Society / Q&A / “We Shouldn’t Torture People”: The Case Against Solitary Confinement A conversation with incarcerated journalist Christopher Blackwell about his new book Ending Isolation. It combines an overview of the history of solitary confinement with a devastating series of testimonies from incarcerated people about the harm that solitary has caused them. Why did you think it was particularly important or useful to focus on solitary confinement? Can you talk about just how deeply discredited solitary confinement is as a tactic? Two hundred years ago, the [people who first put solitary confinement into practice] realized that this was actually driving people mad.