Echoes of Isolation | KQED

"Haney's research found that such prolonged isolation led to paranoia, anxiety, despair, anger and, eventually, numbness among people in the SHU. "When you're in the SHU, you don't feel," said Frank Reyna, who spent 20 years in solitary at Pelican Bay. "If you feel, you start getting weak. When people die, you just move on. You lose your emotions." Prison officials had built a fortress designed to keep people away from each other."

"But locked alone in their cells, the men at Pelican Bay found any way they could to connect - by talking through their cell doors, the vents in the walls, or in cracks in the corners of their recreation cages. People found different ways to pass time, and make what meaning they could. Jamaa organized reading groups on his tier, with men taking turns reading different passages to each other and analyzing the text."

"There were only three ways out of the SHU, prisoners concluded: "snitch, parole, or die." To snitch meant to provide information on another alleged gang member, and open yourself to the risk of retaliatory violence. Parole was unlikely for those whom prison officials had deemed among "the worst of the worst." The only way out of the Pelican Bay SHU, hunger strikers reasoned, was in a body bag. They had nothing to lose."

Prolonged isolation in secure housing units produces paranoia, anxiety, despair, anger and eventual emotional numbness among incarcerated people. Solitary cells isolate individuals physically, prompting inventive forms of contact through cell doors, vents and gaps in recreation cages. People create routines and communal activities where possible, including reading groups and rigorous exercise, to pass time and maintain meaning. Many prisoners perceive only three ways out: provide information on others, obtain unlikely parole, or die. A collective hunger strike offered a rare source of hope and solidarity, motivating participation despite severe risk. Extended fasting led to quiet, diminished activity on prison tiers.

Read at Kqed