ABSTRACT
In its intentions, 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 gentleman who carry out its 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, inficts 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 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 the right to infict upon his fellow creatures. (Dickens 1842: 146-147)
The use of solitary confnement predates the birth of the modern prison in the early nineteenth century, and has been a constant and universal feature of the prison, on both sides of the Atlantic, with periodic ‘waves’ of accelerated use ever since. While the use of solitary confnement has been constant, however, the roles it was expected to play, and the discourses on these roles, changed substantially throughout the history of its use. In the early to mid-nineteenth century, solitary confnement was the main form of imprisonment for entire prison populations, aimed at reforming convicts into law abiding citizens. By the late nineteenth century this aim was deserted, as was the practice of keeping entire prison populations in solitary confnement.
