How Solitary Confinement Became Hardwired In U.S. Prisons [NPR.org]

First in a three-part report on solitary confinement use in U.S. prisons.

In the yard at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, gray-haired men make their way up to a small stage. A towering stone prison wall rises overhead. One by one they sit at a scratchy microphone and tell their stories — of being locked up 23 hours a day in a place that just about broke them.

"This place here really did something to me psychologically," says former inmate Anthony Goodman.

Eastern State is the prison where solitary confinement was pioneered in the U.S. It's a museum now, but the reunion here is a chance for former inmates to talk about what it meant to do time here.

"Because this place would make you go insane if you didn't know how to handle it," Goodman says.

Fred Kellner was a psychiatrist charged with looking after inmates' mental health. He says he knew conditions at Eastern State were hurting people, but he felt powerless.

[For more of this story, written by Brian Mann, go to http://www.npr.org/2015/08/23/...wired-in-u-s-prisons]