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Is the use of solitary confinement in prisons an effective and ethical way to punish inmates
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Imagine. You are alone with your thoughts. There is nothing that can separate you from their unpredictable horrors because you spend 23 hours a day completely alone. In silence you wait, desperate for a chance to leave the four-walled, concrete cell you now call home. These are the conditions of solitary confinement that are still in widespread use throughout America today. Although solitary confinement may seem like the safest way to protect other prisoners, guards and even the inmate himself, it is an inhumane and cruel punishment and it has the opposite effect of what prisons are intended for. . Certainly the biggest argument against solitary confinement in prisons is that solitary confinement is a very cruel punishment. It is cruel …show more content…
Prisons were made of course, to house criminals and keep them away from citizens; however, more than that they were made to rehabilitate. Isn’t the purpose of prisons to help an individual conquer his previous mistakes with the hope that he will eventually be let back out into normal society? But if solitary confinement is a form of torture that may drive inmates out of their minds and certainly impress in them a hatred towards society, then solitary confinement would make them a threat to the public if they were to be let out. Inmates would not be able to go out into society and function correctly. Prisons with solitary confinement would be not only torturing inmates but as well as putting the general public into great danger each time an inmate was released. This goes against the very role of prison …show more content…
Solitary confinement is a cruel punishment, it doesn 't serve the role of prisons and it may eventually end up endangering the general public. Although some may argue that it is safe for prisoners, the cons outweigh the pros. It is important to think for ourselves what is justifiable and what isn 't. Do you want to be a person who defends the use of torture in America 's prisons, or will you see the truth about solitary confinement and decide to take a
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slavery was cruelty at its best. Slavery is described as long work days, a lack of respect for a human being, and the inability for a man or a woman to have gainful employment. The slaves were victimized the most for obvious reasons. Next on the list would be the families of both the slave and slave owners. At the bottom of the list would be the slave owners. Slavery does in fact victimize slaves, slave owner and their families by repeating the same cycle every generation.
Do you think solitary confinement is a form of torture or a necessary disciplinary technique? (Explain your answer based on information provided in the article).
While solitary confinement is one of the most effective ways of keeping todays prisoners from conflict and communication it is also the most detrimental to their health. According to an article by NPR.org the reason for most solitary confinement units in America “is to control the prison gangs (NPR, 2011).” Sometimes putting a gang member in solitary confinement reduces the effect that confinement is supposed to have when the confined inmate starts losing their mind. The prisoners kept in solitary confinement show more psychotic symptoms than that of a normal prisoner, including a higher suicide rate. Once a prisoner’s mental capacity to understand why he or she is in prison and why they are being punished is gone, there is no reason to keep said prisoner in solitary confinement. Once your ability to understand punishment is gone the consequences of your actions lose value and become irrelevant.
Solitary Confinement is a type of isolation in prison which a prisoner is segregated from the general population of the prison and any human contact besides the prison employees. These prisons are separated from the general population to protect others and themselves from hurting anyone in the prison. These prisoners are deprived of social interaction, treatments, psychologist, family visits, education, job training, work, religious programming and many other services prisoners might need during the sentence of their imprisonment. There are roughly 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement but 25,000 are in long term and supermax prisons. According to the Constitution, “The Eighth Amendment [...] prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment”(US Const. amend. VIII). Solitary confinement is suppose to be the last straw for inmates to be in. If they don 't follow it, they can be on death row. Taxpayers pay roughly $75,000 to $85,000 to keep prisoners in solitary confinement. That is 3 times higher than the normal prisons that taxpayers pay for them to be in prison. Solitary confinement was established in 1829 in Philadelphia for experimentation because officials believed it was a way for
As time went on the solitary confinement idea made its way to the juvenile prison system, which has created a lot of controversy because young adolescent adults should not be forced into isolation. The notion behind why solitary confinement worked so well is because the government used (as what George Lakoff would say) the more conservative “strict father” model to deal with behavior issues. This is simply, people are told what to do, and if they do not do what is asked of them they should be punished, because that is the only way people learn. However why was this the only form of punishment/ rehabilitation the only option? There have been many arguments about why solitary confinement is necessary. The other option to solitary confinement would be to create
The negative effects of the long-term use of solitary confinement in prisons has been under the spot light for years, and has been considered to be broken. The maltreatment of prisoners is a constant
