The Living Death of Solitary Confinement

I published this article on solitary confinement in The Stone blog at the New York Times.  An earlier version of the article was rejected by the Times so, like a good recycler, I posted it here.  The two versions are completely different; the first is about slavery, racism, and the politics of social death, and the second is about the lived experience of solitary confinement as a form of living death.  One passed, the other didn't.  I would like them to be read together.