Is isolation torture?

[Philly]

[Tejada]

Something that, as a rule, causes insanity in anyone subjected to it for long enough seems likes torture to me.

[Dylan]

[Kane]

It's torture.

Jeremy Bentham originally conceived of this type of punishment as one of serving the notion of being able to repent for past deeds. His panopticon was the first iteration of any prison environment that utilized the notion of the SHU (Solitary Housing Unit) as means of paying back one's debt to society by total isolation and confinement. The prisoner would labor in his cell for some predetermined amount of time until he/she was shown to have repented fully. The prisoner would be given some crude tools/instruments and they would be productive - producing menial items for the general public outside. All while under the purview of the tower looming in the center of the prison - able to see into their cells while they are unable to see out.

Pelican Bay is a Level 4 prison in California. They don't have a general population. There isn't much communication between the inmates. It's where the worst offenders go...and they spend 23 hours a day locked up in a cell. Outside of their already compromised mental state (the criminality that landed them there in the first place) solitary confinement, I believe, serves to compound upon their original ailments. It's a circle of mental instability until they die. Their only hope is one of escape - and as we see in NY today that's a hard enough feat on its own.

It's hard to see an alternative though. By any measure, many would auger that giving any inmate as deplorable as those any socialization being tantamount to favoring their own well being over those of whom they affected. Public perception is an issue in dealing with the effects of incarceration in the US. I would however counter that US prisons need to be made safer not for the prisoners, but for the guards themselves. Many of the activities made available to prisoners are sought nut just in an effort to reform those willing to do so, it's to occupy the prisoner's minds so that they don't lash out at the guards. Can you imagine working in Pelican Bay? Just going there every day would begin to feel like your own personally imposed prison. You'd see nothing but the worst of people on a daily basis. And you'd be a part to it.

[Yvetteol]