Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement, Paperback

On any given day in America, over 80,000 people are held in solitary confinement--held in utter isolation for twenty-three or twenty-four hours a day, moved there from the general population without any legal process or justification. In a ``potent cry of anguish from men and women buried way down in the hole`` (Kirkus Reviews), Hell Is a Very Small Place offers rare accounts from the people who are now or have been in solitary confinement. As Chelsea Manning wrote from her own solitary confinement cell, ``The personal accounts by prisoners are some of the most disturbing that I have ever read.``

These firsthand accounts are supplemented by the writing of noted experts exploring the psychological, legal, ethical, and political dimensions of solitary confinement, and a comprehensive introduction by Solitary Watch co-founders James Ridgeway and Jean Casella. Sarah Shourd, herself a survivor of more than a year of solitary confinement, writes eloquently in a preface about an experience that changed her life.