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The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

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Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#81

Post by justin_vanw »

I don't buy the thesis here that 'solitary confinement' is the reason this happened. These guys were both murderers before (including when they were free in the world and totally unconfined) and seemed unbothered by the thought of killing each other. These guys are exceptionally aggressive and with major psychological issues on top. They are going to kill over and over unless they change (not likely) or we simply never let them interact with another human.

This is the consequence of having any person like the two highlighted in this article living and breathing and having the ability to interact with any other human. If you are going to lock them up and never let them interact with anyone ever again, then that is considered torture as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-tort...

So the choice is to either let them kill each other (you can try to stop it, but so long as they have physical access to other people they will kill them for no reason), or you don't allow them that access and this is torturing them. Seems like a Catch-22.

For my money putting horrible people like this together is a way of letting them solve societies problems by killing each other. It's certainly not desirable to have this happen, but clearly nobody is solving it in any other way.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#82

Post by aristidb »

One quote stuck with me: “But it’s a tough place to do time. People that say cons have it easy, they ain’t never been in Menard.”

Not an American, but between saying that cons have it easy and the fact of mass incarceration in the first place, it seems that there's a certain mercilessness in American culture.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#83

Post by ljf »

gozur88 wrote: post #77
ljf wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they all government employees? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison

Did you read the article?

I did indeed... I was questioning why you thought this was exclusive to state controlled prison and suggesting the issue was with those drawing a govt paycheque rather than the whole machine.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#84

Post by EliRivers »

justicezyx wrote: post #30
whiddershins wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All humans are capable of horrific acts. It is a part of our humanity, we are apex predators who organize socially. The evolved algorithm in our brain that manages that dissonance is extremely complex and will necessarily fail at times. We can't tolerate or condone antisocial behavior, but it is a mistake to feel safe in the thought "we" are better than "them." We are they, they are we.

Hmm, I guess I am too much a CS people. When I say "animal", I mean human as a kind of "animal". In terms of people killing people, that is a reflection of the "animal" side of human. Thus I use "animal". If you think I mean they are "animal", and I am not "animal"; and I am better then them. Sorry, I do not possess that prejudice. My question simply is: How we treat the "animal", which are people showing high-degree…

Well if you see them as biological machines, the correct answer is "training". Currently, putting these biological machines into these prisons trains them to use violence as a problem-solving tool and trains them in the understanding that they will not be protected by the authorities and they must look after themselves (with their problem-solving tool; violence).

These prisons are a way of training people to be criminals.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#85

Post by EliRivers »

trhway wrote: post #59
justicezyx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, I guess I am too much a CS people. When I say "animal", I mean human as a kind of "animal". In terms of people killing people, that is a reflection of the "animal" side of human. Thus I use "animal". If you think I mean they are "animal", and I am not "animal"; and I am better then them. Sorry, I do not possess that prejudice. My question simply is: How we treat the "animal", which are people showing high-degree…

i wonder why "animal" surfaced here at all. Animals kill for food or self-defense, it isn't a voluntary act, it is what they have to do. Killing for other reasons, voluntary killings, murders - it is all almost exclusively human trait. In particular, animals don't do murders, it is human invention.

Some animals kill far more than they need to for food. They kill one, and instead of eating it or leaving with it, kill many more and then just leave the fresh kills behind. That's not for food, and it's not for self-defence.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#86

Post by rukuu_001 »

whiddershins wrote: post #12
justicezyx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How we should treat the "animal" that kill people then?

All humans are capable of horrific acts. It is a part of our humanity, we are apex predators who organize socially. The evolved algorithm in our brain that manages that dissonance is extremely complex and will necessarily fail at times. We can't tolerate or condone antisocial behavior, but it is a mistake to feel safe in the thought "we" are better than "them." We are they, they are we.

> All humans are capable of horrific acts.

I think it's important to internalize this idea.

