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Solitary Confinement
Effects, Practices, and Pathways
toward Reform
EDITED BY JULES LOBEL

A N D P E T E R S C HA R F F SM I T H
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lobel, Jules, editor. | Smith, Peter Scharff, 1971– editor.
Title: Solitary confinement : effects, practices, and pathways toward reform / edited by Jules Lobel
and Peter Scharff Smith.
Description: New York, New York : Oxford University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references
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Contents
Contributors vii
Acknowledgments ix
1. Solitary Confinement—From Extreme Isolation to Prison Reform 1
Jules Lobel and Peter Scharff Smith
I . T WO C E N T U R I E S O F S O L I TA RY C O N F I N E M E N T
2. Solitary Confinement—Effects and Practices from the

Nineteenth Century until Today 21
Peter Scharff Smith
3. Global Perspectives on Solitary Confinement—Practices and
Reforms Worldwide 43
Manfred Nowak
4. Solitary Confinement across Borders 59
Sharon Shalev
5. The Rise of Supermax Imprisonment in the United States 77
Keramet Reiter
6. Not Isolating Isolation 89
Judith Resnik
7. Torture, Solitary Confinement, and International Law 117
Juan E. Méndez
I I . M I N D, B O DY, A N D S O U L — T H E HA R M S
A N D E X P E R I E N C E O F S O L I TA RY C O N F I N E M E N T
8. Solitary Confinement, Loneliness, and Psychological Harm 129

Craig Haney
9. First Do No Harm: Applying the Harms-to-Benefits Patient
Safety Framework to Solitary Confinement 153
Brie Williams and Cyrus Ahalt
10. Mythbusting Solitary Confinement in Jail 173
Homer Venters
vi Contents
11. Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Health 185

Louise Hawkley
12. The Brain in Isolation: A Neuroscientist’s Perspective
on Solitary Confinement 199
Huda Akil
13. Use of Animals to Study the Neurobiological Effects of
Isolation: Historical and Current Perspectives 221
Michael J. Zigmond and Richard Jay Smeyne
14. Sharing Experiences of Solitary Confinement—Prisoners and Staff 243
Robert King, Dolores Canales, Jack Morris, and Armondo Sosa
I I I . P R I S O N R E F O R M , P R I S O N L I T IG AT IO N ,
A N D H UM A N R IG H T S
15. The Management of High-Security Prisoners: Alternatives to

Solitary Confinement 259
Andrew Coyle
16. Resisting Supermax: Rediscovering a Humane Approach to the
Management of High-Risk Prisoners 279
Jamie Bennett
17. Prisoners’ Association as an Alternative to Solitary Confinement—
Lessons Learned from a Norwegian High-Security Prison 297
Are Høidal
18. Colorado Ends Prolonged, Indeterminate Solitary Confinement 311
Rick Raemisch
19. Reflections on North Dakota’s Sustained Solitary Confinement
Reform 325
Leann K. Bertsch
20. Solitary Confinement in Canada 335
Joseph J. Arvay and Alison M. Latimer
21. “Loneliness Is a Destroyer of Humanity” 343
Amy Fettig and David C. Fathi
22. Litigation to End Indeterminate Solitary Confinement in
California: The Role of Interdisciplinary and Comparative Experts 353
Jules Lobel
Index 373
Contributors
Cyrus Ahalt, MPP, Associate Director of The Criminal Justice & Health Program,
University of California, San Francisco
Huda Akil, PhD, Gardner Quarton Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience

and Psychiatry and Co-Director, Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute (MBNI),
University of Michigan
Joseph J. Arvay, Partner and founder of Arvay Finlay LLP
Jamie Bennett, Deputy Director, HM Prison Service; former governor, HMP Grendon
and Springhill (2012–19), and Research Associate, University of Oxford
Leann K. Bertsch, Director, North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Dolores Canales, Co-Founder and one of the leaders of California Families to Abolish
Andrew Coyle, Emeritus Professor of Prison Studies, University of London; Founding

Director, International Centre for Prison Studies in the School of Law, Kings College
London; and Former Senior Administrator, United Kingdom Prison Service
David C. Fathi, Director, National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union
Foundation
Amy Fettig, Deputy Director, National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties
Union Foundation; Director, Stop Solitary Campaign
Craig Haney, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, the University of California,

Santa Cruz
Louise Hawkley, Senior Research Scientist, NORC at the University of Chicago
Are Høidal, Governor, Halden Prison
Robert King, One of the Angola Three prisoners held in solitary confinement for almost
twenty years in Louisiana’s Angola prison
Alison M. Latimer, Partner, Arvay Finlay LLP
Jules Lobel, Bessie McKee Walthour Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh

Law School; Co-operating Attorney and Former President of the Board, Center for
Constitutional Rights
viii Contributors
Juan E. Méndez, Professor of Human Rights Law in Residence, Washington College of

Law, American University
Jack Morris, Former California prisoner at the Pelican Bay SHU, held in solitary confine-
ment for thirty-five years
Manfred Nowak, Professor of law, University of Vienna and Secretary General of the
Global Campus of Human Rights in Venice
Rick Raemisch, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Corrections, 2013–2018
Keramet Reiter, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, Law & Society, and
School of Law at the University of California, Irvine
Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Peter Scharff Smith, Professor in Sociology of Law, Department of Criminology &

Sociology of Law, Faculty of Law, Oslo University
Sharon Shalev, Research Associate, the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford
Richard Jay Smeyne, Professor, Thomas Jefferson University, Jack & Vickie Farber
Institute for Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience
Armando Sosa, Lieutenant, Colorado State Penitentiary
Homer Venters, MD, MS, Former Chief Medical Officer, Correctional Health Services,
New York City Health and Hospital System; Senior Health and Justice Fellow at
Community Oriented Correctional Health Services and Clinical Associate Professor,
New York University College of Global Public Health
Brie Williams, MD, MS, Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco,
Division of Geriatrics (UCSF), Director of the Criminal Justice and Health Program
at UCSF
Michael J. Zigmond, Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurobiology, the

University of Pittsburgh
Acknowledgments
This book is the product of the collaborative efforts of many people who have
worked tirelessly in different ways to reform and eventually end the practice of
prolonged solitary confinement throughout the world. First we want to thank all
the authors who agreed to contribute essays to this book, and whose collective
work has helped produce a movement challenging the use of solitary confine-
ment in prison systems.
We also want to acknowledge and thank those at the University of Pittsburgh
who helped put on the interdisciplinary and comparative conference on solitary
confinement at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, which this book is
an outgrowth of, particularly Dean Chip Carter who was an early and vital sup-
porter of the project, and Cori Parise, Sara Barca, Patty Blake, Kim Getz, and
LuAnn Driscoll, who provided critical administrative support for the conference.
We thank Professor Ronald Brand, who heads the Center for International Legal
Education at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, for providing financial
support for the conference and first putting us in touch with Oxford University
Press. We thank Professor Brie Williams at the University of California at San
Francisco Medical Center for providing financial support and encourage-
ment for the conference, and Professor Michael Zigmond at the University of
Pittsburgh for providing financial support and more importantly connecting us
with other wonderful neuroscientists such as Professor Huda Akil. In addition,
we thank the many prisoners and their on-the-ground activist supporters such
as Dolores Canales, whose struggle and activism has inspired the academic and
human rights community to better understand the suffering solitary confine-
ment causes and the pathways to reforming and ending the practice.
For help preparing an index for the book we would like to thank Marina Hiller
Foshaugen and Amanda Vik Andersen at the University of Oslo, and we thank
the staff at the Document Technology Center at the University of Pittsburgh
School of Law for helping to prepare the manuscript. Finally, we want to thank
the editors at Oxford University Press for their excellent work in editing and
shepherding this project to completion.
Professor Lobel also thanks his colleagues at the Center for Constitutional
Rights, Rachel Meeropol, Sam Miller, and Alexi Agathocleous, whose work and
collaboration on the Ashker v. Brown case has been so important and founda-
tional to this effort, and Staughton and Alice Lynd, who first introduced him to
the issue of solitary confinement and continue to be important collaborators in
x Acknowledgments
his work. His three children, Mike, Caroline, and Sasha, have provided motiva-
tion, humor, and inspiration to do this work. Most important has been the con-
tinuing love and support of his wife, Karen Engro, who has been the key person
enabling him to engage in the activist, litigation, and academic work challenging
prolonged solitary confinement.
Professor Scharff Smith would like to thank all the participants in the
Scandinavian Solitary Confinement Network— former prisoners, prison
officers, prison governors, psychologists, lawyers, and researchers—for a cru-
cial exchange of knowledge and for supporting and working for prison reform
in this area. He would also like to thank his colleagues at the Department of
Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo for creating an ex-
cellent academic and social working environment. For ongoing and inspirational
discussions throughout the years concerning solitary confinement, he especially
wants to thank Sharon Shalev and Marte Rua. Finally, he would like to thank his
family and especially his three children, Siri, August, and Vera, who are an in-
credible joy to be around and a constant motivation in life.
1
Solitary Confinement—From Extreme
Isolation to Prison Reform
Jules Lobel* and Peter Scharff Smith**
For nearly two centuries the practice of solitary confinement has been a recur-
ring feature in many prison systems all over the world. Solitary confinement
is used for a panoply of different reasons although research tells us that these
practices have widespread negative health effects. Besides the death penalty, it is
arguably the most punitive and dangerous intervention available to state author-
ities in democratic nations. These facts have spawned a growing international in-
terest in this topic and reform movements which include, among others, doctors,
psychologists, criminologists, sociologists, prisoners, families, litigators, human
rights defenders, and prison governors.
Social beings
Humans are social beings. We interact with other human beings, and that is how
we come to know who our friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors, and
others we meet on our journey through life are. Such interactions enable us to
understand who we ourselves are. Without human and social contact that feat
would seem impossible. How should we otherwise form and comprehend our
own identity? Indeed, it is through social interaction that we find partners and
eventually reproduce as a species. In that sense the alternative to social contact
is not only loneliness but in the end also death—unless we envision some kind
of dystopian future where computers and science have somehow replaced love
and sex.
Many of us live lives full of people, children, families, work, and activities and
sometimes long for more time for ourselves. Just a few hours or even minutes
* Bessie McKee Walthour Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh Law School; Co-operating
Attorney and Former President of the Board, Center for Constitutional Rights.
** Professor in Sociology of Law, Department of Criminology & Sociology of Law, Faculty of Law,
Oslo University.
Jules Lobel and Peter Scharff Smith. Solitary Confinement—From Extreme Isolation to Prison Reform In: Solitary
Confinement. Edited by: Jules Lobel and Peter Scharff Smith. Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190947927.003.0001
2 Solitary Confinement
behind a closed door in order to gather our thoughts, write that email, get on
with a project, finish that chapter or article, etc. Nevertheless, given some time to
ponder this issue most of us will likely understand that prolonged social isolation
is not something to wish for. Especially not if we are unable to choose when and
how to end such isolation.
As will be described in this book, social isolation is in fact very dangerous to
human health and well-being. In the free world, loneliness and isolation increase
the risk of mortality significantly and present a risk equivalent to or even greater
than some of the most well-known and severe health hazards such as smoking
and being overweight.1 This book is about a special kind of social isolation that
is imposed on the incarcerated—people who cannot themselves decide when
to get out and end such isolation. Solitary confinement is the term used to de-
scribe the situation where people are confined individually and alone in a cell in
a prison for between twenty-two and twenty-four hours every day.2 This practice
has been utilized in prison systems since the eighteenth century and up until this
day. This form of isolation is extremely detrimental to the health of the people
being subjected to such conditions.3 Not surprisingly, in states without the death
penalty, solitary confinement has been described as the “the furthest point of the
repertoire of sanctions and compulsions available to a liberal democratic state
outside time of war.”4
Incredibly, these facts have had little or no impact on prison policy in many
jurisdictions. Often, people are placed in solitary confinement simply at the
whim of prison officers and often without noteworthy legal safeguards or ef-
fective complaint mechanisms. And such conditions are sometimes imposed
for years and even decades on end. Interestingly and bizarrely, we treat these
prisoners in a manner that would not be permitted for our animal companions
used in scientific research. Indeed, humans are not the only social beings living
among us and in many countries our research on animals, and even in some
cases the treatment of certain animals is regulated in great detail by law in a way
we see few or no signs of when it comes to humans residing in prisons.
1See Hawkley, Chapter 11, this volume.

2This definition of solitary confinement follows the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules
for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) from 2015; and The Istanbul Statement
on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement, Adopted on December 9, 2007 at the International
Psychological Trauma Symposium, Istanbul.
3 See Haney, Chapter 8, this volume; Williams and Ahalt, Chapter 9, this volume; Venters,
Chapter 10, this volume; Zigmond and Smeyne, Chapter 11, this volume; Smith, Chapter 2, this
volume.
4 Richard Sparks, Anthony E. Bottoms, and Will Hay, Prisons and the Problem of Order
(London: Clarendon Press, 1996), 30.

