The Silent Steel Sentence
Confronting the Human Cost of Solitary Confinement
By Ebony J. Brown, Staff Attorney at the
The practice of solitary confinement—isolating an individual in a cell for nearly 24 hours a day with little to no human interaction—has been studied and criticized for years. Often, the focus is on relieving the psychological impact that our imprisoned loved ones and clients experience. Over the last few decades, lawsuits across the country—and specifically in Georgia—have challenged the inhumane, unsanitary, and psychosocially destructive conditions that solitary confinement brings in hopes of changing how we treat human beings behind bars.
Years ago, a colleague of mine described solitary confinement as: “the silent sentence.” After representing individuals confined in Georgia’s high max unit, and after reflecting on the pain I have experienced being unable to connect with loved ones confined in these conditions, I’ve come to reflect on the horrific truth in this statement. Time slows down, familiar voices disappear, comforting faces fade. Just imagine how pleasant smells and memories morph into toxic fumes, musty wet paint, and a jarring reminder that any sustained connection with family is improbable. And that reality is as horrifying as it sounds.
Living in solitary confinement forces you to reflect on the time passed (if you can keep count) and the loved ones lost or forgotten. Any vision of hope is slowly repositioned as hopelessness. And for the people who support loved ones in solitary confinement, your sentence feels loud. Solitary confinement doesn’t just isolate the individual; it fractures family connections and devastates future relationship building.
Phone calls and in-person visitation with spouses, children, parents, and friends are restricted or even eliminated, limiting connection with the only people who see you in a space where you often feel so unseen. Letters, which may or may not be delivered, are the only means of connecting with loved ones. Yet even those are restricted or tied up in bureaucratic limitations.
It is well known that relationships thrive on consistency, communication, and shared experiences. Solitary confinement deprives the family unit of all three. What is consistency in communication in just four, 25-minute phone calls each month, spread thin among the select few loved ones approved to speak with you? What experiences can be shared when your loved one is confined inside a steel cell, hours away from home, with no means of daily contact? There are no “just because” phone calls. There are no family trips to reconnect. There are no shared experiences other than the deep pain and angst that stems from this shared “sentence.” Solitary confinement disrupts any notion that you can build, or even maintain, consistent connections with those on “the outside.” And it forces those on the outside to question whether the pain of moving on is better than the torture of limited connection.
As someone who has lost family connections because of solitary confinement, I can confirm that it’s a prison sentence within the prison sentence. You don’t just miss your loved one; you resent them too. You emotionally retreat and withdraw from any “need” to connect with them and often place the blame for your withering relationship on the person, not the system that broke your bond. It’s hard and tiring and painful and, for many, unmanageable. The barriers run deep, and the resentment is real.
There must be a more humane way to house our confined loved ones. And while we can continue to challenge solitary confinement conditions through lawsuits and legislation, the truth is simpler: it should not exist at all. Solitary confinement, by design, silences those surrounded by steel walls, but its echoes are loud, reverberating through the families and communities left behind.
Ebony J. Brown is a Staff Attorney in the Impact Litigation Unit at the Southern Center for Human Rights. Her work focuses on challenging unconstitutional prison conditions and unlawful arrests and detentions of people in Georgia.