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The Deadly Consequences of Solitary with a Cellmate

223 points by miiiiiike 11y ago

dang 11y ago
Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11362269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11362269.
jonpaine 11y ago
It's disgusting that we treat humans like this. A reasonable person can understand perspectives on both sides of many contemporary hot topics, but I see no such leeway here. Isn't it time we stand up and simply fix something which is so clearly broken?
- justicezyx 11y ago
  How we should treat the "animal" that kill people then?
  - rbobby 11y ago
    Probably start by not calling them an animal? Dehumanizing someone is probably step 1 on the road mistreating them.
    - justicezyx 11y ago
      No, by "animal" I mean human as "animal". Not they are animal and I am not. We are animal. And some of us has more "animal" side of behavior. That's it. Please do not misrepresent my statement...
      - Retra 11y ago
        If you mean "human as animal", then _all_ human behavior is animal behavior. Saying "some of us have more animal behavior" is really more of an indicator that you think they are more animal than you, despite both being human. Your statement is dehumanizing. If you don't want it to be interpreted as such, then make better statements.
  - whiddershins 11y ago
    All humans are capable of horrific acts. It is a part of our humanity, we are apex predators who organize socially. The evolved algorithm in our brain that manages that dissonance is extremely complex and will necessarily fail at times. We can't tolerate or condone antisocial behavior, but it is a mistake to feel safe in the thought "we" are better than "them." We are they, they are we.
    - sathackr 11y ago
      I wish there was a multi-upvote button. This, so much this. It's so easy to turn it into 'us' and 'them' So many stereotypes, so much historical(and, of course, current) violence and bloodshed because someone convinces a population how 'they' are different than 'us', 'we' are better, therefore 'they' must surrender(and become like 'us') or 'we' will force 'them' to. My favorite example? Extrajudicial killings of non-us citizens unilaterally declared to be terrorists. And since it's 'them', somehow it's moral. Terrorism is bad, but doesn't give us the right not to afford another human the protections of things we have declared to be owed to all men. If 'We hold these truths to be self evident..." then why do we only apply them to US Citizens? (And then, take them away from some US Citizens, the ones that have been declared to be 'them' no longer 'us')
    - ams6110 11y ago
      No, sorry. Some people kill or viciously assault other people, while most people don't. There's not a moral equivalence there. That said, I do think that the conditions described in the article constitute cruel and unusual punishment, at least by today's standards. I'm not sure what the framers had in mind; I'm sure 18th century prisons were not rose gardens either.
      - whiddershins 11y ago
        I heartily recommend "Why We Snap" http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Snap-Understanding-Circuit-ebook/dp/B00SI02CTQ http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Snap-Understanding-Circuit-eboo... and although a boring read, "Sex and War" http://www.amazon.com/Sex-War-Biology-Explains-Terrorism-ebook/dp/B003UBAX3A/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1458956045&sr=1-1&keywords=sex+and+war http://www.amazon.com/Sex-War-Biology-Explains-Terrorism-ebo... for a different perspective on your statements. The violent impulse is probably available to all humans, and it is plausible to say that all humans under the right circumstances can manifest extreme violence. So it becomes details. How are the various impulses moderated under various conditions. It is the precise opposite of black and white, in my opinion. edit: I am not excusing violence or advocating we tolerate antisocial behavior. I am urging compassion and empathy for people whose brains have made one or more decisions devastatingly incorrectly as a result of what may be an extremely tiny variation in programming, or an edge case that caused their brains to make the wrong decision.
  - throweway 11y ago
    Thats a can of worms.
  - throweway 11y ago
    Thats a can of worms.
  - throweway 11y ago
    Thats a can of worms.
  - JabavuAdams 11y ago
    Build a social system that results in fewer innocent people being killed and fewer unsullied children growing up into killers.
- stopinsanity16 11y ago
  (US point-of-view): in case one ignores the blaring media headlines and the incessant political noise on TV and via unsolicited phone calls, I must inform that this is an election year in this country. There is still plenty of time to mobilize disenfranchised voters to perform a "regime change" to ensure that the people who gave us private jails, funding cuts for schools , increased corporate welfare, "war on drugs", and "tough on crime" hypocrisy are voted out.
