![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s39248.pcdn.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/EIT-Austin-credit-David-Fox-2-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a>How three performances of a play relate to efforts to end solitary in North Carolina<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s the sound of jangling keys that reminds Craig Waleed of his time in solitary confinement.<\/p>\n \u201cThat brings me back to being in there and hearing the keys jingle next to the cell door, thinking, \u2018OK then, they\u2019ll let me out. Today\u2019s the day I get out,\u2019\u201d Waleed said.<\/p>\n Waleed was released from prison 25 years ago. Now he works for Disability Rights North Carolina as the project manager for the \u201cUnlock the Box\u201d campaign against solitary confinement. He and other organizers recently\u00a0sponsored<\/a>\u00a0The End of Isolation Tour,<\/a> a group of traveling actors who put on a play, \u201cThe Box<\/a>\u201d at The Ramkat in Winston-Salem. (Organizers\u00a0included the North Carolina Justice Center, of which Policy Watch is a project.)<\/p>\n \u201cSolitary confinement, the box, isolation, only harms people,\u201d Waleed said. \u201cIt makes prisons unsafe, it makes communities unsafe, and turns people back to their families and communities in a condition where they\u2019re unable to contribute to creating wellness, betterment, for their community and families.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Shourd wrote the play after being held in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison for 410 days. Iranian border guards captured Shourd in 2009 while she was while hiking near a tourist site in Iraqi Kurdistan, holding her as a political prisoner until her release in 2011. After returning to the U.S., Shourd became involved with efforts to end solitary confinement<\/p>\n in American prisons. She corresponded with incarcerated people and collaborated with other survivors of solitary to create \u201cThe Box.\u201d<\/p>\n The performance emphasizes the humanity of those locked in a cell the size of a parking space for years, even decades. It is about the bond formed between men placed in a \u201cprison within a prison,\u201d as one character in the play describes it, talking surreptitiously through the vents in their cells.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been sitting next to you for all these years. I\u2019ve never even seen your face,\u201d one character says to another from their respective cells.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Box\u201d premiered in 2016 but was reimagined during the pandemic. The End of Isolation Tour got its name from the reopening of the country after more than two years of COVID-19 restrictions; it also reminds attendees that for the incarcerated, their seclusion is not over.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people across the country are coming out of isolation after the pandemic, different degrees of isolation, but prisoners are not,\u201d Shourd said.<\/p>\n Cast members are currently on a 10-city tour<\/a> across the country. At each stop, performers partner with organizations and activists that are working to change policies and perspectives on solitary confinement in their respective communities.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Box\u201d performance is an example of \u201clegislative art,\u201d which Shourd defines as inspiring and empowering people to push for political change.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are places that have already experienced success and victory, or some places that are more in an earlier stage of drafting the legislation that they want to get passed,\u201d Shourd said.<\/p>\n That includes North Carolina, where the Unlock the Box campaign builds on the work of the governor\u2019s Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice. In late 2020, the task force\u00a0recommended<\/a> the state change its solitary confinement policies.<\/p>\n People in solitary confinement are kept in their cells for 22 to 24 hours per day, depending on the type of restrictive housing where they are held. They eat in their cells. Exercise time and showers are restricted. Visits by friends and family are limited. Studies<\/a> show that such confinement causes severe psychiatric harm, and can make people more susceptible to panic attacks, paranoia and problems with impulse control.<\/p>\n The task force\u2019s report states that 90% of those in prison will eventually be released. Those who were locked in solitary are more likely to be rearrested after they go home and more likely to die within the first year of their release, according to the report.<\/p>\n The task force also found that Black people were disproportionately more likely to be in solitary confinement in North Carolina. They made up 80% of those in High Security Maximum Confinement, and 62% of those on another form of solitary, despite comprising only half of those who are behind bars.<\/p>\n Task force members recommended the Department of Public Safety change<\/a> its policies on restrictive housing and adhere to the Nelson Mandela Rules<\/a> on solitary confinement, which define<\/a> it as locking someone in a cell for 22 or more hours a day for more than 15 consecutive days.<\/p>\n Despite the task force\u2019s recommendations, DPS has not changed its solitary confinement policies.<\/p>\n \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been any movement by the governor or anyone in his cabinet in regards to those recommendations,\u201d Waleed said. \u201cThose recommendations have fallen on deaf ears.\u201d<\/p>\n Waleed said he hopes with public and coalition support, \u201cwe\u2019ll be able to raise enough noise, so to speak, to gain the attention of North Carolina legislators, perhaps maybe the next governor, to sign into law, something that will validate ending long-term solitary confinement in the prisons.\u201d<\/p>\n Half of \u201cThe Box\u201d cast has spent time behind bars or has personal experience with the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n Anthony Michael Jefferson\u2019s character, Ray De Vaul, spent 19 years in solitary confinement. Jefferson himself spent about seven months in solitary. In total, he was imprisoned for 23 years for murder before being paroled in 2015.\u00a0\u201cI can tap into what my prison experience was, and then go into what his mindset must have been,\u201d Jefferson said of his character.<\/p>\n Both Jefferson and De Vaul share a fear of dying inside their 8-foot-by-12-foot cells. Jefferson said when he was locked up, he daily mantra was, \u201cI don\u2019t want to die in here.\u201d Both Jefferson and his character do everything they can to stay alive so they can experience freedom again.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a scary thing to think that you might not get out of prison,\u201d Jefferson said.<\/p>\n Jefferson said playing De Vaul has been therapeutic. It has allowed him to make peace with his past. It has inspired him to share his story, which he\u2019d been hesitant to do before performing.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe, in an essence, I\u2019m honoring the victim of my crime. I\u2019m honoring my family, I\u2019m honoring guys that I\u2019ve left behind,\u201d Jefferson said. \u201cThat\u2019s therapy for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>