Why Solitary Confinement in America’s Prisons Needs To Be Abolished

By Ryan M. Moser — FROM THE INSIDE

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If you stare at the same spot on the wall for an hour, then you’re probably bored or daydreaming. If you intermittently stare at that same spot on the wall for 120 days in a row, you’ve probably lost your mind.

I don’t regret receiving a discipline report (DR) that cool winter day in 2006. In fact, given the opportunity, I’d do it all over again. I was serving time in state prison for theft, and on my way to “the hole” for fighting: sixty days in solitary confinement for assaulting another inmate, and sixty days for lying about it (which I didn’t, but I’ll get to trumped-up charges). I’m not violent by nature, nor do I bully men, but after overhearing a pedophile brag about dating his twelve-year-old stepdaughter, I couldn’t remain silent. I challenged him to a fair fight, kicked his big ass up and down the cellblock, and peacefully put my hands on my head as a group of correctional officers surrounded me and put me in cuffs.

But this isn’t a story about that.

The Florida Department of Corrections (FLDOC) wholeheartedly believes in the use of solitary confinement as a means of discipline, and trust me when I say…