A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union, ​“A Death Before Dying: Solitary Confinement on Death Row,” con­tains a sur­vey of the con­di­tions on death rows across the coun­try and offers a com­pre­hen­sive review of the seri­ous impli­ca­tions of sub­ject­ing inmates to soli­tary con­fine­ment. The report reveals that most death row pris­on­ers are housed in tiny cells, rang­ing from 36 – 100 square feet, rough­ly the size of an aver­age bath­room; 93% of states lock up their death row pris­on­ers for 22 or more hours a day. The report is accom­pa­nied by a video fea­tur­ing Anthony Graves, who spent sev­er­al years in soli­tary con­fine­ment on Texas’s death row before he was exon­er­at­ed and released in 2010. Graves described soli­tary con­fine­ment as ​“like liv­ing in a dark hole.” He wrote, ​“I saw the peo­ple liv­ing on death row fall apart. One guy suf­fered some of his last days smear­ing feces, lying naked in the recre­ation yard, and uri­nat­ing on him­self. I saw guys who dropped their appeals and elect­ed to die because of the intol­er­a­ble con­di­tions. To sum it up, I saw a bunch of dead men walk­ing because of the con­di­tions that killed every­thing inside of them.”

“A Death Before Dying: Solitary Confinement on Death Row,” ACLU, released July 22, 2013). See Death Row. Read more Studies on the death penalty.

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