The following essay is by William Blake. In 1987, Blake, then 23 and in county court on a drug charge, grabbed a gun from a sheriff’s deputy in a failed escape attempt, murdering one deputy and wounding another. He was sentenced to 77 years to life. The New York State prison system, classifying him as a threat to “safety and security,” has placed him in virtually permanent solitary confinement. At the time he wrote this essay, he had been held in isolation for nearly 26 years. In 2021, after 34 years in solitary, he was finally released from isolation thanks to passage of the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act in New York.
Since it was published for the first time on Solitary Watch, this essay has received more than half a million hits on this site alone, and has been reprinted and translated into several languages. It is also the lead essay in the 2016 book Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement.
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“You deserve an eternity in hell,” Onondaga County Supreme Court judge Kevin Mulroy told me from his bench as I stood before him for sentencing on July 10, 1987. Apparently he had the idea that God was not the only one qualified to make such judgment calls.
Judge Mulroy wanted to “pump six buck’s worth of electricity into [my] body,” he also said, though I suggest that it wouldn’t have taken six cent’s worth to get me good and dead. He must have wanted to reduce me and The Chair to a pile of ashes. My “friend” Governor Mario Cuomo wouldn’t allow him to do that, though, the judge went on, bemoaning New York State’s lack of a death statute due to the then-Governor’s repeated vetoes of death penalty bills that had been approved by the state legislature. Governor Cuomo’s publicly expressed dudgeon over being called a friend of mine by Judge Mulroy was understandable, given the crimes that I had just been convicted of committing. I didn’t care much for him either, truth be told. He built too many new prisons in my opinion, and cut academic and vocational programs in the prisons already standing.
I know that Judge Mulroy was not nearly alone in wanting to see me executed for the crime I committed when I shot two Onondaga County sheriff’s deputies inside the Town of Dewitt courtroom during a failed escape attempt, killing one and critically wounding the other. There were many people in the Syracuse area who shared his sentiments, to be sure. I read the hateful letters to the editor printed in the local newspapers; I could even feel the anger of the people when I’d go to court, so palpable was it. Even by the standards of my own belief system, such as it was back then, I deserved to die for what I had done. I took the life of a man without just cause, committing an act so monumentally wrong that I could not have argued that it was unfair had I been required to pay with my own life.
What nobody knew or suspected back then, not even I, on that very day I would begin suffering a punishment that I am convinced beyond all doubt is far worse than any death sentence could possibly have been. On July 10, 2012, I finished my 25th consecutive year in solitary confinement, where at the time of this writing I remain. Though it is true that I’ve never died and so don’t know exactly what the experience would entail, for the life of me I cannot fathom how dying any death could be harder or more terrible than living through all that I have been forced to endure for the last quarter-century.
Prisoners call it The Box. Prison authorities have euphemistically dubbed it the Special Housing Unit, or SHU (pronounced “shoe”) for short. In society it is known as solitary confinement. It is 23-hour a day lockdown in a cell smaller than some closets I’ve seen, with one hour allotted to “recreation” consisting of placement in a concrete enclosed yard by oneself or, in some prisons, a cage made of steel bars. There is nothing in a SHU yard but air: no TV, no balls to bounce, no games to play, no other inmates, nothing. There is very little allowed in a SHU cell, also. Three sets of plain white underwear, one pair of green pants, one green short-sleeved button-up shirt, one green sweatshirt, ten books or magazines total, twenty pictures of the people you love, writing supplies, a bar of soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, one deodorant stick but no shampoo, and that’s about it. No clothes of your own, only prison-made. No food from commissary or packages, only three unappetizing meals a day handed to you through a narrow slot in your cell door. No phone calls, no TV, no luxury items at all. You get a set of cheap headphones to use, and you can pick between the two or three (depending on which prison you’re in) jacks in the cell wall to plug into. You can listen to a TV station in one jack, and use your imagination while trying to figure out what is going on when the music indicates drama but the dialogue doesn’t suffice to tell you anything. Or you can listen to some music, but you’re out of luck if you’re a rock-n-roll fan and find only rap is playing.
Your options in what to do to occupy your time in SHU are scant, but there will be boredom aplenty. You probably think that you understand boredom, know its feel, but really you don’t. What you call boredom would seem a whirlwind of activity to me, choices so many that I’d likely be befuddled in trying to pick one over all the others. You could turn on a TV and watch a movie or some other show; I haven’t seen a TV since the 1980s. You could go for a walk in the neighborhood; I can’t walk more than a few feet in any direction before I run into a concrete wall or steel bars. You could pick up your phone and call a friend; I don’t know if I’d be able to remember how to make a collect call or even if the process is still the same, so many years it’s been since I’ve used a telephone. Play with your dog or cat and experience their love, or watch your fish in their aquarium; the only creatures I see daily are the mice and cockroaches that infest the unit, and they’re not very lovable and nothing much to look at. There is a pretty good list of options available to you, if you think about it, many things that you could do even when you believe you are so bored. You take them for granted because they are there all the time, but if it were all taken away you’d find yourself missing even the things that right now seem so small and insignificant. Even the smallest stuff can become as large as life when you have had nearly nothing for far too long.
I haven’t been outside in one of the SHU yards in this prison for about four years now. I haven’t seen a tree or blade of grass in all that time, and wouldn’t see these things were I to go to the yard. In Elmira Correctional Facility, where I am presently imprisoned, the SHU yards are about three or four times as big as my cell. There are twelve SHU yards total, each surrounded by concrete walls, one or two of the walls lined with windows. If you look in the windows you’ll see the same SHU company that you live on, and maybe you’ll get a look at a guy who was locked next to you for months that you’ve talked to every day but had never before gotten a look at. If you look up you’ll find bars and a screen covering the yard, and if you’re lucky maybe you can see a bit of blue sky through the mesh, otherwise it’ll be hard to believe that you’re even outside. If it’s a good day you can walk around the SHU yard in small circles staring ahead with your mind on nothingness, like the nothing you’ve got in that lacuna with you. If it’s a bad day, though, maybe your mind will be filled with remembrances of all you used to have that you haven’t seen now for many years, and you’ll be missing it, feeling the loss, feeling it bad.
