FRACKVILLE, Pennsylvania — Arthur Johnson has spent the past 37 of his 64 years alive in solitary confinement.

Over a span of four decades, he’s been shuttled from one correctional institution to another—often without notice, like a protagonist in a Kafka novel. Until very recently, his home of three years was the Restricted Housing Unit at the State Correctional Institution at Frackville, Pennsylvania.

He’s now in restricted housing at neighboring SCI Coal Township, where he is forced to spend 23 hours a day in a 7-by-10-foot cell with a light that never turns off. He suffers from crippling insomnia and is permitted to take just three, 10-minute showers each week.