Human interaction is a natural and essential component to the human existence. Although an individual may not engage in dialouge with others, just the known presence of other human beings is necessary to maintain sanity. When alone for an extended period of time, the mind is forced to improvise to keep its sanity. While LOCKed in isolation, the individual LOADs his/her conscious with fantacy to escape the harsh reality of loneliness. Some may engage in activities such as decorating the walls, reconstructing memorable events from beginning to end or even go as far as talking to a volleyball with a bloody handprint (Tom Hanks in Cast Away).
The seperate system of silent solitary confinement may have been meant to serve as a period of time when the inmate can engage in self-penitence, a form of rehabilitation. Unfortunately, the time spent LOCKed up in segregation has known to generate LOADs of psychological ramifications. Does solitary confinement rehabilitate sociopaths or does it produce them? Many states remain LOCKed in their way of so-called rehabilitation (punishment) as inmates are continuously LOCKed up and LOADed into cells of solitary confinement. I always believed in the notion that individuals are sent to prison "as" punishment, not "to be punished". The eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and unusual punishment must have been confined to the physical abuse such as flogging, branding, etc.. What about the cruel psychological punishment of isolation for extended periods of time?
Being that our individual tolerance for psychological pain will undoubtedly vary, would it be in any way prolific discussing the length of time spent in isolation before it is considered psychological abuse? Instead, it would be much more productive discussing alternatives to inmates being LOCKed up and LOADed into cells of silent solitary confinement. In HellHole by Atul Gawande, it states that the British have been successful using the strategy of "empowerment". The dangerous prisoners were given more control, increased opportunities to work, pursue an education and build social skills. This tactic has produced positive results in England.
I also often wonder if we are living and dwelling in a societal prison in which we are LOCKed in and confined to our social location. A societal prison in which many of us are denied access to the LOADs of recources that are not being distributed equally. What psychological effect can this kind of confinement and denial produce?
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Hope everyone had a great turkey day!!!!! Wish it was longer but as Timothy mentioned earlier now it’s time to fill our "minds with mental food for thought". I hope everyone had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving. This post covers many interesting points. There is a great need amongst human beings to maintain sanity through communication with others. Many activists have called for a ban of “excessive” solitary confinement but any form of solitary confinement is already excessive. I feel this way because solitary confinement strips us of our human need to socialize, not because socializing is simply good to do, but because we are social creatures. The institution of prison itself is one which is already filled with many different horrors and traumas, but to punish someone more by taking away what makes a human being a human is simply inhumane.
I do not know if I am right track but I believe that racism is the biggest societal prison. It is the biggest ill in our society which causes destruction in any structure it can be found in. Racism imprisons the mind with ill-conceived notions about different people. This could and does definitely attribute to resources not being distributed properly mainly depending on who is distributing these resources. But how to end something like racism a thought which is learned and usually passed down?
Yes Roberto! There I was suggesting that society itself is a prison to many of those who are socially shackled and in bondage within this structure of unbalanced freedom to opportunity. The underprivileged are inmates of this society, confined to cells of poverty, drugs, crime, unemployment, lack of education and inadequate health care. Racism is definitely a component of that prison. Behind the walls, the inmates file grievances and may even riot. On this side, inmates may protest and supporters advocate for social change. I am planning my escape from this prison. Meanwhile, I'll continue to assist in the release of others.
I love how both of you relate the state of being locked up to our own lives. It makes for a really interesting metaphor in our times of economic recession.
However, the thing that caught my mind the most was the words "cruel and unusual punishment". I never thought about it until now, but I wonder how anybody could define what is cruel and unusual punishment? There's also the question of what counts as "usual" or normal punishment? Solitary confinement, simulated drowning, whippings, and many other forms of abuse are definitely cruel, but how do I tell if it's unusual? Punishment and prison is a human construct, so what's accepted and isn't accepted is bound to change. Even Eastern State Penitentiary began with good intentions when they believed solitary confinement would help people. Only now do we realize it's problems.
Simon makes a great point. What is cruel and what is unusual is based soley on that society's values and norms.
