In the past, the prison hole, once called solitary confinement and now called Restrictive Housing Unit was used to isolate prisoners, but not really to torture them. It was reserved for serious and dangerous infractions of prison rules and it was applied for relatively short periods of time, 30 to 60 days. All that has changed. Now, many Pennsylvania holes exist primarily to torment and harass prisoners, especially younger black men. The prisoners call it grind up. Stints in the hole are for minor infractions such as failing to stand up during one of the many times a day the prisoners are counted. The sentences are dragged out for much longer periods of time. In the Mahanoy prison, some men have three, four or five years to do, or they've already done that much time. More diabolically, the treatment that the men receive in the hole has become progressively more tormenting as the professionalism of the staff has declined. It is common practice for prisoners who are assigned to the hole to be harassed, abused, tormented, starved or baited. Prisoners are not often actually tortured or beaten. That's too overt and forthright. Now they are dealt with more insidiously. The Mahanoy prison is one of 26 Pennsylvania institutions. It's not the best and not the worst. It's only a few years old. A minority of the staff in the hole seems to suffer from the kind of personality quirks where one tears the wings from flies and sets kittens on fire. Others have chips on their shoulders as if they feel threatened and have something to prove. Most are just regular working guys with an ex-wife and thinning hair. Of course, most of the prisoners who are put into the hole have problems, too. A fair number are mentally ill and/or psychologically and intellectually challenged. Most feel desperate, frustrated and angry. They rebel against conformity, control and loss of dignity. Some are violent predators. Most have volatile tempers, poor educations, and no cultural structure. In the hole they are consistently treated so badly that they become unredeemable. Like bears that have been baited, they become furious and vengeful. At the Mahanoy prison, for example, several abusive practices are routine. Since the men are fed in their cells, they are dependent upon the staff to give them their ration. Meals are skimpy in the hole and nobody, even men in good health, can afford to miss very many meals. Almost every day a member of the staff finds an excuse to refuse to feed a prisoner he doesn't like to one on "grind-up!" The staff member simply lies (lying is second nature) and claims that the prisoner refused his meal. Of course that nonsense. The man is standing at his door bellowing to be fed, but to no avail. Besides using food as punishment, Mahanoy uses the environment to harass the en, drag them down and drive them mad. The hole is very noisy twenty four hours a day. There's no opportunity to relax or get rid of stress. It is cold with a draft of chilly air swirling over the cot and very corner of the cell. A popular Mahanoy torment is the so-called "strip cell." In certain rare circumstances where a prisoner poses a real threat to his own life or safety, regulations allow prison officials to put a prisoner into a naked cell with no property, clothing or bedding. It's done only under the orders and watchful supervision of the medical and psychiatric staff and continues only so long as necessary to keep the prisoner from hurting himself or others. At Mahanoy the "Strip cell" is used for punishment, usually for minor infractions. Typically, a man will cast a line of thread out from under his cell door to fish in a newspaper or magazine from a neighbor. To punish the prisoner for this trivial infraction, he's put into a cell in only his boxer shorts without bedding or property, not even legal or writing supplies. There he shivers in the frosty draft for seven to twenty days, not for his safety, but to punish him. In Pennsylvania prisons punishment can be meted out only by a hearing examiner pursuant to published policies. According to those policies, a "strip cell" is never authorized as a punishment, so the staff simply bypasses the hearing examiner and violates the policies. Thus, I come to "Steve," a man with two left shoes. "Steve" was a young black prisoner, none too bright, not very emotionally or psychologically sound. He was pushed into one of the 96 cells in the Mahanoy prison hole for a relatively trivial rule infraction. While in the hole he did something to annoy some member of the staff and he was on track for the "grind up!" He was put into a strip cell and deprived of every thing. For clothing he was given only a "blue dress," the paper smock worn by suicidal mental patients. For his feet, he was given flat sneakers called slides, two left feet. He was harassed by t he staff beating on his intercom and hew as subjected to demeaning and abusive remarks. For food he was given a "nutra-loaf," a kind of biscuit of compressed kitchen scraps. He was tormented for many days. Why? for fishing a string to a neighbor to share some food!