Like most death rows today, and virtually all death rows of the past, Alabama's death row offers condemned prisoners a regimen approximating solitary confinement. Inmates spend most of their time in their cells; they receive few services and even fewer amenities. The psychological experience features powerlessness, fear, apathy, and psychological deterioration. The Alabama inmates describe death row as a 'living death' that is a prelude to death by execution. Death rows may differ in the details of their administration, but no death row, reformed or otherwise, offers its inmates a round of activity that might in any way prepare them for the ordeal they must face. Action can be taken to reduce the stress of death row confinement. Custody could be less rigidly maintained. Staff training could assist correctional officers in implementing more flexible custodial procedures. Rest and recuperation assignments might help staff to better handle job pressures, pressures that now translate into harassment and abuse of inmates. Special programs of work or study could be developed to reduce the loneliness and boredom of isolation, and self-help may be a useful method of stress management on death row. Chapter notes, 76 references, subject index.