Known as the Houdini of Florida prisons, Mark DeFriest has tried to escape 13 times — seven of them successfully. In 1979, DeFriest’s father died and left him a set of tools. He picked them up before they were probated. The teenager was arrested for stealing and sentenced to four years in prison. Thirty-four years later he is still there, having spent 27 of those years in solitary. He spent much of it in the notorious “X wing” of Florida State Prison, where he went for years without seeing the sun.

Full episodes of Democracy Now! can be viewed at the link: https://freespeech.org/collection/democracy-now

Mass Incarceration Solitary Confinement