I’m a prisoner in solitary confinement, and I’m suing the state to end this torture
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/15/23: “I attempted suicide on my first day in an isolation unit in a Pennsylvania prison by making a noose out of my T-shirt and tying it to a vent in my cell.
When I informed the guards about my suicidal ideations, they said, ‘Go ahead and kill yourself.’
I tried three more times that night.
I had been placed in this isolation unit at a state prison in a remote Western Pennsylvania town. There, I and 40 other men stayed locked in our cells, alone for 22 to 24 hours a day, under lights that were never turned off, with guards banging on our walls to ensure we couldn’t sleep. (Sleep deprivation has been condemned by the United Nations, which has called on the United States to ban the practice.)”