Lesson 5: In the Hole

Solitary Confinement

• Let me introduce you to “The Hole”—the place prison guards put you if you break the rules or don’t follow their orders. The Hole is in the bowels of a prison. It is also known as “The Dungeon,” “punishment cell,” or simply “solitary confinement.”

• Whatever you call it, The Hole is hell.

• The Harvard Law Review journal has described The Hole as a “brutal method of confinement that inflicts severe suffering on prisoners.” The publication also stated that inmates confined in The Hole “have endured symptoms ranging from “hallucinations . . . self-mutilation” and suicide. “Walking past these inmates, one can observe babbling, shrieking, and the banging of prisoners’ bodies against the walls of their cells.  There is no dispute that this method of confinement has a terrible effect on prisoners’ well-being . . .”

• Young people, the Harvard Law Review article provides a good description of The Hole, but it’s one thing to talk about a situation and another thing to experience it. “Walking by” men locked in cages, and then going back to the office to describe what was seen is nothing compared to being one of the men locked inside those cages with nowhere to go.

• As one of those men who were locked inside The Hole for many years, let me break down what the Harvard legal scholars are trying to say:

• Inside The Hole in the prison where I was incarcerated there are a bunch of cells, one inmate per cell. If you get put into The Hole, you will stay in your cell 23 hours a day. You will get only one hour to leave your cell to take a short walk in the hallway in front of it.

• I spent many years in The Hole, because I was a defiant prisoner who refused to work in the deadly hot sun. I refused to be submissive.

• I want you to do an experiment so you can better understand what The Hole is all about. Go inside a small, dark closet. Close the door and stay in there for two hours or more. Imagine yourself staying in that small dark space for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years or more!

• Some prisoners survive The Hole, like I did. But a prisoner who is mentally weak will allow his lower nature to take control and he will unwillingly turn into an animal or a monster. In other words, he will lose his mind.

• He might eat his feces, cut his wrists, bang his head against a wall, cut off his private parts and toss his urine and poop on guards.

• Some inmates hang themselves inside The Hole.

• Any prisoner can be placed in The Hole for one reason or another. It's a part of prison that he or she must go through, eventually. The bottom line is that it’s just another ugly consequence of making dumb decisions.

  A Hellish Experience in The Hole

• Let me tell you what happened to me one night while I was in The Hole.

• It was the middle of the night, about 3 a.m., so I and most of the other prisoners were asleep. Out of nowhere, a guy started screaming at the top of his lungs and wildly shaking the bars of his cell.

• Everybody started waking up and all we could hear was “AAAHHH AAAAHHH AHHHHHHHH! HELP ME!”

• The guards ran to the screaming man’s cell to find him all cut up. His face, arms, and throat were sliced, and he was bleeding like a faucet. He kept saying, “Get them off of me! Get them off of me!” But he was in the cell all by himself.

• As the guards dragged him past my cell, I was able to get a good look at him. He looked like “Freddy Krueger” had attacked him. His face was split wide open, and a flap of his flesh was hanging from his jaw. As I stared at the long trail of blood that poured out of him, I wondered how he could do that to himself. How could he believe that invisible menaces had stabbed him when he was actually the menace who did it?

• Somehow, that inmate survived his injuries, but just three days later, another guy in The Hole hanged himself with his sheet and died. This happened shortly after the prison chaplain told him that he received word that his mother only had a short time left to live.  Before he killed himself, he shouted that he wanted to die before his mom, so he could show her around heaven when she joined him there.

• There’s more: Another guy in The Hole managed to get a hammer and kill a guard on Christmas Day. Other guards shot him in his head. Before committing the murder, he stated that his New Year's resolution was to get free or die trying.

• So, you see, being locked inside a cage can make a human being do strange things. And some of those strange behaviors will stay with him forever. When some inmates finish their sentences and go back to the free world, they might behave as if they are still locked up. They may not be able to function normally.

• For instance, they may continue old prison habits, like eating meals extremely fast, asking permission to use the bathroom, washing clothes in the toilet, waking up at 5 a.m. every morning—even on weekends—and needing someone to tell them what to do. They might be fearful and think that everyone is trying to harm them. Though free, their traumatic prison experiences may make them act like they’re still incarcerated.

• It's a shame, but it happens.

• It is easy to enter prison, but it's hard to leave with your sanity. For, as I stated earlier, in prison the normal is abnormal, and the abnormal is normal.

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