Life in the box is about an austere sameness that makes it difficult to tell one day from a thousand others. Nothing much and nothing new ever happen to tell you if it’s a Monday or a Friday, March or September, 1987 or 2012. The world turns, technology advances, and things in the streets change and keep changing all the time. Not so in a solitary confinement unit, however. I’ve never seen a cell phone except in pictures in magazines. I’ve never touched a computer in my life, never been on the Internet and wouldn’t know how to get there if you sat me in front of a computer, turned it on for me, and gave me directions. SHU is a timeless place, and I can honestly say that there is not a single thing I’d see looking around right now that is different from what I saw in Shawangunk Correctional Facility’s box when I first arrived there from Syracuse’s county jail in 1987. Indeed, there is probably nothing different in SHU now than in SHU a hundred years ago, save the headphones. Then and now there were a few books, a few prison-made clothing articles, walls and bars and human beings locked in cages… and misery.
There is always the misery. If you manage to escape it yourself for a time, there will ever be plenty around in others for you to sense; and though you’ll be unable to look into their eyes and see it, you might hear it in the nighttime when tough guys cry not-so-tough tears that are forced out of them by the unrelenting stress and strain that life in SHU is an exercise in.
I’ve read of the studies done regarding the effects of long-term isolation in solitary confinement on inmates, seen how researchers say it can ruin a man’s mind, and I’ve watched with my own eyes the slow descent of sane men into madness—sometimes not so slow. What I’ve never seen the experts write about, though, is what year after year of abject isolation can do to that immaterial part in our middle where hopes survive or die and the spirit resides. So please allow me to speak to you of what I’ve seen and felt during some of the harder times of my twenty-five-year SHU odyssey.
I’ve experienced times so difficult and felt boredom and loneliness to such a degree that it seemed to be a physical thing inside so thick it felt like it was choking me, trying to squeeze the sanity from my mind, the spirit from my soul, and the life from my body. I’ve seen and felt hope becoming like a foggy ephemeral thing, hard to get ahold of, even harder to keep ahold of as the years and then decades disappeared while I stayed trapped in the emptiness of the SHU world. I’ve seen minds slipping down the slope of sanity, descending into insanity, and I’ve been terrified that I would end up like the guys around me that have cracked and become nuts. It’s a sad thing to watch a human being go insane before your eyes because he can’t handle the pressure that the box exerts on the mind, but it is sadder still to see the spirit shaken from a soul. And it is more disastrous. Sometimes the prison guards find them hanging and blue; sometimes their necks get broken when they jump from their bed, the sheet tied around the neck that’s also wrapped around the grate covering the light in the ceiling snapping taut with a pop. I’ve seen the spirit leaving men in SHU and have witnessed the results.
The box is a place like no other place on planet Earth. It’s a place where men full of rage can stand at their cell gates fulminating on their neighbor or neighbors, yelling and screaming and speaking some of the filthiest words that could ever come from a human mouth, do it for hours on end, and despite it all never suffer the loss of a single tooth, never get his head knocked clean off his shoulders. You will never hear words more despicable or see mouth wars more insane than what occurs all the time in SHU, not anywhere else in the world, because there would be serious violence before any person could speak so much foulness for so long. In the box the heavy steel bars allow mouths to run with impunity when they could not otherwise do so, while the ambient is one that is sorely conducive to an exceedingly hot sort of anger that seems to press the lips on to ridiculous extremes. Day and night I have been awakened to the sound of the rage being loosed loudly on SHU gates, and I’d be a liar if I said I haven’t at times been one of the madmen doing the yelling.
I have lived for months where the first thing I became aware of upon waking in the morning is the malodorous funk of human feces, tinged with the acrid stench of days-old urine, where I eat my breakfast, lunch, and dinner with that same stink assaulting my senses, and where the last thought I had before falling into unconscious sleep was: “Damn, it smells like shit in here.” I have felt like I was on an island surrounded by vicious sharks, flanked on both sides by mentally ill inmates who would splash their excrement all over their cells, all over the company outside their cells, and even all over themselves. I have went days into weeks that seemed like they’d never end without being able to sleep more than short snatches before I was shocked out of my dreams, and thrown back into a living nightmare, by the screams of sick men who have lost all ability to control themselves, or by the banging of cell bars and walls of these same madmen. I have been so tired when sleep inside was impossible that I went outside into a snowstorm to get some sleep.
The wind blew hard and snowflakes swirled around and around in the small SHU yard at Shawangunk, and I had but one cheap prison-produced coat on and a single set of state clothes beneath. To escape the biting cold I dug into the seven- or eight-foot high mountain of snow that was piled in the center of the yard, the accumulation from inmates shoveling a narrow path to walk along the perimeter. With bare hands gone numb, I dug out a small room in that pile of snow, making myself a sort of igloo. When it was done I crawled inside, rolled onto my back on the snow-covered concrete ground, and almost instantly fell asleep, my bare head pillowed in the snow. I didn’t even have a hat to wear.
An hour or so later I was awakened by the guards come to take me back to the stink and insanity inside: “Blake, rec’s over…” I had gotten an hour’s straight sleep, minus the few minutes it had taken me to dig my igloo. That was more than I had gotten in weeks without being shocked awake by the CA-RACK! of a sneaker being slapped into a plexiglass shield covering the cell of an inmate who had thrown things nasty; or the THUD-THUD-THUD! of an inmate pounding his cell wall, or bars being banged, gates being kicked and rattled, or men screaming like they’re dying and maybe wishing that they were; or to the tirade of an inmate letting loose his pent-up rage on a guard or fellow inmate, sounding every bit the lunatic that too long a time in the mind-breaking confines of the box had caused him to be.
I have been so exhausted physically, mental strength being tested to limits that can cause strong folks to snap, that I have begged God, tough guy I fancy myself, “Please, Lord, make them stop. Please let me get some peace.” As the prayers went ungranted and the insanity around me persisted, I felt my own rage rising above the exhaustion and misery, no longer in a begging mood: “Lord, kill those motherfuckers, why don’t you!” I yelled at the Almighty, my own sanity so close to being gone that it seemed as if I were walking along a precipice and could see down to where I’d be falling, seeing myself shot, sanity a dead thing killed by the fall. I’d be afraid later on, terrified, when I reflected back on how close I had seemed to come to losing my mind, but at that moment all I could do was feel anger of a fiery kind: anger at the maniacs creating the noise and the stink and the madness; anger at my keepers and the real creators of this hell; anger at society for turning a blind eye to the torment and torture going on here that its tax dollars are financing; and perhaps most of all, anger at myself for doing all that I did that never should have been done that put me into the clutches of this beastly prison system to begin with. I would be angry at the world; enraged, actually, so burning hot was what I would be feeling.
