The prisoner sits alone. Darkness and his thoughts are all he has for company. Sometimes the occasional guard will check up on him. This stasis of activity goes on for almost an entire day. Solitary confinement is a form of punishment used in many American correctional facilities. The poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” by Etheridge Knight is a commentary on the twentieth century American prison system. It invokes within the reader a feeling that many of the processes used to ‘correct’ a prisoner is dehumanizing. Solitary confinement is one such method. Solitary confinement should be outlawed because it is ineffective as it traumatizes the victims and is a violation of human rights. To begin, solitary