“This is What it is Like to be Held in Solitary Confinement”

Warning: This story contains references to suicide, which some readers may find disturbing. If you or a loved one is experiencing suicidal thoughts, help and support are available. Visit Befrienders International for more information about support services. 

When I was a child, I would spend each summer with my family in the foothills of northern Pakistan's Karakoram mountains. We would spend our days exploring the verdant meadows, forests and lakes in this region known as the "roof of the world" and then return to our lodge for meals of chargha (fire-roasted chicken) and naan, hot tea, coconut biscuits, cashews and dried fruits. At night, we'd make bonfires and tell stories about our family spread all over the world. I remember how tiny I felt sitting wrapped in a woollen Kashmiri shawl on those chilly nights, sitting under skies full of stars.

Those trips always carried a sense of adventure - and freedom.

One day during one of those summer holidays when I was 12, my Aunt Naseem went for a walk and I tagged along. She was my mentor and confidant and, having never had children of her own, was like a mother to me.

That day, we headed to the Neelam River separating Pakistan-administered Kashmir from Indian-administered Kashmir. We walked along the riverbank beside the clear river. We were so close to the border that we could see the Indian army posts, their guns pointed in our direction. Arriving at a higher point, we stood in the Neelum Valley. It had rained earlier and now the air was fresh. Snow-capped peaks rose in the distance. I remember my aunt pulling me into the warmth of her shawl.

"Once here, Tariq, you never actually leave. A part of you will always stay in the north, always beckoning,” she told me.

Her words enchanted me.

"You don't believe me,” she said, her smile widening. "Shout out your name and see what happens."

I shouted - as loud as I could. Then it came: an echo that seemed to say my name over and over into the distance. "Now you see. The mountains are too high. They will never let Tariq leave," my aunt told me.

'It could only mean one thing'

Thirty-five years later, on a cold day in January 2024, a code 66 alarm rang through my cell in New Jersey State Prison (NJSP). I flinched.

I've heard that code hundreds of times during my 20 years behind bars. It went on for so long, I knew it could only mean one thing: a suicide.

Later that day, prison workers who cycle daily through my unit told me Peter, a noisy but kind 37-year-old man who suffered from mental illness had died in solitary. It wasn't the first time he'd tried. Once, I’d briefly been held next to Peter in solitary. I didn’t have any of my belongings with me. Although I was a stranger to him, he offered to lend me his slippers so I wouldn’t have to go to the communal shower in bare feet.

I started pacing in my cell, slipping back into an old habit I thought I'd finally shaken after my last stint in solitary two years earlier.

“People on the street”, as we refer to nonprisoners, seem to always want to talk about solitary confinement. What it's like. How you pass the time. What effect it has on imprisoned folks' brains. I get that they're curious, but I've always deflected questions about it.

I avoid talking about it because it’s distressing. For those of us who have experienced it, solitary is not a topic of debate - it's a trauma that never leaves.

'They just let you rot'

Before 2002, when I was still a free man, one of my favorite movies was The Shawshank Redemption. In the 1994 film, the main character, Andy (played by Tim Robbins), gets sent to "the Box" for weeks. In this fictional world, his sentence is considered extremely harsh, but in the real world, isolation has got more protracted and severe over the decades.

Since the 1970s, United States prisons and jails have increasingly relied on solitary confinement, according to the Quaker social justice organization American Friends Service Committee, with super maximum-security facilities now in more than 40 states to keep people in long-term isolation.

In 2023, a report from the rights group Solitary Watch, and the Unlock the Box campaign found that more than 122,000 imprisoned men, women and children were held daily in the US in some form of isolation.

Black prisoners are almost four times as likely to be sent to solitary than white prisoners. Studies show solitary can affect brain activity after a week and cause irreparable damage in those prone to or suffering from mental illness.

Experts and rights groups warned that prolonged solitary confinement amounts to torture. The United Nations has called on member states to ban its use beyond 15 days and for people with mental or physical disabilities.

In New Jersey, a 2019 law limited how long prisoners could be held in solitary confinement to no more than 20 consecutive days or 30 days during a 60-day period. But rights groups and watchdogs said that law is being violated, and people are being held for months or more than a year.

Prison authorities give solitary confinement names like administrative segregation (AdSeg), restrictive housing or management control units. But we call it "the Hole" because it alienates people to the point of oblivion.

Seventy-six-year-old Rafique Rose has seen the conditions in solitary worsen since he entered NJSP in 1983.

"Back then, if you had lockup time, it was something serious, but you could take all your property, get a limited food package from the outside and buy commissary," he said, referring to the store where prisoners can buy basic food items.

These days, prisoners in isolation are allowed a very limited amount of personal property while restrictions on the commissary, phone calls and visits further isolate them.

"Man, back in 1984, when I was in Riverfront State Prison, unit C-2-North, they never had crazy lockup times like they have now," said Anthony Peoples, 59, another longtime prisoner. "If you got into a fight or smoked some reefer, they gave you like 15 to 30 days, and you did like seven days with good behaviour. Now it's like a year but without your food and stuff. It ain't right."