I had wet toilet paper stuffed hard into both ears, socks folded up and pressed into my ears, a pillow wrapped around the sides and back of my head covering my ears, and a blanket tied around all that to hold everything in place, lying in bed praying for sleep. But still the noise was incredible, a thunderous cacophony of insanity, sleep impossible. Inmates lost in the throes of lavalike rage firing philippics at one another for even reasons they didn’t know, threatening to kill one another’s mommas, daddies, even the children, too. Nothing is sacred in SHU. It is an environment that is so grossly abnormal, so antithetical to normal human interactions, that it twists the innerds of men all around who for too long dwell there. Their minds, their morals, and their mannerisms get bent badly, ending far off-center. Right becomes whatever and wrong no longer exists. Restraint becomes a burden and is unnecessary with concrete and steel separating everyone, so inmates let it go. Day after day, perhaps year after year, the anger grows, fueled by the pain caused by the conditions till rage is born and burning so hot that it too hurts.
Trying to put into words what is so unlike anything else I know or have ever experienced seems an impossible endeavor, because there is nothing even remotely like it any place else to compare it to, and nothing that will do to you on the inside what so many years in SHU has done to me. All that I am able to articulate about the world of Special Housing Unit and what it is and what it does may seem terrible to you indeed, but the reality of living in this place for a full quarter of a century is yet even more terrible, still. You would have to live it, experience it in all its aspects with the fullness of its days and struggles added up, to really appreciate and understand just how truly terrible this plight of mine has been, and how truly ugly life in the box can be at times, even for just a single day. I spent nine years in Shawangunk’s box, six years in Sullivan’s, six years in Great Meadow’s, and I’ve been here in Elmira’s SHU for four years now, and through all of this time I have never spent a single day in a Mental Health Unit cell because I attempted or threatened suicide, or for any other reason. I have thought about suicide in times past when the days had become exceedingly difficult to handle, but I’m still here. I’ve had some of my SHU neighbors succumb to the suicidal thoughts, though, choosing death over another day of life in the box. I have never bugged out myself, but I’ve known times that I had come too close. I’ve had neighbors who came to SHU normal men, and I’ve seen them leave broken and not anything resembling normal anymore. I’ve seen guys give up on their dreams and lose all hope in the box, but my own hopes and dreams are still alive and well inside me. The insidious workings of the SHU program have yet to get me stuck on that meandering path to internal destruction that I have seen so many of my neighbors end up on, and perhaps this is a miracle; I’d rather be dead than to lose control of my mind.
Had I known in 1987 that I would spend the next quarter-century in solitary confinement, I would have certainly killed myself. If I took a month to die and spent every minute of it in severe pain, it seems to me that on a balance that fate would still be far easier to endure than the last twenty-five years have been. If I try to imagine what kind of death, even a slow one, would be worse than twenty-five years in the box—and I have tried to imagine it—I can come up with nothing. Set me afire, pummel and bludgeon me, cut me to bits, stab me, shoot me, do what you will in the worst of ways, but none of it could come close to making me feel things as cumulatively horrifying as what I’ve experienced through my years in solitary. Dying couldn’t take but a short time if you or the State were to kill me; in SHU I have died a thousand internal deaths. The sum of my quarter-century’s worth of suffering has been that bad.
To some judges sitting on high who’ve never done a day in the box, maybe twenty-five years of this isn’t cruel and unusual. To folks who have an insatiable appetite for vengeance against prisoners who have committed terrible crimes, perhaps it doesn’t even matter how cruel or unusual my plight is or isn’t. For people who cannot let go of hate and know not how to forgive, no amount of remorse would matter, no level of contrition would be quite enough, only endless retribution would be right in their eyes. Like Judge Milroy, only an eternity in hell would satisfy them. Given even that in retribution, though, the unforgiving haters wouldn’t be satisfied that hell was hot enough; they’d want the heat turned up. Thankfully these folks are the few, that in the minds of the many, at a point, enough is enough.
No matter what the world would think about things that they cannot imagine in even their worst nightmares, I know that twenty-five years in solitary confinement is utterly and certainly cruel, moreso than death in or by an electric chair, gas chamber, lethal injection, bullet in the head, or even immolation could possibly be. The sum of the suffering caused by any of these quick deaths would be a small thing next to the sum of the suffering that this quarter-century in SHU has brought to bear on me. Solitary confinement for the length of time that I have endured it, even apart from the inhuman conditions that I have too often been made to endure it in, is torture of a terrible kind; and anyone who doesn’t think so surely knows not what to think.
The Voices from Solitary series publishes dispatches from people surviving the lived experience of solitary confinement.
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761 comments
WesOctober 20, 2025 at 11:17 amThis is a haunting read – your firsthand account brings to light how “the box” isn’t just confinement, it’s a slow erosion of self. What stood out for me most was the line about living a thousand internal deaths – it really captures the unimaginable toll. Thank you for sharing something so raw, urgent, and important.Reply
AnnAugust 6, 2025 at 8:48 amAfter the horrific, senseless slaughter of 4 Beautiful young University of Idaho students on November 13, 2022 at the hands of a monster, I will never again be the same human being. I am a woman of strength and weakness. A mother, grandmother, great grand mother. I watched Brian Kohberger’s plea deal process and it was gutting to me how Kohberger responded to the Judges’ questions; clear and concise. It was at that point I realized, of course there should be a special place for that kind of killer, committing that kind of heinous crime. An Immediate cell in hell without parole. I am not a family member, nor do I know any of the victims. I am a mother, grandmother, great grandmother, changed forever.Reply
michael paduanoJune 5, 2020 at 9:58 amI was serving 6 months at Jamesville Correctional Facility in Jamesville NY, a minimum security jail with no bars for people doing a year or under. Billy Blake was being held there for his case because The Public Safety Building in Syracuse where he was first held, he was always beaten by the sheriffs deputies. So for his own safety he was moved to Jamesville.I only saw him once from a distance because he was separated from everyone else. Never would I have imagined that he would be in solitary confinement forever! I watched the film Birdman of Alcatraz with Burt Lancaster. Based on a true story that man did 43 years in solitary before he was released to a minimum security place. Billy essay is I believe is truthful because he was behaving like a scumbag while being walked to the court room he would yell profanities to the media outside the court room covering his case! Seems like a changed man if released I think he would make a model citizen. But in the US even if he is considered for parole the police would make it impossible. MichaelReply
MaryamSeptember 9, 2019 at 11:55 amUpon examination of the responses, I see no offer of a clear path to what amends and rehabilitation should look like. We don’t seem to know how to respond to our fellow human beings in their worst moments of their lives. There’s a sense we’re all still scratching our heads about this in some way and while in this state of mystery we keep accepting the current system of incarceration, based on this gentleman’s account of solitary supported by our tax dollars, our current default is torture.Reply
