Solitary confinement

Part A -   Please read the article so as to get the main ideas

Tony Medina is polite man with heavily tattooed arms. Like all those confined at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, he is dressed in white. The prison’s grey buildings hold 214 death-row convicts.

He was convicted in 1996, aged 21, for a drive-by shooting that killed two children at a new-year party. Since then, for 23 years, he has been awaiting execution. In Texas the death penalty is applied to those found guilty of a heinous crime who are also judged to be a threat to others.

At first he shared a cell. Then, after other prisoners tried an escape in 1998, all death-row inmates were shifted to solitary. He complains that this is agony. “I wasn’t sentenced to solitary confinement. I was sentenced to death.” Every day since, for 19 years, he has been alone for 23 hours inside a concrete box measuring 7 feet by 11 feet. Guards pass trays of food through a slat in a door.

In his cell he reads (at the moment a series about survivalists), writes or sometimes paints. Relations and volunteers, mostly European women, visit and send messages. Inmates shout to each other, cell-to-cell. But Texas, unlike some states, denies solitary prisoners any physical contact, other than frequent body inspections by guards. He says he last touched a relative, hugging his mother, on August 1st 1996.

Other states with the death penalty, and federal prisons, have less strict conditions. In many, young inmates and those with mental-health problems are no longer isolated for long.

Mr Medina believes Texas goes on isolating its death-row prisoners out of vindictiveness, not because of security. He calls the practice outright “torture”, “cruel and inhumane”, a means of “intimidation to break a person mentally” before his execution. On average a death-row prisoner in Texas waits nearly 11 years before being put to death; the longest wait was 31 years.

Many inmates suffer mental deterioration, and some turn to suicide, says Mr Medina. Prisoners grow anxious from isolation and sensory deprivation and obsessed by what they see as official malevolence.

His response echoes the words of Albert Woodfox, a prisoner kept in solitary confinement in Louisiana for 40 years who was released in 2016, aged 69, after eventually proving he had been wrongfully convicted. Mr Woodfox recently published a book, “Solitary”, in which he writes that “the fight for sanity never goes away” and says he “shut my emotional system down” to cope with being locked away alone.

At issue is not whether to punish the guilty. It is whether America should treat even its worst offenders like this.

Part B -   Join the two sentences using linkers

1. Tony Medina has never liked white clothes. He must wear them in prison
2. He was convicted in 1996, aged 21. He had killed two children at a new-year party.  
3. At first he shared a cell. Then, after other prisoners tried an escape in 1998, all death-row inmates were shifted to solitary.
4. Texas denies solitary prisoners any physical contact. There are frequent body inspections by guards.
5. Albert Woodfox, a prisoner kept in solitary confinement in Louisiana for 40 years, was released in 2016, aged 69. He eventually proved he had been wrongfully convicted.

Part C -   Ask questions so as to get the underlined answers  

1. The prison’s grey buildings hold 214 death-row convicts.
2. Medina was convicted in 1996, aged 21, for a drive-by shooting that killed two children at a new-year party.
3. Since then, for 23 years, he has been awaiting execution
4. At first he shared a cell. Then, after other prisoners tried an escape in 1998, all death-row inmates were shifted to solitary.
5. For 19 years, he has been alone for 23 hours inside a concrete box measuring 7 feet by 11 feet. 
6. In his cell he reads, writes or sometimes paints.
7. Texas, unlike some states, denies solitary prisoners any physical contact, other than frequent body inspections by guards. 
8. Other states with the death penalty, and federal prisons, have less strict conditions. In many, young inmates and those with mental-health problems are no longer isolated for long.
9. Medina calls the practice outright “torture”, “cruel and inhumane”, a means of “intimidation to break a person mentally” before his execution.
10. On average a death-row prisoner in Texas waits nearly 11 years before being put to death. 
11. The longest wait was 31 years. 
12. Prisoners grow anxious from isolation and sensory deprivation.

From The Economist (edited)