Do you think long term solitary confinement can be considered a form of torture?

yes

ditto

Duh.

Next question, Is the torture of solitary confinement a due justice for horrible crimes? That is, so what if it is torture – some people may think some felons deserve it.

How many people here would NOT want to see Hitler tortured?

Yep.

@Charles: “Next question, Is the torture of solitary confinement a due justice for horrible crimes? That is, so what if it is torture – some people may think some felons deserve it.”

We develop justice systems and ethical societies to protect humanity from people who want to torture people. So, no – there is no justice in torturing people. Period.

Yes, it is definitely a form of torture. People are social beings and it has been proven that solitary confinement drives people crazy.

It is better to let them all together, then they kill each other and we don’t have to debate the capital punishment question.

No. Torture, until it became recently politicized, involved painful and crippling physical alteration that did not heal to the original state after the torture.

Having said it, there is really no evidence anywhere that solitary confinement serves the interest of the People, or has any rehabilitative value on the prisoner. It is left over from the the Dark Ages, where people believed that torment would connect the transgressor with their noble soul, so that they could have a chance of entering heaven. All bullshit. But people still shake their cartons of milk even though they are all homogenized, and people still believe this mystical nonsense.

“We develop justice systems and ethical societies to protect humanity from people who want to torture people. So, no – there is no justice in torturing people. Period.”

OK, Then we’ll consider solitary to be ethical and just so now it can’t be considered torture and we have a developed justice system.

Without question, long-term solitary confinement is a form of torture. The question then becomes,“What are we to do with those people who are so violent that they actually constitute a threat to their fellow inmates?”

”The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the unfailing tests of the civilisation of a country.” Winston Churchill, 1910.

I wouldn’t call it torture, but it is definitely cruel and unusual punishment.

A long time ago it used to drive men crazy.

All imprisonment is a form of torture. That’s why it’s used. The myth of “rehabilitation” is something people use as an excuse to justify the torture of imprisonment. The sorts of people who howl for longer prison sentences and think a couple of years of imprisonment is “a slap on the wrist” have never experienced imprisonment.

@SmashTheState

Dude… you make more sense than about 90% of our elected officials. Wanna run for office? : D

Absolutely.

“There is a large body of evidence consistently and convincingly demonstrating the harmful effects of solitary confinement on health and wellbeing. These effects are particularly devastating for the mentally ill, who are overrepresented in supermax prisons: in Colorado alone, as many as 40 per cent of prisoners housed in segregated housing were suffering mental illness. One of the most commonly reported reactions to regimes of solitary confinement is increased irritability and rage, often manifested in unprovoked violent outbursts. In the absence of others, this violence is often directed inwardly: in California, a reported 69 per cent of prison suicides in 2005 took place in segregated housing. When the prisoner is released back to the general prison population or to society at large, violence may also be directed against others.

Rather than controlling violence, as they officially purport to do, supermax prisons may thus breed mental illness and violence, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, the costs of which may be borne not only by the prisoners themselves but also by the communities to which they will eventually return.”

Sharon Shalev, author of Supermax.

I am sure nothing about prison is nice, but isn’t it supposed to be punishment for crimes committed against innocent members of society? Rehabilitation is a good idea but I have been to enough AA meetings to know that you can’t force someone to rehabilitate, it is a hard job and you have to want it personally. I assumed solitary was used as a disciplinary method or for prisoners who have become targets of the general prison population.

Maybe we should just turn them all loose, then the NRA types who have guns to protect themselves and their families, would probably shoot them and again the problem would be solved. Or would they incarcerate the NRA’s for shooting the crims? That would start the whole problem over again.

Years ago here, it was deemed that mentally ill people should not be confined in institutions. So they were turned out. They now make up a great portion of the country’s homeless. And really Australia has many social welfare programs, it’s not like they don’t try. It just seems as if the government cannot solve all of the problems of the world. The older I get, the more I realize there are no simple answers.

What is the problem for which solitary confinement is the solution? It does not benefit the State, because it is expensive. It does not help the public, because it is no more of a deterrent than imprisonment. It certainly does not help the prisoner or make the prisoner any less likely to commit crimes upon being released.

As I said it is my understanding that it is often used when a person becomes a target of the rest of the prison population. The other is punishment.

“With the exception of the Federal supermax, which does house some of the most notorious criminals in the United States, placement in a supermax has nothing to do with the crime initially committed by the prisoner. Rather, these state-run supermaxes are an internal prison management tool, and placement in them is based on the prisoner’s actual, or predicted, behaviour in prison.

Some supermax prisoners are indeed extremely violent individuals who have committed a serious crime such as murder or rape in prison, but many of those confined to a supermax are non-violent offenders who broke prison rules and regulations – in one state offences such as disobedience and “possessing more than $5 in unauthorised funds” can result in a supermax term of 2 years.

Others end up in a supermax because of their mental illness, or because they are jailhouse lawyers, prison gang members or other “nuisance” prisoners.”

Sharon Shalev

There ya go, be good and you don’t get punished!