Over the years, I have seen men sent to the Hole for trivial reasons. One time, a prisoner was on his way to medical when a sergeant told him to mop the floor. It wasn't the prisoner's job. But when he refused, he was placed in solitary.

In another instance, multiple prisoners who worked in the kitchen were told to work extra shifts without any rest or additional pay. When they refused, they were placed in isolation and later fired from their jobs.

I understand why prisoners get sent to solitary for committing violence. But I’ve also seen prisoners face prolonged isolation for mundane and nonviolent offences like smoking a cigarette, kissing their girlfriend or wife during a visit, or using a mobile phone.

And then they just let you rot. I learned that lesson at the beginning of my journey through the US prison system.

'Every day an eternity'

It was November 2002. I had been arrested for a crime I did not commit and I was reeling.

"You're going to lockup 'cause your bail is too high," a guard informed me as they led me directly to C-1-West (C-1-W) unit at the Hudson County Correctional Facility in Kearny, New Jersey.

"Five million dollars!" the guard added, whistling. "Man, who did you kill? George Bush?"

"You a terrorist or something?" his partner asked. This was my first-ever run-in with the law, and I, too, was stunned by the amount. There was no way my family could afford it.

The unit was one of two closed-custody units. The other was separated from mine by a guard bubble where officers sat and watched us.

That unit housed inmates who had requested protective custody. Mine, on the other hand, was for all the "troublemakers" - men caught fighting, using drugs or breaking the rules. I’d only just arrived and wasn't sure why I belonged there.

I was strip-searched before entering my cell. The solid metal door slammed shut. "Don't blow anything up during my shift," one of the guards crowed, laughing.

The room was tiny, a little bigger than a supply closet - and everything was metal like in a morgue: the sink with its cloudy mirror, the banged-up toilet, the rusty bed with a thin, stinking gray mattress, the table streaked with rust. I perched on the metal stool. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. I could hear muffled echoes as if a thousand bees were stuck inside the walls. Sounds like the distant clanging of doors came through the toilet and air vents. Sitting there, cut off from my family and loved ones for the first time, I sobbed.

Although the guards turned off the unit lights at night, day and night had no meaning. There was a narrow Plexiglass pane on the bedside wall, but it was covered by a metal plate. Only a sliver of light filtered through. Desperate to ground myself, I asked every guard who passed my way to tell me the time.

"Why you want to know what time it is?" they'd mock. "You ain't going nowhere."

With no television, radio or anything to read, every moment seemed like an hour and every day an eternity. It was hard to breathe, hard to focus. It was the loneliest feeling I’d ever encountered.

'Losing my mind'

After almost a month in that metal hell, I was moved to a restrictive housing unit where inmates charged with serious crimes like murder, kidnapping or armed robbery were held. The occupants mingled but were kept separate from all other units. I was beyond happy to get out of my tomb.

The relief didn't last long. In August 2003, I was thrown back into C-1-W due to an institutional infraction. I was accused of concealing a drill bit, cigarettes and a cellphone, which were found in the light fixture of my double-bunk cell.

I was initially sent there for 30 days, but then the area supervisor informed me I was going to remain in C-1-W for "some time". I was devastated. I felt like I was going to die there.

After 60 days, I was allowed window visits. In the visitor's room, I looked at my brother through a dirty Plexiglass pane and spoke to him via a mounted phone. He asked how AdSeg was. I changed the subject.

As time went by, I was allowed a few paltry freedoms - a handheld radio and plastic pouches of fish I could use to make soup (my only hot meal) to eat with the often cold, soggy jail food. Every 31 or so hours, I was let out for an hour of “recreational” time when I could use an electric heating coil to boil water for soup. I lost weight, dropping nearly 18kg (40lb).

But it wasn't just physical changes — I felt like I was losing my mind.

I developed a habit of pacing back and forth from the time I got up until I was tired enough to sleep. I only stopped for prayers, food and to use the toilet. I couldn't sit still. I even fidgeted when I wasn't walking, shifting side to side, bobbing like a penguin. I started compulsively washing my hands.

Solitary is a lonely journey during which a person loses their humanity. I equate it with being lost at sea, losing hope with every crashing swell. You feel abandoned by the law, by society. A never-ending cry reverberates through your soul.

There's always noise, even in the silence. My ears started to ring, and, at times, I would almost answer to the sounds.

I wanted to talk, wanted to be heard, wanted to be noticed. I wanted to matter. It reminds me of the film Castaway with Tom Hanks, whose character, in his isolation, comes to depend on and talk to a volleyball he names Wilson.

Before I knew it, I was muttering things, simple stuff, but inane all the same. "What are you looking at?" I would ask my reflection in the hazy mirror.

Sometimes I would just curse at my face.

I was so angry at myself for being there. I slapped my face and even tried to punch myself. I would punch the walls until my knuckles were sore, and then I would punch some more.

'Just you and the darkness'

My hair and beard grew. The jail provided us with razors for half an hour every Monday. I'd often look at those cheap, flimsy razors and think horrible things.

