Solitary Confinement: Lived Experiences and Ethical Implications

Why is solitary confinement used in today’s world? Does it help the rehabilitation of offenders? And how is policy affected by justification for the use of it? This book is the first to consider the history of solitary confinement and how it is experienced by the individuals undergoing it. Using Merleau-Ponty’s concept of embodied subjectivity, it provides first-hand accounts of the inhumane experience of solitary confinement to provide a better appreciation of the relationship between penal strategy and its effect on human beings. Drawing on his own experiences as a Psychological Specialist in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and on those interviewed as part of the Guardian 6x9 project (http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2016/apr/27/6x9-a-virtual-experience-of-solitary-confinement), the author focuses on the phenomenology of solitary confinement to consider what the intentional aspect of this almost uninhabitable type of confinement says about a democratic society that continues to justify its use as a correctional strategy. Aiming to influence policy, the book fills the gap between the practice of solitary confinement and its implications, as well as the social attitudes that uncritically condone its use.