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TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 He knew if he talked to those in the cells next to him, there would be consequences.\nPepper spray. Removal of his possessions, except for his boxers, for at least 72 hours. Nowhere to sleep except the cold, hard concrete floor.\nThe guards didn\u2019t want to talk to him. Sometimes, another prisoner would scream and kick the cell door.\nSt. Petersburg resident Chez-Armand Blackwell spent about 12 of his nearly 15 years in Florida prisons in what the civil rights nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center defines as solitary confinement.\nThe 39-year-old said he was first placed in solitary after an argument with a guard that turned physical. After that, Blackwell said, guards continued writing him up, extending the time he spent alone as he served his sentence for burglary.\n\u201cThe human condition isn\u2019t built for it,\u201d Blackwell said. Guidelines from the United Nations call for limiting solitary confinement to 15 consecutive days, at most.\nAbout 10,000 people are in solitary confinement in Florida, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many of them fall into the same demographic groups as Blackwell: young, Black and male.\nWhile Florida Department of Corrections officials say they don\u2019t use solitary confinement, they acknowledged in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times that some inmates are held in a restrictive form of housing without a cellmate.\nExperts, advocates and those who have been incarcerated have criticized the state prison system for using various forms of isolation that they say constitute solitary confinement. While some people may have cellmates in these prison units, they are confined to smaller cells with shorter amounts of out-of-cell time and fewer privileges, creating effects similar to those of isolation in an individual cell, experts say.\nThe Southern Poverty Law Center has sued the Florida Department of Corrections and the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice on behalf of adults and juveniles over the alleged use of solitary confinement. An attorney for the nonprofit, Leo Laurenceau, said it can cause mental health issues.\n\u201cIt can really run the gamut, exacerbating mental health issues from depression, anxiety, increased situations of self-harm, suicidal tendencies,\u201d Laurenceau said.\nDisparate treatment\nAccording to a study by researchers at Florida State University and the University of Cincinnati, people in certain demographic groups are more likely to be placed in long-term solitary confinement than other prisoners in Florida. The study identified those demographic groups as Black people, men, young people and those with mental health issues.\nResearchers reviewed administrative records for almost 192,000 people incarcerated in the Florida prison system between July 1, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2015, including those who entered the prison system and those released from it in that time period.\nThe study did not review all forms of confinement. It looked specifically at a restrictive form of confinement in which people don\u2019t have cellmates, are allowed minimal time out of their cells and have few privileges.\nIn Florida, Black people were almost twice as likely to be placed in long-term solitary confinement, while Hispanics were 1.7 times more likely to be in long-term solitary confinement than white inmates. Adults between the ages of 18 and 24 were 15 times more likely to be placed in solitary confinement than those 50 and older, the study found. Men were twice as likely as women to be placed in solitary confinement.\nA disproportionately large number of those in prison with mental health needs also were put into solitary confinement, which experts say makes their mental health conditions worsen. Those who spent time in a mental health unit were nearly 14 times more likely to be placed in long-term solitary confinement, according to the study.\nFlorida Department of Corrections spokesperson Paul Walker sent a statement to the Times denying that the agency uses solitary confinement. Yet in the same statement, Walker asserted that, when warranted, the agency separates inmates from the general population and places them in what it calls \u201cClose Management.\u201d Walker said that a \u201cmajority\u201d of the inmates placed in Close Management are with another inmate and that staffers \u2014 including guards, chaplains, and medical and mental health professionals \u2014 conduct regular visits.\nFlorida prison officials declined to specify what percentage of people in Close Management have cellmates. They also said efforts are underway to enact new rules that will give prisoners in confinement \u201cincreased access to communication and education materials.\u201d\nWalker denied Blackwell\u2019s claim that those in isolation from the general population are not allowed to talk to people in other cells and face punishment such as pepper spray or having property restricted.\nThe Florida Department of Corrections \u201ctakes all allegations of abuse or mistreatment of inmates seriously and encourages all inmates and staff to promptly report inappropriate or illegal conduct,\u201d Walker said in an email. He said grievances and anonymous complaints reporting misconduct can be lodged by using a tips line that contacts the agency\u2019s inspector general.\nSome advocates define solitary confinement as separation from the general population in more restrictive housing, even when a prisoner has a cellmate.\nIn these forms of confinement, those in prison find themselves in smaller cells for longer periods than if they were in the facility\u2019s general population. The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers criminal justice issues, documented the deaths of several people who were killed by cellmates in restrictive housing and found that isolation from the general population can exacerbate mental health issues, as well as tensions between cellmates.\nIn March, an activist who grew up in Tampa and had been incarcerated in Florida detailed his experiences in solitary for a New York Times column and called for an end to the practice.\n\u201cI served 18 consecutive years in isolation because each minor disciplinary infraction \u2014 like having a magazine that had another prisoner\u2019s name on the mailing label \u2014 added an additional six months to my time in solitary confinement,\u201d Ian Manuel wrote in The New York Times. \u201cThe punishments were wholly disproportionate to the infractions. Before I knew it, months in solitary bled into years, years into almost two decades.\u201d\nAn unmanageable system\nYvette Lewis, president of the Hillsborough County NAACP, said she wasn\u2019t surprised by the study\u2019s findings, and she criticized the Florida Department of Corrections\u2019 use of confinement.\nShe worried about bias: A guard might interpret a Black man waving his hands while talking or a Black woman putting her hands on her hips as signs of aggression, rather than cultural mannerisms, she said.\n\u201cThey look at that as a sign of defiance instead of understanding that this is their cultural way of expressing themselves,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cBecause, when they look at the color of the skin, they automatically feel it\u2019s a threat. So, any little thing can add to that threat.\u201d\nJohn Molina \u2014 who now serves as the mentoring and alumni coordinator for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York \u2014 has firsthand experience with solitary confinement. He served a sentence of nearly 10 years in New York. Starving for social interactions, he said he remembers caring for the cockroaches that passed through his cell as if they were pets. His normal weight is about 202 pounds, he said, but when he left solitary, he weighed 174.\n\u201cIt will drive you crazy,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m still in therapy.\u201d\nTampa activist Angel D\u2019Angelo, co-founder of the Restorative Justice Coalition, also urges an end to solitary confinement.\n\u201cIt either creates mental illness where it didn\u2019t exist before, or it can aggravate existing mental illness,\u201d D\u2019Angelo said. \u201cIt creates a sense of isolation, of course \u2014 that\u2019s what it\u2019s there for.\u201d\nLingering effects\nWhile serving his sentence, Blackwell said younger men would sometimes ask him how he survived. He said it came down to this: He didn\u2019t want to die in prison.\n\u201cTo this day, I don\u2019t know how I did it,\u201d Blackwell said. \u201cBut I see people all the time just completely give up.\u201d\nBlackwell completed his sentence in March. He now works for People Empowering and Restoring Communities, where he\u2019s a community advocate and case manager working to assist those who recently have been released from prison. He also does community organizing outside of his job, working on projects ranging from COVID-19 vaccine outreach to canvassing for local politicians.\nBlackwell has had to adjust to a changed world. He had to learn how to perform tasks most people take for granted, such as operating an iPhone. He\u2019s also contended with the anxiety of being left alone.\nWhen he\u2019s out with friends, and as the group leaves to go home, Blackwell feels the effects of his time in solitary. A friend says goodbye and leaves. Then another, and another, until he\u2019s left alone.\n\u201cIt\u2019s the worst feeling,\u201d he said, \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll ever change.\u201d\n\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\u00a92022 Tampa Bay Times. Visit at tampabay.com<\/a>. 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