Solitary Confinement: Your Views?

[Discovery]

imo it's much more psychologically damaging and brutal than death penalty. Most inmates have less than 4 hours of sleep, get fed with substandard food, and no human contact. The shortest average sentence is 23 months.

 

[♥Prof. Sugarcube♥]

Sleep only 4 hours a day and shut off from the world?

Seems to be a mismatch of premises there :T

[Galzra87]

Feed them with normal food, and with 8 hours of sleep.

Even then, this will be the punishment many deserves. With full life sentences.

(Aka, djihadists, killers, pedophile).

 

Oh, and make them wear a portable life signs reader. This way, you can tell when they try to kill themselves and prevent them to.

 

PS: For most criminals, death penalty is not even frightening. For terrorists who claims they are muslims (they are soo different), death is sweets because Allah will take 'em to paradise.

[Slocumruls]

exactly who is making sure they sleep only 4 hours?

[HarryG]

exactly who is making sure they sleep only 4 hours?

Agreed, how in the hell can one monitor this. Solitary is justified IMO, at least for the ones who want to die. Dont give them their last wish. 

[Keroro1454]

OP, can you back up almost any of your claims here?

 

- The 4 hours of sleep is not enforced, sometimes prisoners just have difficulty sleeping in their bright cells. There is no enforcement of any sort of regime, excluding showers and potentially visiting time

- Several organizations have begun investigating and improving the food qualities. As it is, the food quality is only bad in prisons that are substandard in all other conditions as well.

- I'm no sure how you managed to find this odd data, given that minimum sentences average greatly, with many states having a few weeks being the minimum.

 

Fact-checking is important.

[SilverSpeed]

The lack of sleep likely comes from the screams of other prisoners who are in solitary.

I understand the point of solitary confinement but I don't fully agree with it, as the point of prison should be to reform, but when you lock someone in a tight cell for almost 24 hours (Times likely vary between facilities) with very minimal human interaction it seems you're more likely to break a person mentally over reform them into a better citizen.

[ŴƬЯ-A Vakume Kleener]

I do anyway, nerda

[funkle]

Confinement is pretty much just for the nutcases. Though being alone in a quiet place for that long can drive someone insane, so idk. I question a lot of what the law does these days.

[Discovery]

OP, can you back up almost any of your claims here?

 

- The 4 hours of sleep is not enforced, sometimes prisoners just have difficulty sleeping in their bright cells. There is no enforcement of any sort of regime, excluding showers and potentially visiting time

- Several organizations have begun investigating and improving the food qualities. As it is, the food quality is only bad in prisons that are substandard in all other conditions as well.

- I'm no sure how you managed to find this odd data, given that minimum sentences average greatly, with many states having a few weeks being the minimum.

 

Fact-checking is important.

 

Most of them are just exaggerations, and I think I'm referring to Colorado, where 23 months is shortest sentence. I apologize if I gave out wrong data. 

[Keroro1454]

Most of them are just exaggerations, and I think I'm referring to Colorado, where 23 months is shortest sentence. I apologize if I gave out wrong data. 

While your admittance is appreciated and noble, you should either put a disclaimer in the original post, or simply avoid this although. The forum (Amusingly so) is based on factual evidence from which logical debates can be found. While exaggerations can be used to emphasize a point, they should be so that they don't mislead and appear to be legitimate. Also, specify in regards to Colorado. Nit-picking makes you appear un-credible (See any super-biased news source ever)

[Heated Bread]

The lack of sleep likely comes from the screams of other prisoners who are in solitary.

 

I once spent some time overnight as a patient on the ground floor of a hospital after having to visit the ER.  I was medicated, but it was still hard to sleep because of the constant moaning of some of the other patients.  Some of them were obviously in a lot of pain.  It was extremely difficult and highly stressful to have to constantly hear them.  I can't even imagine what it must be like to have to deal with that every day.  Mental institutions must be very similar.

[SilverSpeed]

I once spent some time overnight as a patient on the ground floor of a hospital after having to visit the ER.  I was medicated, but it was still hard to sleep because of the constant moaning of some of the other patients.  Some of them were obviously in a lot of pain.  It was extremely difficult and highly stressful to have to constantly hear them.  I can't even imagine what it must be like to have to deal with that every day.  Mental institutions must be very similar.

I've watched a few prison documentaries in the past and the lack of sleep most people in solitary deal with is often attributed to the screams and wails of other prisoners.

Protective Custody prisoners are also put into solitary if I recall correctly which seems far worse than just dealing with the regular inmates even with that threat of violence.

[λngelღмander]

Sometimes, I question the right of people to punish other people. This thread is not the place, but I don't feel like making a new thread to talk about it.

 

Us humans have devised a system to punish people who break rules set down by other people. No one ever has the chance to sign up for the law, they just receive the punishment they earn by breaking said rules. The rules aren't arbitrary, but you can't opt out like you can from a website.

 

Someone who is not interested in participating in society has nowhere to go. They can't walk until they find a place without laws, there isn't one. I'm not supposing that we have a single area that people who don't wish to be protected by police or be bound by laws, but what I mean is that the system is inescapable.

