Super Maximum Security, Supermax. A code name that disguises the harshest prison system in the United States: total solitary confinement. Of the 2.2 million in American jails, it is said that 25,000 are locked up this way. Shut in a windowless cell for 23 hours a day, with no human contact other than with the guards. And for all exercise, just one hour’s walking around a concrete pit 16 feet by 10. Often for life. This disciplinary measure, presented as the answer to violence in the jails, has never been proven to work. How do you live from day to day in total solitary confinement? A journey to northern California, to the corridors of Pelican Bay, the first Supermax prison in the country.