Solitary

Can a government lock someone in a bathroom for 10 years? The United States can. That’s exactly what happens at Red Onion State Prison, a supermax penitentiary in Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains, where convicts spend 23 hours a day in isolation cells measuring 2.5 by 3 meters. For a year, Kristi Jacobson got the rare opportunity to film there. In this place, the hands and feet of prisoners are shackled whenever they leave their cells to get some fresh air in steel cages. Not all of them are murderers – there are also less violent felons among the detainees. A doctor has the task of monitoring the mental health of the prisoners who feel lonely, depressed and “buried alive.” Guards speak about their permanently high stress levels and how difficult it is to relax in their free time. The failure of the inhumane American detention system has never been presented in such a shocking manner.