Unprecedented access as HBO goes Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison

Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison is a 90-minute special examining life in solitary confinement at a supermax prison.

The Red Onion State Prison is perched on a mountaintop in Wise Country, Va., and is a supermax institution. The cells are 8’x10’ and designed to house the prisoners in isolation for 23 hours a day, year round and sometimes for decades.

With unrestricted access the documentary interviews both prisoners and guards as it seeks examine the affect this isolation has on those both sides of the bars.

A recent program has helped get many of the prisoners back into the real world but the adaptation to life on the outside is made all the harder by the isolation experienced whilst incarcerated.

How do you keep your sanity in a place full of chilling noises and with a weighty and oppressive atmosphere? It turns out it is a struggle for the guards as well as the inmates.

The HBO documentary gains unprecedented access and paints a fascinating pictures of life behind bars and in isolation.

Watch Solitary: Inside Red Onion State Prison – 10:00 PM on HBO.