Beyond The WallsThe Hole ← The film

Solitary confinement

The Hole

Dom spent forty days in a concrete box about six feet by nine. This is what that box is, who else is in one, and who is trying to close them.

On any given day more than 122,000 people are held in solitary in US prisons and jails, most for reasons that have nothing to do with violence. The film puts you inside the cell. This page tells you the rest.

Painted illustration of a young man alone in a small solitary cell, hunched on the bunk with his head in his hands
Beyond The Walls — the hole, as Dom knew it

Drawn to scale

Six feet by nine

This is a real Special Housing Unit cell, built from a first-hand account. Two or three steps carry you from the door to the window. A metal bunk bolted to the wall, a stainless toilet and sink in one unit, a steel door with a slot for a face and a hatch for a tray, a window you can’t see out of, and a caged light that never turns off.

Golden wireframe of a solitary cell drawn to scale, about six feet by nine by eight feet, labelling the steel door with its 24-by-6-inch observation slot and food port, the metal bunk bolted to the wall, the stainless toilet-and-sink unit, the barred and meshed window, the caged light and the two vents, with a person for scale

An interactive experience

Step inside the hole

We rebuilt Dom’s cell to scale — the real six-by-nine, the light that never turns off, the sounds of the block. Move through it yourself.

Enter the cell Best with headphones · sound is part of it

Real voices

People who lived it

“I did not lose my humanity. I bear the scars of loneliness, isolation and persecution. I am also marked by every kindness.”

Albert WoodfoxHeld in solitary at Angola for 43 years. Died 2022.

From his memoir, Solitary →

“Solitary confinement does one thing. It breaks a man’s will to live, and he ends up deteriorating.”

Anthony GravesDeath-row exoneree. Testified to the US Senate, 2012.

His Senate testimony →

“I became invisible even to myself.”

Five Mualimm-akHeld 2,054 days in New York solitary, mostly for non-violent infractions.

His essay, “Invisible” →

“For 18 years I didn’t have a window in my room to distract myself from the intensity of my confinement.”

Ian ManuelSent to adult prison at 13. Spent 18 years in solitary.

His story, on NPR →

The evidence

What the experts found

Dr. Craig Haney
Social psychologist, UC Santa Cruz. Assessed people at Pelican Bay’s SHU.
Of the people he interviewed, 70% felt themselves on the verge of an emotional breakdown, plagued by anxiety and chronic lethargy. He calls solitary “a tried-and-true torture device.” PBS Frontline →
Dr. Stuart Grassian
Psychiatrist, formerly Harvard Medical School.
From his interviews he identified “SHU syndrome” — a distinct, clinically recognisable psychiatric illness caused by isolation itself. His paper →
Dr. Terry Kupers
Clinical psychiatrist, The Wright Institute. Author of Solitary.
In testimony: about half of all prison suicides happen among the small share of people held in isolation. His testimony →
Dr. Brie Williams
Professor of Medicine, UCSF. Director of Amend.
Her study found solitary damages the body too: high blood pressure in 47.5% of people held there, against 16.5% in less isolating conditions. The study →
Kaba, Venters et al.
Study of self-harm across New York City jails.
People who spent any time in solitary were just 7.3% of admissions, but accounted for 45% of the acts of potentially fatal self-harm. The study →

The people fighting it

Organisations working to end solitary

Solitary Watch ↗

The watchdog newsroom that investigates and counts solitary across US prisons and jails. The best source for the numbers.

solitarywatch.org

Unlock the Box ↗

The national campaign to end solitary within a decade, backing survivor- and faith-led groups across the states.

unlocktheboxcampaign.org

ACLU National Prison Project ↗

Runs the Stop Solitary campaign, litigating and legislating against isolation nationwide since 1972.

aclu.org

Vera Institute of Justice ↗

Research and reform. Its Restoring Promise units replace isolation with dignity — and cut solitary stays sharply.

vera.org

Center for Constitutional Rights ↗

Lead counsel in Ashker v. California, whose settlement ended indefinite long-term solitary at Pelican Bay.

ccrjustice.org

NY Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement ↗

The survivor- and family-led coalition (#HALTsolitary) that won New York’s HALT Act, capping solitary at 15 days.

nycaic.org

Incarcerated Nation Network ↗

Formerly-incarcerated-led campaigns to end solitary torture, founded by survivors of it.

incarceratednationnetwork.com

National Religious Campaign Against Torture ↗

A multi-faith coalition treating solitary as a moral wrong, led on prisons by a survivor of it.

nrcat.org

The Marshall Project ↗

The Pulitzer-winning criminal-justice newsroom whose reporting keeps solitary in the light.

themarshallproject.org

Amnesty International USA ↗

Frames prolonged US solitary as a breach of international law and a form of torture.

amnesty.org

Where it stands

What’s being done

The world agrees on the line. The United States has not yet caught up to it.

The world’s standard

The UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules cap solitary at 15 consecutive days and call anything beyond it torture. Routine US practice runs far past that.

The courts

No Supreme Court ruling bans solitary. In 2023 three Justices publicly dissented when the Court refused to hear a case — the clearest sign yet that some want to act.

The states

Since 2020, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Colorado have passed limits, and about 45 states have introduced bills. Enforcement is the fight.

The backlash

New York’s HALT Act is under attack: guards struck for three weeks in 2025 and the rollback battle is live right now.

The federal picture

The Bureau of Prisons still holds thousands in isolation. The federal End Solitary Confinement Act exists, but is stalled in committee.

The new front

Solitary is surging in immigration detention: ICE placed at least 10,588 people in it between April 2024 and May 2025.

The real thing

Inside real cells

A real cell at the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary
A cell at the former Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, whose isolation block was known as “the hole.”Photo: Sarah Stierch, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
The exterior of ADX Florence, the federal supermax prison in Colorado
ADX Florence, the federal supermax in Colorado, where many are held in near-total isolation.Photo: Federal Bureau of Prisons, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Photography inside working solitary units is almost always banned. These journalists and archives have documented what it really looks like:

Inside Pelican Bay — Solitary Watch Echoes of Isolation — The Marshall Project Solitary Nation — PBS Frontline Architecture of Authority — Richard Ross