Jules Lobel and Peter Scharff Smith 3
Social animals and isolation
Imagine a horse in the middle of a field—in this case somewhere in Sweden. This
particular horse is leading a happy life in part because it has a legal right to eve-
ryday contact with other companions. The horse is a social animal and hence
social isolation is unhealthy. This fact is reflected in Swedish law. The statutes of
the Swedish Animal Welfare Authority stipulate that “a horse’s need for social
contact must be met.”5 What this entails in practice is explained in the rules and
guidelines for horse owners from the Swedish Department of Agriculture:
Ideally, your horse should be in contact with other horses, but it can work with
another flock animal, such as sheep or cattle, if this is enough for your horse to
be well.6
To ensure such contact, the living conditions in the stables are also regulated in
detail: “Box walls, box doors and partitions must be designed so that the horse’s
need for social contact is met.”7 Unsurprisingly, the same goes for other social
animals. Another example from Swedish law involves the ostrich—an animal
that you are not allowed to isolate from its conspecifics.8
Bear in mind that Sweden is just one example. Many countries of course have
rules and legal safeguards protecting certain animals from abuse and ill health. As
shown in the Swedish example, a social animal’s need for contact with other animals
is an important element in its well-being, and therefore animals often have special
rights in this area. But in Sweden, you will not find similar rights being granted to
imprisoned human beings. Despite Sweden’s reputation as a country with humane
prison conditions, solitary confinement is actually a serious problem, especially
during remand where pre-trial detainees are awaiting conviction. In fact, and quite
extraordinarily, around two-thirds of all pre-trial detainees in Sweden are auto-
matically subjected to solitary confinement—a practice that has been heavily criti-
cized by international human rights committees for decades.9
5 Djurskyddsmyndighetens författningssamling, DFS 2007:6, 2 kap. Skötsel och hantering,
Allmänna krav, 1 § 4.
6 Jordbruksverket “Djurskyddsbestämmelser, Häst,” Jordbruksinformation 4, 2011, p. 6. See also,
Djurskyddsmyndighetens författningssamling, DFS 2007:6, Allmänna råd till 2 kap. 1, “Hästar bör
hållas tillsammans med artfränder.”
7 Jordbruksverket “Djurskyddsbestämmelser, Häst,” Jordbruksinformation 4, 2011, p. 5.
8 Swedish Ministry of Agriculture, August 14, 2018, accessed April 2019, https://nam05.safelinks.
protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jordbruksverket.se%2Famnesomraden%2Fdj
ur%2Folikaslagsdjur%2Fhagnatvilt%2Fskotselavstrutsar.4.51c5369e120aee363f08000366.html&am
p;data=02%7C01%7Clawdtc%40pitt.edu%7Cf8c18f3a3e5a4ec7858508d6bc18f8c5%7C9ef9f489e0a
04eeb87cc3a526112fd0d%7C1%7C0%7C636903212765281265&sdata=gUyJ0Zurd%2B%2Ba
uCb6PrwRckJm%2FagRAcVLTXbZrC3xVno%3D&reserved=0.
9 See Smith, Chapter 2, this volume.
Solitary confinement in prison—Effects and practices
A human being’s need for some level of social contact does not seem to be
secured as a basic right in any prison system in the world, and in some it is bla-
tantly ignored to a remarkable degree. This has to a greater or lesser extent been
the case especially during the last two centuries. The use of solitary confinement
in prisons became common with the rise of the modern penitentiary during
the first half of the nineteenth century and his since remained a feature of some
Western, and non-Western, prison systems. A debate about the effects of solitary
confinement was largely settled early in the twentieth century, when this practice
was condemned as being severely unhealthy, and consequently the general use
of prolonged solitary confinement appeared to be on the way out. Discussions
about the practice resurfaced in the 1950s, when sensory deprivation and per-
ceptual deprivation studies were carried out partly in reaction to stories of brain-
washing of US prisoners of war during the Korean War.10 During the 1980s
solitary confinement again regained topicality when supermax prisons caused
an explosion in the use of solitary confinement in the United States.11 However,
various forms of isolation have been continuously used in different parts of the
world, which includes numerous practices ranging from the phenomenon of
pre-trial solitary confinement in Scandinavia to the use of isolation in connec-
tion with interrogations of suspected terrorists.12
Today we know from a wide range of international studies and research that
solitary confinement is a dangerous practice that can have significant nega-
tive health effects.13 Nevertheless, in the United States currently, an estimated
80,000 to 100,000 prisoners are housed in small cells for more than 22 hours per
day with little or no social contact and no physical contact visits with family or
friends. Indeed, solitary confinement is used in many prison systems as a means
to maintain prison order: as disciplinary punishment or as an administrative
measure for inmates who are considered an escape risk or a risk to themselves or
to prison order in general. Some inmates, for example, sex offenders, also choose
voluntary isolation to avoid harassment from other prisoners.
Nevertheless, recent years have witnessed growing international reform in-
terest in this area, which has mobilized not only researchers, litigators, and
human rights defenders, but also prison governors and other practitioners. This
10See Smith, Chapter 2, this volume.

11See Reiter, Chapter 5, this volume; Resnik, Chapter 6, this volume; Lobel, Chapter 22, this
volume.
12 See Nowak, Chapter 3, this volume; Shalev, Chapter 4, this volume; Smith, Chapter 2, this
volume.
13 See Haney, Chapter 8, this volume. See also Williams and Ahalt, Chapter 9, this volume;
Venters, Chapter 10, this volume, Zigmond and Smeyne, Chapter 13, this volume; Smith, Chapter 2,
this volume.
is the starting point for the present book, which builds on the hitherto most am-
bitious international, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive conference on soli-
tary confinement, which took place at the University of Pittsburgh in 2016 and
was organized by the editors.
With this book we wish to take for the first time a broad international com-
parative approach to this subject and to apply an interdisciplinary lens consisting
of the views of neuroscientists, high-level prison officials, social and political
scientists, medical doctors, historians, lawyers, and former prisoners and their
families from different countries to address the effects and practices of prolonged
solitary confinement and the movement for its reform and abolishment.
Two reform movements that inspired this book
In many countries you will, on a given day, find hundreds or even thousands of
prisoners being locked up in solitary confinement in various institutions—for
days, weeks, months, or even many years at a time. In that sense we are very
far indeed from a situation where a human beings’ very basic social needs are
protected by law and respected in practice in our prisons. Nevertheless, a number
of important developments have taken place during recent decades that have
brought the question of solitary confinement and prison practice to the forefront
and created significant pockets of reform. Two different reform movements have
been significant and at least partly successful in this regard, and they form the
background of this book as well as the conference held in Pittsburgh in 2016.
First, international human rights standards have increasingly been applied
to prisoners in the last half century.14 With regard to solitary confinement, in-
ternational human rights standards have evolved significantly especially in the
last approximately 15 years, and human rights monitoring has expanded since
the 1990’s in Europe and during the last decade or so, internationally as well.15
International and regional human rights bodies, supported by NGOs, individual
researchers and activists have succeeded in strengthening soft law, monitoring,
and torture prevention in this particular area significantly, which to a varying
degree has had an impact on national jurisdictions as well. This development is
reflected in several of the chapters in this volume and is an important reason that
this book has become possible at all.
14 Concerning the “endtimes” of human rights, see Stephen Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human
Rights (New York: Cornell University Press, 2013). Concerning pockets of increased human rights
implementation and protection in prison systems, see Peter Scharff Smith, “Prisons and Human
Rights: Past, Present and Future Challenges,” in The Routledge International Handbook of Criminology
and Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2016).
15 See Nowak, Chapter 3, this volume; Mendez, Chapter 7, this volume.
Secondly, significant developments have taken place in the United States,

where litigation against isolation practices has gained momentum and finally
become more successful.16 Equally importantly, the litigation has been joined
with a reform movement that has raised awareness of the harmfulness of the
practice, has helped enlist the aid of some prison officials in reforming certain
state prison systems, and has created partnerships between non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), lawyers, researchers, and state correctional services. As
will be explained in this chapter, this has informed and formed this book in a
very direct way through a particular case brought against the Pelican Bay prison
in California.
The following sections briefly describe these two reform movements, which
have converged in recent years and formed the backbone of this collection.
International human rights reforms—From

the International Prison Commission to the Istanbul
Statement and the Mandela Rules
The process of creating international standards for prison practice—including

the use of solitary confinement—goes back to before World War II and hence
precedes the first human rights conventions. Evidence on the detrimental health
effects of solitary confinement continued to mount during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries and gradually, albeit slowly, influenced international
prison experts and their recommendations for sound prison management. The
International Prison Commission held several conferences during the nine-
teenth century and in 1846 the delegates approved the use of solitary confine-
ment. At the 1872 penitentiary congress in London, solitary confinement was
also subject to a lively discussion, but no resolutions were drawn up. This un-
doubtedly reflected the fact that large-scale solitary confinement (according to
the Pennsylvania/Philadelphia system) was still practiced in several countries.
As late as 1960 in Brussels the use of isolation was endorsed. At a 1930 peni-
tentiary congress in Prague, however, it was specified that solitary confinement
should never be used in connection with sentences of long duration.17
After World War II the international work with prison standards con-
tinued within the United Nations (UN). The original 1948 Declaration of
Human Rights and several of the UN conventions from the 1960s and onwards
16 See Resnik, Chapter 6, this volume; Fettig and Fathi, Chapter 21, this volume; Lobel, Chapter 22,
this volume.
17 Peter Scharff Smith, “Solitary Confinement—History, Practice, and Human Rights Standards,”
Prison Service Journal, no. 181 (January 2009): 3-11.

developed standards for those deprived of their liberty. But these conventions do
not themselves address the issue of solitary confinement directly. Nevertheless,
the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) from 1966 estab-
lished that: “All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity
and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person,”18 which the UN
Human Rights Committee later interpreted to mean that “persons deprived of
their liberty [may not] be subjected to any hardship or constraint other than that
resulting from the deprivation of liberty.”19
The UN and other regional human rights bodies have also increasingly crit-
icized the practice of prolonged solitary confinement. In 1990 the UN Basic
Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners encouraged states to abolish solitary
confinement as a punishment.20 The UN Committee Against Torture (CAT),
which monitors the Convention Against Torture, began to criticize isolation
practices in different parts of the world and recommended that “the use of soli-
tary confinement be abolished, particularly during pre-trial detention, or at least
that it should be strictly and specifically regulated by law (maximum duration,
etc.) and that judicial supervision should be introduced.”21 Other mechanisms
contributed to these efforts; for example, the UN Committee on the Rights of
the Child recommended that solitary confinement should not be used against
children.22 On a regional level the European Committee for the Prevention of
Torture (CPT) has stated that solitary confinement can amount to inhuman and
degrading treatment and has criticized isolation practices in several countries.23
So too, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has been critical of
certain prison systems’ use of solitary confinement. Furthermore, the revised
European Prison Rules of 2006 states: “Solitary confinement shall be imposed as
a punishment only in exceptional cases and for a specified period of time, which
shall be as short as possible.”24
But all these recommendations and standards lie within the area of soft law
and are not in themselves legally binding. They require action and compli-
ance from state authorities and/or that international or national courts adopt
them and turn them into hard law through judgments in concrete prison cases.
Furthermore, after the new European prison rules appeared in 2006, experts
on solitary confinement, prisons, and human rights took stock and identified a
number of crucial problems in this area: The use of solitary confinement was on
18 Article 10.1.
19 The Human Rights Committee, General Comment No. 21[44], article 10 (1-3) 1992.
20 Principle 7.
21 CAT, Visit report, Denmark, 1. May 1997, para. 186.
22 CRC/C/15/Add.273, “Denmark”, 30 September 2005, para. 58 a.
23 See Smith, “Solitary Confinement.”
24 Rule 60.5.
the rise in some jurisdictions and continued to be a significant problem in others,

while the human rights standards in the area were too weak despite developing
research that had clearly documented the severe negative health effects of pro-
longed isolation.25
Consequently—and with the purpose of either abolishing or significantly
restricting the use of solitary confinement—a group of experts convened during
the International Psychological Trauma Symposium in Istanbul in December
2007 and produced the Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary
Confinement.26 This Statement recommended, among other things, that solitary
confinement should be absolutely prohibited for mentally ill prisoners, for chil-
dren under the age of eighteen, and when used coercively to apply psychological
pressure on prisoners. The Statement also advised as a “general principle” that
“solitary confinement should only be used in very exceptional cases, for as short
a time as possible and only as a last resort.”27
Importantly, the Statement and these standards were then promoted in the
UN by the then-Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, who had par-
ticipated in negotiating the Statement in Istanbul and attached to his 2008 report
to the UN General Assembly.28 The Statement was also used by a later UN Special
Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, who further developed and strengthened
standards significantly in this particular area.29 Mendez focused on solitary con-
finement in his thematic 2011 report and took further strides by calling for a
complete ban on all forms of prolonged solitary confinement, which he defined
as isolation beyond fifteen days.30
The increased focus on strengthened human rights standards culminated in
2015 with revised UN prison rules known as the Mandela Rules. Those rules in-
corporate the definition of solitary confinement from the Istanbul Statement on
the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement and constitute the strongest soft law
instrument in the work towards restricting or abolishing the use of solitary con-
finement in prisons.
25 Craig Haney, “Mental Health Issues in Long- Term Solitary and ‘Supermax’ Confinement,”
Crime and Delinquency 49, no. 1 (2003): 124–56; Henrik Steen Andersen, “Mental Health in Prison
Populations: A Review—With Special Emphasis on a Study of Danish Prisoners on Remand,” Acta
Psychiatrica Scandinavica Supplementum 110, no. 424 (2004): 5–59; Peter Scharff Smith, “The
Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prison Inmates: A Brief History and Review of the Literature,” in
Crime and Justice, ed. Michael Tonry (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006), 441–528). Haney,
Chapter 8, this volume.
26 Peter Scharff Smith, “Solitary Confinement: An Introduction to the Istanbul Statement on the
Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement,” Torture 18, no. 1 (2008): 56–62.
27 The Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement, Adopted on December
9, 2007 at the International Psychological Trauma Symposium, Istanbul.

28 See Nowak, Chapter 3, this volume.
29 Mendez, Chapter 7, this volume.
30 See id.
To sum up, the last fifteen years or so have witnessed increased human rights
attention to the problem of solitary confinement in prisons, and the develop-
ment of standards to significantly restrict and eventually abolish the practice.
Many of the authors of this book have participated in and contributed to this
growing human rights reform movement, which provided a basis for the interna-
tional, interdisciplinary, and comparative approach taken in this book.
Prison litigation in the United States—Solitary

confinement and the recent Pelican Bay case
The United States, where the increasing use of solitary confinement in the last
few decades of the twentieth century was most dramatic, spawned a reform
movement of its own. Indeed, the conference held at the University of Pittsburgh
Law School in 2016 of which the book is an outgrowth, germinated in part
based on class action litigation brought against the California Department of
Corrections on behalf of over 1,000 prisoners held in prolonged solitary con-
finement at Pelican Bay State Prison in California. That litigation, which success-
fully ended the indeterminate, very prolonged solitary confinement of almost
1,600 California prisoners, was premised on combining prisoner testimony on
the harm and pain caused by their confinement with expert testimony from var-
ious disciplines setting forth the psychological, neurological, and physical harm
caused by solitary confinement. In addition, the expert strategy would also set
forth the international norms limiting the use of prolonged solitary, and in that
sense the two reform movements mentioned here—international human rights
and US prison litigation—converged with this particular case, and now with
this book. Additionally, high-level prison official expertise was employed in the
Pelican Bay case, claiming that California’s practices were penologically unnec-
essary. Finally, international comparison was used to illustrate other nations’ use
of alternatives to draconian isolation. The combination of first-hand experience
with interdisciplinary, international, and comparative expertise was then uti-
lized at the Pittsburgh conference convened by the two co-editors of this book,
and continued with this volume. Indeed, some of the authors of the chapters in
this book were experts in the California case.31 The multifaceted challenge to
solitary confinement contained in the Pelican Bay litigation thus provides rich
intellectual and practical lessons on why and how to reform and eventually end
the practice.32
31 Haney, Chapter 8, this volume; Hawkley, Chapter 11, this volume; Coyle, Chapter 15, this
volume; and Mendez, Chapter 7, this volume.