 

 

Perhaps we should, instead of facilitating these people, find a way to 'dispose' of them without killing or imprisoning them. I do believe that people who commit crimes should be punished, but I think a lot of it is genetic and even more just the way people think or their upbringing. I think people who will serve a life sentence should simply be chipped and dropped in the amazon or something, something more humane than what we already do. 

 

Freedom is something that should be valued above even life itself. People who thrive in prison do so because they feel free there, it's their domain and it makes sense to them. Structure is not the antithesis of freedom, and structure is something that many people crave, and are willing to give up some freedom for.

 

I'm not sure where this is said, probably the bible, "Let the man without sin throw the first stone." In the same sense, I think that only someone truly without any criminal desires or motives should be able to decide the fate of one who succumbed to them, and a person that pure does not live.

 

 

 

That's not to say I don't agree with the penal system, there is no better way to do things, as it's truly a great deterrent, and it keeps criminals off the streets for the most part. 

[Heated Bread]

Someone who is not interested in participating in society has nowhere to go. They can't walk until they find a place without laws, there isn't one. I'm not supposing that we have a single area that people who don't wish to be protected by police or be bound by laws, but what I mean is that the system is inescapable.

 

Perhaps we should, instead of facilitating these people, find a way to 'dispose' of them without killing or imprisoning them.

 

If you start sending all your undesirables somewhere else, sooner or later they will have the need to govern themselves with laws of their own.  Laws are inescapable because they are necessary.  People have need of eachother, and wherever people gather together, rules of conduct are required.  Those who cannot be civil are themselves unfit for civilization.  They are a threat to everyone else around them.  That may seem harsh, but it is reality.

[Keroro1454]

-snip-

Well that would be anarchy. And since the vast majority of us like civilized society, then this law-free and enforcement-free land is nothing more than a warped utopia. Also, what you are effectively talking about is a "Escape from New York"-esque situation. Interesting, but rather implausible- also there would be environmental issues with dropping criminals in such a crucial ecosystem. Maybe a abandoned island? As for the "throwing the first stone", these laws must be enforced to an extent, lest we descend into the aforementioned anarchy which would not be productive to society and the human race as a whole.

[λngelღмander]

Well that would be anarchy. And since the vast majority of us like civilized society, then this law-free and enforcement-free land is nothing more than a warped utopia. Also, what you are effectively talking about is a "Escape from New York"-esque situation. Interesting, but rather implausible- also there would be environmental issues with dropping criminals in such a crucial ecosystem. Maybe a abandoned island? As for the "throwing the first stone", these laws must be enforced to an extent, lest we descend into the aforementioned anarchy which would not be productive to society and the human race as a whole.

 

If you start sending all your undesirables somewhere else, sooner or later they will have the need to govern themselves with laws of their own.  Laws are inescapable because they are necessary.  People have need of eachother, and wherever people gather together, rules of conduct are required.  Those who cannot be civil are themselves unfit for civilization.  They are a threat to everyone else around them.  That may seem harsh, but it is reality.

You guys aren't getting my point. I don't desire anarchy, and I didn't say laws weren't necessary. I just meant that it's hypocritical for us to imprison the undesireables, and it's lamentable that it has to be this way. I'm not a bleeding heart or anything, just reflecting on the world.

[Heated Bread]

You guys aren't getting my point. I don't desire anarchy, and I didn't say laws weren't necessary. I just meant that it's hypocritical for us to imprison the undesireables, and it's lamentable that it has to be this way. I'm not a bleeding heart or anything, just reflecting on the world.

 

How is it hypocritical to lock away those who cannot follow laws while allowing those who can follow the laws to be free?  There's no double standard there.  Not that I can see.  There's no pretense of morals or beliefs in things that aren't actually held/believed.  Not that I can see.  Wouldn't that be the opposite of hypocritical?

 

Also, since anarchy was mentioned, I wanted to post this:

 

 

It pretty much shows why anarchy is bullshit, but spells it out in an entertaining way.

[t0night]

angel's post hits on the head the issue of what prison is for. i believe prison should offer a way back into society; but i also believe that society is fundamentally unbalanced and in reality does not offer a reasonable way to get out of damaging situations for many many people. i think almost everyone wants to function as part of society on some level, whether they envision it being slightly different or not. if you don't, you'll need a certain amount of funding and a plan but you can still start a commune or whatever, buy your own land and work it as you please.

 

in short, such people are not "undesirables" and prison is not a place where we sling "undesireables", people who are broken and can't function in society. prison is an apparatus of the state, the state is controlled by a class group, prisons are a social tool abused to ensure the dominance of a class group.

 

1) prison labour and private prisons: research them.

2) look at who is imprisoned and what power structures this reinforces.

 

prison should be a deterrent for crime and a reformative tool to help offenders regain their stake in society and by doing so prevent them resorting to crime. this only works if your society actually offers pathways to people to escape their hopeless situation which is vastly untrue in many many cases.