At age 18, Frank De Palma entered Nevada Department of Corrections custody on a 10-year sentence for a nonviolent felony. He was eligible for parole after two years, and if a judge hadn’t rejected a plea deal there might have been no prison time at all.
De Palma didn’t know when he first entered the razor wire of prison in 1975 that the culture was one of racial violence and gang warfare. He didn’t know he’d be forcibly administered antipsychotics, despite no mental illness, or that corrupt staff could turn a blind eye to any brutality. He didn’t know he’d go 22 years without seeing his own face in a mirror.
A gang leader observed a young man who had heart; who could fight when necessary. One day he approached De Palma with an offer to personally mentor him and develop him into “an asset.” De Palma, who had experienced gang violence as a child, turned him down.
In the years that followed, De Palma survived dozens of attempts on his life in retaliation for that rejection; a life spent in escalating violence and fear. By 1989 he was at Ely State Prison, Nevada’s new maximum-security facility.
Today, “checking in” is an established practice wherein prisoners choose to go to isolation cells as a form of protective custody. It was something De Palma would later advise young prisoners to do in order to avoid gang pressure. But it wasn’t an option for him back then.
“There was no PC when I went in,” De Palma told Filter. “My only option would have been a transfer to another facility, which meant bartering information … a seriously dangerous move.”
In 1992, De Palma was placed in solitary confinement to separate him from incoming gang members. He didn’t come out until 2014.
Without dental care, he was left to pull out his own abscessed teeth. Without a mattress, he slept on steel and concrete.
At times he had no sources of external stimulation at all—no books, no radio, nothing. Just his own mind.
Without dental care, he was left to pull out his own abscessed teeth. Without a mattress, he slept on steel and concrete. As time went on, the quiet torture drove him deeper inside his own mind. In the final five years, he never once came out of his cell. He was catatonic. Staff left him to lie there.
After more than 22 years in solitary, and nearly 43 years in prison, De Palma was released in 2018. Few survive solitary for that long, or survive prison for that long. That De Palma is now surviving re-entry after those experiences is remarkable.
In 2021 he met Mary Buser, a former assistant chief of mental health at the solitary confinement unit on Rikers Island, in a Nevada Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Both had come to testify in support of legislation that would require the state prison system to begin meeting its own minimum standards around solitary.
“I’d never met anyone who’d been in solitary confinement for that length of time,” Buser told Filter. Moved by his testimony, she reached out and soon realized she wanted to help tell his story. “Not only for Frank’s sake, but for all of those who exist behind bars, and especially for those in [solitary].”
Together, they wrote Never to Surrender! 22 Years in Solitary—The Battle for My Soul in a US Prison, which was published in April 2024.
A sketch by Frank De Palma depicting his cell at Ely State Prison
Injustice relies on people who see it remaining silent. So many people working at Ely State Prison over those years who could have helped De Palma—wardens, chaplains, corrections officers, counselors— remained silent about what they saw.
In the United States prison system, injustice also relies on “out of sight, out of mind”—making sure that the public doesn’t see what goes on inside the gates of hell, whether or not they’d care.
To really grasp what happened to De Palma, you must first understand that prisons are not places of rehabilitation, but of deprivation. Rather than discouraging violence and illegal activities, prison is the master class that teaches them. What administrators and corrections officers carry out is not justice, but a system of for-profit slave labor, inside which we can be tortured and dehumanized for their personal amusement or financial gain.
De Palma’s story may be hard for some to believe, but it must be told, over and over, until all forms of solitary confinement and the prison war machine itself is torn to the ground.
Our interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Frank De Palma and Mary Buser
Tony Vick: I’ve been in prison nearly 30 years, and I can’t imagine being here without a TV, radio or books. Do you think that when your mind just shut off to the outside world, it was helping to protect you?
Frank De Palma: No, I don’t. I don’t view it as protective. I experienced torture beyond imagination, and when I no longer had the ability to endure the aloneness, my mind finally just broke away. Around the time I was released from the cell, I sensed my body was nearing death anyway.
TV: Do you find yourself feeling resentment toward the people who saw what the system was doing to you, and didn’t scream louder?