32 See Lobel, Chapter 22, this volume; Lobel was one of the litigators in the California litigation.
To demonstrate that the use of prolonged solitary confinement is cruel, in-

humane, unusual, and degrading punishment that violates constitutional and
human rights norms required both the Pelican Bay litigators and the editors of
this book to address three basic questions. The first is what is the harm to human
beings who are placed in such confinement? At first glance the harm is obvious: To
lock someone up for a prolonged period of time in a small cell, twenty-two to
twenty three hours per day, with virtually no social contact, no programming, no
physical contact with friends, family, or other prisoners, seems like it would drive
the person crazy. Or as United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
put it in a 2015 speech at Harvard Law School, “it drives men mad.”33 Moreover,
various psychological experts and researchers—including Craig Haney, an au-
thor in this book and an expert in the Pelican Bay litigation—have concluded that
prisoners in solitary suffer tremendously from such prolonged isolation.34 But
the reluctance of some courts to view the pain caused by solitary confinement as
rising to the level of cruel and inhumane punishment demonstrates a need for a
deeper and broader understanding of the harm caused by such confinement. This
led the Pelican Bay litigators to retain experts in the fields of neuroscience, social
science, and touch in order to demonstrate that prisoners in solitary confinement
were suffering an increased risk of physical harm, in addition to mental harm.
They also asked the psychological experts to develop new, promising avenues of
research with the prisoner class at Pelican Bay to further illustrate the ongoing,
long-term psychological harm these prisoners were suffering. That interdiscipli-
nary approach involving five separate experts led to success in the Pelican Bay liti-
gation and has been continued in this book, which broadens the understanding of
solitary confinement and its effects even further.
The second major question faced by the litigators was a penological one—was
the use of prolonged solitary confinement necessary, and were alternatives avail-
able? Probably the key defense that prison officials, including those in California,
make of their use of solitary confinement is that it is necessary to curb violence
in the prisons; to isolate the most dangerous prisoners so that they do not kill, as-
sault, or rape other prisoners and staff. Courts faced with that security argument
are often likely to defer to the prison officials’ rationale. The prisoners and their
legal team felt that we needed expert witnesses to undercut California’s security
rationale. This book takes the same approach. Justice Kennedy articulated the
likely underlying concerns of many judges when, in inviting a future challenge to
prolonged solitary confinement, he noted that the “judiciary may be required to
33 Liz Mineo, “Kennedy Assails Prison Shortcomings,” last modified October 22, 2015, https://
news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/10/kennedy-assails-prison-shortcomings/.
34 See Haney, Chapter 8, this volume.
determine . . . whether alternative systems for long-term confinement exist, and

if so, whether a correctional system should be required to adopt them.”
The plaintiffs’ legal team retained a former director and a deputy director of
two state prison systems that had reformed their use of solitary confinement to
testify as to the lack of justification for California’s use of prolonged isolation
as well as potential alternatives to the practice. They also retained the nation’s
leading expert on prison classification systems for determining the level of se-
curity for a prisoner. He declared that California’s system of determining who
should be placed in and retained in solitary confinement was broken, had not
diminished prison violence, and resulted in numerous prisoners being placed
and retained for years in solitary without justification. Moreover, Andrew Coyle,
an international expert in prisons and solitary confinement, who had been a
high-level Scottish official who had led a reform movement away from such con-
finement in that country, also agreed to testify that California’s use of solitary
was not only penologically unnecessary but also harmful from a security per-
spective and contrary to sound prison management principles.35 This book con-
tinues and significantly expands upon that effort by including a number of essays
by top American state prison officials and prison managers in other countries
discussing their reform of solitary systems and the development of alternatives.
In particular, the prisoners and lawyers felt that to prove an Eighth
Amendment violation one had to show that even the most dangerous prisoners
should not be held for long periods of time in the isolating conditions of Pelican
Bay or other American supermax prisons. For if solitary was a form of torture,
as the complaint alleged, it was impermissible to place any prisoners, no matter
how dangerous, in these conditions for prolonged periods. Yet it was with these
allegedly destructive prisoners—the Hanibal Lecters of the system—that the
state had its best argument; how could they place these prisoners in with gen
eral population prisoners without unleashing mayhem. The former director of
a major state system, Ohio, filed an expert declaration that in Ohio they were
able to provide even the prisoners that officials considered most dangerous with
some significant social interaction with other prisoners and contact visits and
phone calls with family and friends. So too, the foreign prison official explained
how that was possible to do and had been done in his system. In short, these
prison officials testified that you could separate these allegedly very dangerous
prisoners from other prisoners without mandating total isolation. Separation,
not isolation was their alternative practice.
Third, and finally, we sought to show that the prolonged solitary confine-
ment imposed by California was contrary to international norms and practices,
35 See Coyle, Chapter 15, this volume.

which were moving away from solitary confinement and prohibited the types of
practices imposed by California. We retained Juan Mendez, then the UN Special
Rapporteur on Torture to visit Pelican Bay and write a report on its inconsistency
with international norms and practices. In addition, our international prison ex-
pert also opined on the divergence between California’s practices and what inter-
national society now recognized as sound prison management consistent with
the human rights of the prisoners. In sum, we sought to show that California
was an outlier, out of step and touch with modern prison practices both here and
abroad. Mendez, Coyle, and another former UN Rapporteur, Manfred Nowak,
are authors of chapters in this book, and they have been joined by others who
continue and deepen the multifaceted approach that was employed with the
Pelican Bay litigation.
The importance of these expert reports in the California litigation is two-
fold. First, as a whole, they constitute a thoroughgoing and innovative critique
of prolonged solitary confinement, explaining why it deprives people of basic
human needs, is an affront to human dignity, and is unnecessary.36 As such,
these reports can play an important role in the continuing struggle against soli-
tary confinement. Their insights into the use of solitary at Pelican Bay are greatly
supplemented by the essays in this book, some of which are written by those
experts, but most of which bring their knowledge to deepen and expand both
the critique of solitary and the possibility of alternatives. Second, the reports
illustrate the role that science can play in legal advocacy, and the dilemmas
confronting the interface of law and science in the courtroom, for harnessing sci-
ence for legal advocacy can be incredibly powerful but also difficult and possibly
problematical.
The structure of the book
The book is structured in three main parts. The first part, titled “Two Centuries
of Solitary Confinement,” looks at the history of solitary confinement and how
isolation is practiced in various prison systems today, and provides an overview
of how and why relevant law has evolved in the United States and within the
human rights community.
The second part, titled “Mind, Body and Soul—The Harms and Experience of
Solitary Confinement” discusses the physical as well as the mental health effects
of solitary confinement and the frequency of self-injurious behavior in isolation,
and demonstrates how and why research on the effects of social isolation in the
36 See Lobel, Chapter 22, this volume.

free community is very relevant to the study of solitary confinement in prisons.

Furthermore, the lessons of neuroscience are applied to solitary confinement in
this part of the book. Finally, the experience of solitary confinement is described
from the point of view of prisoners and prison staff.
The third part of the book looks at “Prison Reform, Prison Litigation and
Human Rights.” Here, we initially focus on alternatives to solitary confinement
in the form of reform initiatives and concrete prison practices in different prisons
in different countries where the use of isolation is either low or nonexistent. After
that we take a look at concrete litigation in a number of jurisdictions where the
use of solitary confinement has been successfully challenged.
The individual chapters
Part one begins with Chapter 2 by Peter Scharff Smith titled “Solitary
Confinement—Effects and Practices from the Nineteenth Century until Today.”
Here Smith traces the history of solitary confinement practices and their effects
in prisons and places of detention from early experiments in late-eighteenth-
century England, to the rise of the modern penitentiary in the United States
and Europe during the nineteenth century, up until present day methods in dif-
ferent countries around the world. Smith demonstrate how various forms of iso-
lation have been, and still are, employed for very different purposes and how
the effects of solitary confinement have been discovered on several occasions in
different contexts during the last two centuries. He concludes by showing that
today few doubt the powerful effects of solitary confinement on mind and body
of prisoners, but the degree to which lawmakers and prison administrators ac-
knowledge this varies greatly.
In Chapter 3, “Global Perspectives on Solitary Confinement—Practices and
Reforms Worldwide,” Manfred Nowak puts the practice of solitary confinement in
the context of and distinguishes it from other aggravated forms of deprivation of
liberty, such as incommunicado detention, secret detention, and enforced disap-
pearance. Nowak proceeds to discuss the relevant case law of human rights courts
and monitoring bodies and compare this with his own experience as UN Special
Rapporteur on Torture and that of his successor Juan Mendez. Nowak describes
how Mendez and himself, based on research into the effects of solitary confine-
ment, helped change and significantly strengthen soft law standards in the area.
In the next chapter, Sharon Shalev builds on her previous work on supermax
prisons in the United States, high-security units across Europe, close-supervision
centers and segregation units in England and Wales, and management and pun-
ishment units in New Zealand, to identify different approaches and common
threads in the use of solitary confinement in different jurisdictions.
Chapter 5, by Professor Keramet Reiter provides an overview of how the first

supermaxes were designed by administrators, at the state-level, in response to
outbreaks of violence. The institutions faced many legal challenges, and while the
litigation led to reforms, it also legitimized the institutions, which were replicated
across the United States, and globally, over the course of the 1980s and 1990s.
In Chapter 6, Judith Resnik argues that the isolating practices of solitary
confinement ought not be analyzed in isolation, for they are continuous with
methods of incarceration that isolate by place and by rule. Drawing on research
of the Association of State Correctional Administrators and Yale Law School, she
provides a window into the numbers of people held in the United States in isola-
tion and the burdens that flow, in terms of the lack of opportunities for sociability
that individuals endure for months and years. Law licenses these practices and
could bound them more. Doing so requires rethinking not only solitary con-
finement but also the imposition of a myriad of other constraints imposed on
incarcerated individuals and taken for granted, rather than viewed as “atypical.”
Placing US law in the context of international reform efforts makes plain that
profound deprivation is the normative baseline, to which some facets of ordinary
life and constitutional protections may be added to mitigate the harshness.
In the last chapter of the overview part of the book, Juan Mendez, the former
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, himself a former political prisoner during
the Argentinian military dictatorship, describes how early on in his tenure he
was confronted with specific cases of prolonged solitary confinement. He
embarked on a research project that culminated in his thematic report on soli-
tary confinement, delivered to the UN General Assembly in November of 2011.
The report proved to have a long shelf life, as it prompted several other actions
and initiatives by the author, during and after his tenure.
Opening Part II of the book on Mind, Body and Soul, which addresses the
harm caused by solitary confinement, is a chapter by Craig Haney. This chapter
summarizes the existing state of scientific knowledge on the adverse psycho-
logical effects of isolated confinement. Based on a comprehensive review of the
published literature as well as the author’s own empirical research, it will both
catalogue these effects and provide a coherent theoretical framework for under-
standing how and why the practice of solitary confinement is both harmful and
counterproductive.
The next chapter, by Dr. Brie Williams and MPP Cyrus Ahalt, argues that
despite clear documentation of the medical and psychological harms of soli-
tary confinement, reform remains inconsistent. Oftentimes, this inconsistency
reflects the extent to which the harm-benefit calculation disproportionately
favors a perceived correctional benefit of solitary confinement over its known
health-related harm. This chapter describes the medical field’s approach to rec-
onciling harm/benefit analyses as a fundamental step in any medical research,
treatment, or policy intervention. It describes a robust, stepwise framework that

can be used to assess the harm-benefit calculus underlying the practice of solitary
confinement based on the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) model for med-
ication approval. This chapter introduces and explores the question of whether
prisons would benefit—from both ethical and effectiveness perspectives—from
the development of a parallel harm/benefit analysis framework for assessing the
appropriate use of correctional practices that have a potential to cause harm.
Chapter 10, by Dr. Homer Venters argues that the persistence of myths about
solitary confinement allow for this harmful and dangerous practice to continue
in many American jails and prisons. The first myth is that solitary is not linked
to real health outcomes. Data from 250,000 New York City jail admissions shows
that prisoners exposed to solitary have odds ratios of 6.9 and 6.6 for self-harm
and potentially fatal self-harm, respectively. The second myth relating to solitary
confinement is that solitary is evenly applied across race and age. A second large-
scale analysis of New York City data, on 50,000 first-time jail admissions, shows
African American and Hispanic prisoners more likely than white prisoners to
enter into solitary (odds ratios of 2.5 and 1.6), even after adjustment for length
of stay. The third myth about solitary is that it represents a valid approach to
reducing violence and other incidents. Venters’s chapter also discusses the
“Clinical Alternatives to Punitive Segregation” units that he helped to create in
the New York City Department of Corrections. Seriously mentally ill patients
who previously went into solitary now go into treatment settings, designed and
run by teams of health and security staff, with improved outcomes. These units
are an important alternative to solitary, but their cost should prompt discussion
about the need to divert patients into clinical treatment before they arrive in jail.
Chapter 11, by Louise Hawkley, presents concrete data that highlights the risk
of increasing hypertension amongst prisoners placed in long-term solitary con-
finement. Chronic social isolation and feelings of loneliness have been associated
with mortality and a range of adverse health outcomes. Solitary confinement is
an extreme form of social isolation that was posited, based on prior research,
to increase risk for hypertension relative to imprisonment in general prison
housing. Data collected at Pelican Bay State Prison comparing prisoners held in
long-term solitary confinement and those who were held in harsh conditions in
maximum security but not in solitary confinement supported this hypothesis,
suggesting that isolation can “cause” poor health outcomes.
Chapters 12 and 13 address the lessons that neuroscience can teach about the
harm that isolation causes the brain. Huda Akil recognizes that while there are
no direct neuroscience studies of people exposed to extended solitary confine-
ment, key characteristics of solitary confinement have been extensively studied
by neuroscientists in various models. This body of evidence strongly indicates
that each of these variables—chronic stress, lack of sensory stimulation, lack of
movement, and lack of social contact—have profound impact on brain struc-

