Date: 9/6/2019 6:50:30 AM

"WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES"
By Ronald W. Clark Jr.
When you're in lockdown, solitary confinement 24 hours a day five and six days a week. Your held captive trapped in a 9 by 7....... 63 square foot cage, and a lot of that square footage is occupied by a sink, toilet, two footlockers a table, TV stand and a bunk. So you've got approximately 25 square foot, of clean floor space to walk and move around in. If anyone believes this is easy, humane and not physically and psychologically damaging to the human structure, then you've got a problem! See this cage is different for every individual. For we are all dealing with different memories. And we all handle tragedy and PTSD, (for which most of us had before this cage started tearing us apart) differently. For instance I've been living with flashbacks of a car wreck, head on collision that took place in late August 1987 for which two people were killed. This cage, did nothing more than let me relive that incident over and over again. Because being stuck in confinement, gives you nothing to do, other than relive the past. That's just one of my many nightmares that I've relived every day of my life! Don't judge a man before you walk a mile in his shoes. That is a true phrase! All of the men and women in this country who are experiencing the loneliness, dread doom and sickness of solitary confinement, are all dealing with it in different ways. Some of us do better than others. Some break down mentally within months and take their own lives to get away from this living hell! Others slip into insanity and lose touch with reality. What I do here, trying to bring change for me and my fellow prisoners, is what helps me get away from the demons who haunt my daily thoughts. Yes this living hell that I, and many other unfortunate souls exist in, is unequivocally psychologically devastating to us!! Scientific studies have unequivocally proven this!! This stinking cage is so harmful people lose their minds, and take their own lives to get away from it. You've got men on death row who want the state to kill them, in what is little more than state assisted suicide as a result of this cage of horror, for which is causing further mental damage, as each passing day turns into a weeks, which turns into months, and into a years!! This cage is beyond your comprehension!! For unless you walk in... and that big steal door slams shut behind you, and your left sitting in here with your thoughts all day, "EVERYDAY" then you can't possibly understand what I'm telling you!! I can try until I'm blue in the face to explain this, and make you understand, but it's futile. You can't.... under any circumstances full grasp the hell that we live in!! And this cage is a living hell!!! A nightmare gone bad!!! I loath this cage with every fiber of my being!!! And the only ones, that will say otherwise....is those who have lost touch with reality and is slipping away into insanity! Go look and research the psychological studies that supports this. See case law WILLIAMS VS. SECRETARY PENNSYLVANIA DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS 848F.3d 549 2017 U.S. App LEXIS 2327 Which states. "A comprehensive meta-analysis of the existing literature on solitary confinement within and beyond the criminal justice setting found that the empirical record compels an UNMISTAKABLE CONCLUSION: This experience is psychologically painful, can be traumatic and harmful, and puts many of those who have been subject to it at great risk of long term ....damage. Specifically, based on an examination of representative sample of sensory deprivation studies, the researchers found that virtually everyone exposed to such conditions is affected in some way. They further explained that there is not a single study of solitary confinement wherein non-voluntary confinement that lasted for longer than 10 days failed to result in negative psychological effects. And as another researcher elaborated, All [ individuals subjected to solitary confinement) will... experience a degree of stupor, difficulties with thinking and concentrating, obsessional thinking, agitation, irritability and difficulty tolerating external stimuli. Anxiety and panic are common side effects. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia, claustrophobia, and suicidal ideations are also frequent results. Additional studies in the aforementioned meta-analysis further" underscored the importance of social contact for the creation and maintenance of self". In other words, in absence of interaction with others, an individual's very identity is at risk of disintegration.." IN QUOTE
Again these studies prove the hellish daily existence that I and others are trying to survive in. And I emphasize, "You "can't possibly understand and grasp what I'm trying to say, unless you've been put into this type of scientific study. And believe me, it's not a study for which you truly want to experience.
So as courts and Doctors have come to acknowledge this cage.... is no joking matter!! So don't attempt to judge how anyone... who's in these cages of horror trying to cope the best they can with what they have. I wish you peace and happiness, and I ask for mercy for all the men and women who are mentally falling apart day by day with this evil vindictive experiment called solitary confinement. God bless you and may you scream for change as I will do with my dying breath.
Sincerely Ronald W. Clark Jr. #812974
September 6, 2019