Catholics Raise Voices Against Solitary Confinement

We Are One Body: Catholics Raise Voices Against Solitary Confinement

by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

The title of this piece is the title of a cover story in the latest issue of America: The National Catholic Review, written by Solitary Watch Reporter/Researcher Katie Rose Quandt. An excerpt follows; you can read the full piece on the America website.

Brian Nelson spent 12 years of his life staring at four concrete walls. “Day after day, all I saw was gray walls,” he writes of his time in solitary confinement at Tamms Correctional Center in Illinois, “and over time my world became the gray box.” While in solitary, Nelson lost 41 pounds, developed severe psychological problems and prayed for death to end his suffering.

Nelson, who was convicted of robbery and murder at the age of 17, understands that crimes bring consequences. But solitary confinement, he says, is more than punishment—it is torture. It is designed to deny human fellowship and strip away human dignity. A devout Catholic, Nelson describes solitary confinement as “just plain cruel and completely against the Catholic Church.” He explains: “In solitary, you have no creation. You have some air, some water and maybe a bug or two. That’s it.”

Prisoners in solitary confinement spend 22 to 24 hours a day in an 8-foot by 10-foot cell in conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation. Some, like Nelson, languish in these tomb-like cells for years or even decades. And in the United States, the practice is far from rare. Although solitary confinement is often thought of as a last resort for the most dangerous criminals, in fact 80,000 prisoners are held in isolation in state and federal prisons across the country on any given day. Many are placed in solitary confinement for nonviolent infractions like possession of contraband or failure to obey an order promptly.

During his years in isolation, Nelson suffered extreme insomnia, was unable to eat, developed blood blisters from his uncontrollable pacing and grew so depressed that at times he lost the will to live. “Every day…I got down on my knees and prayed that I would die in my sleep,” he writes, “yet God’s will was not mine.”

Nelson did what he could to keep sane. “I fought hard with my own mind, and I prayed,” he says. He copied the entire Bible by hand, read hundreds of books on Catholicism and followed the Trappist tradition of praying seven times a day. But it was a struggle to maintain his religious practice amid the isolation. “As Catholics, we should participate in the communion of saints with each other. We are not supposed to be alone.”

Nelson also faced frequent denials of his religious rights. He was unable to attend Mass and was often denied the chance to receive Communion. He was harassed and placed on suicide watch for fasting or abstaining from meat and sometimes was even denied his Bible, prayer book and rosary. “I did confession at my cell front,” he says. “An officer could hear it. There was a speaker in my cell. They wouldn’t give me privacy. But my soul is more important.”

The past decade has witnessed an increase in resistance to solitary confinement by human rights and civil liberties groups, mental health advocates, concerned citizens and people of faith, including Catholics.

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Jean Casella and James Ridgeway