ture and function. Their combination, especially for extended periods of time,
is likely to produce substantial structural changes in the brain that translate into
changes in many functions.
Michael J. Zigmond and Richard Jay Smeyne start from the basic proposition
that we are a social species, a characteristic undoubtedly selected for during evo-
lution. They then reference studies of animal models housed in isolation, which
show that isolation causes severe neuroanatomical and biochemical abnormali-
ties in the brain. They discuss these studies as well as regulations imposing severe
restrictions on the housing of animals in isolation.
Chapter 14 addresses the prisoner’s perspective on and experiences of solitary
confinement. Robert King and Jack Morris, former prisoners who each spent
more than two decades in solitary confinement, discuss the deep harm it caused
them, and how they managed to survive. Dolores Canales, who both experienced
solitary confinement as a prisoner and has a son who spent many years in soli-
tary confinement, shares her perspectives on the harm it causes. The chapter also
includes an essay by a Colorado prison guard, Armando Sosa, explaining how
solitary confinement not only harmed prisoners but also was a stressful work
environment, and how the reforms instituted in Colorado not only helped the
prisoners, but also the correctional officers.
The last part of the book describes and discusses various reform efforts by
prison administrators in Europe and the United States to either reform or abolish
solitary confinement and develop alternatives. It also contains essays by five
litigators in the United States and Canada that address litigation in their coun-
tries against solitary confinement.
Andrew Coyle, in Chapter 15, discusses the alternatives to solitary confine-
ment for the management of high-security prisoners. He points out that in any
prison system there are likely to be a number of prisoners who, for a wide variety
of reasons, cannot be accommodated in mainstream or general populations.
Prison administrations have increasingly resorted to the use of long-term soli-
tary confinement as a method of managing such prisoners. This chapter discusses
alternative models of prison management which obviate the need for long-term
solitary confinement.
Jamie Bennett then describes therapeutic communities and the Grendon
prison model as an alternative to solitary. He argues that the supermax has be-
come a global brand in penal practice. England and Wales have, however, con-
sistently rejected this as a normal approach to imprisonment. This chapter argues
that where local approaches are conserved, imaginative practice can flourish.
Particular attention is given to the work of Grendon prison, which operates en-
tirely as a series of therapeutic communities working with high-risk prisoners
who have committed serious offenses and have been disruptive in prisons.
In Chapter 17, Are Høidal discusses prisoner association as an alternative

to solitary confinement and the lessons learned from a Norwegian high secu-
rity prison. Participating in activities can counteract isolation and is in Norway
justified by the principle of normalization. Providing in-work training and
meaningful activities also help to counteract incidents in prison that lead to
segregation. Through the Norwegian example in general and Halden prison in
particular, this chapter describes how focusing on such activities can prevent su-
icide, isolation damage, and violence, and help to reduce the use of safety cells,
segregation, and other restrictive measures.
In Chapter 18, Rick Raemisch discusses the efforts he undertook as director
of the Colorado Department of Corrections to get prisoners out of isolation. In
Colorado prisons, 5 years ago, 1,500, or almost 7%, of the inmate population was
in solitary. His predecessor as head of the Colorado prison system was assassi-
nated by an individual who spent several years in solitary, had mental health is-
sues, and was then released into the community. Now less than 1% of the prison’s
population is in solitary. This article addresses how Colorado was able to stop re-
leasing people from solitary directly into the community, stop putting seriously
mentally ill in solitary, and ban solitary at two prisons dedicated to those with
mental health issues. It also discusses how punitive segregation was dropped from
sixty to fifteen days, how Colorado is the only state where someone’s maximum
time in solitary is one year and then only under the most serious circumstances,
how women are in solitary a maximum of fifteen days with no pregnant women
ever in solitary, and how even the few prisoners still in lengthy segregation receive
much more out-of-cell time and in programming than previously.
In Chapter 19, Leann Bertsch describes the lessons she learned when she vis-
ited high-security prisons in Norway and how she implemented those lessons
as director of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Bertsch writes that focusing on the reality that almost everyone gets out of prison,
Norwegians ask the pragmatic question “What kind of neighbors do you want?”
Her most urgent priority after returning from Norway was to reduce the use of
solitary confinement. She says the department changed its philosophy to “behave
your way in, behave your way out,” dramatically reducing the number of individ-
uals in solitary.Chapter, by 20, by Joseph Arvay and Alison Latimer discusses the
historic Canadian litigation against solitary confinement that resulted in a trial
court determination that such confinement violated the constitutional rights of
prisoners. That ruling has now been affirmed by the Court of Appeals, which
held that the Canadian law permitting prolonged, indeterminate solitary con-
finement offends the fundamental norms of a free and democratic society. As
a result of the litigation, the Canadian parliament has enacted a new law that
creates “structured intervention units” which allows prisoners held in segrega-
tion considerably more out of cell time with interaction with other prisoners.
Chapter 21, by Amy Fettig and David Fathi explores how in the United States,
civil society advocacy campaigns working to reform and abolish solitary confine-
ment are interacting with recent and ongoing federal litigation. The authors iposit
that the evolution of policy, practice, litigation, and public knowledge regarding
solitary confinement is pushing the law forward. Momentum for greater legal
protections is growing in the courts and the combination of people power and ju-
risprudential development is leading to substantial new protections for prisoners.
Finally, Jules Lobel’s Chapter 22, discusses the California litigation which resulted
in the virtual elimination of prolonged, indeterminate solitary confinement in that
State’s prisons. He analyzes the use of interdisciplinary, comparative and interna-
tional law experts in that case to demonstrate both the physical and psychological
harms that prisoners held in solitary confinement experienced, the absence of a pe-
nological necessity for such confinement, the alternatives that prison officials could
utilize, and prolonged solitary confinement’s violation of international norms.
Bibliography
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PART I
T WO C E N T U R I E S
OF S OL ITA RY C ONF I NE M E NT
2
Solitary Confinement—Effects
and Practices from the Nineteenth
Century until Today
Peter Scharff Smith*
This chapter traces the history of solitary confinement practices and their effects
in prisons and places of detention from the rise of the modern penitentiary in
the United States and Europe during the nineteenth century and up until pre-
sent day, examining methods used in different countries around the world. It
discusses how various forms of isolation have been employed for very different
purposes and demonstrates how the effects of solitary confinement have been
discovered in different contexts during the last two centuries. Nevertheless, these
effects have been forgotten or neglected at several important junctures during
the history of imprisonment. Today, few doubt that solitary confinement often
has powerful consequences for the mind and body of prisoners, but the degree
to which lawmakers and prison administrators acknowledge this varies greatly.
Henrik Nielsen and the experience of Philadelphia-model

solitary confinement
In 1866 the eighteen-year-old Danish farm hand Henrik Nielsen arrived in

Vridsløselille penitentiary, which had been opened just seven years previously
as Denmark’s first isolation prison, built according to the American Philadelphia
model.1 Here, according to the philosophy of the modern penitentiary, prisoners
were to be rehabilitated through a mixture of strict isolation, work, and religion.2
* Professor in Sociology of Law, Department of Criminology & Sociology of Law, Faculty of
Law, Oslo University. Professor Smith has studied history and social science, holds a PhD from the
University of Copenhagen, and has also done research at the University of Cambridge and at the
Danish Institute of Human Rights.
1 Also referred to as the “Pennsylvania model” or sometimes the “separate system.”
2 See, for example, Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish (London: Vintage Books, 1995);
Michael Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain (London: Macmillan, 1978); Mark Colvin, Penitentiaries,
Reformatories, and Chain Gangs: Social Theory and the History of Punishment in Nineteenth-Century
Peter Scharff Smith. Solitary Confinement—Effects and Practices from the Nineteenth Century until Today In: Solitary
Confinement. Edited by: Jules Lobel and Peter Scharff Smith. Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190947927.003.0002
22 Solitary Confinement—Effects and Practices
In solitary confinement, in the loneliness of their single cells, they were supposed
to turn their thoughts inwards, regret their sins, and commence a religious pro-
cess of self-transformation.3 This peculiar system of punishment, which was
institutionalized in numerous countries on different continents during the nine-
teenth century, persisted way into the twentieth century in several jurisdictions,
and in many ways formed a common starting point for the modern penal
arrangements we still have today, especially in the Western world.
In 1866, when Henrik Nielsen began serving his sentence in Denmark, there
was still a strong belief that the Philadelphia system and the regime of solitary
confinement held the key to a new utilitarian era of rehabilitative punishment.
Nielsen’s offenses of theft and burglary led to his third conviction, and he was
to spend up to five years in prison. The eighteen-year-old was perfectly healthy
when committed and the young man had previous prison experience. Indeed,
the first year and a half in Vridsløselille seemed to pass without major problems.
After that, however, things began to go seriously wrong. Prison staff noted that
Nielsen hallucinated. In particular, he started hearing things. He believed that
someone bore him ill will, and that the warders wished to harm him. Prison staff
also noticed that Nielsen spent a lot of time masturbating in his cell. After this,
he was assigned work in the open air in an attempt to improve his health. This ar-
rangement was against the principles of the cellular prison but had nevertheless
developed as a practice in Vridsløselille penitentiary when it was discovered that
many a prisoner suffered from severe health problems in solitary confinement.
Indeed, as will be described in greater detail later in this chapter, the problems
with inmate mental health escalated in Vridsløselille penitentiary, and even the
prison governor agreed that solitary confinement was the primary cause of the
extensive health problems. Henrik Nielsen felt this in his own body and mind as
his condition worsened despite some fresh air. Nielsen became refractory and
malicious and had to be confined to his cell once again, where he eventually be-
came completely deranged. Henrik Nielsen was then moved to an insane asylum,
as was the case with numerous other prisoners who could not cope with the iso-
lation (see Figure 2.1).4
America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Roddy Nilsson, “The Swedish Prison System in
Historical Perspective: A Story of Successful Failure?,” Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology
and Crime Prevention 4, no. 1 (2003); Peter Scharff Smith, “Curing Criminal Thoughts—From
Religious Conversion to Cognitive Therapy in Prison,” in Cultural Histories of Crime in Denmark,
1500 to 2000, ed. Louise Kallestrup, Tyge Krogh, and Claus Bundgård Christensen (New York:
Routledge, 2018), 255–72.
3 Peter Scharff Smith, “A Religious Technology of the Self: Rationality and Religion in the Rise of
the Modern Penitentiary,” Punishment and Society 6, no. 2 (2004b): 195–220.

4 Peter Scharff Smith Moralske hospitaler. Det modern fængselsvæsens gennembrud 1770- 1870
(Forum 2003), 198 ff.
Peter Scharff Smith 23
Figure 2.1 A panoptic prison school in Vridsløselille Penitentiary in Denmark with

boxes to keep prisoners in solitary confinement during classes. Constructed 1890.
Photo credit: Vridsløselille Prison Museum
On his transfer to the mental institution, the prison medical officer, Doctor
Wiberg, noted in his file that the young man, besides the problems already cited,
also suffered from insomnia, talked to himself, had a timid gaze, a reddish face,
and a slightly racing pulse. Furthermore, he was weighed down by a melan-
cholic mood, which expressed itself as constant sighs. Wiberg concluded that
Henrik Nielsen’s state on delivery was primarily one of anxiety. At the mental
hospital, the newly arrived prisoner was described as physically sound, albeit
slightly “congested” (suffering from “accumulation of blood”) and complaining
of headaches. Nielsen’s facial expression was stiff, motionless, and slightly anx-
ious. He normally looked down, and his pupils were greatly dilated and sluggish
in their movements. It was also observed that the patient had a lax stance and
was very slow and lacking energy in his movements. On arrival, Henrik Nielsen
was calm, but highly confused and otherwise passive. He seemed to have no un-
derstanding at all of where he was, having already forgotten the journey, and he
thought he was still in a prison. Nielsen did not answer questions and concealed
his face between his arms. The very next day, however, he was more lively and able
to work with the other patients. Apart from constant complaints of headaches,
the sentenced thief quickly improved and showed no signs of hallucinations,
and he displayed no opposition during his stay in the mental institution. On

June 23, 1868 he was discharged as healed and transferred to the penitentiary in
Christianshavn in Copenhagen, to serve the rest of his sentence in the company
of other prisoners, without being subjected to solitary confinement.5
Different forms of solitary confinement
Henrik Nielsen is very likely one of the hundreds of thousands of nineteenth-

century victims of solitary confinement as practiced according to the
Philadelphia model, a form of incarceration that became highly popular espe-
cially in Europe and not least in the Scandinavian countries, where such soli-
tary confinement of sentenced prisoners was the norm, far into the twentieth
century. We shall return to this particular form of isolation below and examine
how, when, and where the severe negative health effects of solitary confinement
were discovered. Indeed, it is one of the tragedies surrounding the history of the
prison that the health effects of solitary confinement have been discovered many
times over, and then subsequently misunderstood, ignored, or simply forgotten.
In order to get an overview of the many and very different ways in which sol-
itary confinement has been employed in prisons throughout history we need a
typology of the various more or less official purposes behind these practices. The
typology below is designed to cover the last approximately 200 years of prison
history in that regard. When reading such a typology it is of course important
to bear in mind what any scholar of the sociology of law and punishment will
know—that there is often a big difference between law in the books and law in
practice. In other words, the official purpose of specific types of confinement
can easily differ significantly from the way they are put into practice and from
the results they actually produce. Furthermore, the purpose is often unclear
and sometimes apparently even nonexistent. Nevertheless, generally speaking,
purposes do constitute a reasonable starting point for creating an overview of
how and why solitary confinement has been employed in our prisons. A recent
review sets forth four common purposes of solitary confinement: 1) discipline,
2) protection, 3) security, and 4) prison administration.6 Today, especially, the
use of solitary confinement as a disciplinary punishment for breaking prison
5 The Regional Archive of Seeland (Landsarkivet for Sjælland), “Vridsløselille statsfængsel,”
case file no. 89/67–68, and Christian Tryde, Cellestraffens Indvirkning paa Forbrydernes mentelle
Sundhedstilstand, 1871, 23 f. See also Frederik Bruun, Beretning fra kontoret for Fængselsvæsenet om
Straffeanstalternes Tilstand i Tidsrummet fra 1ste Januar 1858 til 31te Marts 1863 (1868), 105.
6 Juan Mendez et al., “Seeing into Solitary: A Review of the Laws and Policies of Certain Nations
Regarding Solitary Confinement of Detainees” https://www.weil.com/~/media/files/pdfs/2016/un_spe-

cial_report_solitary_confinement.pdf (2016), 22 ff. The review included two other categories of solitary
confinement, which were labeled 5) other purposes, and 6) practices similar to solitary confinement.
rules is to be found in many prison systems, although some countries specifically

disallow such a practice.7
However, solitary confinement has been—and currently is—used for several
other purposes as well. In this chapter, I will identify eleven different types of sol-
itary confinement, which have been organized into four overall categories based
on where they take place in the chain of criminal prosecution (pre-trial or after a
sentence), which kind of law the isolation is used according to (prison law, immi-
gration law, etc.), and on the alleged purpose (to the degree that a purpose can be
found at all). The four categories are:
A) Solitary confinement of prisoners awaiting sentence and during counter

