--- title: Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore: What 28-Years of Solitary Confinement Can Do description: Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore, 59, has spent the last 28 consecutive years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. canonical: https://time.com/3052468/what-28-years-of-solitary-confinement-does-to-the-mind/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-07-29T20:04:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:01:01.103Z article:section: Health og:title: What 28-Years of Solitary Confinement Does to the Mind og:description: Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore, 59, has spent the last 28 consecutive years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. og:url: https://time.com/3052468/what-28-years-of-solitary-confinement-does-to-the-mind/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt18c1021a06cb88b9/69869db83bc999ad781a4bb9/solitary-confinement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3800 og:image:height: 2138 og:image:alt: Alone prisonner og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What 28-Years of Solitary Confinement Does to the Mind twitter:description: Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore, 59, has spent the last 28 consecutive years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt18c1021a06cb88b9/69869db83bc999ad781a4bb9/solitary-confinement.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What 28-Years of Solitary Confinement Does to the Mind > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: John Legend Reflects on Trailblazing Performer and Civil Rights Activist Harry Belafonte [Watch (HLS stream): John Legend Reflects on Trailblazing Performer and Civil Rights Activist Harry Belafonte](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Qyj5RYPd.m3u8) (4:11)  _Published 2023-04-25. Artist John Legend Legend candidly reflected on the role Belafonte has played in his life, both personally and professionally at the TIME100 Summit._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 29, 2014 8:04 PM UTC  Alone prisonner Alone prisonner Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 29, 2014 8:04 PM UTC Kenny “Zulu” Whitmore, 59, has spent the last 28 consecutive years in solitary confinement in Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, but a prison warden says he [may be released](http://time.com/3051287/louisiana-warden-may-release-inmate-from-28-straight-years-in-solitary/) to the general inmate population. Whitmore reportedly spends 23 hours a day in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell. “We will get him out,” Warden Burl Cain, warden of the prison, [told the Medill Justice Project](http://www.medilljusticeproject.org/), a group that investigates potentially wrongful convictions. “We’d rather him out. I need his cell. I’ve got some young people, predators, that need to be in that cell. When I can conclude he’s not going to cause me the blues, then he can come out of the cell.” Whitmore is in prison for second-degree murder. According to the Medill Justice Project, Whitmore’s eyesight has deteriorated and he has hypertension. And if he’s similar to other cases of prisoners in solitary confinement, his health and mental health have likely deteriorated in other ways, too. “Human beings require two very basic things: social interaction and meaningful activity. By doing things we learn who we are and we learn our worth as a person. The two things solitary confinement does is make people solitary and idle,” says Dr. Terry Kupers, a professor of psychiatry at the Wright Institute in Berkeley California, who has spent over 40 years interviewing thousands of solitary confinement prisoners. --- ### More from TIME --- Though the impact of solitary confinement can differ person to person, there are some basic symptoms that are particularly widespread among inmates. Prisoners of long-term confinement—which Kupers says that’s about three months, though for some effects start to appear much sooner—often experience high anxiety that can cause panic attacks, paranoia and disordered thinking, as well as anger and compulsive actions, like pacing or repeatedly cleaning the cell. Basic cognitive functions are also dulled. “I have prisoners tell me they quit reading, which is one of the only things you can sometimes do,” says Kupers. “I ask why, and they say it’s because they can’t remember what they read three pages before.” Prisoners in solitary confinement often develop confusion over when to be alert and when to sleep. In a report, _Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement_, Stuart Grassian, a former faculty member at the Harvard Medical School and a consultant in criminal cases writes: “\[Solitary confinement prisoners\] often find themselves incapable of resisting their bed during the day—incapable of resisting the paralyzing effect of their stupor—and yet incapable of any restful sleep at night. The lack of meaningful activity is further compounded by the effect of continual exposure to artificial light and diminished opportunity to experience natural daylight.” Grassian tells TIME that without stimulation, people’s brains will move toward stupor and delirium—and often people won’t recover from it. Even when prisoners are let out of solitary confinement, Grassian says, they are so overwhelmed by stimulus that they become incapable of tolerating their new environment and have trouble integrating back into the general population. Their brain waves jump and they become highly reactive. “I’ve talked to many of these prisoners who say it’s hellish for them,” says Grassian. “The often end up spending a tremendous amount of time in their cell.” Whether Whitmore will be released into the general prison population remains uncertain but the fact that he has been attempting to take legal action against the prison may work in his mental favor, since Grassian says thinkers tend to do better. “People that can use their minds tend to do relatively better,” he says. “They are able to maintain a degree of stimulation internally.” And that’s all many can rely on. ## Transcript So I unfortunate that start with some sad news as you know, but as I'm not sure everybody else knows. I we just got the sad news that Harry Belafonte has died. And so I want it, I want to give you a moment to tell us what your reaction to that news was and how other artists can carry on his legacy God that we had Harry Belafonte for 96 years. He Inspired me so much. Personally he became a friend of mine in the last 10 years or so we spend some private time together. I learned At His Feet basically about all the great work, he's done over the years and if you think about what it means to be an artist and an activist, he was literally the epitome of what that was and I don't know if people know how much he did. So Gifted as an artist as a performer, but used his platform and almost a subversive way because he would sneak messages in their revolutionary messages. When people just thought he was singing about, Good Times in the islands, he was always like infusing messages of protest and Revolution and everything you did. And not only that, but he used his resources, he's one of the most successful artists of his time. He used those resources to fund the Civil Rights Movement. He would show up with bags of cash for dr. Martin Luther King jr. And other people who were marching with him. When people's lives are being taken for support, that movement, entertainers, lies were being taken activist lives were being taken, Jewish. Northerners would come down to the South and help with the movement and they would get killed. There were so many people who put their lives on the line for us to be able to vote for us to be able to have equal rights in this country and Mr. Bellefonte was one of those people. He saw a lot of his friends get killed. He gave so much live through so much helped us grow as a nation and as a world and we just all should be so grateful that he lived such a long powerful revolutionary life. So that leads us into something. I was planning to ask you about anyway, which is what do you think, is the role of Music in the fight for social justice today? I mean, who do you think will be remembered in fifty or sixty years? The way we remember Harry Belafonte today, we have the power to create art. That shines a light on what's happening in the world Nina Simone said, we have a duty to reflect the times in, which we live, and I believe great artists are able to do that. We're able to tell the stories I write the songs. Highlight the issues that will make the world pay attention. And I think art can do it in a Transcendent way. It's not the same as journalism is not the same as other forms of of kind of nonfiction media. It has the power to bring people together transcend boundaries and I think if we use that power for good, it can be really really important. And like I said, Harry Belafonte did it in his art but he also did it with his resources, put his life on the line. Was a great adviser great leader of protest. 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