Q: Can a punishment be cruel but not unusual, thus making it acceptabe? Can a punishment be unusual without being cruel, making that punishment acceptable? Or must the punishment be cruel "AND" unusual in order for it to be a violation of constitutional rights?
So sorry I missed the trip (even though I was happy to miss the traffic!). Sounds like there was a lot of food for thought -- appropriate to Thanksgiving week. I'd love to hear what Roberto would say to Timothy, about unusual but not cruel punishments. Do you think that is what Common Justice is experimenting with? And I would say to Simon that the reason we stuck that Dickens reading in there was to emphasize that while Eastern was designed with good intentions, it was seen to be problematic even by contemporaries. Many sentences out of Dickens and Gawande are indistinguishable from each other, even though they are separated by over 150 years. What does that say about us/society that that can be so?
I am not so against solitary confinement as a punishment, but I do not agree with the LLOONNGG amount of time the inmate has to spent in an enclosed box. Human interaction is an important part of our lives, but separating criminals in prison do you not think can prevent a riot or fights amongst them to happen? When prisoners are sent to serve time, they automatically lose their freedom. They lose their freedom/rights because of the crime they have committed.
This reminds me of my agency because every time I see the defendants locked up (before seeing the judge) all they are doing is talking about how the cops and the criminal justice system is not fair and it is corrupt. The defendants are in denial of accepting what they did was wrong. If a person committed a crime, they should be punished depending on the severity of the crime.
To add on to Roberto's comment about racism, I was surprised when I read in the Charles Dickens's article and from what Toby said during the tour "colored children were being locked up because shelters would not take them due to their color of skin." My belief is that racism will always live forever.
The trip to the prison was an eye opener to me. There were many provisions that allowed people to get locked up in order to be rehabilitated. This made me recall the way women are sheltered at the different shelters for domestic violence. Many of the women are put into 90 day shelters and even if they are put with other women, they are apart from their family and friends. Through the process of the survivor reconstructing her life into permanent housing or independence, she is forced to sign in and out of her own temp. home. Some women are always angry as a result because they're apart from the people they socialize with. At the same time human beings are social by nature with their own kind. When someone is coerced into isolation, this person must find someone to be social with. Loss of sanity is very common among those who are isolated at all times. What became very interested was the intention of the bags over the inmates heads when they were taken out of the cell for their bath. In other occasion this symbolizes protection from shame or hiding the truth. The prisoner starts to feel as if eyes are interrogating his identity, which at this time, he or she didn't have one. Bags over heads can create a loss of identity as well because the inmates no longer recognizes who they are because he can't see it reflected in others. The psychological theories for solitary confinement are nonetheless traumatic and as Timothy questioned cruel, yet not unusual.
The eighth amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment has been tested in myriad cases, many dealing with the death penalty (including whether someone whose electrocution fell short can be electrocuted again on another day; apparently the answer is yes), whether one can be imprisoned simply for being addicted to a drug (without possessing it), corporeal punishment in the schools, and if it is cruel and unusual to inhale second hand tobacco smoke while serving out your prison sentence. Despite recognition by the Supreme Court in 1890 that solitary confinement could produce insanity, suicide, and catatonia, it remains legal in all 50 states, with some limits in the case of mentally ill prisoners. So, as Prof. Reitz points out, attitudes about punishment have persisted despite the recognition that, as a famous article about corrections written in the 1970s announced, “nothing works”.
Gary echoes the frustration of the citizenry when he sees defendants in the holding cell not taking responsibility for their acts. It is easy to forget that the system is rigged to punish only certain folks and make visible only certain crimes; where is the outrage against the crimes of the investment bankers who brought the economy to its knees but have totally avoided prosecution? Or all the rich pill addicts? Or Jerry Sandusky, for that matter?
Foucault makes the point that the shift in penal technology from the spectacle of public shaming, flogging, and execution to this more hidden (behind tall walls) and pervasive (24/7) surveillance served the needs of a classist society in a number of ways. To return to the fine points you have already made about racism and inequality, remember how our tour guide told us it was always thus? That prisoners were so often freed slaves and that the poor –including children-were warehoused at Eastern when there was nowhere else to put them? I guess to answer Timothy, these punishments were and are common, even if cruel. What might be the point of that? Who benefits and how?
