Stories from the SHU

In 2005, MHASC published Stories from the SHU: Psychiatrically Disabled Inmates in Solitary Confinement in New York State, a collection of writings about conditions in the special housing units (the SHU) of New York State prisons. This book has now gone into its third printing.

Stories from the SHU features personal testimony, research findings, and creative writing describing the effects of solitary confinement on people suffering from mental illness. The authors include people who have been in the SHU, loved ones of prisoners who have been sent to solitary confinement, and professionals who are working to end the brutal practice of sending our most vulnerable prisoners into solitary confinement.

These compelling works force us to pay attention to the abuse of human rights that is being perpetrated in our prisons. Stories from the SHU gives voice to individuals who are all too familiar with the horrific reality of solitary confinement and the agonies suffered by ill prisoners banished to the SHU.

To download Stories from the SHU, click here.