FDP: I’m ambivalent about that one. [With some people] I felt they were not honoring their ethical codes, but I try not to think about that as they [also] did so much to help me. And I also understand the constraints they faced—the “green wall,” the serious repercussions of speaking out.
Ely State Prison opened in 1989 as Nevada’s only max-security prison. ESP offenders participate in vocational training, educational opportunities & treatment services. Staff are proud of their reputation as leaders in corrections & work hard to ensure safe & humane conditions. pic.twitter.com/TN6Tnw0L0r
— Nevada Corrections (@NevadaDOC) August 4, 2020
TV: I connected to your poem, “Never to Surrender.” There’s a line that goes: “There can be no surrender to the ugliness born of evil.” It’s a great line. What helped you not surrender to that ugliness?
FDP: The hope and promise of love.
TV: What helped keep you alive?
FDP: Anger, rage and hatred. I was so angry that I had to defend myself against men who wanted to rape me. When I defended myself successfully, I vowed that I would never, ever go down without a fight. It was the rage that energized me and kept me alive.
TV: Do you have a faith tradition of any sort? Do you pray? I ask because I wonder how a person lets go of that kind of anger, even after being freed.
FDP: Not in the formal sense. I used to have it out with God—asking why all of this was happening to me. Everything kept getting worse and worse, and I was trying to find answers. So it seems I do believe in God, or some type of higher power.
“Out here, everything works on schedules, and it’s confusing. I don’t know that I’ll ever get it.”
TV: What is a typical day for you like now?
FDP: Most days I sit in my room. I have a cat, so I take care of her. I watch movies and listen to music, which soothes me. I push myself to go outside, sit out at the fire pit and chat with people. Now and then I go out with friends.
I communicate with people I met inside from time to time, but the encounters are brief; associating with ex-cons is a parole violation. Although I have to say, it was ex-cons who kept me fed and got me off the streets when I first got out. They saved me.
I’ve been lucky, especially at my age, that good people have extended themselves to me. Otherwise I would have been right back in. Or, more likely, dead.
I’m also having a difficult time adjusting to time. In that cell, time ceased to exist. There was no such thing as breakfast time, lunch time… it was just one big blur. Out here, everything works on schedules, and it’s confusing. I don’t know that I’ll ever get it. I feel like a piece of Swiss cheese, with the holes in them. There are parts of me that are missing, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be whole again.
But out here I’m also making new discoveries. I can be me—the person I was meant to be. Prison conditions you to think and feel a certain way. For example, I can smile, laugh, be kind to others, and no longer worry that my kindness will be construed as weakness to be preyed upon. Years of conditioning is hard to break, which is the downfall for many people who come out; they can’t adjust fast enough. That, and the lack of support and resources.
TV: How is your health these days?
FDP: I have a lot of pain. But I have a medical marijuana [card] so that helps take the edge off. I’ve also just gotten old; seems like it’s all catching up with me. I believe all that steel and concrete is a part of it—it ages a body. The coldness of the steel is a different kind of cold. Over time, it just gets into your bones.
I’m 68 now, and so much time has gotten away. I’m glad to be out of course, but it’s a big adjustment. I keep thinking that I’m still that 36-year-old who first went into solitary. Then I see myself in the mirror and I’m shocked back into reality. It has me so screwed up. In my head I’m still stuck on that page—of being young and wanting to do so much.
I’m coping with a lot, physically and mentally. But my worst days out here are still better than my best days in there.
“I believe that anyone who strips another of their inherent dignity is guilty of a moral crime.”
TV: Have you gotten on the internet?
FDP: I actually have 4,000 followers on Twitter! Not sure how that happened, but hey.
TV: Your testimony and advocacy work have helped change laws around solitary confinement. What else needs to change?
FDP: The entire culture of prison! It is one of degradation, a continual fight for your dignity, a fight against humiliation. All they do is try to humiliate you and steal your dignity. I believe that anyone who strips another of their inherent dignity is guilty of a moral crime.
TV: What do you hope your legacy will be?
FDP: I want to be remembered as a kind, compassionate, caring person. That I fought to abolish solitary, to actually criminalize it, to convey that it’s a torture that causes mental illness and makes suicide a reasonable option. I want to be remembered as a good man.
Top image via Nevada State Legislature. Inset images via Frank De Palma and Mary Buser.
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