johnsquirrellMarch 16, 2018 at 3:15 amI doubt anyone who has commented could survive a month.“That’s because we’re not killers!”, they’ll invariably shout.But what if you were?Could you then?Reply
Joseph H. TowerAugust 15, 2017 at 7:02 pmAs an former inmate of the New York State Department of Correctional Services,currently partial deaf since birth,and I have served over approximately altogether almost two years in the Special Housing Unit at Coxsackie Correctional Facility,Eastern Correctional Facility,and Elmira Correctional Facility back in the 1980s. I forgive the the Correction Officer for fabricated and planting the weapon on me. Mr. Blake,thank you for sharing your story but life cannot be reversed for your action nor your pain of injustice is not acceptable. We all have to take responsible for own actions…Innocent or not. That’s life.Reply
Edgar AethelredJuly 21, 2017 at 4:11 pmWell, there’s rape and then there’s rape. I mean just saying…there’s a lot of men going down for rape out there who are innocent of that charge.Reply
Chris UMarch 29, 2017 at 10:15 amI wouldn’t judge you, I’d simply allow anyone in the family of those you killed to do the same to you. And the 25 years “alone” (with a radio and books)? Yes, I’d agree that you deserved it. The consequences of your actions, you should have thought of those before killing.Reply
Joe LeduxSeptember 17, 2016 at 1:08 amI did a cumulative total of about six months in “Admin Seg” and then later some months on Extended Lockdown “on the rock” (for the uninitiated, doing rock-time means that you’re on disciplinary lockdown, and they take your mattress away from you for all but five or six hours in every 24, leaving you only the concrete and cinderblock platform your mattress normally rests on–the rock–or the concrete floor to site or lie on.) Essentially, lockdown is the equivalent of being in prison, and in the prison’s jail at the same time. Most of my time in the hole was because of my status–I was a police officer for about seven years and had to wait in line on the backlog for a bunk in the protective unit–but those lockdown months were in the disciplinary lockdown unit, where generally the worst of the worst inmates are kept. And it doesn’t matter why you’re in that unit, everyone is subject to the same draconian rules. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to tolerate for an extended time in my life. Even my final disciplinary vacation on the rock, which came some three years into my sentence, before I finally understood that no matter how logical your argument, you can’t win an argument with a person who has the ability to lock you in a cage, caused me to become physically sick once I began the sentence of ten days.The best line I ever heard about lockdown was in the movie that most inmates I’ve known consider the funniest and most accurate movie about prison ever made–“Let’s Go to Prison.” In that movie there is a scene where one of the two protagonists gets sent to lockdown. The other protagonist, an experienced convict, says “The worst thing about lockdown is that you can’t tell the difference between five minutes and forever.” Anyone who’s done lockdown time will say, when they see that scene, “Yeah!” All I can say is whoever wrote the screenplay for that movie had to have done time.Every minute I spent on lockdown was tough. I couldn’t imagine spending years in a cage with no respite. The convict who wrote this essay has my sympathies, and I hope he can find his way out of that hole sometime soon. Unfortunately, once an inmate has done either of two things, the courts will allow the prison officials to do whatever they want to the inmate. Those two things are: 1) escape or attempt thereof, and/or 2) any attack upon the prison staff that results in serious injury to them, or death. The courts have generally held that provided the prison feeds you, puts a roof over your head, provides some semblance of medical care, and doesn’t beat the shit out of you all the time (without provocation) then they aren’t subjecting you to unreasonable punishment. The courts don’t give a rat’s ass how rough lockdown is on the inmate. All they care about is why the inmate has been put in lockdown. And if prison staff can articulate a reasonable justification, they can lock you up forever if they want.An inmate I knew actually managed to escape, temporarily, from the maximum-security prison we were in at the time. It was Christmas day of 2000. He was recaptured after a few hours on the run. He was immediately moved to “supermax” lockdown at the biggest prison in the state. So far as I know, he’s been there in lockdown ever since. But regardless of his desire for freedom, he knew what the cost of escape was. He bought and paid for that ticket to Camp J. Another inmate I knew was a trusty. He got into a physical altercation with a lowlife chickenshit guard who had been picking on him because the inmate would be extremely reluctant to defend himself from a guard. One day the guard pushed the trusty a bit too far and the trusty administered the ass-beating the guard had earned after months of abuse against the inmate. The guard was a classic bully–willing only to pick on those who were afraid of or unable to fight back. When the trusty got sick of being bullied and took it to him on the express train, the bitch ass guard turtled up in a corner and cried. Unfortunately, the inmate–who had been a trusty for the better part of 15 years without a single disciplinary writeup–knew that his next step was going to be lockdown, probably forever, regardless of the abuse the guard had inflicted upon him over days and weeks. So he tried to escape. He hadn’t driven a car in something like 25 years and he crashed into another vehicle before he even got off prison grounds (prisons in my state tend to be huge plantations in rural areas, with the actual prison only covering a small fraction of its total yardage). He knew his time as a trusted inmate and trusty who was utterly reliable and dependable and neither an escape or a violence risk was over. He was headed for a cage. So what did he do? He cut his own throat with a broken bottle and died on the spot. Or the guards who found him killed him. Either is as likely as the other (he was cremated by order of the warden less than 24 hours after his death). Ultimately, he died because he had done everything he was supposed to do, worked honestly and hard, was obedient and behaved, yet still was facing an eternity in a cage because of the petty machinations of one coward and bully who would not leave him be. So he punched out, in a manner I don’t think I could manage even if I were on the verge of being burned to death.I know inmates who are so big and strong that they could probably murder any two or three prison guards with their bare hands. But they will bow down and take an ass beating administered for any unjust reason by the shitbird coward guards who seem to turn up inthe staff of most prisons. They know what the cost is of resisting even the most unjust abuse dished out by guards. That’s being handcuffed and beaten by yet more guards, and additional time added to their sentence via loss of good time or new charges/sentences. The worst of those punishments is spending entire decades on lockdown for the offense of raising their hands instead of dropping them and accepting physical abuse.I had two fellow inmates at the place I spent the most time, one of whom was someone I’d call a good friend Both were soldiers of the Colombian Medellin cartel who came to the US to kill an American who was set to testify against the Ochoas and Escobar and their organization. They were not able to get out of the country after the killing before the police caught them (see the Netflix series Narcos for additional information on that if you’re interested). Because they were seen as an extreme escape risk, as well as a threat to prison staff due to their connections, they were kept on lockdown for over a