intelligence (CI) interrogation:
These three types of solitary confinement under this category are used
primarily, although not solely, during pre-trial procedures: at police sta-
tions and in jails, remand institutions, and various kinds of detainee camps,
and against detainees who have not been sentenced.
B) Solitary confinement of sentenced prisoners:
The seven types of solitary confinement in this category are used prima-
rily, although not exclusively, against sentenced prisoners.
C) Solitary confinement according to immigration law:
This category covers isolation of non-citizens (asylum seekers, etc.) ac-
cording to immigration law.
D) Solitary confinement without a legal basis:
The final category can be found on remand, in prisons, and other kinds
of detention as well, and the purposes can vary considerably but are often
administrative in some way.
I will present all the eleven forms and purposes of solitary confinement
contained within the above four categories.8 Following that, I will focus on
a number of specific forms of isolation and their effects in selected periods of
prison history.
7 Mendez et al., “Seeing into Solitary,” 22; Peter Scharff Smith, “Solitary Confinement: An
Introduction to the Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement,” Torture 18,
no. 1 (2008): 58.
8 This typology is partly based on a typology developed the Scandinavian Solitary Confinement
network and first described in Peter Scharff Smith, Thomas Horn, Johannes F. Nilsen, og Marte
Rua, “Isolasjon i skandinaviske fengsler—Skandinavisk praksis og etableringen av et skandinavisk
isolasjonsnettverk,” Kritisk Juss, no. 3 (December 2013): 170-191.
Solitary confinement of prisoners awaiting sentence and during CI interrogation
1. Solitary confinement in police detention.
In some jurisdictions, detainees spent very little time in police detention and are
quickly transferred to jails and prisons if facing criminal prosecution. In many
jurisdictions, however, detainees can spend days and even longer stretches in
police detention, and this sometimes takes place in solitary confinement. This
can even be the case in democratic and advanced welfare states like Norway
and Sweden, where detainees sometimes spend several days in strict solitary
confinement in strip-cells before being released or transferred to a remand
institution.9
2. Solitary confinement as coercion.
Solitary confinement has on several occasions been used coercively as part of an

interrogation process—to force out a confession or to gain intelligence (“intel”).
For example, this has been done in the former Soviet Union, in South Africa
during Apartheid, at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba during the “War on Terror,” and
in US-controlled prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. Often in these cases, iso-
lation was used together with other techniques and various forms of ill treat-
ment.10 The question of coercion has also been discussed in connection with the
Scandinavian model of pre-trial isolation.
3. Solitary confinement during pre-trial to avoid collusion.
Another well-known use of solitary confinement is during pre-trial where iso-

lation of individuals can be instigated in order to protect an ongoing criminal
investigation—i.e., to avoid collusion. While it is normal that restrictions are ap-
plied on a remand prisoners’ regime for exactly this reason, it is not standard
practice to use prolonged solitary confinement. However, some nations have a
special history in this regard. In a European context the practice of pre-trial iso-
lation has been termed a “Scandinavian phenomenon,” and Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden have received international human rights criticism on that account
during the last decades. Denmark has come a long way to solve this problem
9 Id.
10 See, for example, Physicians for Human Rights, Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence
of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact, June 2008, s. 77 f.; and Center for Constitutional Rights,
Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, July 2006, s. 16 f. See also Smith, “Solitary Confinement.”
while Sweden remarkably continues to subject around two-thirds of all remand

prisoners to solitary confinement for this purpose.11
Solitary confinement of sentenced prisoners
4. Solitary confinement as a rehabilitative tool.
This refers to the modern penitentiary and its heyday in the nineteenth cen-
tury when solitary confinement was used not only to punish but also to reform
prisoners—especially in the Philadelphia prison model. How this practice could
affect inmates has already been touched upon in the case of Henrik Nielsen. How
and why prison reformers and law makers thought that isolation could produce
rehabilitation will be addressed below, as will the actual results of this practice.
Indeed, prison administrators and prisoners alike learned on a large scale during
the nineteenth century that solitary confinement produces serious negative
health effects.12 One could argue that when solitary confinement is used as a dis-
ciplinary measure in prison systems today it sometimes has an element of a reha-
bilitative thinking attached in cases where it is officially proscribed as a method
of correcting prisoners’ behavior—although that it is a quite different and very
simplistic form of correctional ideology according to which harsh punishment
will produce positive behavioral change (see Figure 2.2).13
5. Solitary confinement as “thought reform.”
This particular use of solitary confinement resembles the nineteenth-century

Philadelphia model insofar as changing the thoughts and minds of prisoners is
a direct policy goal. However, here we are not talking about achieving decrimi-
nalization but rather a much more ideological and political objective. There is a
history here going back to the alleged “brainwashing” practices during the Cold
War—something to which I will return.14 This category does not always con-
cern sentenced prisoners—and in any case a sentence subjecting prisoners to
thought reform is obviously political and normally carried out in dictatorships.
11 Smith, Peter Scharff. “The Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prison Inmates: A Brief History
and Review of the Literature.” InCrime and Justice. Vol. 34, edited by Michael Tonry, 441–528.
Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2006; Smith, Horn, Nilsen, and Rua, “Isolasjon i skandinaviske
fengsler.”
12 Smith, 2006.
13 Mendez et al. “Seeing into Solitary,” 24.
14 Kathleen Taylor, Brainwashing. The Science of Thought Control (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2004).
Figure 2.2 The panoptic prison church in Vridsløselille penitentiary in Denmark

with isolation boxes for all prisoners. This isolation church was in operation from
the prison opened in 1859 and until the early 1930s.
Photo credit: Vridsløselille Prison Museum
A contemporary example in this regard would be Chinese “re- education”

facilities—for example as reported by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture
in the case of institutions for women where “detainees alleged that they were
held [in small solitary confinement cells] for up to 60 days, where they received
‘training’ to induce them to renounce their beliefs.”15
6. Solitary confinement as a preventive measure to uphold prison order.
In the rhetoric of some prison administrators, and commonly also in prison law,
the use of solitary confinement is often used and legitimized as a tool to uphold
prison order. This can be in the form of some of the practices/purposes men-
tioned in this chapter (as a disciplinary punishment and as protection of vul-
nerable prisoners), but it can also simply be a preventive measure applied by the
prison administration. As several chapters in this volume address, prisoners
15 2008 UN General Assembly Report—A/63/175, 19.

in several U.S. states can be placed in strict confinement in supermax prisons

simply because they are deemed to have a gang affiliation.16 However, there is
no evidence that such a measure leads to lower levels of violence or an increase
prison order. A study of facilities in three different US states concluded that “the
effectiveness of supermax prisons as a mechanism to enhance prison safety re-
mains largely speculative.”17 Indeed, some of the sparse research we have points
in the opposite direction—i.e., that solitary confinement can spark violence and
trouble in prison.18
7. Solitary confinement as a disciplinary punishment for violating prison

rules.
Most prison systems feature solitary confinement among their repertoire of dis-
ciplinary punishments for prisoners. There are countless variations in this re-
gard but typically, although not always, such punishment will last for a limited
number of days or perhaps weeks. In Denmark, for example, the maximum du-
ration of placement in isolation as a punishment for violating prison rules is four
weeks. In some countries, like Norway, it is unlawful to impose solitary confine-
ment as a disciplinary punishment.
8. Solitary confinement as protection of prisoners.
This form of solitary confinement is quite often voluntary—at least on paper. In

reality the choice is limited, especially if this is the only form of protection avail-
able for a prisoner at serious risk in the general population. Especially vulnerable
groups of prisoners are those sentenced for sexual offenses and inmates who are
indebted to other prisoners. Also, in some jurisdictions prisoners are placed in
protective custody against their will when the prison officials believe they have
safety concerns. Furthermore, prisoners are sometimes isolated, for example in
security or observation cells, because they are deemed suicidal. In those cases,
isolation is rarely voluntary and the regime often involves close surveillance of
the prisoner in question.
9. Solitary confinement on death row.
Solitary confinement is sometimes also found to be an integral part of regimes

on death row. For example, such a situation was uncovered by the Committee
16 See, for example, Lobel, Chapter 22, this volume.

17 Chad S. Briggs, Jody L. Sundt, and Thomas C. Castellano, “The Effect of Supermaximum Security
Prisons on Aggregate Levels of Institutional Violence,” Criminology 41 (2003): 1341–1376, 1371.
18 See Lobel, Chapter 22, this volume.
for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) during its 1995 visit to Bulgaria. In a specific
prison, two death row inmates were kept isolated in their cells and only allowed
one hour of exercise and fifteen minutes’ use of sanitary facilities each day, while
visits were limited to one per month. In addition, the prisoners were not allowed
to work, to go to the library, or to attend communal activities. The CPT has sim-
ilarly criticized death row arrangements in Ukraine.19 The use of solitary con-
finement on death row is very common in the United States, although pressure
stemming from litigation is changing the situation.
Solitary confinement according to immigration law
10. Solitary confinement according to immigration law.
Recent decades have witnessed an increasing tendency to deprive immigrants

of their liberty in detention centers.20 Criminologists have labeled this method
“crimmigration”—i.e., invoking punitive measures normally associated with
criminal procedures against non-citizens and asylum seekers.21 In several cases
immigrants can be subjected to solitary confinement in the detention centers
where they are placed—not according to prison law but according to immi-
gration law and for a wide variety of reasons. This is, for example, the case in
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.22 There is little focus and a lack of research in
this highly problematic area.
Solitary confinement without legal basis
11. De facto solitary confinement in institutions where people are deprived of

their liberty.
This covers a broad category of practices. As many prison researchers doing

field work will know, prisons with single-cell housing often house a number
of prisoners who are alone in their cells most of the day although they are not
19 Jim Murdoch, The Treatment of Prisoners: European Standards, (Strasbourg: Council of Europe,
2006), 236f.
20 See, for example, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Global Detention Project, Greek Council for
Refugees, Italian Council for Refugees “Crossing a Red Line: How EU Countries Undermine the
Right to Liberty by Expanding the Use of Detention of Asylum Seekers upon Entry,” 2019, https://
www.globaldetentionproject.org/crossing-red-line.
21 Katja Franko and Mary Bosworth, eds., The Borders of Punishment: Migration, Citizenship, and
Social Exclusion (London: Oxford University Press, 2013).

22 Udlændingeloven nr. 863 af 25 juni 2013, § 37c (Denmark); Utlänningslag nr. 716 af
29. september 2005, Kapitel 11, § 7. (Sweden); Forskrift om Politiets utlendingsinternat

(Utlendingsinternatforskriften) § 10 (Norway). For further explanation, see Smith, Horn, Nilsen,
and Rua, “Isolasjon i skandinaviske fengsler.”
subjected to any kind of isolation officially. In Denmark, for example, this is not
uncommon on remand where the regime is generally strict, where there are often
no communal facilities, and where, in some institutions, the only access to ex-
tended social contact will be through being allowed to sit together in a cell with
a co-prisoner a couple of hours each day. However, several do not get this op-
portunity and wind up in conditions of de facto solitary confinement.23 A recent
example from Norway was reported by the CPT during a visit in 2019:
At Bergen Prison (Block A), a number of sentenced prisoners, who were not
subjected to any formal restrictions and who, according to the management,
did not pose a security risk, were nevertheless locked up in their cells for
twenty-two to twenty-three hours per day (with only one hour of outdoor exer-
cise), without being offered any purposeful activities. A few prisoners had been
held for several years in a de facto solitary-confinement-type regime. Such a
state of affairs is not acceptable.24
Indeed, some uses of solitary confinement have been brought to court and
found illegal. One example is the case of Rikers Island jail in New York, where re-
turning prisoners who had previously been in solitary confinement where forced
back into such conditions. This practice was later found unlawful and stopped in
2015 following a lawsuit.25
A short history of solitary confinement

and research into its effects
In the following I will focus on a few specific isolation practices in order to show
how the negative health effects of solitary confinement have been observed
throughout the history of its use. Indeed, CI interrogation methods have even
tried to utilize these effects for coercive purposes. First, I will take a look at the
rise of large-scale solitary confinement in the nineteenth century and the way in
which experts and authorities eventually agreed that this was a severely dangerous
practice. Following that, I will briefly show how the effects of solitary confinement
23 Peter Scharff Smith, “Punishment without Conviction? Scandinavian Pre-trial Practices and
the Power of the ‘Benevolent’ State,” in Embraced by the Welfare State? Scandinavian Penal History,
Culture and Prison Practice, ed. Peter Scharff Smith and Thomas Ugelvik (London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2017), 129–55.
24 Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), Report to the Norwegian Government on the
Visit to Norway Carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 28 May to 5 June 2018, The CPT/Inf (2019), 1, 5.
25 The lawsuit was eventually settled providing plaintiffs with $175 for each day in solitary confine-
ment, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/nyregion/rikers-settlement-solitary-confinement.html.
were rediscovered after WWII in connection with encountering communist in-

carceration methods, sensory deprivation research, and the development of CI
interrogation. Finally, I will take stock and look at the current situation.
Rehabilitation through isolation—The rise

of the modern penitentiary
In spite of prison reforms and new prison constructions in late-eighteenth-