  - zanny 11y ago
    The problem we are seeing this election cycle is the undemocratic consequence of first past the post. The American republic has degenerated so direly that, as is par for the course, the American people will once again be given only two choices for president (and likewise, at most two choices in every other ballot position they are eligible in this November, besides the most local of elections) of which very few non-hardline party members will be in favor of. It should also be very alarming how many primaries in the Democrat primary this year have demonstrated extensive systemic corruption of the party. Be it 7 "random" wins in Iowa, to past presidents using their authority and influence to shut down polling locations in Massachusetts for hours, to just this past week Arizona having its polling locations cut by 70% that produced waiting lines over five hours long, on top of mass relocation of voter registrations and many voters losing their party membership recognition in a closed primary. While of course I will still vote for every position I can for the person I want to win (and never for the lesser of two evils as I am provided by the establishment) the system is not orchestrated to enable the people to actually do anything any more. It would require a tremendous amount of public action, and for almost all issues - including the ones this article brings to light - Martin Niemöller's quote "First they came ..." rings true moreso today than I could imagine possible. There is tremendous apathy in America, as people only become aware or active when it is too late and their liberties and freedom have already been taken, and for the rest as long as it is not impacting their lives they will ignore it because it is "too much work" to do anything about.
    - eropple 11y ago
      > Be it 7 "random" wins in Iowa Programmer rails against randomness because it doesn't suit him. Film at 11. > to past presidents using their authority and influence to shut down polling locations in Massachusetts for hours Neither the Boston nor New Bedford locations at which Bill Clinton appeared (and I am setting aside whether it was right for Clinton to do so, because it appears to have not been illegal and the fine for such being all of $20 anyway) were closed at any point. Both remained accessible at all times. But you know that, or you should if it matters to you. > just this past week Arizona having its polling locations cut by 70% that produced waiting lines over five hours long This is the result of the VRA being gutted by the Roberts Court and the Maricopa County government (hint: really really not Democrats) choosing not to establish nearly enough polling places. But you know that, too. Or you should, if it matters to you. Because you are entitled to your opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
PaulAJ 11y ago
No problem. These guys just need to get together to launch a class-action suit against whoever is responsible alleging unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Shouldn't take more than 15 years to wend its way up to the Supreme Court, at which point all of these guys will get voucher for a MacDonalds Happy Meal.
rdtsc 11y ago
People talk about institutional evil. This is an example of it. You can almost trace their thinking "Oh, so solitary is bad now. We'll fix it. Put two people in a 10x4 cell. See, not solitary anymore, and we doubled the capacity too. Bonuses for everyone". Ideally you'd think those who made those decision would be disciplined, pensions would be cut, etc. But nothing like that is gonna happen. Even if the family wins the lawsuit, it will be taxpayers paying for it. One a deeper level, I wouldn't be surprised if many of those involved in running the prison would be thinking things like "well good, less people less worries. So what if he kills another one". Even more perverse, in some countries, prisoners who are known to kill and attack their cellmates are used as a coercion tool. That is effective against political prisoners and other undesirables who need to "confess" or be punished -- "behave or you'll end up in Sesson's cell <wink-wink>". On paper it looks completely by the rules and clean.
- superuser2 11y ago
  This is also what happens when well-intentioned people are vastly more successful at fighting prison construction than fighting mass incarceration. Our prisons are routinely at 1.5x, 2x, 3x capacity. Being against the prison industrial complex feels good, but in doing so you become directly, personally responsible for the fact that there are now 3 people in a cell meant for one, people living on cots in a gymnasium with no privacy whatsoever, in such close quarters that even the most patient people would be at each other's throats. Until the prison population actually declines, we ought to at least be building prisons fast enough to stay at design capacity. Google your state - you'll be amazed. Prisons aren't designed to be comfortable, but they sure as hell get a lot less comfortable with too many people in them.
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    There's a simple solution to that, set people free. We don't need to build more prisons, we already imprison more of our population than any other country in the world, we have too many prisons and too many people in them. We need to imprison less people. Release all inmates who committed victim-less crimes, if more room is needed, release all inmates who committed non violent crimes-there are better ways to deal with them than prison. Prison should be for violent criminals only. Release all drug users, release all drug pushers, none of those people belong in jail.
rbobby 11y ago
Not a godly sort but this passage seems appropriate: > Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me'. These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. America has a horrible problem with incarceration. It seems obvious but if the state takes away someone's rights (freedom) the state assumes a duty of care for those individuals. And a duty of care isn't extinguished because it costs too much or would be difficult to comply with or would be politically unpopular. Specific to costs... if incarceration is costing too much then do something about the underlying root causes that result in incarceration.
deleted 11y ago
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imtringued 11y ago
The point of solitary confinement is to protect inmates from attacking each other. Putting two attackers into one cell makes the problem even worse. After the first inmate murder there is no consequence for further murder, you're there for the rest of your life anyway. It doesn't matter if you kill one or twenty cellmates. For the prison this is probably a boon because their overcrowding problem is "solving itself".
