While Bonds has returned to school and is now the operations director for Blackout Boston, an arts group for people of color, he said most inmates show the ill effects of their confinement after leaving prison.

“Solitary confinement drives you bonkers,” he said.

Bonds and other speakers drew a bleak picture of life in solitary confinement—denied heat, phone calls and reading materials.

He said the guards had complete power and would occasionally abuse prisoners mentally or physically.

Jamie Bissonnette, with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-based social-justice group, spoke of a woman who slit her throat during her confinement and required 125 stitches in her neck.

Other speakers at the event drew connections between solitary confinement and other current issues.

Mel King, a local civil rights leader, said that Massachusetts was “exhibiting some of the same behavior we are trying to root out in other parts of the world,” and a number of other speakers also made references to the war in Iraq.

Warren, who is testifying in front of the committee tomorrow, said that though the bill was likely to emerge from committe, HPAG has already met with state Senate leadership to encourage them to block the bill after it leaves the committee.

“I have a lot of hope that this will get struck down in the Senate,” he said.

And though a large anti-war rally at Government Center may have detracted attention from HPAG’s protest, Warren said he was happy with the results.

“I think it was about the best turnout we could have expected given the current international situation,” he said.