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Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

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Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#41

Post by spodek »

entropyneur wrote: post #9

On the intellectual level I have absolutely no reason to doubt the scientific evidence or the countless accounts of people who were subjected to solitary imprisonment and describe it as torture and worst thing that ever happened to them. I remember a documentary (probably NatGeo's "America's hardest prisons") episode where a violent and seemingly fearless thug was reduced to a crying baby by 2 weeks of solitary confi…

> Yet, for some reason I am completely unable to empathize with it.

It's simple, if you want to. You just haven't had a comparable experience.

Lock yourself in a room with no contact with the outside world for a month or two. Remove any niceties a prison would not allow. Probably a room with no windows, mirror, or books.

If you aren't willing to do it, explore what you lose in life. Try doing it for a day or even an hour.

Maybe the difficulty in empathizing comes from the difference from anything you consider a normal life.

Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#42

Post by fiatjaf »

3131s wrote: post #18
entropyneur wrote: post #9

On the intellectual level I have absolutely no reason to doubt the scientific evidence or the countless accounts of people who were subjected to solitary imprisonment and describe it as torture and worst thing that ever happened to them. I remember a documentary (probably NatGeo's "America's hardest prisons") episode where a violent and seemingly fearless thug was reduced to a crying baby by 2 weeks of solitary confi…

I'm guessing in your case it's either a misunderstanding of what solitary would be like, or a misunderstanding of how bad it would be to share a cell with the average prisoner. Solitary is not just getting the room to yourself. It's 24 hours a day of total isolation and really nothing at all to do. Your human contact would be limited to having guards slide food trays into your cell and once a day having a guard escor…

Really, how many people get to stay DECADES in prison? In Brazil the most horrible crimes have a de facto threshold of 6 years in jail.

Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#44

Post by Broken_Hippo »

intralizee wrote: post #31

I had an experience with solitary confinement and I was tormented by it. The memories don't effect me much anymore and I now can write about it. It resulted from a mental break down, causing an arrest which was not justified legally but the officer at the scene was annoyed by me. The charge were eventually dismissed but still haunts me like it would for any person. I'm transgender which is related to the situation; a…

I'm sorry you've had to endure this and am happy you are doing a bit better. Thank you very much for sharing the experience.

Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#45

Post by TeMPOraL »

ekianjo wrote: post #8
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these people not think about how cruel solitary confinement is? According to the article: "Researchers believe it damages the body and brain as well, but they can't test this hypothesis, because what we do to prisoners every day—house them in prolonged isolation—is illegal to do to laboratory animals. It is against the law to treat rats the way we treat people in solitary." Yup. That's right. Illegal for lab rats.…

There is a minority of criminals who have serious mental problems and who are likely to commit crime again as soon as they are out. Are you confortable with that?

I'd call into question whether such people should be punished at all, for what's arguably not their fault.

Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#47

Post by entropyneur »

fiatjaf wrote: post #42
3131s wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing in your case it's either a misunderstanding of what solitary would be like, or a misunderstanding of how bad it would be to share a cell with the average prisoner. Solitary is not just getting the room to yourself. It's 24 hours a day of total isolation and really nothing at all to do. Your human contact would be limited to having guards slide food trays into your cell and once a day having a guard escor…

Really, how many people get to stay DECADES in prison? In Brazil the most horrible crimes have a de facto threshold of 6 years in jail.

According to the article, some are spending decades in solitary :(

Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#48

Post by TeMPOraL »

3131s wrote: post #18
entropyneur wrote: post #9

On the intellectual level I have absolutely no reason to doubt the scientific evidence or the countless accounts of people who were subjected to solitary imprisonment and describe it as torture and worst thing that ever happened to them. I remember a documentary (probably NatGeo's "America's hardest prisons") episode where a violent and seemingly fearless thug was reduced to a crying baby by 2 weeks of solitary confi…

I'm guessing in your case it's either a misunderstanding of what solitary would be like, or a misunderstanding of how bad it would be to share a cell with the average prisoner. Solitary is not just getting the room to yourself. It's 24 hours a day of total isolation and really nothing at all to do. Your human contact would be limited to having guards slide food trays into your cell and once a day having a guard escor…

When I saw the title of the article, "buried alive", I thought to myself: let's not hyperbolize. But after reading your description, I realized that ending up in a permanently dark solitary is in a way worse than getting buried alive - at least, in the latter case, you eventually suffocate or starve to death. In solitary, they use your survival instinct against you. You'll be fed and kept physically healthy, so you can't escape the isolation.

Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#49

Post by cooper12 »

peteretep wrote: post #40
ploggingdev wrote: post #2

> the federal government and about half of the states in the country began restricting their use of solitary. These efforts gained bipartisan support for economical, not compassionate, reasons That is the most telling line about how the Government thinks. Do these people not think about how cruel solitary confinement is? The best way to make people understand these cruel practices is to imagine themselves in solitary…

I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but: > Do these people not think > about how cruel solitary > confinement is? If it was effective, and its use wasn't at a guard's whim, I wouldn't really care. But it's not effective, and there doesn't appear to be proper oversight, and that's what upsets me.

Sorry, I don't care what you label yourself as, but if you think it's justifiable to use cruel punishment as long as its "effective", you might be a bit morally defective. Torture is a human rights violation.

Re: Buried Alive: Stories from Inside Solitary Confinement

#50

Post by entropyneur »

spodek wrote: post #41
entropyneur wrote: post #9

On the intellectual level I have absolutely no reason to doubt the scientific evidence or the countless accounts of people who were subjected to solitary imprisonment and describe it as torture and worst thing that ever happened to them. I remember a documentary (probably NatGeo's "America's hardest prisons") episode where a violent and seemingly fearless thug was reduced to a crying baby by 2 weeks of solitary confi…

> Yet, for some reason I am completely unable to empathize with it. It's simple, if you want to. You just haven't had a comparable experience. Lock yourself in a room with no contact with the outside world for a month or two. Remove any niceties a prison would not allow. Probably a room with no windows, mirror, or books. If you aren't willing to do it, explore what you lose in life. Try doing it for a day or even an…

It's a reasonable assumption, but I don't think that's all there is to it. Prison is generally not a comfortable place (where I live, lack of windows is standard, for instance, even in multi-person cells). And yet, people who experienced solitary are all seem to be putting an emphasis on the lack of human contact. They are not begging for books or windows. I got an impression from the article that it's at least somewhat common to have access to books and even TV, and it's still just as torturous. They are begging to be allowed to spend time with other humans.
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