Whenever you hear of a violent and sickening act, ask yourself: under what circumstances would I do that?

Answering 'never' is a failure of imagination. Engaging honestly with this question is the path toward solving the problem of our capacity for harm.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#87

Post by beardicus »

aristidb wrote: post #82

One quote stuck with me: “But it’s a tough place to do time. People that say cons have it easy, they ain’t never been in Menard.” Not an American, but between saying that cons have it easy and the fact of mass incarceration in the first place, it seems that there's a certain mercilessness in American culture.

We certainly seem to prefer punishment and retribution over rehabilitation. Many americans view prison as a deterrent, thus making it more horrible should deter more potential criminals.

There's also a disturbing attitude towards (largely male) prison rape. It is completely acceptable to joke about it, even on national late-night television, and the attitude is clearly one of "prisoners are terrible sub-humans and deserve to be raped by their peers". It's really messed up.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#88

Post by oh_sigh »

aristidb wrote: post #82

One quote stuck with me: “But it’s a tough place to do time. People that say cons have it easy, they ain’t never been in Menard.” Not an American, but between saying that cons have it easy and the fact of mass incarceration in the first place, it seems that there's a certain mercilessness in American culture.

Who exactly says cons have it easy? I've never heard that one before.

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#89

Post by lkbm »

rtpg wrote: post #75
gnaritas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a simple solution to that, set people free. We don't need to build more prisons, we already imprison more of our population than any other country in the world, we have too many prisons and too many people in them. We need to imprison less people. Release all inmates who committed victim-less crimes, if more room is needed, release all inmates who committed non violent crimes-there are better ways to deal wit…

I agree that we should have less people in prison. In order to be lucid about the situation though, it's important to realise that a very large part of the prison population is in there for violent offences. Even knowing this, I still believe we should be reducing sentences (I have a hard time justifying putting anyone in a cage for 15 years as a punishment...) but there probably needs to be some alternative things g…

To put some numbers on the part of the prison population there for violent offenses:

* Bureau of Justice Statistics says 53% of state prsionsers and 7% (what?!) of federal prisoners (2014): http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf * Federal Bureau of Prisons says 46.5% drug offences (no specification on violent v. non-violent) and 9.2% immigration as the third largest group. Second largest is more violent sounding, though: Weapons, Explosives, Arson 16.9% (2016): https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

I don't think non-violent crime should always mean no prison, but I suspect there are better ways of dealing with the majority of them.

Also, since you mentioned shorter terms, here are the BOP's numbers of sentence length: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_sente...

Re: The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

#90

Post by tacostakohashi »

Karunamon wrote: post #38
superuser2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also what happens when well-intentioned people are vastly more successful at fighting prison construction than fighting mass incarceration. Our prisons are routinely at 1.5x, 2x, 3x capacity. Being against the prison industrial complex feels good, but in doing so you become directly, personally responsible for the fact that there are now 3 people in a cell meant for one, people living on cots in a gymnasium w…

Thought experiment: What would happen if the laws were amended so that, should someone be sentenced to prison time, and all prisons within a reasonable radius are at capacity, that either the person with the lowest amount of time to serve in that prison (barring violent offenses) is automatically set free, or the sentence is commuted to probation or such? There's an argument to be made here that cramming two people i…

If the laws were amended as you suggest, what would happen is it prison capacities would be constantly redefined, rather like the debt ceiling. You'd need the law to impose a hard limit on prisoners per square foot or something to make it reasonably hard to evade. Also, if it's easier and cheaper to change the law than build a new prison, it won't work.

You've definitely identified the crux of the problem, though - prison capacities need to be treated as hard limits not to be exceeded, and not some nominal "design" number, which is routinely exceeded without limitation. If more people need to be incarcerated than there is capacity for, the solution needs to be building a new prison.

To be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual, a punishment needs to be well, cruel and unusual. Prison overcrowding may be cruel, but it's not unusual.

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