Who is it that decides what is long, short or an amount of time that is just right and suitable for solitary confinement? Every individual opinion will vary, especially when considering the crime that was committed. Since there can't be a determination on what amount of time is really appropriate, maybe we should get rid of isolation altogether and come up with other alternatives. Taking away privileges (phone, visits, commissary) is a start. Gary, I agree that "seperating" inmates in prison can prevent "riots and fights". But do you think this tactic may also PROVOKE riots and fights??
Unfortunately, I will agree that racism is eternal. However, I would like to consider myself a social ophthalmologist. If I can contribute to one racist changing his/her outlook and views on race relations, it's one step in the direction of society becoming color-blind in the distribution of resources and opportunity.
A racial ophthalmologist (had to look up the spelling on that one!) -- I love it!
Reading Tim's comment reminds me that there are lots of related conversations in the blog archives (a big debate about the word "empowerment" should interest those still thinking about Popy's post). I *think* we've talked about race (and therefore racism) as being not at all eternal, but something that has a varied history across time and cultures. In my own tiny world, my first introduction to writings from the British Empire was through late 19th century works (Kipling, Conrad) and these were full of a kind of blunt racism that made me uncomfortable. And so I thought, "there goes eternal racism again." But the more I learned about the British in India, I saw that it was not just the relentless story of racism, but that racism evolved as a way to secure an economic and political system advantageous to the British (who were greatly outnumbered and realized that they had no real reason to be there). The early British settlers in India (working for the East India Company) were full of admiration of Indian culture and often intermarried and dressed in native attire. It wasn't until much, much later (when the East India Company became the British Empire) that they began to draw a line between British and Indian culture, with racist clubs and dramatic differences between food and clothing. While race in this country is, of course, tied to the horrible history of slavery, I think you can see some of this earlier history of different (less racist) attitudes in the relationships with Native Americans, which were more varied before there was a political objective to exterminate them. So this would be a cautionary tale not to accept racism as eternal -- it is a cultural phenomenon embedded in particular historical moments; as such, the idea of its permanence is an illusion, and one of its strongest weapons.
Perhaps a return to what Foucault calls "the theatre of public torture" is in order in our so-called enlightened age. Why should we torture people in those high-tech dungeons called Supermax prisons by slow degrees--warping their minds and making them unfit for social interaction? Let's bring the torture back out into the town square, subject it to the light of public opinion, let is be what it really is for all to see. What? Physical torture is worse than psychological torture? I wonder what a long-term prisoner in 23-hour lockdown for several years would say. Would he agree to have an arm lopped off, broadcast on the Jumbotron in Times Square, if he could get out RIGHT NOW? He very well might. And society benefits too: a one-armed rioter is less of a threat than a hardened, calculating psychopath.
The fact that we still have, in the 21st Century, an Eastern-redux system of solitary confinement illustrates a point that is often forgotten in Foucault: the move from physical torture to imprisonment had far less to do with an enlightened march toward ever more humane forms of punishment than we are taught. Maybe John Jay professor Peter Moskos is onto something in his new book, In Defense of Flogging, where he argues, "At tremendous cost, prisons do little but breed criminality and destroy family ties and job prospects. We need an alternative, a method of punishment that is cheaper, honest, and more humane [!]. We need to bring back flogging." I know. Terrible. Plus, what we're doing now is working so well! If it ain't broken...
Like Simon, I enjoyed Timothy's discussion of how we're in our "societal prison." That's very Foucault too. The book the essay we read is from is subtitled "The Birth of the Prison" and he's not just talking about bricks and mortar; he's talking about US--self-disciplining, racially classed and identified, sexually categorized, gendered SUBJECTS. He says, "The soul is the prison of the body." The book is as much about how that prison of the body came to be as it is about how Eastern ever got built.
