Inmate, Slated to Remain in Solitary Until 2046, Describes Life of ‘Hell’
Willie Bosket has gone 14 years without a disciplinary violation, but he has been in solitary confinement in New York prisons for 20 years and is slated to remain there until 2046.
Bosket’s rap sheet includes two subway murders committed as a juvenile, an assault on a 72-year-old man, and the knifing of a prison guard, the New York Times reports. Now he spends 23 hours a day in a 9-by-6-foot cell and the other hour, alone, in the recreation area. Nearly 250 disciplinary violations in prison put Bosket in solitary, and it will take a positive evaluation to get him out.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Linda Foglia told the Times that few if any inmates have been in solitary longer than Bosket.
In solitary confinement, Bosket “seems to have gone from defiant menace to subdued and empty inmate,” the story says. Since age 9, he has spent all but two years of his life in some kind of lockup.
Bosket told the Times his existence is “just blank.”
“Everything is the same every day,” he said. “This is hell. Always has been.”
