WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE: INTIMACY, AND THE REPRODUCTION OF RACIAL IDEOLOGIES IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT , a new book by Earl Smith, PhD and Angela J Hattery, PhD, tells the story of inmates and correctional officers who work in solitary confinement units in a Mid-Atlantic state prison system. Based on 3 summers of ethnography and 100+ interviews with inmates and staff in 7 prisons (including one prison for women), what emerged was a story deep racial resentment. Building prisons in rural, economically depressed, predominantly white counties and filling them with mostly Black and brown bodies from urban areas creates a toxic environment under which race relations emerge. And, the white racial resentment such that the COs and officers believe that their lives are significantly worse than those of the men and women they are assigned to lock in cages for 23 hours a day. Understanding the structural impact of solitary confinement on both inmates and COs complicated our understanding of the outcomes of solitary confinement on physical and mental health and makes a case for abolishing its use in the United States.