decade before finally being allowed a transfer to the unit I was in. They told me that going from (extremely) extended lockdown to a unit where they could go outside and look at the clouds was almost as good as going from prison to freedom for anyone else. The unit they were on lockdown in at Angola was not a disciplinary lockdown, but rather a security lockdown, so they were allowed things the disciplinary lockdown inmates were prohibited from possessing, like paints and paintbrushes and colored pencils and the like (not the first budding artists who discovered the solace of the brush and canvas in prison). Still, they told me that they eventually lost the will to live and quit eating, because they simply did not want to be alive and in a cage any longer. It’s irrefutable that inmates on lockdown pay a heavy price.Myself, after my longest and worst stint on lockdown, when they finally released me into population, the first thing I did was go outside, drop to my knees, and run my fingers through the grass; something I’d imagined doing almost every day of being confined to a six-by-ten (or smaller) for months.I know only a single person who is on death row, and I can assure you that he would be overjoyed to give back his death sentence and get life in exchange. Knowing more or less the day and time of your impending death, and watching the hours and days tick by to that day is its own special variety of torture. So I’m told, the very worst part of it is knowing what day your loved ones are going to spend hoping for a miracle, or intervention by a court, down to the last minute, only to have someone come out of the prison and tell them you have been exterminated. Cue grief and tears and hugs which do nothing to reduce the pain your loved ones are suffering.I had a friend serving a life sentence who had a severe medical condition which, untreated, would certainly kill him within a year or two. He refused treatment, saying he had nothing to live for. The only argument I could come up with that had any traction with him was this: Just by being alive, regardless if he was in prison for his natural life, he still had a role to play in the lives of his children and grandchildren. Just by being alive he prevented the infliction of pain and grief upon those he loved, even if he did only see and talk to them every couple of weeks. I told him if he truly loved his family and friends, he owed it to them to inflict as little pain and suffering upon them as he could manage. It worked. He recently passed away, painlessly, from natural causes, at an age nobody would think of as too young. That makes about nineteen years he put off that inevitable suffering his family would endure after that conversation we had about his illness. And ultimately, I believe, due to his advanced age, his death was easier for his loved ones to accept than it would have been when we had that discussion.I fully admit that my half-year or so spent on solitary doesn’t qualify me to argue against the premise of this inmate’s essay, that some incarceration is worse than death. But I will say that, based upon my own observations and experience, that any life is better than a certain death. I know dozens of men who have copped out to a life sentence to avoid a death sentence and consider themselves lucky. I would do the same, because I just wouldn’t want some asshole redneck in a cheap suit or prison uniform to have to tell my family that clemency was denied, the courts refused to intervene. And that I was now dead by state-sanctioned murder, before I even had a chance to digest my last meal. I too would beg and cry and debase myself and cop out to a life sentence, whatever it took to put off my family from having to bury me, as long as I could.I hope the writer of this essay still has some people in his life, in the free world, who love him and want him to be around regardless of the conditions. I’ve always said that suicide is a crime of violence you inflict upon those who love you. If you have nobody in the world then yeah, I’d say your life is your own to live or escape, whether via a death sentence or through suicide. But if there is even one person out there who means anything to you, who would suffer when you die, then you have a duty to inflict as little grief and suffering upon them as you can manage. Haven’t we already made our loved ones suffer enough? Pursue that life sentence and avoid that death sentence; man up and suffer that prison sentence no matter how bad it hurts. It might not matter to you, but I promise it matters to those who love you.Reply
Terra DactylJuly 3, 2016 at 10:23 pmI don’t believe that he is “fully remorseful”. All I hear is him talking about how hard he’s had it after he was convicted of killing one, critically injuring another. Is his anger at himself because of remorse, or is it because of where he ended up? If he had not ended up in the SHU, would he still feel the same way? Somehow I doubt that. I think this is nothing more than “poor me”. He took a life, and almost took another. If he had done his time on this initial charges, he’d be out by now without a murder conviction over his head placing him in solitary. A deputy is dead because Mr. Blake here didn’t want to serve his time for a drug charge. He should have taken the damn drug charge and served his time.A damn shame that someone who writes so well is wasting away in the SHU. Someone who writes that well shows signs of high intelligence, and where the hell is he? In some little box for almost 30 years now. What a GD waste! People would give just about anything for that kind of writing skill…and instead of making something with his life with his talent, he threw it all away on stupidity. His stupidity cost a life and wasted his own. He may still be alive, but he killed what he could have done in this world with that talent. idiot. Fricken IDIOT.Regardless, solitary is torture. And while some may think that torture is what he and other inmates deserve, the fact is, we don’t want to go back to those times. Part of a civilized society is to realize that torture is not an acceptable way to treat people. We treat terrorists better than we treat our inmates in this country. The death penalty is not there because we are blood thirsty savages who revel in the idea of seeing the scum wiped off of the face of the earth, but because if a man has no chance of getting out, especially if they will spend their life in solitary, then let them go. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars, a waste of space, and totally inhumane. There is no excuse to keep a person caged for decades with no hope at all of ever being released. We are not barbarians. Put them out of their misery. Society is protected, they do pay for their crime, but they are not tortured for decades to appease those who are either too stupid to know what it’s like to live in a cage, or too hateful to realize just how evil it is to make a human, no matter how vile that human may be, suffer in such a manner.Reply
josh smithMay 4, 2016 at 2:55 amLet’s face a few indisputable facts: This mans punishment is cruel and unusual. No person could conjure up in their minds a more evil way to treat someone. This mans punishment makes anyone who is aware of it and has the power to do something about it an accomplice to a crime against humanity. It doesn’t matter if this man killed every persons family in front of them. Nobody has the natural right to purposely destroy another’s mind. This man has endured an atrocity skin to something one would expect from Germany’s Third Reich. The Warden of the prisons that this man has spent his time in the Shu are going to hell if there exists such a place. The fact that something like this could actually happen proves that nobody really knows anybody and that we are all going to die alone. I say this because enough people in our community have been implicit in allowing this form of torture that it is quite obvious that groupthink is at play here and that not a single individual has the charisma to do anything about it, It is akin to a thousand strangers walking by a vicious rape happening and doing nothing about it, Because we, as a race, as a whole, ,do not care about one another….we only care about ourselves in these modern times…cut off from one another by the powers that be…that power based in big corporations having become the government for which we ourselves are supposed to be in and not be corrupted and not allow cruelness to go unnoticed. This mans punishment is unnatural and we are the first generation of people inhabiting this planet that would lock someone in a broomcloset and then use tax dollars to ensure he stays there. I graduated from law school but didn’t take the bar exam. But if I do, I am going to become this mans lawyer and sue so many people and parties so that this will never ever happen again. The government cannot be allowed to control people’s minds. Its really quite simple. His punishment is to stay in Ungodly quarters, cut off from any hope, until his mind is gone. Who among us would condone 25 years of torture rather than capital punishment? The person who’s uncle was murdered with an axe is obviously a young fellow. It does not take a whole lot of wisdom to understand that nobody has the right to force someone to live in a torture chamber,Reply