And because I love him so much, I'll end with a quote from Foucault, who tried to resist all the ways modern society works to lock us in our "societal prisons," our self-imprisonment. He says, "Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same.... Leave it to our police and our bureaucrats to see that our papers are in order."
(By the way, Tim, the Tom Hanks reference was awesome!)
I hope that everyone’s Thanksgiving was as fruitful and wonderful as it should be. Thanks to Timothy for reaching out with those very thoughtful words of wisdom in that thanksgiving is everyday and for us not to forget those without shelter, food, family, etc. and for this great post. Cynthia you weren’t the only one who was surprised with this trip. Aside from the feeling of my heart plummeting to the ground when we were driving down the wrong way of the street, seeing the disparity in how prisons were run and their purpose then and how our prisons are today show how far we haven’t come in our judicial system. It was quite disturbing. A lot of the things that were implemented in the 19th century were just slapped with a different name and accepted into today’s day. With the exception of the torturing of which I’m sure happens on a completely different level. In response to Timothy’s question; how can one exist without the other? It’s my understanding that if the punishment is defined as cruel then it by societal standards would be unusual and if the punishment was unusual, it very well might be cruel [punishment]. Timothy we spoke briefly on how our trip, in many ways, could be defined as a loss of liberty and an overall uncomfortable situation. We could not control the tempo of the trip at all only our reaction and coping techniques. You spoke softly and politely while I yelled and became erratic during stressful situations. Now I pose a question for you and the other fellows. How do you think you, if locked up in solitary confinement, would cope with such an environment? In some ways do we cope in our communities without realizing? And if not, how does this affect our growth and/or ability to be objective?
Hmmm, interesting post, Timothy! I really enjoyed the back and forth usage of LOCK and LOAD. It really added some flavor to the post.
I wanted to touch base on the idea of solitary confinement. It's ironic how its practice was meant to help offenders take responsibility for their actions and reform. However, we learn that it makes offenders go mad because humans are social animals. As Roberto mentions, confinement strips the human need to socialize.
Simon touched base on a very important issue--this idea of what is cruel and unusual punishment. I agree with him because it is really difficult to differentiate between the two. Now my question is-- is a week of solitary confinement considered cruel and unusual when compared to a year or years? Timothy provided a few requirements as to whether it is cruel and unusual. I think a week of solitary confinement is reasonable punishment because to me, I think it's standard to think about your actions and how you can change. I think solitary confinement is cruel and unusual when it has reached a certain degree, the extreme degree.
So Sorry Timothy it took me so long to respond this time around! No internet for the last 5 days. I moved apartments this weekend and it has not been fun...
After the tour, the first thing I thought of was Hannah Arendt's 'The Banality of Evil.' Solitary confinement has become so common, it's normal. The fact that a punishment is not up to the law system, but instead up to the prison warden and admin staff is almost putting too much power into their hands. I do understand that Wardens do need to have the right to 'punish' 'trouble' inmates, but I think solitary confinement is coming back in full force and it's damaging the inmates, who after all are still human.
I understand the original concept of the Quakers idea to 'save' the prisoners lives and get them back to normal society. The idea was a good table idea, but not something you should put into effect. How many inmates literally lost their minds and were put back out onto the streets....
During the trip to the Eastern Penitentiary, we learned about the original idea of the penitentiary. My question always revolved around religion. In a society where we promote the separation of church and state, we also allow an institution to run on Christian/Protestant values. Our tour guide mentions that during the later years of the prison they tried to cater to "different" religions. The "other" religion was the Jewish religion, which is still derived from the teachings of Abraham. Why is religion significant in repentance anyway? Is it because prisoners are seen as non-humans and the only way they can become "civilized" is through a Christian salvation? The design of the prison is based on the hermit life, the religious practice of an individual to live in exclusion in order to pray and become closer to God. Institutionalized religion then seeks for the inmates to be enlightened by God in their most vulnerable moments. This strategic form of conversion is actually quite successful, but is it morally right? The Eastern Penitentiary calls the Fathers within the prison “Moral Instructors”. This is interesting because it assumes that the inmates are not capable of morality in the first place. What defines morality?
