A conversation between Brian Sonenstein and Mary E. Buser, author of “Lockdown on Rikers” about solitary confinement and mental health on NYC’s jail island.

When Jesse Jacobs reported to the Galveston County Jail to serve a 30-day sentence for a DUI, he did so knowing that if everything went well, he would be out in 12 to 15 days. Six days later, he was dead. Jacobs was one of the nearly 1000 people who die each year in America’s jails, according to statistics released by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. Like Jacobs, four in every ten of these people die in their first seven days in jail.