Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Negative effects of solitary confinement
Negative effects of solitary confinement
Institutional racism in the usa
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Negative effects of solitary confinement
“To see someone’s legs tied, suspended upside down while their feet are beaten has a disturbing effect. Even the sound I shall never forget, not just the screaming but also the swash of the hose coming down on their body” (Conditions of detention”). In many countries, “prisoners suffer violations of their human rights through harsh treatment and conditions” (Conditions of detention”). The conditions involve cruel treatment of the prisoners and isolation for over 20 years. In accordance with Golding, the inhumane treatment and the harsh conditions enforced on the prisoners of California show the savageness of the human nature and its flaws that lead to the deficiency in a society.
While the prisoners are getting ready for their jail life, the prison authorities were also starting to program the procedures of the torture they were going to enforce on the powerless prisoners. The prisoners were treated with harsh conditions that are considered to be intolerable with the concept of human dignity. People who were on the verge of getting out of prison chose to die rather than stay a few more days and get tortured by this beasts “No one wants to die…yet under this current system of what amounts to intense torture, what choice do we have?” (Cline). Another such statement leaked to the reporters led to the consideration of the innate inhumane nature of the men “The cell was about 12 square yards... At night everyone had to lie on their sides, as there was not enough room to lie on your back. To use the toilet at night you had to wake the people up sleeping in the toilet. The two toilets were just holes in the floor and whatever function you did in the toilet, the whole cell could see you” (“Conditions of detention”). These conditions enfo...
... middle of paper ...
...ger Strike To Protest Solitary Conditions”. HuffPost Politics. The HuffingtonPost.com, 2013. Web. 22 Nov 2013. .
Cline, Alex. “Why These 30,000 California Prisoners On Hunger Strike Deserve Your Support”. PolicyMic. Mic Network Inc., 2013. Web. 22 Nov 2013. .
“Conditions of detention and treatment of prisoners”. CEP. N.p, n.d. Web. 22 Nov 2013. .
“Palta, Rina. “USA” California prison authorities ‘toying with the lives’ of inmates on hunger strike”. Amnesty International. Amnesty international, 2013. Web. 22 Nov 2013. .
What disturbed me is that although the prisoners have committed a crime, it is wrong for the wardens treat them like “animals”. It is astonishing that the inmates are able to survive through each day. If I was expected to eat the rotten food, I would choose not to eat, which would have eventually lead to starvation. I am aware that the feeling of starvation is unbearable, it’s almost like if there was something stabbing through your guts. Previously mentioned, I would rather just get shot because if I was an inmate in the cell, I would end up not eating anything at. This will then lead to death, whereas getting blasted by a gun would be faster and significantly more
This paper is about the book 'Behind a Convict's Eyes' by K.C. Cerceral. This book was written by a young man who enters prison on a life sentence and describes the world around him. Life in prison is a subculture of its own, this subculture has its own society, language and cast system. The book describes incidents that have happen in prison to inmates. With this paper I will attempt to explain the way of life in a prison from an inmate's view.
