Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement

by Albert Woodfox

With this psychologist, I answered questions without digging into my personal feelings. By the end of the second interview, though, I was getting irritated at his line of questioning and his constant insinuation that because I could have books in my cell and I could exercise outside three times a week for an hour, year after year of being locked down 23 hours a day was tolerable for a human being and was somehow acceptable. At the end of my second interview with him he asked me if there was anything I wanted to ask him. “Do you think that watching TV and being able to buy candy in the canteen makes a difference to somebody held for almost 40 years in maximum-security isolation?” I asked. He didn’t respond. “Do you think being able to make phone calls alleviates the pain of sitting in a cell 23 hours a day, year after year? It doesn’t,” I told him. “If you can’t get out of the cell nothing they give you makes a difference. The pressure of being in the cell never goes away. The fight for sanity never goes away. You want me to believe that I’m OK when you know I’m not OK. I can’t give you specifics on how being in solitary has affected me but I can tell you without a doubt it has affected me.”