Artwork by Billy Dee

In 1842, Charles Dickens toured the United States. He subsequently cataloged his experiences in American Notes for General Circulation.

During his trip, he visited Eastern State Penitentiary which was located in Philadelphia. He wrote about his day-long visit and one of his most famous passages focused on the effects of solitary confinement at the prison:

The system here, is rigid, strict, and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and wrong. In its intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised this system of Prison Discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are doing. I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature. I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.

In just a few words, Dickens sums up what I cannot imagine anyone being able to convey any better. Let these words roll off your tongue: “a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.” Imprint the image in your brain. Sear the concept in your heart. I wanted to share this passage because it is instructive to the current debates that we are having about whether solitary confinement is a form of torture. Dickens’s eloquent words provide support for the view that there is no question that it is.