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A devastating case against the inhumane practice of solitary confinement.

The injustice and cruelty of the US carceral system find their barbaric apogee in the practice of solitary confinement. Once deemed a form of torture by the US Supreme Court, “the hole” is still wrongly used as a solution to prison overcrowding and violence. But locking someone in a cell the size of a parking space for months or years causes profound psychological harm. For Christopher Blackwell, it was a harrowing ordeal that changed his life forever. Ending Isolation weaves Chris’s vivid account with other stories from solitary confinement, alongside insights from legal and medical experts. Through these narratives and undeniable research, the book makes a powerful case for abolishing this cruel and unusual punishment.

Deborah Zalesne is a tenured professor of law at the City University of New York School of Law. She has published extensively in the areas of criminal justice, race and gender justice, legal pedagogy, and issues relating to the use of contracts to empower disenfranchised communities. She has authored or co-authored three books and more than fifty scholarly articles, published in journals such as the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, the Columbia Journal of Race and the Law, and the Harvard Women’s Law Review. Her work has been cited as legal authority hundreds of times in law journals, books, and state and federal court opinions.

Deborah’s current scholarship focuses on the harms of solitary confinement. In 2025, she co-wrote Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement with incarcerated journalist Christopher Blackwell (Pluto Press). She is currently co-writing a book called “Finding Oneself in Solitary,” that provides mindfulness training and practices for people in solitary confinement, and co-editing a book entitled “Dear Teenage Me: Voices from Beyond the Barbed Wire,” that includes essays by incarcerated people in the form of letters to their younger selves. Deborah co-founded and runs a Writers Development Program that pairs aspiring incarcerated writers with inside and outside volunteer mentors who support their writing and help pitch it to media outlets.

Christopher William Blackwell is an award-winning journalist currently serving a 45-year prison sentence in Washington State for taking a human life during a drug robbery. He has been incarcerated since 2003 and was incarcerated for the first time at the age of 12. While incarcerated, Chris earned a college degree in political and social sciences, created multiple mentor programs, and became a facilitator for restorative justice circles. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of Look2Justice, a grassroots organization of system-impacted organizers and researchers who work to cultivate justice, fairness, and accountability in Washington State’s criminal legal system. With co-author Deborah Zalesne, he founded and runs a Writers Development Program that uplifts the voices of incarcerated writers in the mainstream media.

Chris co-wrote Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement, published with Pluto Press in 2025. He has published well over 100 essays and articles in outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe, including many articles about the harms of solitary confinement. He is a contributing writer with Jewish Currents and a contributing editor with The Appeal, where he writes a monthly newsletter. He was awarded the Galaxy Leader Fellowship in 2024 with his wife, Dr. Chelsea Moore, he was the Grand Prize winner of Narratively’s prestigious 2023 Memoir Contest, and he was awarded the 2024 Incarcerated Journalist of the Year award by Prison Journalism Project through their Stillwater Awards.

If you’d like to purchase this title online and still support People’s Book, follow the link below:

https://bookshop.org/a/98269/9780745351278

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