Voices from Solitary: A Day in the Life, Part V

by | March 31, 2014

Prisoner Describes His Torture Through ArtThis post is the next in a series of pieces Solitary Watch is publishing as part of a project calling for people held in solitary confinement to write on various proposed themes. Our first suggested theme, “A Day in the Life,” calls for writers to describe a day in his or her life in solitary confinement (read previous entries here).

The following piece presents the artwork of a man who says he was brutally and repeatedly tortured by guards at an unnamed correctional facility, where he was held in isolation in a segregation unit in 2011. The drawings depict the savage treatment to which he was subjected for a period of eight days, during which time he claims to have been strip searched and unnecessarily restrained 170 times, or every hour. The author says he was targeted for this treatment because he had been convicted of a sex offense. Each drawing contains a caption paraphrased from applicable sections of the prison’s procedural manual on cell extractions. 

The drawings come to Solitary Watch from Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC), a non-profit organization based in California committed to challenging mass incarceration by “building action networks and materials that expose the continuing neglect and outright torture of more than 2 million people imprisoned within the USA.” –Lisa Dawson

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4 comments

  • Well spoken Veronica………To do such to any prisoner is barbaric………it show a sickness, of those who carry out these beatings and torture, they, the guards are as bad as any prisoner, worse in ways…….They want a bite, as well as the Courts…….They are barbaric to any type of prisoner, not just sex cases…….

  • oh, and…I suspect the CO pictured,standing in the doorway, would always have a camcorder capturing the whole event.

  • Veronica Davis McInnis

    I disagree strongly with you. A close friend of mine describes this as an everyday occurrence. And, yes, you are right in saying that cell extractions are taped. Indeed they are, but have you seen a dash cam in a police car footage lately? They don’t give a shi* that cameras are rolling.

  • Controlled Use of force is video taped, so this is not a accuate depiction of an extraction. It seems that this website is very one sided in its perception.

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