Law's Numbers.

Albert Woodfox's Solitary, a memoir of four decades in solitary confinement, is a painful testimony of the violence of criminal justice and dramatic evidence of survival. This review essay considers Woodfox's account and contends that today African Americans live in a suffocating state displayed in law's numbers: high incarceration rates, police brutality, and summary killings. It argues against viewing Woodfox's testimony as a redemption story so as not to undermine its transformative power. To bring solitary confinement to an end, one must acknowledge that there is no reversal to the damage caused by law's numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]