Within Prison Walls / being a narrative during a week of voluntary confinement in the state prison at Auburn, New York

A narrator volunteers for a week of confinement in a state prison and keeps a day-by-day journal of the experience. He records daily routines—lockups, marches, meals, medical examinations, work details—and the intensifying, often crushing solitude of a small cell. Encounters with officers, chaplain staff, and fellow inmates reveal small courtesies, personal stories, and the visible human cost of incarceration. Immediate impressions sit alongside reflective passages that scrutinize punitive practices, question long sentences and parole processes, and argue for more humane, rehabilitative treatment within the prison system.