Yesterday brought a new report on the awful solitary confinement practices of the state of Texas. Today, let us share another recent report on solitary confinement in the state of Arizona, and its "decaying and detrimental effect on human beings."

The report, issued last December by the American Friends Service Committee in Arizona, contains firsthand testimony from dozens of prisoners who have spend an average of almost a decade in isolation cells. They say they are allowed to leave their cells for exercise only three times a week; that offers little reprieve from the crushing experience of solitary:

"Isolation at Browning Unit is 24/7. Time spent in a shower is worse isolation than cells. Time spent at recreation in a 10' by 20' concrete box with 20' high walls is still isolation. You see no one, there is no one to converse with. There is no activity except to stand, exercise, or walk in a circle. This is harsher than being in the cell. Most people do not have regular visits. This is still isolation, being locked in a box with glass between you and the visitor. Going to medical is usually associated with an illness. Plus, most people rarely go to medical. We can talk to our neighbors, we cannot see them. There is no window. No together time. We have to shout over the run and hearing is not easy. Browning is 24/7 isolation. We do not get one hour a day outside of a locked box. We leave one box and go to another box."

The conditions are bad:

"Physically – my weight was real low, without food or enough food to keep you full is a big strain on you. You can't work out or do much because you burn the calories one dose try to maintain here, you feel tired, lazy, burnt out, and a person who doesn't overcome the seclusion, loneliness, depression, isolation will snap or lose their mind. I know a hand full of people who committed suicide while here. People who are alright when they get here and later on are on pills for depression and if not they isolate themselves from others and break down. There's a lot of anger that you build in this place. I wouldn't have maintain "strong" if it wasn't for my art, but even with that hobby, I find myself becoming a little off, distant, always upset, always thinking of food, lonely, not understood and unloved. SMU is nothing but a human dog kennel, the only difference is a animal can get adopted, we can't … Some are just waiting to die, or to be put down like a dog…"

And the toll on mental health is hard to imagine:

"I've essentially been locked-down since July 2009 and in my own experiences and personal observations I can attest to the fact that the conditions in this unit are not conducive to the physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being of those confined here – especially for those who are confined here indefinitely and/or are in solitary confinement. Although these conditions may not appear overtly degrading to some outsiders, it is the subtle torture of the day-to-day month-to-month, and year-to-year passing of precious time under these oppressive, alienated conditions that truly makes confinement here such a dehumanizing experience. Conditions such as these will always have a decaying and detrimental effect on human beings and society-at-large unless improved."

"Mentally, I'm breaking down each passing day! I have to put up four walls around me, to protect myself from all the screaming and crying – that you hear in here. It feels like hell is breaking loose. And it's taken its toll on my life! I need meds just to cope. I'm mentally unstable, insecure and I am anti-social. I never was like this before."

For facts, figures, and many more jarring prisoner testimonies, read the full report here.

[Photo: AP]