CaptKentApril 29, 2016 at 10:30 amPrison terms, in my opinion, are far too long and solitary confinement IS cruel and unusual punishment especially for non violent crimes. To the people who set these terms I would say just spend six months on a hospital mental ward. It’s an eye opener. I spent four months on one and paced like a caged big cat the whole time. I would choose death over even a six month prison sentence. I’m amazed that most folks think the death penalty is worse than life in prison.Reply
Tore LynneFebruary 7, 2016 at 2:27 pmI’m torn between whether solitary is unjust or whether these inmates are getting what they deserve. To think of trying to escape on a drug charge and then killing a deputy is and will always be unacceptable. I’m also a person who has a man in the system and he does his time as if it’s a vacation because to him it is. There is clearly something wrong with our country when we have more people in our prison system than any where in the world and most of those incarcerated are for non-violent offenses. Clearly there is something wrong when prison is a revolving door so where is the justice? It boggles my mind that the justice system doesn’t try to get to the root of the revolving door and why do some people feel that prison is home. Yeah I know all about the corrupt judicial system in this country. I visit my son’s father and always ask is he getting therapy or do the AA or NA groups go up and try to reach out he tells me their a no show more than a show so what the fuck how does one get help when he or she has led a life of street crimes since his or her teenage years and been in more than out? I’m working on a degree in the hopes that I myself will someday work with women who are incarcerated and try to offer them hope and spirituality that they so desperately need. Jail is not the place for non-violent offenses and wake-up and realize that these people need help. It just makes me angry that they don’t receive the proper treatment that should be required. Solitary well if you are a pedophile or serial killer then yes you should do your time in solitary because you stole a life away from an innocent victim so in those circumstances justice is served. Someday I will make a change and make sure that prison no longer becomes a revolving door for women because that’s where my heart is and more importantly my goal.Reply
Rosemary MullaghJanuary 26, 2016 at 5:13 amI wonder how many people in this conversation consider themselves actual Christians. I’m not talking about someone who goes to church, sucks up to their pastor and can quote the bible. I’m talking about someone who genuinely tries to be a good person. Someone who genuinely tries to do good and someone who chooses not to judge others for their past mistakes. God does not call us to condemn the acts of another. He calls us instead to love and to show compassion for others and to forgive. There doesn’t seem like there is love, compassion or forgiveness being shown here. I also wonder how many of these unforgiving comments would change if it was the loved one of any of you. Why must you all possess so much hate in your hearts? Is this the kind of example you all wanna set for younger generations? If so this is very sad and I would suggest you all think about that.Reply
Brigitte MatthiasAugust 29, 2015 at 1:53 pmI am confused by this article. Two things. 1) Most people are not in the SHU for 25 years. Most prisoners are not moved this much. I wonder if there were either behavioral issues or protective custody issues. Most LWOP prisoners are able to get some privileges with good behavior. And what of his family and friends? 2) He mentions the crime in passing. He doesn’t explain his motive, or remorse, or an anwareness of what he did. Solitary is a very terrible existence, and maybe that pushed him into a malignant narcissism, but I suspect his impulsiveness, lack of empathy and narcissism predated his crime by years. He embodies all the classic symptoms of a true sociopath. Studies have shown the one overriding desire of sociopaths is for pity. They thrive on it. This essay is a pity fest.Reply
Andrea KeaneJuly 23, 2015 at 9:08 pmWow just wow.. this man expresses and shares a truly horrifying punishment that is far beyond what we give most anyone these days for killing someone even a cop. Look at what you “sheeple” are writing here… that he deserves it. … really…REALLY? I’m with dolan on this i am horrified at the lack of humanity in all of you. I feel terrible for the family of the man who he killed but doing this to his killer won’t bring him back and i am sure does little to ease the pain and loss that family feels. Better he be allowed to be productive and maybe earn some money while he is prison for all these years. Let him contribute that to that family to make up for their bread winner being gone. Why does some judge have the right to sentence someone to anything other than life in prison it should not be for him to decide that it has to be solitary. why should he be sentenced to solitary when there are other cop killers out there and they are not in solitary – cops do a job that is hazardous and they know it when they sign up like mining or deep sea diving etc it is a high risk job. Why is that cops life worth more than an office worker or chef or nurse? are their lives worth less than the cop this guy killed. OOO look who i am asking the rabble rousing mob that would have stoned jesus if it was fashionable and a popular current attitude. I am ashamed to admit i am human, that i am of the same species as you rabid self-righteous pathetic sheep You disgust me and i only hope in your life times you fall prey to the same laws you now bang your pasty soft white hands together in praise of. Cockroaches all of youReply
epheweJanuary 2, 2017 at 3:10 amI know this thread is super old. Someone recently upvoted one of my posts and I ended up reading down the line again. Anyway, I just had to chime in on this:Being a police officer is most certainly NOT NOT NOT a particularly “hazardous” job. Look at the actual statistics. It’s not even in the top ten. In fact, police officers (statistically speaking) are *almost never killed in the line of duty*; it is incredibly rare. It *seems* hazardous because of the way the media howls every time one of them *is* killed but one needs to consider the incredible fuck-ton of police officers roaming our streets. If you knew how many police officers there were in NYC alone (just as an example) you’d be disgusted. In fact, I’m actually gonna find out the number & post it here. One sec…OK, this is straight from wikipedia:“The NYPD’s current authorized uniformed strength is 34,450.