Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
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Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#2Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities.
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#3Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities.
Like waterboarding?
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#4Too depressing to read in its entirety. One straightforward way of evaluating whether there might be anything wrong with practices in American prisons is to compare with other countries -- do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way?
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#5Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities.
What sets it apart from other forms of punishment? The definition of "torture" seems somewhat flexible.
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#6Too depressing to read in its entirety. One straightforward way of evaluating whether there might be anything wrong with practices in American prisons is to compare with other countries -- do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way?
> do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way
Other countries with stable democracies have universal health care, don't incarcerate almost 1% of the population, have never landed people on the moon, don't spend 5% of their GDP on the military, aren't the home of Apple, Microsoft, and IBM, and so on. America has always been (and will probably always be) an edge case.
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#7Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities.
What sets it apart from other forms of punishment? The definition of "torture" seems somewhat flexible.
It's certainly considered psychological torture when lasting more than a few weeks. There are a lot of good studies to back this up.
Here's a great article to get your started: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#8Too depressing to read in its entirety. One straightforward way of evaluating whether there might be anything wrong with practices in American prisons is to compare with other countries -- do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way?
> do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way Other countries with stable democracies have universal health care, don't incarcerate almost 1% of the population, have never landed people on the moon, don't spend 5% of their GDP on the military, aren't the home of Apple, Microsoft, and IBM, and so on. America has always been (and will probably always be) an edge case.
> and will probably always be
I seriously doubt that. What goes around comes around.
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#9Revenge.
Re: Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons
#10A very sad read and the comments are even worse. This sort of thing so clearly crosses the line in to inhumanity. I appreciate that some/many of these inmates have committed awful crimes but it seems that this particular system offers no opportunity for rehabilitation and is focussed solely on punishment.
I forget where I read it but I believe that there is a correlation between the severity of the punishment and it's peak effect. If it is normal imprisonment then the effect of the punishment plateaus at 18 months (ish) and if it is solitary then the (albeit greater) effect of the punishment plateaus at 30 days, after that it is achieving no extra punishment and you may as well go back in to a rehabilitation mode. I'm not saying that prison sentences should be no longer than 18 months but after this point the focus should be on (eventual) reintegration into society with new skills and education to keep them from reoffending.