Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement

by Christopher William Blackwell, Deborah Zalesne

The injustice, cruelty, and degradation that are so enmeshed within the U.S. carceral system find their barbaric apogee in the practice of solitary confinement. Once judged by the U.S. Supreme Court to be an impermissible form of torture, the use of solitary confinement has grown to become a "solution" to the overcrowding and violence that have defined life on the inside.



So what exactly does it mean to be sent to "the hole?" What damage is inflicted on the body and the mind by being locked in a cell the size of a parking space, for months or even years? Most of us can only imagine. For Christopher Blackwell it was a harrowing ordeal that reshaped his life forever.



Ending Isolation weaves together Christopher's vivid, first-hand account of his years spent in solitary confinement in a Washington State prison, with the legal expertise of co-author Deborah Zalesne. The book also includes writing from many other formerly and currently incarcerated people. With chapters covering juveniles in solitary, mental illness, racial injustice, and even environmental issues, the book makes the case that the practice is an unconstitutional form of cruel and unusual punishment that must be abolished.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

Published September 20, 2025

Reviews

[Allyson Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who could not agree that solitary confinement is cruel? A punishment? And all too usual?
Terry Kupers has enlisted the voices of those who have experienced this altered state of existence to bring the issue to the fore. The victims of this practice chronicle their sense of mental deterioration, their increasing paranoia, the degradation of their self-esteem, their increased vulnerability to the arbitrary barbarisms of the American penal system.
The use of solitary confinement is such an established tool in the limited repertoire of our punishment system that it seems almost impossible to eradicate. Outlaw “solitary confinement” in one place and it pops up again as “lockdown”, “disciplinary segregation”, “restricted housing”, “protective custody”, “administrative segregation”, “overcrowding relief”, or a host of other euphemisms.
Eliminating solitary confinement by any name is a worthy cause. But too many people view rehabilitative services for convicts as “molly-coddling”, “money down a rat-hole”, “a waste of time and money”, we are doomed to waste time and money inflicting irreparable social and psychological damage on prisoners and then spending more time and money trying to heal the scars.
I have to admire those who are trying their best. It’s easy to look the other way rather than face the injustices of our penal system, too easy to think “well, they asked for it; it’s no more than they deserve.” No one deserves to be broken.

[Imogen Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 ⭐️

“The officers can turn off our power or water any time they see fit. They do this if an officer decides we spoke to them wrong or if we demand our human rights such as asking for feminine products, toiletries, and bedding for the mattress to sleep with. All because they can. When you're treated like a dog in a cage inside of a cage it makes the rage burn more fierce." - Lanae Tipton

‘More people with serious mental illness are housed in America's jails and prisons than in its psychiatric hospitals.' The largest psychiatric facilities in the US include Los Angeles County Jail, Rikers Island Jail in New York, and Cook County Jail in Illinois, Despite the laws against housing people with certain mental illnesses in solitary confinement.’

‘But living in a survivalist mindset makes it hard to build relationships and impossible to understand the harm you've caused. Your only focus is on the need to survive.
Accountability and rehabilitation are off the table. All your social interactions are overshadowed by this, and all previous experiences of trauma are pushed down and locked away in a tiny box hidden from the world and even from oneself.’ - Christopher Blackwell

‘The torture that is solitary confinement symbolizes what is terribly amiss about our social priorities. We tend to allow the population harmed by broader social problems to be disappeared behind bars.’