[6] There are also approximately 4,500 Auxiliary Police Officers, 5,000 School Safety Agents, 2,300 Traffic Enforcement Agents, and 370 Traffic Enforcement Supervisors currently employed by the department. The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of the City of New York (NYC PBA), the largest municipal police union in the United States, represents over 50,000 active and retired NYC police officers.”Let’s do the math… 34,450 + 4,500 + 5,000 + 2,300 + 370 = 46620Note that these figures are clearly estimates. That means there are so many god damn cops that they have to resort to fuzzy estimates for their statistics. *They don’t even know exactly how many there are*.The “Officer Down Memorial” page states that 1,577 officers have been killed in the line of duty in NYC. What year you ask? That’s total. Ever. Garbage collection is more dangerous. As is being a roofer or electrician or being a farmer. The idea of the “dangerous cop job” is a complete fucking myth and it needs to stop. That false conception is how police get extra consideration when they get caught doing evil and end up walking. People cut them extra slack “because their job is so dangerous”.Furthermore, and this is something of a tangent here, but the reason for this number of cops? To consistently raise money for NYC municipality by fleecing its citizens along with the many tourists and other travelers/commuters. Make no mistake: Their job’s goal is certainly not protecting people. In fact, the Supreme Court already ruled that cops are under no obligation whatsoever to place themselves at risk in order to protect a citizen (look it up). Their job is to extract fines from the populace (along with the many many other creative ways they transform not-their-money into their-money). The concept of “police” as now exists was actually created for one reason: To protect the property of the wealthy from the poor. This is not rhetoric or hyperbole. This is simple fact. Do your own research.Anyway, I totally agree with most everything else you said. Obviously the so-called “justice system” in this country is a complete fucking farce from top to bottom. It’s a cancerous ball of shame with almost real redeeming qualities whatsoever.People who are saying that the prisoner who is the subject of this thread should have just been promptly executed are also wrong. Knowing what you know about the justice system as a whole… Its malicious incompetence at all levels… Do you *really* believe it should ever be empowered to execute *anyone*? Really..? Because I don’t. As far as what *should* have happened to the prisoner… Well he obviously should have received a lengthy prison term to be served in a civilized environment where his basic human needs are met within a reasonable degree (and most certainly not fucking solitary for 25 years). Being as he was young at the time of the crime. he should be afforded the means to rehabilitate himself and maybe get out eventually so he can contribute to society and undo a little of the damage he did (obviously not to the victims directly, but by doing positive things for society as a whole to balance out the negative). Murder is horrible thing, but imprisoning someone for 25 years is a lot worse than people (*who seriously have no fucking idea at all about what prison experience actually is*) like to make it out to be. Believe me. 25 years is a fair sentence for his crimes. And that’s 25 years NOT in fucking solitary. This man has been punished way beyond what a civilized justice system should have inflicted and frankly, he deserves not only to get out of solitary but also to get out of prison. He has also demonstrated that he feels constant remorse for his crime and feels no ill will towards his jailers. These are signs of a man who understands what he’s done and accepts responsibility. This man could be affecting the world in a positive way right now but the “justice system” would rather annihilate his mind and make sure he becomes (and stays) a fucking animal.I could seriously go on and on about this but I know this is already beyond wall-of-text-level length here; so I’m going to stop.Thank you for reading.Reply
ZxenJune 25, 2015 at 5:19 pmIt’s very difficult to figure out how punishment should work. I’m a vegetarian, and even though I know all meat eaters are accomplices to mass-murder (you will disagree with this if you are a human supremacist), I know I’m probably exaggerating when I tell people they deserve to be kept in a cage and then torn to pieces at an abattoir. This would be equal vengeance. Vengeance feels good to me, especially in movies. But then again there’s a tipping point when I feel that someone has suffered enough. This is because I have empathy. Also, the legal system both here in Australia and other countries does not allow the victims to have a say in the type of punishment. In one way, this is a good way of preventing too lenient a sentence based on fear of reprisal or too much forgiveness, or too severe a sentence based on anger and hatred. But it is obvious to note that the same hatred and anger that victims feel might have been precisely the same as the perpetrator felt. Once again, this empathy allows us to understand wanting to murder or steal or bash someone’s skull or in the case of the writer, torture them every moment of every day for weeks. Or months. Or years. Or decades. One second of torture hurts bad enough. I do not agree with forgiveness even though I was raised as a follower of Jesus in my youth. Even Jesus got angry in the Bible. His dad certainly did and committed severe atrocities including ordering people to kill their own children, drowning people, genocide, supremacist activity resulting in mass murder including extinction of entire species, etc. By default, chaos would clearly reign. Entropy is the default state of matter in the Universe. But then again the laws of physics make matter clump. And here we all are, knowing nothing about reasons for existence except through ridiculous old books, simply wanting to eat, sleep, defecate and have sex until we die. Hopefully we’ll be popular enough to have a statue made in our honour, but erosion will take care of that either before or after everyone we know and all of their descendants are dead. Punishment from the government is both a deterrent and vengeance to sait our hatred and anger. Its useful. If the government didn’t control it, we’d return to the dark times of survival of the fittest which simply equates to constant rape, theft and murder continuously everywhere. Morals don’t need to be taught – we would behave nicely when we wanted something out of pure selfishness to get what we wanted naturally like chimps grooming one another. The feeling of being trusted and even loved is worth the effort. But if you are disrespected at every turn by too many people, violence is the most sensible option. You will then get at least some of what you wanted, and just like the satisfaction of the Judge who proudly buried this guy in a torture chamber for so long, you would feel a burst of happiness from satisfying your hatred through extreme violence. So what do we do? Genetically modify future generations not to feel anger? Reduce the testosterone in angry young teens by cutting their balls off before they can do any real damage? We can hold our anger inside, and suffer silently so those without empathy do not need to be bothered by their fellow humans’ suffering. Or maybe we can give people something like an exploding punching bag to break, or a forum of accusation, or demerit points to take away societal privileges when a person insensitively annoys someone who is already sad or angry. But these are mere preventions. If someone commits power abuse to the degree that they profit from mass murder, say a butcher who sells animal corpses for supremacist consumption, then my immediate reaction is to say, torture them until they are insane from the effects of violence from the victim’s perspective. Then let them go. Torture has played a huge role in human society for thousands of years. I’m ashamed of myself for not being able to figure out a cleaner solution so that everybody wins. It can’t be that hard. Nature already knows the answer: Death to all, innocent or guilty.Reply