Many might deny it, but I believe most who have suffered solitary for prolonged periods have considered ending it all. Some lose the fight against that urge. Their deaths haunt me because they remind me of how close I came.

I remember this Dominican kid who was brought to my lockup unit when I was thrown back into C-1-W.

I was 26 at the time, and he was around 18. He was also facing a murder charge and would often break down in his cell, sobbing uncontrollably. I consoled him as best as I could. I told him to live day by day, to just get to the trial, to live to be with his family - the very hopes I held on to. A few weeks later, he was moved to another county jail.

After a month or two, a kind officer came to my cell door. "Tariq,” he said, “that kid hung himself."

Sometimes I'm ashamed to say that I understand why he did it. In solitary, hope is a fleeting thing. You need to hold onto it every single moment, or it leaves you. Then it's just you and the darkness.

'Like an animal in a cage'

In solitary, it was almost always freezing. Prisoners would wrap themselves in sheets and extra clothes and walk back and forth just to stay warm. Some days, I could see my own breath.

I suffered in silence, but some inmates would rip up their blankets, stuff them into their toilets and start flushing, flooding the unit.

One night, prisoners on the top portion of the unit started to “flood” together. Filthy water poured down from the upper floor to the lower level, flooding the cells there. My cell filled with water up to my knees. Later, as the pipes were clogged, the toilets started to flood, including mine, adding to the mess. Horrified, I jumped onto my bed, but the dirty water started to rise until it lapped at the edge of my mattress.

I yelled for the officers to help, but no one came. After some time, the water stopped rising and began to recede, but the damage was done - my cell was filthy. An hour or two later, an officer came by, and I pleaded with him to open the door.

He smiled. "It's third shift” - meaning the unit had to stay locked up - “I'm not opening any doors."

"It's nasty in here, bro. Please let me at least get the water out," I begged.

"You'll be alright," he said, then walked away.

There was faeces all over the floor. I felt like an animal in a cage.

‘Please no, not again’

My trial began in December 2004 and lasted until my conviction in April 2005. I was kept in isolation until August 2005 when I was sent to NJSP. It had been two years of solitary confinement.

At NJSP, I was immediately placed in a general population unit. I could now go to the mess hall to have three meals a day, access religious services and be put on work detail in the kitchen, laundry or other areas in the prison. I could go to the yard and gym and have regular visitors.

I learned that the only way you ended up in isolation was by getting in trouble. So I made it my business to stay clear of any.

But 17 years later, I ended up in lockup for having an unauthorised USB wire. I was sent to a “temporary” holding cell for prison-related infractions. The tiers above held prisoners doing AdSeg time. Unlike the county jail lockup, this place was loud - ear-shatteringly loud.

Some prisoners were cursing at each other. Others were cursing the cops who, in turn, were cursing and yelling at the inmates. And then there were the door bangers kicking the metal doors of their cells like donkeys. It was a zoo.

The previous occupant had evidently been disturbed. The mattress was in tatters. There was decomposing food. A dried pile of faeces sat in the stainless-steel toilet.

Still, I wasn't a fresh-faced newcomer anymore. I was now a middle-aged man with nearly 20 years of experience in one of the country’s most notorious prisons.

I mustered my strength and joined the chorus of prisoners, calling on the unit officer for some cleaning supplies and a "night bag" - soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, clothing, toilet paper, a spoon, cup, bedsheets and a blanket.

"What you want?" a young officer, overworked and disheveled, asked me.

I pointed to the faeces on the toilet. He simply shrugged and told me to use the water from the sink to clean it.

"What am I supposed to clean that with?" I asked, agitated.

"Use your hands," he said and walked away.

It took two decades of patience and self-control for me to hold onto my rising anger.

The next two days, I paced.

It was the third night when I heard the kid next door starting to flush. I knew what was coming, but I had no blankets or sheets to block the door. Dirty water started to pour into my cell. As the water level kept rising, I hopped on my metal bed and prayed that the toilet wouldn't start overflowing. "Please, no, not again," I begged.

'Slow suffocation’

I have collectively spent more than two years in isolation, including my time in the Hudson County jail and a few short stints in NJSP.

To experience isolation is the only way to truly understand what it is like - that feeling of slow suffocation.

Go sit in your bathtub. Put away your phone. No television, radio, and only some chips and tuna to eat. Sit in the silence. Could you do that for a year or longer without going crazy? And that's without the screaming and filth and verbal abuse from guards and fellow prisoners.

The trauma of my isolation while in captivity has left a lasting wound. It is a torment that I will carry forever.

But with that pain, I also carry memories of my childhood in Pakistan. When I close my eyes, I can sometimes see the mountains of my younger years, and I can briefly escape this prison.

Thinking back to my life in Pakistan, I believe that a part of me will remain there as my Aunt Naseem said. My memories of her are a source of hope, love and a sense of belonging.

Northern Pakistan captivated me as a boy. The seemingly limitless landscape imbued me with a sense of raw freedom somewhere deep within my soul.

I hope one day I can return there and find solace, and maybe then I will be able to lock this torment away and leave it behind, just echoes in the mountains.