Reviews for 23/7

• "Reiter's book, for all its sobriety and pessimism, is an effective counsel against despair."
  — David Glenn, Dissent
• "The book is highly recommended, written in beautiful and lively language, and tells the story of the inmates' struggle for minimal conditions with engaging realism and empathy."
  — Hadar Aviram, U.C. Hastings College of the Law
• "23/7 speaks with clarity, coherence, and ... a passionate voice."
  — James E. Robertson, Correctional Law Reporter
• Mentioned in Nathan Penn, Buried Alive, GQ
• "Fascinating ... A penetrating look at an insidious problem from the inside out ... Reiter challenges us to rethink the country's approach to punishment, and she questions the unexamined politics that sustains the practice of solitary confinement ... I recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the roots of institutional malaise and deprivation by social design. 23/7 is an accessible, cogent and insightful work of scholarship."
  — Bruce Arrigo, British Journal of Criminology
• "In a welcome deviation from the main thrust of most punishment and society research, Reiter highlights the role of penal administrators working behind the scenes to create penal policy and practice ... Eminently readable ... Refreshingly honest."
  — Ashley Rubin, Punishment & Society
• "Thirty-three to 50 percent of those prisoners in isolation suffer from a serious mental illness. And the data suggests that at least 50 percent of all prisoner suicides take place in isolation, despite holding a fraction of the incarcerated population."
  — Christopher Zoukis, Huffington Post
• "[Reiter's] most important contribution...is her close attention to the tragic shortcomings of attempts to date at reforming the facility."
  — Peter C. Baker, Pacific Standard
• "Keramet Reiter has uncovered what should be a national scandal… She does an excellent job of putting the story of Pelican Bay into the larger context of the rise of supermax prisons nationally…[and] gives life to those directly impacted by solitary confinement…An important contribution."
  — Allan Mills, Truthout
• "One day the people of this country will look back at our national experiment with long-term solitary confinement in shame…Reiter's work is a first-rate examination of the rise of supermaxes. But the stories of the real people held in supermaxes make this book an important contribution to the public discourse on how we punish and why."
  — Christopher Zoukis, New York Journal of Books
• "A chilling portrait of America's 'securest and most punitive' prisons... [Reiter's] stories of the psychological impact of isolation—and the experiences of released Supermax prisoners—are both disturbing and moving. Essential reading in the ongoing national re-examination of mass incarceration.'
  — Kirkus Review (starred review)
• "23/7 tells a compelling story of the banality of evil in correctional planning and penal confinement."
  — Franklin E. Zimring, University of California, Berkeley
• "Engaging, meticulously researched, and deeply disturbing, 23/7 is more than a history of Pelican Bay Prison. Keramet Reiter opens a window onto the secretive decisions that produced the contemporary supermax and sensitively explores the harmful results. This remarkable book is essential reading for anyone concerned about prisons in the United States."
  — Lorna A. Rhodes, author of Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison
• "Keramet Reiter uncovers the history and consequences of California's unfortunate modern experiment with solitary confinement—a tale of public policy gone awry through ignorance, callousness, cruelty and self interest, inflicting untold psychological pain and emotional misery on thousands."
  — Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch
• "23/7 is a convincing, heartbreaking, enraging explanation of how prison bureaucrats, empowered by a fearful electorate, gained the power to entomb human beings for five, ten, twenty years and more in small boxes without windows where the lights are never turned off. I have not read a book in recent years that has made me angrier than this or explained more about how, when it comes to prisons, Americans have dug ourselves such a very deep hole."
  — Ted Conover, author of Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing
• "When facing a new week, you deserve a new book! This week on 'Discovery Monday' we feature Keramet Reiter's debut book 23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement."
  — Rebecca Wyatt, Recorded Books