Let's flash back about, oh, 20 years.
I was new to the Texas Panhandle, seeking to learn the ropes about the community where I had just moved. I got a call one day from the then-assistant warden of the William P. Clements Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The prison official, Rick Hudson, invited me to tour the maximum-security lockup in northeast Amarillo. I accepted and spent most of a single day walking through the prison unit.
Of all the sights I saw and sounds I heard, the one feature of my tour that gave me the creeps occurred in the "administrative segregation" wing of the massive prison complex. I was invited to step into a cell. I did. Then the door closed behind me.
It took me all of about 30 seconds to ask my hosts to let me out. I couldn't stand being in that room. …show more content…
You get one hour -- that's it -- outside those walls. You get to participate in exercise yard activities and talk -- maybe -- to fellow prisoners.
"Frontline," the award-winning PBS documentary series, takes a probing look at solitary confinement in a rebroadcast of an April special that aired on Panhandle PBS.
Cove Video Player - "Solitary Nation" -
I was new to the Texas Panhandle, seeking to learn the ropes about the community where I had just moved. I got a call one day from the then-assistant warden of the William P. Clements Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The prison official, Rick Hudson, invited me to tour the maximum-security lockup in northeast Amarillo. I accepted and spent most of a single day walking through the prison unit.
Of all the sights I saw and sounds I heard, the one feature of my tour that gave me the creeps occurred in the "administrative segregation" wing of the massive prison complex. I was invited to step into a cell. I did. Then the door closed behind me.
It took me all of about 30 seconds to ask my hosts to let me out. I couldn't stand being in that room. …show more content…
You get one hour -- that's it -- outside those walls. You get to participate in exercise yard activities and talk -- maybe -- to fellow prisoners.
"Frontline," the award-winning PBS documentary series, takes a probing look at solitary confinement in a rebroadcast of an April special that aired on Panhandle PBS.
Cove Video Player - "Solitary Nation" -