Survivors

President Obama has declared that “We have banned torture without exception.” However, some would take exception to this claim. The practice of isolating a prisoner in solitary confinement for extended periods of time causes severe sensory deprivation and has been denounced as torture by the United Nations. But tens of thousands of inmates are locked up in solitary confinement in American prisons today. And the number is rapidly growing. Often prisoners spend years – even decades – by themselves in a cell the size of a small bathroom. They don't see anyone. They don't talk to anyone. They don't touch anyone. What does this experience do to a person's mental state? Claire Schoen shows us what solitary confinement looks, sounds and feels like.