CUNY School of Law Professor Deborah Zalesne has co-authored a groundbreaking new book that confronts one of the most entrenched practices in the U.S. criminal legal system. Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement (Pluto Press, Sept. 20) blends lived experience, scholarship, and advocacy to dismantle the moral, legal, and medical justifications for solitary confinement — a practice increasingly recognized as torture.
Written in collaboration with Christopher Blackwell, a journalist and advocate who has been incarcerated for more than two decades; Dr. Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist and longtime activist whose career includes serving as a physician for the Black Panthers and testifying as an expert witness in major solitary confinement cases; and Kwaneta Harris, a writer and activist currently incarcerated in Texas, the book is both indictment and call to action. The Guardian described it as “a vital, systematic dismantling of every possible argument one could use to justify solitary confinement.”
Building Collaboration Across Walls
Zalesne first connected with co-author Christopher Blackwell through The Writing Narrative Lab, a program that helps aspiring incarcerated writers get published. “I began volunteering and immediately met Chris,” she recalled, “who was working to establish a writing mentorship program inside his prison. Any time someone incarcerated wants to do something, they need support from the outside. The communication, logistics, planning, support—all of that is impossible when you are incarcerated. So we ended up starting it together, with about ten men at Chris’s prison who are writers. Then we added writers at a women’s prison, among them Kwaneta Harris, who spent eight consecutive years in solitary confinement. That essentially doubled the size of the program.”
That network became the foundation for collaboration. Blackwell had taken detailed notes about what he experienced and observed during his time in solitary and found an interested publisher — but was encouraged to bring in a co-author to help shape the research and structure. What began as a memoir soon became something larger: a book that wove legal analysis, statistics, and human rights arguments into the lived realities of solitary confinement.
Humanizing the Inhumane
For Zalesne, the central goal was always to let people inside the experience. “Even for people who do social justice work, there isn’t always a deep understanding of what happens inside prisons,” she explained. “For so long, we didn’t have direct access to the voices. Some of the most shocking things are who can get sent to solitary confinement and why. Harris was sent to solitary indefinitely for having a high-profile case — supposedly for her own protection. She was there eight consecutive years. People can be sent into solitary for any reason, including small infractions. People in our writing program have been sent to solitary in retaliation for their writing.”
Those stories anchor the book and its companion photography exhibit, Window into Solitary, published in a special issue of Zeke Magazine. The project juxtaposes portraits of formerly incarcerated people shot at Eastern State Penitentiary and Alcatraz, both now museums, with first-person accounts of what it means to live in enforced isolation today.
Turning Scholarship into Advocacy
The book launch, held September 4 in Berkeley, California, kicked off with a celebratory event that saw advance copies fly from the shelves and included a special message from Angela Davis, who addressed the crowd in a five-minute recording calling the room’s attention to the urgency of the book’s work: “I want to recognize that this important volume is the result of a collaboration of anti-prison activists both inside and outside. […] This is an important moment to renew the fight against isolation given the current intensification of social and economic conditions that glorify the rich and further demonize the poor. It is more apparent today than ever that carceral approaches dominate our social institutions from public schooling to ICE. This is precisely the gameplan for fascism, and of course it is also all about race; fascism thrives on racism.”
The book’s release coincided with the launch of the “Journey to Justice” national bus tour, led by the nonprofits Unlock the Box and Look2Justice, both national outfits for advocacy against solitary confinement. “The bus tour is so cool. Chris and I worked closely with both nonprofits. They bought an old school bus, painted it these psychedelic colors, and converted it into a museum… there is a true-to-life sized solitary confinement unit inside the bus,” says Zalesne. “We’ve been working with them to develop panel discussions, open mic nights, art experiences… all kinds of different events.”
Now well underway, the Journey to Justice tour is outlined on a dedicated website which lists nearly 20 stops across the country, described as a blend of “traditional advocacy with creative ‘artivism’ experiences to make activism accessible and deeply human.”
Readers can learn more about these campaigns and find ways to get involved at https://journeytojusticetour.com/about/.
The Role of Law Schools
For Zalesne, the project underscores what it means for CUNY Law to train public-interest lawyers. “Law schools have a critical role to play,” she said. “Our students can contribute to research, advocacy, and the development of resources that incarcerated people need. Ending solitary confinement requires legal knowledge, but also creativity, collaboration, and education. That is the holistic model of lawyering CUNY Law has always advanced.”
One example of such creativity can be found in the work of CUNY Law student Liz Stone, who took Contracts with Zalesne last year. Zalesne connected Stone with Harris to develop a newsletter aimed at young women in solitary confinement who enter prison during adolescence and grow up looking for information and answers that many take for granted. Often without formal education or exposure to guidance on navigating adulthood, family life, and employment, many incarcerated women are looking for resources and mentorship. Harris, a former nurse known as “Mama Detroit” in prison, is a mentor and confidant to many of these young women. They ask Harris questions, ranging from legal questions, to questions about finding their kids, to basic questions about life. Harris sends the questions to Stone and other CUNY students who write out answers, print copies, and then mail them to the prison so that Harris can distribute them.
At a time when solitary confinement is facing renewed scrutiny in state legislatures and courts, Ending Isolation brings together testimony, scholarship, and advocacy to make the need for abolition undeniable. For Zalesne, the project reflects both her scholarship and her commitment to law in the service of human needs.
The book will be released September 20 and is available for preorder now.