UNDERNEWS: Alternative voices

April 24, 2016

Alternative voices

Hell Is a Very Small Place:
Voices from Solitary Confinement
Edited by Jean Casella, James Ridgeway, and Sarah Shourd

Hell Is a Very Small Place is the first-ever trade book on solitary confinement, and the only book to feature firsthand accounts of life in solitary. President Barack Obama, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Pope Francis have all criticized the widespread use of solitary confinement in prisons and jails. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan E. Méndez has denounced the use of solitary beyond fifteen days as a form of cruel and degrading treatment that often rises to the level of torture. Yet the United States holds more than eighty thousand people in isolation on any given day. Now, sixteen authors vividly describe the realities of life in solitary.

1 comment:

BeamMeUp said...: This is so shameful. Google Scandinavian Prisons. If anyone should be for our harsh prison system, I should be counted among them as I am the mother of a daughter, viciously murdered by a (sick, obviously) stranger, but I am not. I am fully behind the Scandinavian system.; April 25, 2016 at 9:52 AM

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ABOUT THE EDITOR

The Review is edited by Sam Smith, who covered Washington under nine presidents, has edited the Progressive Review and its predecessors since 1964, wrote four books, been published in five anthologies, helped to start five organizations (including the DC Humanities Council and the DC Statehood Party), was a plaintiff in three successful class action suits, served as a Coast Guard officer, and played in jazz bands for four decades.

A truly independent journalist with his feet firmly grounded in the reality of neighborhoods and everyday people. -- Patrick Mazza, Progressive Populist

A truly original voice in American journalism: humorous and plain spoken and filled with common sense -- Jay Walljasper, Utne Reader

Inimitable -- Mother Jones Magazine

Sam's a cynical cat -- Marion Barry

Sam's one of the few independent voices left. The press today is either extreme or special interest or else just establishment, an extension of the corporate spirit -- Sen. Eugene McCarthy,

One of a small group of whites with whom many blacks would trust their political lives - Chuck Stone, Washingtonian.

A reputation for wit, intelligence and anger. -- Claude Lewis, Chicago Tribune

Smith is an island of reason and information in a sea of narcissistic blather. -- City Paper, Washington

Whatever the debate, the Review's sharp critiques encourage us to look out our window, notice and act upon what we see, and also to look further -- to the rest of the country and globe -- to see how the organized big world interacts with our more spontaneous small worlds. - Utne Reader