by Allie Duggan ’20, Will Kaback ’20, and Emmy Murtagh ’20, Senior Editor, Editor-in-Chief, and Contributing Writer

Approximately 80,000 Americans live in complete isolation in cells measuring six by nine feet, according to a report by

Vocativ

. Incarcerated people housed in solitary confinement experience a variety of negative physiological and psychological reactions, including “hypersensitivity to stimuli; perceptual distortions and hallucinations; increased anxiety and nervousness; revenge fantasies, rage, and irrational anger; fears of persecution; lack of impulse control; severe and chronic depression; appetite loss and weight loss; heart palpitations; withdrawal; blunting of affect and apathy; talking to oneself; headaches; problems sleeping; confusing thought processes; nightmares; dizziness; self- mutilation; and lower levels of brain function,” according to the

Vocativ

report.

Although some local courts have found the practice of solitary confinement to be cruel and inhumane, the practice persists across the American prison system as a whole. Some well-publicized cases, like those of Kalief Browder and the Angola 3, have garnered public support for the eradication of solitary confinement, but these efforts have stalled in the face of institutional and political resistance.

Incarcerated people in solitary confinement spend all but one hour of the day in a cell the size of a parking space, and sentences can range from months to years in these conditions. According to an investigative report from Boston’s

WBUR

radio, people held in these confined spaces are more likely to re-offend upon release, and racial disparities found in all facets of the criminal justice system are especially prevalent in solitary confinement.

We believe solitary confinement is a cruel, counterintuitive, and ineffective practice that has no place in our society. As such, we chose to model the conditions of solitary confinement in a public presentation for our 20th Century Prison Writing class with Professor Doran Larson.

We wanted our presentation to simulate the feeling of confinement in a solitary confinement cell in the United States. Of course, it is impossible to replicate the full experience of incarceration short of living in an actual prison cell, especially given that prisoners in solitary are confined 23 hours out of every day. From our research, we learned that the environment a person is forced to reside in can have a large effect on their attitude and mental health, and these features of imprisonment would not be present in our project. Still, we hoped that by representing this confinement — even in a limited capacity — students and faculty of the College would be forced to think more deeply about incarceration in the United States and gain a more accurate perception of the realities of prison and solitary confinement than before interacting with our model.

To demonstrate the size of the cell, we taped out a portion of the floor in the Common Room of the Sadove Student Center that measured six feet by nine feet. This represented the size of an average cell in solitary. Within this six by nine space, we marked off the portion of the cell taken up by the bed, the sink, and the toilet provided in each cell. After these additions, it became clear that the space that remained left little to no space for activity.

Though it is not possible to truly represent the conditions in which incarcerated people live, we hoped that demonstrating the physical confines of the space would start the conversation on campus regarding systems of incarceration, treatment of incarcerated people, and conditions of solitary confinement. For an hour, we stood by the taped outline with supplemental articles on the size and features of solitary confinement cells in American prisons.

During our demonstration, we spoke with a number of students and faculty about the project and larger themes from our class with Professor Larson. We also provided further reading for students and faculty to look into if they were interested in the topic, emphasizing the American Prison Writing Archive (APWA) as a valuable resource to explore.

This project gave us the opportunity to share one aspect of what we have learned this semester about American prisons with the Hamilton community. In our class, we analyzed and studied prison narratives, reading first-hand witness accounts of incarcerated people’s experiences. These readings were often eye-opening, and we particularly were shocked by the living standards in prisons, especially in spaces that house more people than they are built to accommodate.

Early in the semester, Professor Larson drew a small-scale version of a prison cell to show our class living conditions in prisons. We were surprised by how small an individual cell was and felt the community would benefit from seeing it as well, albeit in a demonstration that was to scale.

Members of the community who stopped by to look at our taped cell were similarly taken aback by the size of the space, and some visitors said things like, “I can’t believe how small it is,” “I can’t imagine living in here,” and “How do people survive for years in a place like this?”

Many expressed their belief that the system needs to change, and although prior experience and knowledge of the prison system varied, many expressed these sentiments immediately after viewing our makeshift cell. As they looked through the articles that we provided, which talked about prison cells and the effect the confined space can have on an incarcerated person’s psyche, community members expressed frustration and dismay at the state of our modern prisons.

One student walked around the cell to see active he could be in such a space, avoiding the bed, toilet, and sink. He mentioned how an incarcerated person living in this cell could barely pace or do push-ups.

Another student laid down in the space marked off for the bed and observed that he could barely fit without bending his legs. He added that it would be “unpleasant” to sleep with his head next to his sink and toilet.

One professor pointed out how the cell would be even more miserable if the incarcerated person living in it is larger than average.

All of these observations spoke to the educational value of modeling the conditions that incarcerated people exist in every day for extended periods of time. In order to effect meaningful change, we need to be aware of the realities incarcerated people face; reform and rehabilitation can only be achieved if we know the nature of existing problems. We personally appreciated the opportunity to spread awareness within the Hamilton community and start a dialogue on the changes we hope will be made within prisons in our country.