A short documentary by filmmaker Cali Bondad and reporter Gabrielle Canon explores the horrors of being trapped in solitary confinement for long periods of time.
Many of the people who spend time in solitary do so for multiple years, like one man from the video Daniel Treglia who spent 8.5 years confined in a tiny cell for 22.5 hours a day.
Treglia and others like him don’t see the outside world during their confinement and they hardly see other people. The only change from the blank walls of their cell comes from getting let out for a brief and lonely walk in a cement yard for an hour a day.
Unlike regular prison, many of the men and women who have spent time in solitary maintain that the isolation is a violation of the Eight Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.”
There is a massive amount of research which indicates that solitary confinement does unspeakable damage to the human psyche, irreparably damaging those who prison is intended to rehabilitate.
Though the science is explained in this Vox article, the video shows you the raw emotion of those who silently suffer, away from sight in tiny gray boxes.
Watch.
Our Voices Are Rarely Heard from Sister on Vimeo.
