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Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

theguardian.com

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Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#51

Post by metalon »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #35
grecy wrote: post #7

I recently had to spend 14 days locked in a hotel room alone as mandatory quarantine to enter Australia. Shockingly (for me), after just 14 days I already felt more comfortable inside the room than out, and I got a real glimpse into what being "institutionalized" means. Life was so simple and not scary, it was enjoyable, in a sick kind of way. I couldn't imagine what coming out after an entire year would be like, let…

I'm beginning to really dislike the downvote button. This seems like a perfectly reasonable comment so what purpose is served by fading it out?

Spending two weeks in a hotel room with all the amenities you can imagine (Contact to your beloved ones, television, internet access) is in no way comparable to solitary confinement, especially given the short time and the fact that you know when it will end. The gp comment is incredibly tone deaf.

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#52

Post by goodpoint »

throwawaygimp wrote: post #9

UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…

I think people understimate the impact on mental health caused by the absence of social safety nets.

Provide UBI and health services and a lot of anxiety might go away.

Remove the need to toil in a bad workplace and a lot of depression might go away.

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#53

Post by chrisshroba »

goodpoint wrote: post #52
throwawaygimp wrote: post #9

UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…

I think people understimate the impact on mental health caused by the absence of social safety nets. Provide UBI and health services and a lot of anxiety might go away. Remove the need to toil in a bad workplace and a lot of depression might go away.

I think you might mean “underestimate”?

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#54

Post by akudha »

comodore_ wrote: post #41
jpxw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health insurance for all? Agree. I’m not sold on the economics of UBI. IMO something that I think would make a huge difference while also being realistically achievable is criminal justice reform. We cannot let prisons continue being factories for drug addicts and career criminals. There must surely be a better way than this.

> We cannot let prisons continue being factories for drug addicts and career criminals or literal factories. prison labor is not always forced, but always cheap labor and some of it even dangerous. imagine getting paid 2$ a day to fight CA's wildfires

Even worse than that $2 is that they can’t get hired as firefighters once they are out, due to felony record

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#55

Post by goodpoint »

chrisshroba wrote: post #53
goodpoint wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people understimate the impact on mental health caused by the absence of social safety nets. Provide UBI and health services and a lot of anxiety might go away. Remove the need to toil in a bad workplace and a lot of depression might go away.

I think you might mean “underestimate”?

Thank you. Fixed.

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#56

Post by wccrawford »

jimnotgym wrote: post #28
throwawaygimp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI no one knows. Being sold or otherwise doesn't matter. Small trials here and there aren't much use. We need a country with balls to try it like Portugal did with drug policy. So yea, I'm not sold either. No one really is until we get the hard truth. Nothing more complex (and chaotic) than society and it's economy. Good luck modelling and predicting that reliably ha!

Whilst the detractors of UBI like to paint it as automatically impossible, like breaking some fundamental law of nature, I bet the same people would have said the same things about the Covid benefit schemes. In my country people could be furloughed by their employer on 80% of their salary... and somehow we paid for it ok.

The most vocal detractors, yeah. But that's true for anything. The most vocal people are the ones that draw a hard line and refuse to budge, often choosing to scream people down instead of using actual logic or science.

That doesn't mean they're wrong, just that they aren't even attempting to put thought into it, just emotion.

You can't discount something based on it's most vocal proponents or opponents.

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#57

Post by misja111 »

Meanwhile, Guantanamo Bay will soon celebrate its 20th birthday as a detention center. All of its prisoners are there without trial or even formal accusation. And they are not only in solitary confinement but many have been tortured as well.

Here is this year's Amnesty report: https://www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/USA_-R...

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#58

Post by wccrawford »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #35
grecy wrote: post #7

I recently had to spend 14 days locked in a hotel room alone as mandatory quarantine to enter Australia. Shockingly (for me), after just 14 days I already felt more comfortable inside the room than out, and I got a real glimpse into what being "institutionalized" means. Life was so simple and not scary, it was enjoyable, in a sick kind of way. I couldn't imagine what coming out after an entire year would be like, let…

I'm beginning to really dislike the downvote button. This seems like a perfectly reasonable comment so what purpose is served by fading it out?

Some people are really against people trying to empathize with an incredibly bad situation after having gone through a slightly-bad situation that has some parallels. They insist that it's nothing like that and will scream down anyone who tries to care based on their own experience.

IMO, it's incredibly harmful for the the cause and instead of shouting them down, they should just turn away and ignore them.

OTOH, if they were trying to use that experience to downplay the problem, it's perfectly fine to talk to them about why they're wrong, but civilly.

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#59

Post by jdjd6 »

metalon wrote: post #51
kwhitefoot wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm beginning to really dislike the downvote button. This seems like a perfectly reasonable comment so what purpose is served by fading it out?

Spending two weeks in a hotel room with all the amenities you can imagine (Contact to your beloved ones, television, internet access) is in no way comparable to solitary confinement, especially given the short time and the fact that you know when it will end. The gp comment is incredibly tone deaf.

I disagree that its tone deaf. Most of the comments here are talking about prisons. In prison inmates get television, board games, telephone access, recreational activities, visits, and more. It's on the same topic most everyone is discussing.

As for solitary confinement, no one gets assigned there directly. There would have to be a specific and documented reason, in this day and age particularly, why someone is placed there after ending up in a prison.

Re: Experience: I spent 29 years in solitary confinement (2010)

#60

Post by account42 »

kilroy123 wrote: post #39
throwawaygimp wrote: post #9

UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…

It's been my experience around the world that about 99% of people are honest for the most part and won't rob or harm you. But... that means there's that 1% who _will_. I think no matter what, that 1% will exist (this is just a gut feeling). That means in the US alone, there are ~3.3 million people roaming around that will rob, steal, murder, rape, and do other horrible things. At a peak, 2.3 million were in prison so…

> It's been my experience around the world that about 99% of people are honest for the most part and won't rob or harm you. But... that means there's that 1% who _will_. I think no matter what, that 1% will exist (this is just a gut feeling).

Yes, those tend to be referred to as the 1%.

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