Ta Rene’September 6, 2015 at 7:02 pm“…So what do we do? Genetically modify future generations not to feel anger?” Anger, maybe is a reaction, lacking the sophistication of an emotion?? What if it is a reaction to, lets say, punishment? Does this mean that Tolstoy’s Crime and Punishment should actually be: Punishment and Crime?? Well, Adam and Eve are punished and thrown out of Heaven before any crime is committed, ( eating an apple does not count as a criminal act, it’s God’s personal conviction). Subsequently, Eve and Adam take out their anger on their kids, and the rest is history or I should say :”Biblical History”. So my friend, I think we just found the answer to your question: In order to eliminate crime, the history of punishment has to be erased from human genetics. Maybe then we can all enjoy a beautiful life. >>A WORLD WITHOUT PUNISHMENT IS A BETTER WORLDReply
ZxenSeptember 7, 2015 at 2:08 pmNo punishment = A better world?What kind of blanket is keeping reality from your eyes?Nature is completely cruel, and humans are no exception.If there was no punishment then we would need to rely on human kindness, rather than both kindness and fear of consequences. If that ever happens, tell me quickly so I can build my bunker and hide. The whole world would become a slaughterhouse.Imagine the kind of world you’re talking about: A man who wants your mother’s purse stabs her in the face thirty times and blinds her. Her teeth can be seen through her cheeks like a dog, her tongue is hanging from sinew in 40 pieces, blood gushes from her throat, her spinal cord is severed making her a quadriplegic, and though she can feel her pain acutely as you feed her through a straw every day for the rest of her life, you still find the time to thank the person who slashed your mother up because he bought you all dinner tonight with the money he found in your mother’s purse. She can hear him and feels anger, but you smile at him because you are kind hearted and would never tell any authorities about his actions. Not because you are scared about what he would do to you, but rather because punishment is wrong.I don’t believe that you agree with what you wrote. There needs to be revenge, and its probably better that governments handle it rather than friends of victims. Many people in usually poor areas are given a great amount of respect for their violence rather than intelligence, and the absence of retribution/punishment/revenge would be a literal ‘get out of jail free’ card.We can’t have no punishment at all. That would be anarchy – constant unstoppable rape and murder everywhere.I agree that the punishment system worldwide is still extremely primitive.Reply
Ta Rene’September 10, 2015 at 6:27 amI did not mean for ” A World without punishment is a better World” to be interpreted as: “Starting today, there will be no punishment for any crime”. My idealist’s thought process, does not move alongside the linear progression of time. I don’t claim to have an immediate solution to the problem, I’m saying maybe we forgot which triggered the reaction. At the source of humanity, (Adam and Eve) did crime come first or second as a response to Punishment ( being thrown out of heaven), subsequently punishing their kids, finally brother kills brother, the first criminal act of humans. I am suggesting that punishment gave birth to crime, that’s all. Just like Future , gave birth to Hope. These concepts are now embedded in out genes, however not in the order they were received.Reply
ZxenSeptember 10, 2015 at 7:33 amIf the Bible is true, then God is either a bumbling idiot or a psychotic. It’s not true, of course. Writers throughout history have been little more than cavemen who were able to turn their grunts into squiggly lines. I wouldn’t say humans are the cruelest species to have ever lived on this planet, but it seems we are the best organised. During these primitive days of our history we are still having teething problems, trying to balance freedom and equality. We all want to be free, but things would be neater if we were all equal. Absolute freedom can only ever happen if humans do not take away the freedom of others, either by accident or through power abuse. If a human does take away the freedom of others, then there needs to be compensation, either by way of an apology, by paying money, or by suffering. Torture or murder is the only way we know to deliver that last one, usually by having men with guns take the offender by force and locking her or him in a cage, like the author of the article. I wish there was another way to handle things, but if someone causes me pain, I want them to feel pain in return, or at least give me great pleasure as compensation. But if they have killed someone, like Betsy the cow who was completely innocent (RIP), simply because the offender liked the taste of meat, then the offender can never repay Betsy. Should we then say that the victim is not suffering anymore so let the butcher walk free? No. The butcher cannot fix anything, and should be made to suffer torture as revenge. Hopefully others will see this as a deterrent and not kill animals for their own luxury. If there was no punishment at all, billions of animals would continue to be murdered every year. There is not, and they are. How do compassionates fight such human supremacism? If I walked into an abattoir and killed all the evil human workers to save the lives of hundreds of innocent screaming animals right now, I would not be considered a hero. I would be punished. The world still has teething problems, and yes punishments are misplaced depending on the morals of the society, but power abuse cannot go unpunished.Reply
Robinanna neibauerJune 19, 2015 at 6:50 amIt’s bad enough when you did something serious, it’s even too harsh for them, but no, spying for an ally does NOT deserve life without parole, it ALSO doesn’t deserve 7 years of Solitary Confinement! I think Pollard has paid his dues!Reply
gregory latimerApril 25, 2015 at 11:58 pmWilliam blake is a forerunner to thugs we have n o w in streets, he should have given more brutal treatment. He does not. care about his victims At all. He should have been used. As spare parts for decent people that would reduce crime in america very quickly men like him are animals they should be destroyed. quicklyReply
lookatthisdamncommentApril 17, 2015 at 12:23 amImagine you’re 18. You’re a kid, but think you’re a man. Nobody can tell you nothing. You’re a big boy. Then, you do something stupid. You get life without parole. You’re in the box before you’re 19. You die in there when you’re 80.Can you imagine it? Just try. Don’t think of who deserves what for doing what to who. Just think of it; a mistake, a bad decision, one made when society told you that you’re now a man, a big boy, and you can wear big boys pants.On the day you turn 18 you see yourself a man, but on the day you turn 19 you know you’re still a kid.And you’re in the box. For life. LIFE.To all who’s out on free street, think of all you’ve done since you were 18. You can’t even remember all of it.Now imagine you’ve been in the box since shortly after you left school.Can you?Reply
Robinanna neibauerJune 19, 2015 at 7:17 amImagine that you did something to help an ally, it’s illegal but you did it, while everybody else who did this gets 2-16 years, you get life without parole, and you agreed to a plea bargain, they break it, your lawyer didn’t tell you that you had a right to appeal, so you have been disproportionately sentenced for 30 years, Pollard should of been out of jail for 26 years by now!
WesOctober 20, 2025 at 11:17 amThis is a haunting read – your firsthand account brings to light how “the box” isn’t just confinement, it’s a slow erosion of self. What stood out for me most was the line about living a thousand internal deaths – it really captures the unimaginable toll. Thank you for sharing something so raw, urgent, and important.Reply
AnnAugust 6, 2025 at 8:48 amAfter the horrific, senseless slaughter of 4 Beautiful young University of Idaho students on November 13, 2022
lookatthisdamncommentApril 17, 2015 at 12:23 amImagine you’re 18. You’re a kid, but think you’re a man. Nobody can tell you nothing. You’re a big boy.
Robinanna neibauerJune 19, 2015 at 7:17 amImagine that you did something to help an ally, it’s illegal but you did it, while everybody else who did this gets 2-16 years, you get life without parole, and you agreed to a plea bargain, they break it, your lawyer didn’t tell you that you had a right to appeal, so you have been disproportionately sentenced for 30 years, Pollard should of been out of jail for 26 years by now!