century England—where solitary confinement was used to a certain extent—it
was to be on the other side of the Atlantic that the modern prison system had its
real breakthrough. Here, the penitentiary evolved in a both rational and religious
spirit. A preliminary development took place in Philadelphia in the 1790s, but
not until the 1820s and 1830s did the United States emerge indubitably as the
pioneering nation in prison reform. The “Auburn” and “Pennsylvania” models
were developed in New York and Philadelphia and, over the course of a few years,
became of keen interest around the world (see Figure 2.3).
Figure 2.3 Masturbation was considered a health problem in the 19th century
isolation prisons and psychiatrists argued that such a practice could cause insanity.
These gloves were used in Horsens penitentiary in Denmark until the 1930s in order
to force prisoners from touching themselves.
Photo credit: Horsens Prison Museum
The Auburn system was put into practice at New York’s Auburn prison in
1823. Prisoners were confined in solitary cells at night, but were put to hard
labor with other prisoners during the day—although the work was to be done
in complete silence. One of the system’s foremost proponents, the strongly re-
ligious minister Louis Dwight, was convinced of its reforming potential, while
the actual directors of the most well-known institutions (Auburn and Sing Sing
in New York) apparently were less enthused about reforming the inmates in ac-
cordance with the precepts.26
The Philadelphia system was developed in the “Eastern Penitentiary,” which
was under construction from 1826 and put into use in 1829.27 Here, the inmates
were subject to total isolation. They were put in single cells day and night, inter-
rupted by brief walks in the courtyard (still without contact with other people) and
visits from ostensibly morally healthy persons—for example, the prison chaplain.
Solitary confinement played a major role in both prison systems on the rationale
that corrupting influences were thereby rooted out and the discipline and rehabili-
tation of the prisoner made possible. Isolation was also thought to be a formidable
power that could promote the deterrent effect of punishment, thereby realizing
the intended double purpose of the punishment: deterrence and rehabilitation. In
Philadelphia the idea was that by complete segregation the prisoner would be left
to self-reflection, which would lead to a sort of cleansing of the soul. The solitude
would be terrifying and therefore would induce within the prisoner an inner reck-
oning through which he came to acknowledge his crime and, by daily work and
moral and religious influence, turn to the morally correct path. More precisely, the
premise was that isolation would break the prisoner down mentally, whereafter
work, Bible reading, worship services, and visits from the prison chaplain would
build him back up as a better human being. In his new morally clarified state of
mind, isolation in a cell would lose its terrifying character.28
The English prison expert William Crawford described just such a process:
Day after day, with no companion but his thoughts, the convict is compelled to
listen to the reproofs of conscience. He is led to dwell upon past errors, and to
cherish whatever better feelings he may at any time have imbibed . . . The mind
becomes open to the best impressions and prepared for the reception of those
truths and consolations which Christianity can alone impart.29
26 Colvin, 1997: 90 f.
27 Ashley T. Rubin, The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary and the
Origins of America’s Modern Penal System, 1829–1913 (New York: Cambridge University Press,
forthcoming 2020).
28 Reports of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston, 1972, vol. 2, sixth report 1831, 496.
29 Crawford, William (1834) ‘Report of William Crawford, Esq. on the penitentiaries of the United
States addressed to his Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department’, in British
Parliamentary Papers. Crime and Punishment –PRISONS. No. 2, Session 1834. 12.
The health effects of Pennsylvania-model

solitary confinement
The Pennsylvania model was imported and used in many European nations,
including France, England, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Norway,
Sweden, and Denmark.30 Harmful effects of solitary confinement practices
were discovered during the nineteenth century and a sizable and impressively
sophisticated literature accumulated and documented significant damage
to prisoners.31 As observed by the Dutch criminologist Herman Franke, the
new isolation prisons produced severe problems wherever they were put into
use: “Again and again reports of insanity, suicide, and the complete alienation of
prisoners from social life seriously discredited the new form of punishment.”32
For example, in 1841, the physician in a New Jersey penitentiary constructed
on the Pennsylvania plan (enforcing a regime of strict solitary confinement)
concluded:
The opinions expressed heretofore on the effects of solitary confinement, are

strengthened by every year’s experience. The more rigidly the plan is carried
out, the more the spirit of the law is observed, the more its effects are visible
upon the health of the convicts. A little more intercourse with each other, and
a little more air in the yard, have the effect upon mind and body, that warmth
has upon the thermometer, almost every degree of indulgence showing a
corresponding rise in health of the individual.33
Francis C. Gray reached a similar conclusion in his impressive study of Prison

Discipline in America from 1847. On the basis of statistical and qualitative evi-
dence Gray concluded
that from the experience of our own country hitherto, it appears that the system
of constant separation [solitary confinement according to the Philadelphia
model] as established here, even when administered with the utmost humanity,
30 Morris, Norval and David Rothman, (eds.) The Oxford history of the prison: The practice of pun-
ishment in western society. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998; Nilsson, Roddy En
välbyggd maskin, en mardröm för själen: Det svenska fängelsesystemet under 1800-talet. (Lund: Lund
University Press, 1999).; Smith, 2003.
31 See Bruun 1867; Gray 1847; Franke 1992; Henriques 1972; Smith, 2003; Smith, 2004a; Smith,
2006; Peter Scharff Smith “’DEGENERATE CRIMINALS’. Mental Health and Psychiatric Studies of
DanishPrisoners in Solitary Confinement, 1870–1920”, Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 35 No. 8,
August 2008 1048-1064, 2008.
32 Franke 1992, 128.
33 Quoted from Smith, 2006, 459.
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He was a youth of great beauty, and the king was much attached to
him. Having killed a Mahommedan after being struck by the latter, he
was offered the usual choice of Islam or death. He preferred the
latter; and though the king is said to have given him ample time for
reflection, and to have promised him rank and wealth if he would
apostatise, preferring death to dishonour, he was executed, and
interred beneath this stone. It is very difficult to get at the exact
details of this story, as there are many versions. It is told first by
Chardin or Tavernier. Just at the entrance to the burial-ground, by
crossing a ditch, over a bridge composed of old tombstones, one
comes to the Kaweh-Khana of the Armenians, a mud building of two
stories. Here in wet weather the funerals halt, and here on their
return the mourners stay to partake of wine and arrack. All through
Persia the habit of utilising tombstones for building bridges occurs,
and is not confined to the Armenians. Ispahan, which is surrounded
by huge cemeteries and intersected by many watercourses, presents
many instances of these tombstone bridges.
There is little to see in the nunnery. The revenues which have
been, and are, plundered by the priests and those in authority, are
very small. Very few nuns are now encouraged to take the veil. The
scandals have been many, and instances of cruel punishments have
not been wanting. One nun was expelled, but is now leading a
reformed life in the Church Missionary Society’s establishment,
being employed as a teacher of sewing. The nunnery has a large
school, and the girls are taught to sew and embroider, also to knit
socks. Long portions of Scripture are committed to memory, and the
ancient Armenian Bible is read, but not translated. Of course, as the
ancient and modern languages are quite different, the power of
reading what one does not understand is rather useless.
But the schools of Julfa have received a great accession in the
establishment of those of the Church Missionary Society, which are
now (1883) conducted by Dr. Hoernle and Mr. Johannes, the former
being a medical missionary (i. e. a medical man in priest’s orders),
and the latter a young Armenian gentleman, who was educated in
England, and at one time a master in the Nassick School in India. All
that is taught in a middle-class school in England is taught in the
Church Missionary Society school in Julfa; and the upper form
proceed to the first four books of Euclid, Algebra, Latin, and French,
in which, unlike the smattering of a middle-class school at home, a
thorough grounding is given. Dr. Hoernle, too, sees all comers
gratuitously, and administers to their ailments. He has a large
apartment as a consulting-room, with convenient waiting-rooms for
either sex. Another room has been set apart as a hospital, where the
more serious cases are treated surgically; and the Church
Missionary Society certainly has not spared money in benefiting the
inhabitants of Julfa.
Some orphan-boys are fed, clothed, and educated with the others,
and gradually it is hoped to make the school self-supporting; but I
fear that the Julfa people will hardly pay for what they are used to get
gratuitously. A girls’ school has also been commenced by Mrs.
Bruce, and sufficient funds having been collected to obtain a
schoolmistress, in November 1882 one went out. The Rev. Dr.
Bruce, who commenced the work in Julfa, is engaged in translating
the Bible into Persian, and portions of it have been completed and
published.
All the difficulties which were first thrown in the way of proselytism
among the Armenians, have now been surmounted, and a
considerable number of converts have been made from the
Armenian Christians to the tenets of the Church of England. But as
yet no converts have been made from the Mahommedans. These,
however, are encouraged to come to the services, in the hope of
arousing their curiosity; but they simply seem to come for the show,
only presenting themselves very occasionally. The magnificent
establishment kept up by the Church Missionary Society is the
wonder of the Persians, and Dr. Bruce has succeeded, principally by
having expended large sums of money in building in Julfa, and
employing many labourers, in securing the respect of the Julfa
Armenians.
Employment is sought to be given to the less gifted among the
scholars in a factory where various arts are taught, such as weaving,
but this does not appear a success. The clever artisans, Baabis,
nominally Mussulmans, employed by Dr. Bruce as decorators and
builders, have made a really handsome series of buildings, perhaps
a little florid. These men have been able to show their great skill in
decoration, and the beautiful geometrical patterns on the outer wall
of the church, the hand-painted screen which runs round the eaves
of the courtyard, and the incised decorations in stucco in the interior
of the church, representing parrots, flowers, etc., are curious in the
extreme.
This church can seat three hundred comfortably; the effect is good
of the pale yellow of the plaster and the coloured glass of the
windows.
Every door and window in the house, etc., is beautifully made,
stained, glazed, and varnished, and fitting accurately; in fact, one
feels a little envious when one leaves one’s poor Persian quarters,
with ill-fitting doors and windows, for this handsome European-like
establishment.
On leaving the first courtyard, which contains the private quarters
of Dr. Bruce and the church, one enters the school. Three sides of a
large courtyard are occupied by schoolrooms, and a fine playground
is in the middle, with a large stone hauz, or tank, handsomely built.
In this the boys in hot weather daily bathe. Here, too, are parallel
bars, a vaulting pole, and a giant’s stride; beyond this is another
courtyard, containing a vineyard, the technical school, the
dispensary, and rooms for the orphans. Other rooms, but small and
poor, are occupied by the girls’ school, which is, however, I believe,
to be enlarged, and an English teacher, too, has lately gone out for
the girls. Another large house adjoining is occupied by the steward of
the orphans, while at the other side are built a set of European
stables. A garden is hired by Dr. Bruce, where he cultivates
successfully all kinds of European vegetables for his table.
There is no doubt that so large an establishment, vying with that of
the bishop in size, and far exceeding it in the amount of money
expended, and the number of hands employed, is of great benefit to
the Julfa people.
The influence of the priests is on its last legs, and the education
given is very thorough, while gratuitous medical attendance is
provided by Dr. Hoernle. This, however, is indiscriminately given to
Mussulmans as well as Armenians. Of course the great hope is that
the benefits of the school may be permitted to the Mahommedan
population of the town; but this, I fear, will never be. Let us hope I
may be wrong.
The small establishment of the Lazarist Fathers, which is the next
house to the vast range of buildings belonging to the Church
Missionary Society, presents a great contrast.
The priest, with his two ragged servants, has much to do to keep
body and soul together, and he teaches a small school of both
sexes, where the course is less ambitious than that of the English
missionaries. His flock, some two hundred strong, remains faithful to
its ancient tenets, and has as yet given no recruits to the rival
establishment. This is strange, as the Armenian Church has
furnished the whole of some hundred and twenty Armenian boys,
and two hundred Armenian communicants to the Church of England
in Julfa; but as many of these latter benefit directly or indirectly, or
are merely temporary Protestants to annoy their relatives, or to
obtain protection, the result of the whole thing cannot be considered
a success as yet—in eleven years a single Mahommedan convert
not having been obtained.
CHAPTER XV.
ISPAHAN AND ITS ENVIRONS.
Tame gazelle—Croquet-lawn under difficulties—Wild asparagus—First-fruits—

Common fruits—Mode of preparing dried fruits—Ordinary vegetables of
Persia—Wild rhubarb—Potatoes a comparative novelty—Ispahan quinces:
their fragrance—Bamiah—Grapes, Numerous varieties of—At times used as
horse-feed—Grape-sugar—Pickles—Fruits an ordinary food—Curdled milk—
Mode of obtaining cream—Buttermilk—Economy of the middle or trading-
classes—Tale of the phantom cheese—Common flowers—Painting the lily—
Lilium candidum—Wild flowers—The crops—Poppies—Collecting opium—
Manuring—Barley—Wheat—Minor crops—Mode of extracting grain—Cut
straw: its uses—Irrigation.
Mr. Walton, the superintendent of the Ispahan section, had a full-

