SOLITARY CONFINEMENT: TOUGH JUSTICE

In America today, as many as 80,000 convicts are serving their time in solitary confinement but is it a necessary last resort, or an unacceptable and outdated form of psychological torture? In a groundbreaking attempt to find out, the Colorado Department of Correction is conducting a year-long study of the inmates at Colorado State Penitentiary - all 756 of whom spend 23 hours a day completely alone.

This thought-provoking and harrowing show introduces you to some of CSP's longest-serving inmates, many of whom have been diagnosed with serious mental illness. The big question is whether their conditions have been exacerbated, or even caused, by the immense strain of being shut off from human contact for years at a time. Indeed, historical evidence suggests that inmates kept in these conditions are more likely to go mad than reform, an assertion backed up by modern science. Studies...