Between 2012 and 2019, Adam Capay, a twenty-six-year-old man from my reserve, Lac Seul First Nation, spent 1,647 days in solitary confinement while awaiting trial in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The UN Mandela Rules say that prisoners shouldn’t be alone for more than fifteen consecutive days. Adam was alone for more than one hundred times that. His story is one of tragedy and aggression, and he is both victim and perpetrator. For 1,647 days, he was alone, spending months in Plexiglas cells, with lights on twenty-four hours a day. His time in solitude was devastating for his mental health. Perhaps
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