grown buck antelope (“ahū”), which was kept tied to a peg on his
croquet-lawn; the animal was rather fierce, and my young bull-dog
was accustomed to bark at him, keeping, however, out of reach of
his horns. On one occasion the antelope got loose and chased the
dog round and round the croquet-lawn, from which there was no exit,
it being between four walls; the antelope was going well within itself,
but the dog, its eyes starting from its head, and its tail between its
legs, gave a shriek of terror as it felt the sharp prongs of the pursuing
antelope prodding it every now and then; at last, utterly expended,
fear made it brave, and it turned on the animal, pinning him by the
throat. We were then able to secure the antelope, which no one had
cared to approach, as his horns were very sharp and he was very
savage from being tied up. The little croquet-lawn had been made
under very great difficulties, and it was only by getting grass seeds
from Carter’s that Mr. Walton was able to keep up turf; but he had,
by dint of watering and putting tent walls over the young grass in the
heat of the day, succeeded in making a very good lawn; and he and
his young wife played croquet nearly every evening. The fate of the
antelope was a sad one—he got loose one night, and next morning
was found drowned in the well.
Great quantities of wild asparagus were brought to the houses of
the Europeans for sale: it grows on the banks of the ditches which
surround the gardens of Julfa; there is no saltness in the soil, but it
thrives in great luxuriance, and is sold for a trifle, the villagers gladly
accepting a keran (ninepence) for fourteen pounds’ weight.
A man came one day (March 4th) bringing the no ber, or first-fruits
(i. e. the first cucumbers of the season); they were little things, some
three inches long, packed in rose leaves, and probably had been
brought up by some traveller by post from Shiraz, or down from
Kashan, where it is very hot indeed. As usual the man declined to
sell, insisting that they were a present—“peishkesh-i-shuma” (they
are an offering to you)—and consequently he has to be rewarded
with twice the value.
Tiny unripe almonds, called “chocolah,” the size of a hazelnut,
have been brought too; they are much appreciated by Persians as a
first-fruit; they are soaked in brine and eaten raw, and they are crisp
and certainly not bad; or, when a little too large and hard for this,
they are eaten stewed with lamb, forming a “khorisht,” or dish eaten
as sauce to rice.
Unripe green plums are also eaten stewed in this way with meat—
Persians eat them raw with salt; and the unripe grapes, preserved in
their own juice as a pickle, or the juice itself (ab-i-goora) is used to
season the stews.
The first really ripe fruit is the white cherry, which is called gelas;
then the morella, or alu-balu; then the goja, or bullace plum; then
follow plums in endless variety, and then the peach and apricot.
These latter grow in great perfection in Ispahan; there are seven
known kinds, six of which are sweet, and one bitter. The most valued
variety is the shukker-para; it is excessively sweet and cloying. All
grow to a large size, and so great is the plenty that the fruit in an
ordinary season is sold for twopence farthing the fourteen pounds, or
maund. The orchards where the apricot is grown are generally sown
with clover; the trees are never thinned, but, notwithstanding this, the
finest apricots in the world are certainly produced in Ispahan. There
are also plenty of nectarines and peaches. The fruit being so cheap,
the natives never gather it, on account of cost of labour, but allow it
to fall into the clover which is universally sown under the trees, and
which partially preserves it from bruising; so ripe is the fruit that it
may be generally seen cracked, with the stone appearing.
Great quantities of dried fruit are exported from Ispahan, which is
celebrated for its “keisi,” or dried apricots; these are merely the fallen
fruit, which is either too much bruised for sale or has not found a
market. They are simply placed in the sun, and become in a week
dry, hard, and semi-transparent, thus forming a very portable food:
the stones are of course removed and the fruit becomes as hard as
horn; an hour’s soaking renders them fit to eat, or when stewed they
are delicious, being so very sweet as to require no added sugar.
As a dessert fruit the Persians at times place an almond or a
peeled walnut within the fruit where the stone has been; as it dries
the nut becomes embedded, a sharp packing-needle and string is
run through them when half dry, and they are sold thus, hung on
strings like huge necklaces.
Enormous quantities of alū Bokhara, or acid plum, are sold; these,
however, are not dried but half boiled, and poured into the skins of
sheep, as bags, forming a kind of preserve; they are very appetising,
being a very acid yet sweet fruit, and are eaten raw with mast
(curdled milk), or are used as a sauce to stewed meat with rice.
Cherries, too, are dried in the sun in the same manner, the stones
being extracted; also peaches.
Small melons, called germak and tellabi, now (May) make their
appearance; these, though far superior to anything produced in
England, are not thought much of. The big brown melon, or karbiza
of Gourg-ab, which will keep good a year, and attains an enormous
size—some being seventy and eighty pounds in weight—is the most
highly prized; the flesh is white, and tastes like a Jersey pear. They
grow on a salt soil, are heavily manured with pigeons’ dung, and
freely irrigated till the plant flowers. Many choice varieties of melon
abound, as the “Shah passand,” or king’s favourite, and others.
The “Hindiwana,” or water-melons, are of three kinds, the red-
fleshed, the yellow-fleshed, and the white-fleshed: these run from
three to twenty-eight pounds in weight, as an ordinary size; there are
long and round descriptions. The skin varies from pale green to
almost black with green blotches; the latter are the best.
Pumpkins also are common and of great size.
Cucumbers never grow long, but short and thick; they are called
“keeal,” are very plentiful and delicious, and may, at the height of the
season, be bought fourteen pounds for one shaie, or halfpenny.
There is another fruit something between the melon and cucumber, a
kind of eatable gourd, called the koompezeh; it has not much flavour,
and is eaten with salt. The cucumbers form one of the staple foods
of the people; they are eaten with salt, and are looked on as a fruit;
the peasants eat at a sitting five or six pounds’ weight, and find no
inconvenience; the Persian cucumber may be eaten with impunity.
Lettuces grow in vast profusion, also the kalam kūmri, a strongly-
flavoured kind of nohl-kohl. The Aubergine, or “badinjan,” the fruit of
which I have seen weighing three pounds, and carrots and turnips
are also grown: the carrots are generally a green-rooted variety.
Spinach, called “Ispinagh,” is a favourite vegetable. Kanga (or
chardons), a kind of thistle, is brought from the mountains, and also
Rivend, or wild rhubarb; both are good.
Potatoes are now much grown, but were hardly known on my first
arrival in Persia. Kalam-i-Rūmi, or Turkish cabbage, is raised
successfully and attains an enormous size, twenty-eight pounds
being a common weight for a head; it is the perfection of cabbage,
and nearly all heart. Parsnips are unknown.
Toorbēsah, white radishes, are grown about the size of an egg, the
tops are boiled and eaten as greens. Apples are good and common.
Pears are very bad. The quinces and pomegranates are magnificent;
the former especially are grown in Ispahan and are of great size and
fragrance. They are sent with the Gourg-ab melons all over Persia
as presents to grandees.
The bamiah, or lady’s finger, is little grown; it is a nasty slimy
vegetable when cooked. Vegetable marrows are common; they
generally have the seeds removed, and are filled with spiced and
minced meat, and are boiled. Gourds of many forms are found, and
used as vessels for oil, etc. Walnuts and almonds are plentiful, also
filberts. There are no chestnuts in the south.
Some thirty varieties of grape are raised; some are merely used
for pickling, others for eating, and some only for wine-making. The
best eating grapes are the Ascari. This is the first good grape to
ripen; it is a smallish white grape, globular, bright golden colour, very
delicious, and the skin, being very thin, is swallowed.
Kishmish, a delicious grape, of white elongated shape, also small,
and very sweet, both eaten and used for wine-making. When dried
this is the sultana raisin, stoneless, the skin very thin.
Riech-i-baba, or “old man’s beard,” a long white grape, very sweet
and delicious in flavour. Some varieties of this have tiny stones,
others large; they are both red and white. Some are two and a half
inches long. The Persians, when the price of grapes is very low, and
they are unable to dispose of them, boil them down to obtain the
grape-sugar, which is sold all over Persia and eaten in lieu of sugar;
it is called “sheera.”
With vinegar this forms circa-sheera, a sour-sweet liquid, in which
various pickles are preserved, as grapes, apples, lemons.
I have mentioned that grapes are used in some places as horse-
feed.
The variety in Persian pickles is infinite, from grapes, walnuts,
almonds, peppers, onions, oranges, and lemons, green fruits, etc.; a
long list of conserves are produced.
All the fruits grown in England are found in Persia, save only the
currant, gooseberry, and raspberry.
Persians look on fruit as a staple food, and the ordinary meal of
the working classes and peasantry is a loaf of bread and a pound or
two of grapes or apricots, or a half-dozen cucumbers, which are
considered fruits. Meat is not often eaten by the poor save at the
great festivals. “Mast” is also much consumed. This is curdled milk,
and is made by adding a little curdled milk to fresh milk warmed. It is
then left to cool, and the basin of curdled milk sets in a few hours,
leaving the cream on the top. For the first twenty-four hours this is
sweet and delicious, tasting like a Devonshire junket, but as a rule
the Persian does not care for it until it has become slightly acid.
When in this state a farthing’s worth (about half a pint) added to a
quart of water forms buttermilk, or “doogh.” A little cut mint is added,
and a few lumps of ice, and a cooling drink is made, which is
supposed by the Persians to be a powerful diuretic. It is without
question a capital thirst-quencher in hot weather.
Cheese, too, is much eaten for the morning meal, with a little mint
or a few onions. The banker at Shiraz, to whom the Government
moneys were entrusted—a rich man—told me that he or any other
merchant never thought of any more elaborate breakfast than these
named above. This same man, when giving a breakfast, would give
his guests twenty courses of spiced and seasoned plats. It is said of
a merchant in Ispahan, where they are notoriously stingy, that he
purchased a small piece of cheese at the new year, but could not
make up his mind to the extravagance of eating it. So, instead of
dividing the morsel with his apprentice, as that youth had fondly
hoped, he carefully placed it in a clear glass bottle, and, sealing it
down, instructed the boy to rub his bread on the bottle and fancy the
taste of the cheese. This the pair did each morning.
One day the merchant, being invited to breakfast with a friend,
gave his apprentice the key of his office and a halfpenny to buy a
loaf of bread; but the apprentice returned, saying he could not get
the door open, and though he had bought his bread, could not eat it
without the usual flavour of cheese.
“Go, fool, and rub your bread on the door, which is almost as
satisfying as the bottle.”
Doubtless it was.
Persia is not a favourable place for flowers; the gardeners merely
sow in patches, irrigate them, and let them come up as they will.
Zinnias, convolvulus, Marvel of Peru of all colours, and growing at
times as a handsome bushy plant, five feet high, covered with
blossoms; asters, balsams, wallflower, chrysanthemums, marigolds,
China and moss roses, or “gul-i-soorkh” (from these the rose-water
is made), and the perfume in the gardens from them is at times
overpowering, are the usual flowers. Yellow and orange single roses
are common; they are, however, devoid of scent. The noisette rose,
too, is much grown, and the nestorange, a delicately-scented single
rose, the tree growing to a great size.
The favourite plant is the narcissus; it grows wild in many parts of
Persia. Huge bundles of the cut flowers are seen in the dwellings of
rich and poor; the scent is very powerful.
The Persians cut small rings of coloured paper, cloth, or velvet,
and ornament (?) the flower by placing the rings of divers colours
between the first and second rows of petals, and the effect is
strange, and not unpleasing, leading one to suppose on seeing it for
the first time that a bouquet of new varieties has been cut, for so
transparent a cheat does not strike one as possible, and a
newcomer often examines them with admiration, failing to detect, or
rather not suspecting, any deception. The ordinary Lilium candidum
is much admired in the gardens of the great, and is called “Gul-i-
Mariam” (Mary’s flower). A large proportion of the narcissus are
double; it is the single variety that the Persians ornament. The tulip,
too, grows wild, and the colchicum, also the cyclamen. Above
Shiraz, however, there are few wild flowers until one nears the
Caspian; but below Kazeroon, in the spring, the road is literally a
flower-bespangled way, blazing with various tulips and hyacinths,
cyclamens, etc.
The principal crops in the neighbourhood of Ispahan are, first the
poppy; this is the white variety, and has been grown with great
success in Persia, particularly in Ispahan. It has enriched the
peasants, but rendered grain and other produce much dearer, as, of
course, much less is cultivated. The young plants are carefully
thinned till they are a foot apart, and the ground is kept clear of
weeds. When the poppy is in flower, and just as the petals are about
to fall, the labourers, principally under the direction of men from
Yezd, who are supposed to understand the method of collecting
opium better than the rest of the Persians, score the seed-vessels
with a small three-bladed knife, making three small gashes an eighth
of an inch apart and three-quarters or half an inch long at one cut.
This operation is performed in the afternoon. From these gashes the
opium exudes in tears, and these are carefully collected at early
dawn. The process is repeated a second, and even a third time; this
latter is, however, unusual.
And here lies the danger of the opium crop: should a shower of
heavy rain descend the product is absolutely nil, the exuded opium
being all washed away by the rain. All around Ispahan, where there
is good land, and it is not exhausted, nothing can be seen for miles
but these fields of white poppies, and the scenery is thus rendered
very monotonous.
The Persian farmer is fully alive to the value of manure, and
makes it in a very simple manner. All the wood-ashes collected from
a house, and the rest of the refuse-heap, are placed in the open
street in a circular ridge mixed with mould. Into this is poured the
contents of the cesspools, which are allowed to sink into the thirsty
heaps of earth and ashes. The “koot,” or manure thus formed, is
removed to the fields, allowed to dry in the sun, then mixed with
more earth, and after a month or two scattered equally over the soil
and dug in.
Barley—which is used for the feeding of horses and mules, to the
exclusion of oats, which are never grown—rice, and wheat, are
cultivated largely. The barley of Persia is very fine; the wheat grown
is the red variety. Beans, pulse, clover, sesamum, maize, cotton,
castor-oil plant, cunjeet (a sort of colza), and nokōd, a grain like a
pea, which is much used in cookery; potatoes, lettuces, spinach, are
all largely raised. Tobacco, olives (near the Caspian), melons, and
cucumbers form the rest of the crops; and millet is also grown.
Quite one half of the barley is cut as grass for the horses, and not
allowed to ripen. Tares are grown for the same purpose and cut
green.
The harvest of wheat and barley is cut with the sickle, the whole
crop being cast pell-mell in a heap in the centre of the field, perhaps
some twenty feet high; there it is allowed to lie for a month, or till it is
convenient to the owner to extract the grain. This is done by laying
round the heap a small quantity of straw with the ear on, and going
over it with a kind of car made with heavy beams and running on
rollers fitted with sharpened edges of iron; a boy rides on this, and,
with a rope and a stick, guides a pair of oxen, or a mule and a horse,
or a mule and a donkey, which draw this very primitive machine. As
the straw gets broken, more is added, and the broken straw and ears
dragged to the side with the grain entangled among them; the
weather being very dry, the grain generally all falls out ere this
crushing process commences. The straw is in this way crushed into
pieces some two or three inches long. When the whole heap has
been gone over, the farmer waits for a windy day; when it comes, he
tosses the heap in forkfuls in the air. The cut straw is carried a yard
or two, and the grain being heavier falls straight to the ground and is
removed: the straw is now termed “kah,” and is stored; it is the
ordinary fodder of the country, hay being seldom used, save by the
rich.
It is also useful as a packing material and to make the “kah-gil”
(“gil,” clay), a kind of plaster with which all houses, save those built
of burnt bricks, are smeared, and with which all roofs in Ispahan,
Teheran, and Shiraz are carefully coated: it is not until Ghilān, on the
Caspian shore, is reached that we come to tiled roofs. Mud bricks
are also made with mud and old or spoiled kah. It is doubtless for
this that the Jews desired straw of the Egyptians to make their
bricks.
Sheep are never fed on clover in sitû, it is considered too precious
(it is cut and dried in twists some two yards long); but they are,
however, allowed to graze on the stubble of wheat and barley, and
so manure the land.
The greater part of the country is irrigated (save near the Caspian,
where the water is in such excess that men may be seen ploughing
up to their knees in it); consequently the fields are made up into
small squares or parallelograms by trenches raised with the spade;
these parallelograms run on each side of a small trench, from which
the water is admitted, and as fast as one is opened and filled from
the trench, it is stopped, and water admitted to another, and so on
until the whole field is thoroughly soaked. Of course it is impossible
to ride over a recently watered field, as, if the soil is light, one’s horse
is soon up to his girths.
Land in Persia is of value according to the quantity of water it is
entitled to, and the great cost of a crop is usually not the amount of
labour bestowed or the rent paid, but the quantity of water
purchased.
In some places land is sown with barley, etc., as a speculation,
and it is left to chance; if it rains, a profit of, say, eight hundred per
cent. is secured; if it does not do so, which is often the case, the
whole crop, seed, rent, and labour is utterly lost. This is the case
near Bushire; the ground is just scratched and the seed thrown in: it
is looked on as gambling by the Persians, and a religious man will
not engage in it.
CHAPTER XVI.
ISPAHAN AND ITS ENVIRONS.
Pig-sticking expedition—Ducks not tame, but wild—Ruined mosque with tile

inscription—Ancient watch-towers—The hunting-ground—Beaters—We sight
the pig—Our first victims—The bold Gholam—Our success—Pig’s flesh—A
present of pork—How Persians can be managed—Opium—Adulteration—
Collection and preparation—Packing—Manœuvres of the native maker—
Opium-eating—Moderate use by aged Persians—My dispensary over the
prison—I shift my quarters—Practice in the bazaar—An ungrateful baker—
Sealing in lieu of signing—Seals—Wisdom of a village judge.
On the arrival of Captain Chambers, our new assistant-