Many have been imprisoned, then subject to the horrors of torture known as solitary confinement or administrative segregation (AS) in the Canadian prison system. No matter the crime, it is a harsh punishment to inflict on any human being. The practice typically involves confining a prisoner to a single cell 23 hours daily with no meaningful human contact. Administrative segregation can last for months to years at a time. It is non-rehabilitative as it has negative effects on human beings causing symptoms of depression and self-harm, cognitive disturbances, and psychosis. Additionally, inmates in AS are more likely than the general population to commit suicide. Punishment through administrative segregation is paradoxical to the Canadian prison
The effects of prolonged isolation for inmates in confinement cells are obsessive-compulsive tendencies, paranoia, anger-management issues, and severe anxiety (Sifferlin, Alexandra). Along with the basic concepts such as food, water, and shelter, there are two other basics that Dr. Terry Kupers states are required for human wellbeing: “social interaction and meaningful activity. By doing things we learn who we are and we learn our worth as a person. The two things solitary confinement does are make people solitary and idle” (Sifferlin, Alexandra). Isolation and confinement remove prisoners’ ability to perform significant tasks and act as a part of society. This dehumanizes the inmates because they are no longer able to understand their role as a human being. One inmate, Jeanne DiMola, spent a year in solitary confinement and expressed her thoughts while in the cell: “I felt sorry I was born … Most of all I felt sorry that there wasn 't a road to kill myself because every day was worse than the last" (Rodhan, Maya). In DiMola’s opinion, a death penalty more than likely would have felt more humane than the isolation she experienced. Another prisoner, Damon Thibodeaux, stated, “Life in solitary is made all the worse because it 's a hopeless existence … It is torture
Solitary confinement does not help challenging prisoners in the long run. Solitary confinement actually has the potential to cause inmates to lose their ability to control and manage their anger. If an inmate continues to be violent, the result is a longer time in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is inhumane and should be called torture. Putting and keeping an individual in solitary confinement puts them at a very serious risk of developing a mental illness, which may not be recoverable. Solitary confinement causes many effects that range in severity; it is not something that inmates should be subjected to
As Terry Kupers says “solitary confinement destroys people as human beings." Solitary confinement should not allow to be used for any human being. No attempt was made to quantify the association between solitary confinement and human’s brain. Considering the long-term impact Solitary confinement has people’s brain as little as few weeks is heartbreaking. With all the respect, It’s a good Idea to hold accountable for someone their action, but torturing and damaging their mental health is pathetic. Solitary confinement not the solution to correct someone’s behavior because after getting out of jail they’ll be part of the rest of the society and knowing they won’t be able to function as a normal person is sad. Solitary confinement
Prisoners being released from solitary confinement are usually the individuals that need the most help recovering, and adapting back to everyday life. Inmates in solitary confinement have no access to education or job training, making it that much more difficult for re-entry. Since they are completely cut off from human contact, they have a very tough time communicating, and interacting with other people. Inmates are still in that prison mentality where everybody is out to get them and they cannot trust anybody.
Throughout this course we learned about slavery and it's effects on our country and on African Americans. Slavery and racism is prevalent throughout the Americas before during and after Thomas Jefferson's presidency. Some people say that Jefferson did not really help stop any of the slavery in the United States. I feel very differently and I will explain why throughout this essay. Throughout this essay I will be explaining how views of race were changed in the United States after the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, and how the events of the Jeffersonian Era set the stage for race relations for the nineteenth century.
Is the American Prison System Inhumane? Absolutely. It is badly overcrowded that they have to be sent to some other prison do to that overcrowding. Also, something that people should remember is that not everyone in jail has been convicted; many are awaiting trial or some are trying to immigrate to the US and are being held until their case can be reviewed.
Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which an inmate is isolated from any human contact. This form of extreme punishment is beyond incarnation and is an additional safety measure of protection for oneself or other convicts if they are considered dangerous. It’s also used as a punishment for violating prison regulations. Solitary confinement is proven to cause or worsen severe psychological problems of the inmates placed in it and cost more than regular prisons therefore it should not be used if completely unnecessary. In the two articles, “Should jails, prisons use solitary confinement?” By Jessica priest and “Should U.S. prisons continue to place inmates in solitary confinement?” by Issues & Controversies, it discusses each side
Solitary confinement originated in 1829 in a Penitentiary in Philadelphia the sentence has evolved, but the base of the concept remains the same. Beginning as form of punishment used by Quakers in order to let criminals Think and spend time alone with the bible the punishment has developed into today's cold, abhorrent, and dark supermax prisons. According to Merriam Webster the definition of Solitary confinement is “placing a prisoner in a Federal or state prison in a cell away from other prisoners, usually as a form of penal discipline, but occasionally to protect the convict from other prisoners or to prevent the prisoner from causing trouble. Long-term solitary confinement may be found to be unconstitutional as ‘cruel