Never to Surrender!: 22 Years in Solitary–The Battle for My Soul in a U.S. Prison

On March 26, 2021, sixty-four-year-old Frank De Palma testified before the Nevada Senate Judiciary Committee in support of a bill that would reduce the use of solitary confinement in Nevada prisons. Few people are better qualified to speak to the horror of solitary than De Palma himself, who spent twenty- two years and thirty-six days in a darkened cell inside Nevada’s Ely State Prison. “I’m one of the few that came back,” he told subdued legislators.

But solitary confinement was just one aspect of his prison nightmare, which began when he was just eighteen. A troubled teen, he tried to avenge the senseless killing of his beloved dog, landing him in the courtroom of a hang em’ high judge. Though no one had died or even been injured by his actions, he was sentenced to ten years in the Nevada State Prison, with a release in two years for good behavior. Determined to do his time and go home, he quickly learned it wasn’t that simple and was thrust into “kill or be killed” situations that forced him to become a warrior. His acts of desperation tacked decades onto what ultimately became a forty-three-year sentence.

Never to Surrender! 22 Years in Solitary: The Battle for My Soul in a U.S. Prison is a stunning expose of justice run amok, of the casual corruption and depravity inside prison walls, and of one man’s lifelong determination to survive it, and reclaim his humanity.