- Someone 11y ago
  Assuming a fixed fee per prisoner-day, for a commercial prison, overcrowding is the boon. I would also hope a commercial prison would be fined if inmates die while in its care.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  > The point of solitary confinement is to protect inmates from attacking each other. The point of solitary confinement is to punish troublemaking prisoners.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Yup, it's totally rational. When you create a system where murder is an entirely rational response, you've created an evil system.
- mirimir 11y ago
  Huh? The point of solitary confinement is arguably to punish.
joesmo 11y ago
I don't understand why our society thinks its ok to treat people this way just because they've been convicted of a crime. Being removed from society and put in jail IS the punishment. Why does society suddenly see these people as no longer human, trash that can be dealt with any way, packed like sardines, left helpless to be raped and murdered? Yes, some of these people have done unspeakable things, but they are being punished already. Does society itself need to continue to do unspeakable things to those convicted? Honestly, I thought we were beyond that, but I guess not. Is it any wonder that we accept torture of foreigners now when we've always accepted torture of citizens?
- llamataboot 11y ago
  I agree with this, but arguably jail itself is an unreasonable punishment for many/most crimes, especially under the guise of rehabilitation, which it absolutely isn't designed for. Many countries have figured out how to balance public safety, restitution/punishment, and rehabilitation in ways that are empirically more effective on all fronts than the US good-ole-boy culture of "lock em up and let God sort em out". The Scandinavian countries especially come to mind.
  - joesmo 11y ago
    Of course. Putting non-violent offenders in jail doesn't even make sense when you have options like house arrest, especially jailing them before trial. I agree though, the US has an extremely cruel culture that's always, since before its creation, been based on oppression and enslavement, and it really shows up in the way it treats its citizens and others throughout the world.
- neffy 11y ago
  Society doesn't think like that. What US society thought, was that everything should be determined by free markets. This is what happens when you put the prison service out to the lowest bidder. And lets not even get into the part where the private companies running the prisons now have a vested interest in hiring lobbyists to provoke tougher sentencing. But perhaps it would be easier simply to stop at Society doesn't think.
llamataboot 11y ago
Mass Incarceration is truly one of those things I can't think too much about or I just feel an unrelenting hopelessness and rage. It seems absolutely diabolical to me that in the United States we have simply taken away the humanity of so many people (with absolutely egregious racial and class disparities) in the name of keeping "us" "safer". Not only is it an absolute failure from a moral perspective, it doesn't work from any pragmatic perspective either. Costs are high, recidivism is shocking, and prisons seem to be designed to absolutely foster the worst parts of the human-animals locked in cages. I don't think there's an easy answer. From a systemic perspective we are locked into a socio-political ratchet. It is far easier to argue for harsher treatment for "criminals", with zero political downside, than to argue the opposite. As long as prison seems to be something that happens to other people: darker, poorer, less educated, there is an empathic gap that exists that makes it hard for the average schmo just trying to get by with his 60 hours a week of work to care very much. I can only hope that someday we'll look back on the fact that the United States had the second highest incarceration rate in the entire world as an absolute black mark, right up there with slavery and genocide, or colonialism.
- llamataboot 11y ago
  By "human-animals" I was not being disparaging. I think all humans are animals, with large parts of the animal-brain still intact. Any animal locked in a tiny cage tends to start exhibiting highly strange and anti-social behaviors that wouldn't be the norm at all outside of captivity.
- chillwaves 11y ago
  They are locking up drug users. There is a heroin epidemic in this country and they just lock them up when they need treatment. My friend was locked up, got out on bail and OD'd two nights ago. It didn't have to happen.
  - mirimir 11y ago
    This! It's plainly the Drug War that's filled prisons. Sorry about your friend :(
djejjejbe 11y ago
Cruel and unusual punishment. But the US doesn't give a fuck about law, justice, or the Constitution. The people should stop giving a fuck about their corrupt government. These problems will not be solved politically or non violently.
nuttinwrong 11y ago
One look at that cell photo in the article and I think I would bash my head into the wall until I was dead. To think about living in those conditions is unimaginable. To do this to another human being, no matter what crime they committed is pure cruelty. I'd like to see the people who voted for these laws spend 10 days in that cell. Absolutely disgusting.
