October 5, 2012 |
The cells are the size of a parking space. In the corner is a toilet and a open steel shower stall that emits water for 15-minute periods three times a week. Through a small slot in one wall, guards slide trays of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner--if they feel like it. Sometimes the food comes covered in hair. Other days the food doesn’t come at all. The cell remains locked for 23 hours a day. During the final hour, a door slides open, allowing one to walk into a smaller outdoor kennel enclosed by concrete walls or metal grates. The pen is too small to do anything except pace back and forth, stare at the sky and listen to the din of other caged men railing against their confinement.
These cages are the homes of nearly 4,500 men across the state of New York who are currently living in solitary confinement. About half live in these isolation cells alone, deprived of human contact for months, if not years, on end. The other half live doubled-up in these parking space-sized cells with another man. They watch each other eat, sleep, defecate, shower and slowly lose their minds. During their stay in solitary confinement, the men have no access to job training, education, regular mental care, or even basic human interactions. Perhaps most frighteningly--both to the public and to many of the inmates themselves--is that 2,000 of these men in solitary confinement are released directly from extreme isolation onto the streets of New York every single year
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment