{"id":244814,"date":"2010-01-28T18:11:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T23:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:criminaljustice.change.org:\/\/ccf16bb162fd0cd2eba59b1b1f1859e9"},"modified":"2010-01-28T18:11:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T23:11:00","slug":"a-voice-from-the-hole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/244814","title":{"rendered":"A Voice from the Hole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1840\" title=\"solitary\" src=\"http:\/\/change-production.s3.amazonaws.com\/photos\/wordpress_copies\/criminaljustice\/2010\/01\/solitary.jpg\" height=\"166\" alt=\"\" width=\"249\" \/>I&#8217;ve written recently about the very welcome arrival of prisoners to the blogosphere &#8212; from Change.org contributor <a href=\"http:\/\/criminaljustice.change.org\/blog?guest_blogger_id=190\">Michael Santos<\/a> to the posts of Theodore Braden at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.teeninjail.com\/\" >Teen in Jail<\/a>, technology is giving a voice to the previously silenced millions in our jails and prisons. Now, this revolution has even reached into the deepest recesses of our prison system &#8212; solitary confinement.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to the great new blog, <a href=\"http:\/\/solitarywatch.wordpress.com\/\" >Solitary Watch<\/a>, I came across the writings of a Nevada prisoner named Coyote Sheff, who has been in Nevada prisons for more than a decade, spending much of it in disciplinary segregation. He writes blog posts, poetry and zines from a cell he inhabits 23 hours a day, and somehow <a href=\"http:\/\/coyote-calling.blogspot.com\/2010\/01\/life-is-good.html\" >manages to keep his thoughts positive<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><span lang=\"EN-GB\">I deal with the struggles of being in prison and I keep moving. I deal with the despair, I deal with the agony, the suffering, the misery, and I keep living. I deal with the depression, I deal with the destruction and I deal with the hate. I keep loving life and I keep living my life. Life is beautiful, I&#8217;m thankful to be alive. I live in a graveyard, but I&#8217;m not dead, I&#8217;m alive and well. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>We have as many as <a href=\"http:\/\/criminaljustice.change.org\/blog\/view\/life_in_the_hole\">25,000 prisoners in solitary confinement<\/a> across the United States, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/reporting\/2009\/03\/30\/090330fa_fact_gawande\" >a groundbreaking<em> New Yorker <\/em>article on the topic<\/a> last year left little doubt that in many instances, the practice of solitary confinement meets the definition of torture.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m glad to see Sheff giving voice to prisons in the hole, and I hope this year we can work together around campaigns like American Friends Service Committee&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.afsc.org\/stopmax\/\" >Stopmax campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/caitlinator\/\" >caitlinator<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve written recently about the very welcome arrival of prisoners to the blogosphere &#8212; from Change.org contributor Michael Santos to the posts of Theodore Braden at Teen in Jail, technology is giving a voice to the previously silenced millions in our jails and prisons. Now, this revolution has even reached into the deepest recesses of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}