The hermit life was practiced in early Christianity, but many priests could not endure living in seclusion the practices have died down. The monastery life is now a life away from civilization, but it is of a group of religious monks/priests and not in seclusion. I would argue that the Quakers, formed around the mid-seventeenth century, already knew about the affects of the hermit life and living in seclusion. The Eastern Penitentiary opened in 1829 so they already knew of the difficulties that came with that kind of life, but still proceeded with the practices and tried to convert their inmates. The inmates do not have the freedom of religion, nor do they have rights against cruel and unusual punishment. Many times the law is broad so that it could be more subjective, but I would argue that it is done to make sure they have more room for interpretation thus expanding the power of the law.
Even if the conversation someday no longer revolves around race, there will always be a class issue. The class issue is backed up by the idea that lower income individuals are less “civilized” and less “moral”. All of which then is subjective. The only view that ultimately matters is the “majority”. The majority is the illusion created by the mass-media. The media and even the school system itself then promote the idea that there is a minority and give certain value to differences.
Thank you Professor Reitz for the enlightenment regarding racism. I am pretty much a "glass half full", optimistic kind of guy. However, when it comes to racism, I find it difficult visualizing a world without it. Probably, because it has always played a part in the world I know.
I found a really interesting article on solitary confinement. Check it out:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/opinion/sunday/in-an-iranian-prison-tortured-by-solitude.html
A couple of us have brought up the issue of whether solitary confinement might be justified in some cases, such as when there's a need to separate violent prisoners from others. And some have asked whether short periods in isolation might not be torture, whereas long periods might be. I think a couple of points are worth making.
First, there's a misconception that people in solitary confinement right now across the US are all "the worst of the worst" criminals. Anthropologist Lorna Rhodes did a great ethnography of the Supermax system in Washington where she showed that many people go to solitary confinement not because they committed the worst crimes, and not necessarily because they were persistently violent in prison. Rather, they just as often went after piling up a series of minor rule infractions in prison. Once there, they quickly became worse, not better. Rule infractions in the Supermax tend to accumulate; what were once short sentences turned into long sentences. People in isolation, with no human contact for weeks and months stop up their toilets, flood their cells, smear their own shit on the walls, throw cups of piss at guards and staff, bang their heads on the concrete cinderblocks that imprison them until there are bloody spots on the walls--anything to initiate human contact, even if that contact entails being subdued by a team of guards with electrified shields, shackles, and handcuffs. So we should be clear about that.
But let's take the case of the violent prisoner. The problem with a system of solitary confinement is that the system itself is poison. It makes people worse, not better. It produces violence and antisocial/pathological behavior. In other words, it's a self-justifying, self-perpetuating system: the violent prisoner must be separated due to the violence; the separation produces more violence; the violence necessitates further isolation, and so on. I think all of us agree that long periods in solitary confinement are torture. Thus, in order for the argument that violent prisoners must be isolated from others to make sense, then we would have to sanction torture, given what we know about the effects of solitary confinement.
It's similar to the argument that waterboarding is ok, especially if we call it "enhanced interrogation," because it's a way to gather information that might protect people from terrorist attacks. If we believe this is ok, and believe, similarly, that violent prisoners should be isolated to protect others, then let's at least admit that we sanction torture in some cases. In my last post, perhaps I jumped the gun. I wanted to draw a parallel between physical torture and psychological torture, showing how the arguments for both are similar, but I did so before making the case I make here. We can make the same arguments for physical torture that we make for solitary, so why does one seem so much more horrifying than the other?
For one thing, physical torture denies us the ability to distance ourselves, by using euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation" and "administrative segregation," e.g. Another thing is that what goes on in solitary confinement is out of sight, hidden. So we can sanction solitary confinement because we can pretend it isn't torture and because we don't see the blow flow, the mind warp, the shit smeared, the piss thrown. Sanctioning public physical torture, by contrast, makes us blatantly complicit.
Erratum: Last Paragraph, the phrase, "so we don't see the blow flow..." should have read, "so we don't see the blood flow..."
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