superintendent in Ispahan, he determined to get up a pig-sticking
expedition, a thing hitherto unknown in Persia.
The only man among us who had enjoyed that sport before was
Captain Chambers himself, and he had brought with him from India a
little armoury of spears; the shafts of these were bamboo, and the
heads, keen as razors, were protected by small leather cases.
With some trouble we got one of these heads copied in the
bazaar; and Captain Chambers, three of the sergeants, and I started
for Ruhdesht, where we were assured we should find plenty of sport.
We took with us two subalterns’ tents—Captain Chambers and I
occupied one, the other was used by the sergeants.
On our way we came to a little mosque all by itself in the open
plain, some twelve miles from the town; in front of it was a large
pond, on which were peacefully swimming some thousands of
ducks. We supposed that they were tame, and belonged to the
mosque, but on a stone being thrown among them, they all flew
away, to our great surprise, showing unmistakably that they were
wild ones.
After a wandering march of eleven farsakhs, we found the
particular village in Ruhdesht, to which we had been recommended,
for, as we found, Ruhdesht was not a village but a district.
We passed many ruins, one of which was a large mud-brick
mosque in very good preservation. On the inside was a band of tile-
work some twenty feet from the ground, which was four feet wide,
and bore a beautiful inscription in interlaced Arabic letters a yard
high—the letters were white on a blue ground; it was quite perfect,
the height from the ground and its lonely position having protected it
from villagers. We also saw several “mil,” or hollow columns; these
appeared to have been used as watch-towers, and not as places
from which the call to prayers was made, as they were frequently a
long distance from the mosques.
We gladly halted, having marched continuously from two p.m. till
dawn, and having gone off the track, mules, tents, and all. We took a
day’s rest for the horses and to arrange operations. We found that a
small river close to the village was swarming with pig, and it was in
the low shrubs and jungle near the banks that the animals lived in
the day, only coming out on the open plain when driven, or at night.
The cover lay on each side of the river for a quarter of a mile in
depth; it was very dense and full of holes. As we had provided
ourselves with a “hukm,” or order, from the Governor of Ispahan, we
had no difficulty in hiring sixty beaters at sixpence each, and this
number was swelled by as many volunteers; as the pigs did much
damage to the crops, the villagers were only too glad to assist in the
hunt.
The cover was not so dense as it would be later on, it being early
spring, and the bushes as yet not in leaf. Having made all the
needful arrangements, Captain Chambers, as the Nestor of the
party, took command of the beaters, and sent the whole of them in to
beat up the river bank, while we were posted at intervals of fifty
yards, with strict instructions to attack the boars only, which were
carefully described to us. The beaters were accompanied by many of
our servants who wished to enjoy the “tamasha” (show), and all the
dogs.
While we sat anxiously watching the edge of the jungle, the
beaters gradually approaching us, a pig broke cover. Regardless of
the shouts of Chambers, who implored us to let him get well out on
the open and so give a run, all of us raced at him; of course he re-
entered the cover, and was no more seen.
Then out came a sow and seven squeakers, each about eight
pounds. This was too much for our equanimity, and though we had
promised to carefully obey orders, the frantic cries of Chambers of
“ware sow” could not restrain us; we repeatedly charged the sow,
and it was a good way of learning, for she got away untouched; all
our horses were blown, and as men charged her from different
directions at the same time, it was a mercy that there was no
accident. Our horses, all much too fresh, now became more
manageable. We really did succeed in spearing two young boars,
neither of which showed any fight, being ignominiously pursued and
prodded to death.
But a third and more matured animal was now put up, and we
carefully allowed him to get well into the open. Here science was
served, for Chambers got first spear easily by good riding; the boar
turned each time he was struck, and after having been speared
some seven times sat down on his haunches with two spears in him,
which some of the inexperienced had let go.
The animal was evidently badly wounded, and it was a mere
question of time; but though our horses would pursue him when
running, none would come within striking distance now he was
stationary, and he certainly did not present a very pleasing
appearance; and though we rushed them at him, they swerved and
shied.
One of the Persian “Gholams,” or line-guards, now asked to be
allowed to cut the boar’s head off; permission was given, and the
man dismounted, drew his curved sword, made a tremendous chop
on the pig’s head, which did not seem to wound but revive him,
breaking the short sword off at the hilt.
The animal now pursued the shrieking gholam for some distance,
but a few more stabs with the spears finished him, then he was
triumphantly borne away by the villagers.
The dogs caught three young pigs, and we returned to camp tired
out. In the party of five there had been seven spills. I had two; on
one occasion I was knocked over, horse and all, by another man
coming up diagonally without warning and striking me sideways, and
as he was the heavier, over we went. My second was when pursuing
a pig; my horse slid down a dry ditch, and, on trying to get up the
other side, rolled over me.
But no one was hurt, which is a wonder, considering that it was the
first time we had carried spears, and they were all eight feet long,
and sharp. As we could get no bamboo, we had had the shafts made
of chenar or plane-wood; these were heavy but strong; the few made
of poplar were light, but all of them broke at or near the head. I fancy
that for good sport the ground should have been better; our ground
was very open, but deep dry ditches to horses who do not jump are
serious matters. We had a good dinner when we got home to the
tents, and some tried to eat the pig’s meat, but even the young pig’s
flesh was blackish, and tough as india-rubber.
Eating wild pig’s flesh, considering what they will eat, is a
disgusting idea; and I quite agree with the action of Captain S⸺
when a dead pig was sent him by the Governor of Shiraz as a
present.
The pig was dragged to the door by the servants of the farrash-
bashi (head carpet-spreader), a high official, and followed by a
shouting mob, and a verbal message came that a pig was sent as a
present. S⸺ happened to be out, but on his return he wrote a
polite note to the Governor telling him that the English did not, as he
had erroneously supposed, eat wild pig, but looked on it as an
unclean animal; and requesting that the person who brought it might
remove it.
It was ordered to be done, but the farrash-bashi sent some Jews
to drag it away. This S⸺ would not allow, but insisted that the
farrash-bashi himself should come and take it away; he had to do so,
and doubtless thought it not quite so good a joke as the bringing, for
the shouting crowd now laughed at him instead of with him.
We had a second day very similar to our first, fortunately no
accidents and fewer spills. We then returned as we came; the
greater part of the way was near the river banks, and as we were all
very tired, also our horses, we were only too glad to get in by sunset.
I had now an opportunity of seeing the preparation of opium for the
English and China markets.
A partner of the principal mercantile firm established in the Persian
Gulf came to Ispahan to examine the branch of their business there
and test the value of the trade.
The great difficulty with Persian opium is to obtain it of sufficient
purity; the Persian opium is always very deficient in morphia, and
upon the percentage of morphia by analysis the value of the drug is
determined in London.
As opium when bought in the country has to be taken in small
quantities and purchased blindfold, or rather on the opinion of
judges, whose fiat is possibly influenced, the whole business is risky
in the extreme. The ryot adds all sorts of abominations to the fresh
opium, to increase the weight, as the pulp of apples, grape sugar,
etc., and a further adulteration is generally practised by Armenian
middlemen. The system generally adopted by the respectable
merchant is to buy direct of the ryot, if possible; even to go so far at
times, if the farmer be a substantial man, as to make him advances
against his future opium crop.
Having purchased the opium, the merchant pours it into large
copper pots, some of which may contain a quarter of a ton of opium.
He then proceeds to the “teriak-mali,” or preparation, literally opium-
rubbing. Having engaged skilled workmen headed by a “reis” or
“boss,” he contracts to pay these men so much per chest, or by daily
wages; and then, if the weather be cold, the semi-liquid contents of
the pots are simmered over a very slow charcoal fire. The more solid
portions being previously removed, when the “sherbet” or juice has
become pretty thick, it is mixed again with the original more solid
portion and the whole beaten up; it is, of course, frequently weighed
to prevent thefts. Now commences the regular “teriak-mali;” weighed
portions, from half a pound to one pound, as may be found
convenient, are smeared upon thin planks with a wooden spreader
or spatula.
It is first spread perpendicularly, then horizontally, just as in old
days medical men used to spread a blister; it is done with great
rapidity and exactness. As each plank is covered it is placed on end
in the strong sun, and when sufficiently dry, scraped off for rolling
into cakes. If the opium be very moist, or the sun weak, this has to
be done many times.
The washings of the pots and utensils are carefully boiled down
that nothing may be lost, and after many weighings and much
manipulation, the opium, in theory absolutely pure, is made into
pound cakes, generally the shape and appearance of a squared
penny bun of large size, each weighing exactly one pound. The
cakes are varnished with some of the liquor or a composition, having
in the case where I was present been stamped with a seal bearing
the name of the makers.
Each cake, after it is thoroughly dry, is wrapped in a sheet of clean
paper, folded as a neat parcel and packed in chests. The tax on
each chest is heavy, and as the duty is levied per chest and not per
pound, a small profit may be made by having light cases and making
them hold, by careful packing, a little more. The cases are marked,
sewn up in hides, or, still better, dammered, i. e. packed in tarpaulin.
The preparation is an anxious time, as the workpeople will steal
the opium if they can, and it is very portable. Opium is also made up
with oil in masses for the Chinese market and in round cakes packed
in poppy refuse to simulate Turkish, but this manœuvre is not
adopted by the English firm, who attempt by great care in the
manipulation, and by only buying of the respectable among the
farmers, to prevent anything but pure Persian opium being sold
under their brand.
Of course the smaller native makers try every means in their
power to increase the weight by fraudulent additions—starch even
has been employed—but these specimens often betray their
admixture by a peculiar appearance or fracture, and defeat their
object—often indeed bearing their own punishment by being

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Solitary Confinement: Effects,

Practices, and Pathways Towards

EDITED BY JULES LOBEL

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2020

You must not circulate this work in any other form

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

(Based on the Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the

2. Solitary Confinement—​Effects and Practices from the

8. Solitary Confinement, Loneliness, and Psychological Harm 129

11. Social Isolation, Loneliness, and Health 185

15. The Management of High-​Security Prisoners: Alternatives to

Huda Akil, PhD, Gardner Quarton Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience

Joseph J. Arvay, Partner and founder of Arvay Finlay LLP

Leann K. Bertsch, Director, North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Andrew Coyle, Emeritus Professor of Prison Studies, University of London; Founding

Craig Haney, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, the University of California,

Louise Hawkley, Senior Research Scientist, NORC at the University of Chicago

Are Høidal, Governor, Halden Prison

Alison M. Latimer, Partner, Arvay Finlay LLP

Jules Lobel, Bessie McKee Walthour Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh

Juan E. Méndez, Professor of Human Rights Law in Residence, Washington College of

Rick Raemisch, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Corrections, 2013–​2018

Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Peter Scharff Smith, Professor in Sociology of Law, Department of Criminology &

Armando Sosa, Lieutenant, Colorado State Penitentiary

Michael J. Zigmond, Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurobiology, the

1See Hawkley, Chapter 11, this volume.

(London: Clarendon Press, 1996), 30.

Social animals and isolation

5 Djurskyddsmyndighetens författningssamling, DFS 2007:6, 2 kap. Skötsel och hantering,

Solitary confinement in prison—​Effects and practices

10See Smith, Chapter 2, this volume.

Two reform movements that inspired this book

Secondly, significant developments have taken place in the United States,

International human rights reforms—​From

The process of creating international standards for prison practice—​including

Prison Service Journal, no. 181 (January 2009): 3-​11.

the rise in some jurisdictions and continued to be a significant problem in others,

9, 2007 at the International Psychological Trauma Symposium, Istanbul.

Prison litigation in the United States—​Solitary

volume; and Mendez, Chapter 7, this volume.

To demonstrate that the use of prolonged solitary confinement is cruel, in-

determine . . . whether alternative systems for long-​term confinement exist, and

35 See Coyle, Chapter 15, this volume.

The structure of the book

36 See Lobel, Chapter 22, this volume.

free community is very relevant to the study of solitary confinement in prisons.

The individual chapters

Chapter 5, by Professor Keramet Reiter provides an overview of how the first

treatment, or policy intervention. It describes a robust, stepwise framework that

movement, and lack of social contact—​have profound impact on brain struc-

In Chapter 17, Are Høidal discusses prisoner association as an alternative

Henrik Nielsen and the experience of Philadelphia-​model

In 1866 the eighteen-​year-​old Danish farm hand Henrik Nielsen arrived in

* Professor in Sociology of Law, Department of Criminology & Sociology of Law, Faculty of

the Modern Penitentiary,” Punishment and Society 6, no. 2 (2004b): 195–​220.

Figure 2.1 A panoptic prison school in Vridsløselille Penitentiary in Denmark with

and he displayed no opposition during his stay in the mental institution. On

Different forms of solitary confinement

Henrik Nielsen is very likely one of the hundreds of thousands of nineteenth-​

5 The Regional Archive of Seeland (Landsarkivet for Sjælland), “Vridsløselille statsfængsel,”

Regarding Solitary Confinement of Detainees” https://​www.weil.com/​~/​media/​files/​pdfs/​2016/​un_​spe-

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

2. Solitary Confinement—Effects and Practices from the

15. The Management of High-Security Prisoners: Alternatives to

Rick Raemisch, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Corrections, 2013–2018

Solitary confinement in prison—Effects and practices

International human rights reforms—From

The process of creating international standards for prison practice—including

Prison Service Journal, no. 181 (January 2009): 3-11.

Prison litigation in the United States—Solitary

determine . . . whether alternative systems for long-term confinement exist, and

movement, and lack of social contact—have profound impact on brain struc-

Henrik Nielsen and the experience of Philadelphia-model

In 1866 the eighteen-year-old Danish farm hand Henrik Nielsen arrived in

the Modern Penitentiary,” Punishment and Society 6, no. 2 (2004b): 195–220.

Henrik Nielsen is very likely one of the hundreds of thousands of nineteenth-

Regarding Solitary Confinement of Detainees” https://www.weil.com/~/media/files/pdfs/2016/un_spe-

3. Solitary confinement during pre-trial to avoid collusion.

Another well-known use of solitary confinement is during pre-trial where iso-

while Sweden remarkably continues to subject around two-thirds of all remand

This particular use of solitary confinement resembles the nineteenth-century

A contemporary example in this regard would be Chinese “re- education”

15 2008 UN General Assembly Report—A/63/175, 19.

This form of solitary confinement is quite often voluntary—at least on paper. In

Rehabilitation through isolation—The rise

In spite of prison reforms and new prison constructions in late-eighteenth-

The health effects of Pennsylvania-model