by Christopher Blackwell and Deborah Zalesne
With Terry A. Kupers and Kwaneta Harris
Pluto Press
9/20/2025, paperback
SKU: 9780745351278
A devastating case against the inhumane practice of solitary confinement
The injustice and cruelty of the US carceral system find their barbaric apogee in the practice of solitary confinement. Once deemed a form of torture by the US Supreme Court, "the hole" is still wrongly used as a solution to prison overcrowding and violence. But locking someone in a cell the size of a parking space for months or years causes profound psychological harm. For Christopher Blackwell, it was a harrowing ordeal that changed his life forever. Ending Isolation weaves Chris's vivid account with other stories from solitary confinement, alongside insights from legal and medical experts. Through these narratives and undeniable research, the book makes a powerful case for abolishing this cruel and unusual punishment.
Reviews:
"For virtually the entire history of the prison, incarcerated people and their allies have sought to end solitary confinement, a punishment as desperately flawed as the institution that spawned it. These compelling reflections by people who have been entrapped within the tortures of solitary, and by those who bring them lifelines from the outside, should rekindle our abolitionist impulses at an especially critical moment in our history." --Angela Y. Davis
"A vital, systematic dismantling of every possible argument one could use to justify solitary confinement." --Guardian
"Every day, hundreds of thousands of people are tortured in prisons and jails funded by U.S. taxpayers. Ending Isolation is a comprehensive accounting of the physical, psychological, and societal costs of solitary confinement -- and an urgent call for change." --Jessica Schulberg, senior reporter at HuffPost
"Prison journalists Christopher Blackwell and Kwaneta Harris team up with scholars to make a powerful case for ending the torture used in our prisons: solitary confinement. This oral history, which includes excruciating accounts from many prisoners across the country, even shocked me as I read it in the madhouse of Sing Sing. By revealing the real-life horror story of what's happening in the American prison, Ending Isolation is an urgent call to do away with solitary confinement." --John J. Lennon, contributing editor at Esquire and author of The Tragedy of True Crime
About the Contributors:
Christopher Blackwell is an award-winning journalist currently incarcerated in Washington State, serving a 45-year prison sentence for taking a human life. He is the co-founder, with Dr. Chelsea Moore, and current Executive Director of Look2Justice, a grassroots organization that transforms the legal system by empowering impacted people through civic education. His writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many more. He was awarded the 2024 Incarcerated Journalist of the Year award by Prison Journalism Project through their Stillwater Awards.
Deborah Zalesne is a Professor of Law at the City University of New York School of Law where she teaches Contract Law from a social justice perspective. With Christopher Blackwell, she co-founded Empowerment Avenue's Writers Development Program for aspiring incarcerated writers. She has published extensively in the areas of race and gender justice and is the author of two books and over forty scholarly articles for publications such as the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism and the Columbia Journal of Race and the Law.
Kwaneta Harris is a journalist who survived eight years in solitary in Texas.
Terry Kupers is a leading medical expert on the harms of solitary confinement.