"I've wanted somehow to convey to you the sensations - the atmospheric pressure, you might say - of what it is to be seriously a long-term prisoner in an American prison"

This quote by Jack Henry Abbott talks to the experience of being a long-term detainee in an American jail. It speaks to the mental and psychological toll that such an experience can handle a person. Abbott is attempting to communicate the feeling of being caught in a prison, of being isolated from the outdoors world and of being subjected to the overbearing atmosphere of the prison system. He is attempting to interact the sense of powerlessness and misery that can feature being a long-term detainee. He is likewise trying to express the feeling of being continuously viewed and monitored, of being denied of basic human rights and of undergoing the approximate guidelines and regulations of the jail system. In short, Abbott is trying to convey the overbearing atmosphere of being a long-term prisoner in an American jail.