x9 feet,
or 2x3 meters, for 23 hours a day.
He was allowed one hour of exercise a day in a yard – but this was on his own, and
he remained shackled.”
Even though the murder conviction was overturned three times, he remained in solitary.
We won’t go into it, but the evidence against him was weak, very weak.
Each time the conviction was overturned and authorities retried him, then in 2015 Louisiana
state authorities were barred from retrying him again.
In the end all three men had their convictions overturned, but Woodfox was the last to leave
prison.
While this story is about how to deal with solitary, we tell you this to emphasize that
the practice can be overused and it can be used to abuse prisoners.
Now let’s look at how a man stayed in this box 43 years of his life.
None of us can likely put this into context in our own lives.
Just imagine, if you’re alone now, not being able to leave that room for a few days.
43 years in a tiny cell, perhaps as an innocent man, how could someone get through that.
On top of that, Woodfox told the media that he was taken to the worst cell in solitary,
a place he called The Dungeon.
He also said guards would regularly beat him there.
Fortunately, he was allowed to read books in there.
This, the BBC tells us, was one thing that kept him sane.
He taught himself criminal and civil law, and the BBC writes that he would teach other
inmates when he had his hour out each day.
While Amnesty said he spent his hour alone, we are guessing he could communicate with
others through a fence, which is often the case for segregated prisoners.
He explained the best moment of being locked up was teaching another man to read:
“All of the things we went through and all the pain, the suffering, the struggles, the
victories here and there, none of that compared to the feeling I got when a man who could
not read or write at all could sit across from me and read from a book.”
The New Yorker tells us he tried to control his surroundings as much as was possible.
He kept the light on all the time and covered it when he slept his three hours.
He ate little and slept little, and this adapting to a strict regime gave him some feeling of
autonomy.
“We wanted the security people to think that they were dealing with superhumans,”
he told the New Yorker.
“Before I let them take something from me, I deny it from myself.”
He wrote many letters to family, pen pals, to Black Panthers, to people fighting racism
and inequality on the outside.
He was described by social workers as “respectful,” “positive,” “cooperative,” and “neat.”
Yet, every time he came up against a disciplinary panel, he was denied reentry into the main
population.
Then you have Charles Bronson, often called “Britain's most notorious prisoner.”
He was only charged at first with armed robbery, but due to his erratic, often violent behavior,
as well as taking hostages inside, he’s been in prison since 1988.
Prior to that he’d been locked up for over a decade.
Much of his time has been spent in solitary confinement, as you may have seen in the movie
about him.
He didn’t exactly get though his time in solitary with ease.
He once wrote, “Years of solitary have left me unable to face the light for more than
a few minutes.
It gives me terrible headaches if I do ... Years of loneliness in small cells have left me
paranoid about people invading my space.
I now can't stand people getting too close, crowding me.”
But he did write a book on keeping fit in solitary confinement – he was once a bare
knuckle fighter and so enjoyed keeping fit.
The book released in 2002 was called “Solitary Fitness.”
He claimed to do at least 2,000 push-ups in a day, and that his confinement was spent
mostly on building his body.
We read many reviews of his book and it seems he was onto something, with his exercises
requiring zero equipment working for most people.
In short, if you’re in solitary, work out and try and improve by the week to give yourself
goals.
We found another man who’d spent a lot of time in solitary and for him using his imagination
was key to survival.
He imagined all the interactions he had had with people throughout his life and imagined
alternate realities where he did something different, so in a way creating a fiction
out of all of his memories.
“I used to lie in bed with my eyes closed,” he said, “thinking about my past, thinking
about my future, planning for the future.
Some of it was based on reality, and the other—borderline fantasy.”
Another inmate, from Texas, called Michael Jewell, said he did the same.
He would imagine situations and how he might react.
He said it made him a better person because he was continually noticing problems in his
past behavior and he knew the best way to react for a positive outcome.
“When I opened my eyes and stood, I would feel refreshed and even invigorated,” he
said.
Psychologists tell us that when a person is robbed of sensory stimulation of the things
around them, their brains get active and the imagination is more fecund.
This, however, can be negative for people who have mental problems.
For a long time it’s been stated that many people who end up in solitary have such problems,
and they only worsen when trapped in a small cell.
A psychologist told the BBC that some people do go insane inside these cells; they have
isolation panic and their identity becomes fragmented.
“That's an extreme case of somebody's identity becoming so badly damaged and essentially
destroyed that it is impossible for them to reconstruct it,” he said.
In another article one person said you really must take control over your own space.
That means keeping everything spotless, as well as keeping yourself very clean.
Own your area and take care of yourself.
This even means doing your nails daily, just by making them the same size or finding a
way to make them smoother.
You need routine and you must stick by it.
We also looked at the website Prison Writers and a piece on how to deal with long-term
solitary confinement.
The writer, who had spent many years in solitary and was currently imprisoned, said stress
management was key.
He said don’t be idle, and added that watching TV (if you have one) or even masturbating
all the time is not a good idea.
You must be productive, and if possible, learn a new hobby.
“Try art work, crocheting, writing, chess, etc.
Your brain is a muscle, and if you don’t use it, you lose it!” he said.
He also said that if you want to transcend your cell’s walls you must read, and read
a lot.
Invite some of the greatest minds in history into your cell, he said.
Like others we have talked about today, he said study the law, because you might well
be treated better when you know it.
Examine your life, he said, and stay healthy.
That meant staying off the prison commissary processed foods as much as possible.
On a final note, we found a researcher who had spent years visiting people in solitary
confinement and trying to understand how they got through it.
His conclusion is that successful inmates followed a rule of what he called the “Seven
Rs”.
Despite maybe some of this sounding obvious, he said most prisoners in solitary didn’t
follow these rules and their time as solitary prisoners could result in “withdrawal, destructive
rumination, cognitive impairment, depression, self-harm and, exceptionally, suicide.”
The Seven Rs he talked about are: · Rescheduling
This means learning how to manage time.
Don’t look at the 20 years you have to serve, take it day by day and have plans for those
days.
· Removal This is what we have discussed, meaning remove
yourself from the present moment of being surrounded by four walls.
It could be reading, writing, exercise, or any of things we have talked about.
It might even mean forming relationships with an ant that comes into the cell.
· Reduction By this he means reducing time through drug
use.
While he says it might not be the best path, when things get hard some prisoners do find
time passes with the prescribed medicines they are offered.
· Reorientation This means living in the present, and we mean
totally, like someone who is mediating.
If you can be at one with everything, focus on your breath, the sounds around you, forget
the past, the future.
· Resistance This is finding ways to beat the system.
It might be against prison rules, but some people find it helps if they can tap on pipes
to communicate.
But there are many ways prisoners can get one over on the system.
Others, as we have said, study law and challenge their sentence, or matters regarding their
confinement.
· Raptness This is becoming completely absorbed in something,
such as writing, or hobbies.
It’s more than just removal, because one becomes lost in their art.
· Reinterpretation This is like putting your situation against
another, perhaps comparing yourself to someone who had it worse and got through it.
“Those who can devise, or adopt, a frame of reference – often political or religious
– that puts their pain in context seem to draw succor from their circumstances,” said
the researcher.
“For the fortunate few who can re-imagine their situation, the potential rewards are
substantial.”
If you’ve been in this situation, we’d love to know how you got through it.
If you haven’t, how do you think you would get through it, or what do you think would
be the best way?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video Man Spent 43 Years In Isolation.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.