Is long-term solitary confinement torture?

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande

by 6ren • 16 years ago

46 20 16 years ago

maw2• 16 years ago

Assertions such as those in the first paragraph are offensive -- as though we introverts weren't real or normal humans. I don't know from first-hand experience, but as bad as solitary sounds, being confined with other people sounds even worse, given how my brain is wired.

sliverstorm2• 16 years ago

I am an introvert myself, but even us introverts interact with other people daily. If you voluntarily spend days on end utterly alone with no human interaction, you're unusual even for an introvert

maw2• 16 years ago

Sure. But if it came down to lots of time alone or lots of time with forced contact, which would you pick? They both sound bad to me (what do you expect from being incarcerated?); the baked in assumption that what's bad for most humans is bad for all humans is what bothers me.

drdo• 16 years ago

Why do you have to make this about you? That was just a general statement about how the vast majority of people is. If everyone reacted like you, we could never make a statement about anything since there's always an exception to anything one might say.

It's analogous to me being offended if someone says dogs have 4 legs because my dog was born with only 3.

Andys• 16 years ago

I think its unfair if you're being held without charge or trial. If you've been sentenced, it might be cruel punishment or even torture but at least you can accept your fate.

Kudose• 16 years ago

Forced seclusion on any being that naturally seeks contact alters the mind and is therefore a form of torture.

smallblacksun• 16 years ago

What an idiotic statement All forms of punishment and/or rehabilitation "alters the mind", they are not all forms of torture.

jellicle• 16 years ago

If it wasn't torture, the United States wouldn't be doing it to Bradley Manning.

alanh• 16 years ago

I love this kind of fallacy :) Edit: Misread the parent post (too many negatives!).

zoomzoom• 16 years ago

What fallacy?

salemh• 16 years ago

I have personal experience with interacting with those in / coming out (temporarily (going out for court) and permanently (being transported to a new facility after 7+ years of Solitary Confinement)) on solitary confinement. We ARE social creatures. We cannot survive on our own (I hypothesize we need Friends, Family and Lovers...if you have Two, you can survive emotionally).

These people are turned into schizophrenics, tattooing their faces, painting walls with feces (if you are offended, please research the effects of solitary confinement).

Solitary confinement inmates go Insane. To what degree, depends on the duration and the person. As a deterrent, it is warranted and probably (no statistical info) effective in the short term. As a long-term "treatment" for rehabilitation, it is NOT effective.

If we are in fact, trying, to rehabilitate criminals into society, solitary confinement just creates a dangerous creature.

rdtsc• 16 years ago

> If we are in fact, trying, to rehabilitate criminals into society

Apart from superficial lip service I don't think we are trying to rehabilitate anyone. It is plain and simple punishment.

wwortiz• 16 years ago

Some of Harry Harlow's experiments were really... fucked up. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Pit_of_despai...

6ren• 16 years ago

> when six-month isolates were exposed to younger, three-month-old monkeys, they achieved "essentially complete social recovery for all situations tested."

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Harry_Harlow#...

Is long-term solitary confinement torture?

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