Wednesday, May 8, 2013

I Thought Solitary Confinement in Iran Was Bad -- Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

Shane Bauer
 (Shane Bauer was one of the three American hikers imprisoned in Iran after being apprehended on the Iraqi border in 2009. He spent 26 months in Tehran's Evin Prison, 4 of them in solitary. Bauer is winner of the 2013 Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism for the article below, his special investigation into solitary confinement. The winning feature was published in Mother Jones and supported by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.)

IT'S BEEN SEVEN MONTHS since I've been inside a prison cell. Now I'm back, sort of. The experience is eerily like my dreams, where I am a prisoner in another man's cell. Like the cell I go back to in my sleep, this one is built for solitary confinement. I'm taking intermittent, heaving breaths, like I can't get enough air. This still happens to me from time to time, especially in tight spaces. At a little over 11 by 7 feet, this cell is smaller than any I've ever inhabited. You can't pace in it.
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