A reality where the prisoner is dehumanized and have their rights and mental health abused. “I have endured lockdowns in buildings with little or no heat; lockdowns during which authorities cut off the plumbing completely, so contraband couldn’t be flushed away; and lockdowns where we weren’t allowed out to shower for more than a month” (Hopkins 154). A prisoner currently must survive isolation with improper shelter in the form of heat. Issues compound with a lack of running water and bathing, a proven severe health danger, especially for someone lacking proper nutrients such as a prisoner in lockdown. These abuses of physical well being then manifest into damage of prisoners’ mental well being. “Perhaps I should acknowledge that the lockdown-and, indeed, all these years-have damaged more than I want to believe” (Hopkins 156). Even for the experienced prisoner the wrath of unethically long lockdowns still cause mental damage. Each and every isolation period becomes another psychological beating delivered as the justice system needlessly aims to damage the already harmed inmates. The damage is so profound inmates even recognize the harm done to them by their jailors. An armed and widely used psychological weapon, the elongated lockdown procedures decimate mental health each and every time
The second prisoner was a young boy who was being hanged for the fact that he stole weapons during a power failure. The significance of this particular hanging was the young boy’s lack of rebellion, his quiet fear and the unbearable duration of his torment. The boy had lost all hope and was one of the only victims who wept at the knowledge of their demise. What made this case different from the rest was not only his youth, but also his silence, and emotion and the fact that it took a half an hour for him to die, as a result of the lightness of his young body. Even though he was constantly tortured and provoked by the guards before he was hanged, he still said nothing, unlike the two people who joined him, who both shouted in defiance. His quiet courage really stood out as an unspoken and unannounced rebellion not only for the Jews, but it showed the doubts that some of the guards began to have. “This time, the Lagerkapo refused to act as executioner.” Although this quote is one sentence it still shows the effect the boy had on everyone in the camp. Even though the prisoners had been living with the constant presence of death, the execution of this young boy made them feel emotion they believed they had lost forever. This death was an unsaid act of rebellion in the sense that it showed the audience that there was indeed still some sensitivity left no matter how much both the prisoners and the guards were dehumanized: the prisoners as merely a number, and the guards as ruthless
The 1970s in the United States was a time of incredible change, doubt, as well as reform. The many issues happening throughout the country helped to lead to the discomfort in many prisoners that eventually lead to their e...
These statistics show that not only is solitary confinement still implemented, it is becoming more popular among prisons. One group, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, leads by example through their protest against solitary confinement. The group joined in on a “23-hour nationwide fast June 19 at a press conference in Washington following the first-ever congressional hearing on solitary confinement” (Chris Lisee). The duration of the fast symbolized the general number of hours prisoners are contained without any social interaction or movement outside of their cells. The protests by interest groups, although not yet nationally effective, are making an impact.
Assaults such as theses often result in inmates being seriously injured or in some cases dead. Modern day slavery within prisons is another form of cruelty and exploitation inmates face every day. Writer Vicky Pelaez, describes the forced labor situation in private prisons that inmates are exposed to in her article describing, “All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells” (Pelaez, 2014). This scenario is representative of an indentured servant, who is not only working to reduce their sentence but also getting payed very little in order to take care of their in jail expenses such as; soap, tooth paste, shampoo, etc. Cruelty such as this, is supported in 37 states and funded by “IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, [and] Compaq” (Pelaez,
Many myths surround penal institutions and the prisoners constituting them. The mass media portrays priso...
Wilson, Rick. "The Growing Problems of the Prison System." American Friends Service Committee. American Friends Service Committee, 27 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. .
“US: Look Critically at Widespread Use of Solitary Confinement.” Human Rights Watch, 1 July 2016,
We see that the author’s purpose is to allow the readers to understand that the prisoners were not treated humanly, and allows us to see the negative attitudes the authority had towards the prisoners.
The number of gays and lesbians in the U.S. is estimated to be approximately 8.8 million (randomhistory.com) About thirty-three percent of Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender commit suicide each year. At least fifty-two percent self-harm (dosomethinng.com). Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender are mistreated and misunderstood. Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender are treated inhumanely which causes them to go into a deep depression, self-harm, or even commit suicide. LGBT are humans, not just some creature from another world (personal).
“If one speaks about torture, one must take care not to exaggerate,” Jean Améry view of torture comes from a place of uneasiness (22). He discusses in his book At The Mind’s Limits, about the torture that he underwent while a prisoner in Auschwitz. In his chapter titled “Torture”, he goes into deep description of not only the torture he endured, but also how that torture never leaves a person. Améry goes to great lengths to make sure that the torture he speaks of is accurate and as he says on page 22, not exaggerated.
“Men forced to undress and becomes in a rank. Some former prisoners report that beat them on genitals and a groin, forced to have oral sex and to suck off, beat the stun gun in erogenous places, stubs from cigarettes thrust into anuses. To detainees repeatedly threatened that they will be raped in the face of relatives, wives and daughters, and also their families threatened that, including and children too will be raped. Some men declared that proctal forced them bludgeons, and that they saw as governmental armies forced also children. One person declared that he saw rape of the boy in the face of the father. 40-year-old man saw as three officers of security service force the child.” [6]
The first purpose of the prison is that of Public protection via incapacitation of offenders; this is considered to be the only purpo...