Solitary Confinement: A Historical and Legal Perspective

Solitary Confinement

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

soil.This punishment rapidly overtook the justice the system and in order to understand exactly why The positives must be brought up. With busy schedules and complex social interactions prisoners don’t get much time to contemplate but in small doses solitary confinement can help. Solitary Confinement also adds multiple layers of security in many aspects; the close surveillance prevents prisoners from hurting themselves and the security and isolation stops prisoners from making rash judgements and hurting faculty or other prisoners. Confinement prevents prisoners from involvement in gangs and actively discourages them from ever considering gang related activity while doing time. Lastly if prisoners become deeply rooted in inter prison gang activity solitary confinement may be used as a last ditch preventive measure in order to guarantee the safety of an inmate from outside threats but this is often avoided because it punishes the inmate in confinement even though they did nothing wrong; this can lead to long term psychological damage that is different from the usual damage caused by isolation. Morally these pros should not lead us to believe isolation is a cure. Instead of funding supermax prisons criminals must be observed closely and this leds to a

Having to resort to a form of torture show the place where the justice system is right now, Even if the prisoner was shunned to solitary confinement just because faculty does’nt have the proper motivation. It’s unfair to the people with pre-existing problems like pregnancy and Mental instability. places like it exist in every state, thriving right by the outskirts of our cities, and it’s shameful to have such a thing in country that represents freedom or equal chance. On any given day in the United States, supermax prisons and solitary confinement units hold at least eighty thousand men, women, and juveniles in conditions of isolation and sensory deprivation, without work, rehabilitation, or meaningful human contact of any kind. Take the senator Christie case for example, this new jersey senator vetoed a bill that would prevent kids and pregnant women from going to solitary and would have restricted its use to only extreme circumstances and to no more than 15 consecutive days or 20 days in a two-month period. Sen. Christtie stated that the confinement was necessary and not nearly as bad as the “media” put it out to be. If this country still has peopling defending unnecessary torture there is a need for