- briandear 11y ago
  If more people thought like you, perhaps more people would think twice before raping, murdering and robbing. I have trouble sympathizing with violent criminals.
  - ljf 11y ago
    OK, but what is making the US a more violent place than other comparable countries? http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/02/is_the_u_s_more_violent_than_other_countries_what_the_data_shows.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/02/is_the_u_s...
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      USA is a historically-colonized nation with a large diverse population. "Comparable" would be Mexico, Brazil, or Nigeria. Comparing USA to Netherlands is a joke.
      - atemerev 11y ago
        OK then. In Nigeria, incarceration rate per 100,000 people is 30. In Mexico, 196. In Brazil, 193. In the US, 737.
        jessaustin 11y ago
        I don't disagree with you, but my comment addressed 'ljf's question about violence, directly above it. This myth that USA should exactly resemble a tiny homogeneous European nation has been encouraged by the prison-LEO-judicial-industrial complex in order to argue for ever more draconian punishments: "We're not like Holland yet, so let's lock up 100,000 more minorities!"
deleted 11y ago
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jasondebo 11y ago
It's so dangerous! Part of me wants to see Sesson get hanged at the town square and another part of me wants to pay-per-view to see the next execution!
danieltillett 11y ago
A terrible story. The thing that sticks with me is the whole situation was rational. You have a murderer who will never be released (nothing to lose) who wants to live alone. The only way he can get this is to kill someone and we somehow expect anything other than the outcome that resulted.
afandian 11y ago
I couldn't bring myself to read the article past the death. Were the prison authorities charged with murder? Did any charges stick?
- tyingq 11y ago
  I doubt anything will come of it. This happened: http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/03/inmate-who-gave-birth-to-baby-in-toilet-files-suit-alleging-cruel-and-unusual-punishment-at-dawson-state-jail.html/ http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/03/inmate-who-gave-b... (tldr, inmate delivers her baby in a cell, with no medical oversight, at all) No criminal charges. They did shut down the jail, but likely for other reasons.
justin_vanw 11y ago
I don't buy the thesis here that 'solitary confinement' is the reason this happened. These guys were both murderers before (including when they were free in the world and totally unconfined) and seemed unbothered by the thought of killing each other. These guys are exceptionally aggressive and with major psychological issues on top. They are going to kill over and over unless they change (not likely) or we simply never let them interact with another human. This is the consequence of having any person like the two highlighted in this article living and breathing and having the ability to interact with any other human. If you are going to lock them up and never let them interact with anyone ever again, then that is considered torture as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-torture-of-solitary-confinement/2013/02/20/ae115d74-7ac9-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-tort... So the choice is to either let them kill each other (you can try to stop it, but so long as they have physical access to other people they will kill them for no reason), or you don't allow them that access and this is torturing them. Seems like a Catch-22. For my money putting horrible people like this together is a way of letting them solve societies problems by killing each other. It's certainly not desirable to have this happen, but clearly nobody is solving it in any other way.
- Rapzid 11y ago
  I don't like the title much either. They weren't actually in solitary confinement anyway. It was just a small cell.
aristidb 11y ago
One quote stuck with me: “But it’s a tough place to do time. People that say cons have it easy, they ain’t never been in Menard.” Not an American, but between saying that cons have it easy and the fact of mass incarceration in the first place, it seems that there's a certain mercilessness in American culture.
- beardicus 11y ago
  We certainly seem to prefer punishment and retribution over rehabilitation. Many americans view prison as a deterrent, thus making it more horrible should deter more potential criminals. There's also a disturbing attitude towards (largely male) prison rape. It is completely acceptable to joke about it, even on national late-night television, and the attitude is clearly one of "prisoners are terrible sub-humans and deserve to be raped by their peers". It's really messed up.
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Who exactly says cons have it easy? I've never heard that one before.
  - tyingq 11y ago
    Google for something like: why do we treat prisoners better than Lots of results, most highly misinformed. People imagine that most/all prisoners get 3 meals a day, television, etc. Not true.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    I've definitely heard complaints along the lines of, "those prisoners get 3 squares [meals] a day; that's better than what a lot of people outside get..."
- mpclark 11y ago
  Yup, and that cell looks like a truly horrible place to accommodate a person (let alone two). My woodshed is nicer than that.
willu 11y ago
"The only way to alert a guard was to bang on the door and hope the sound could be heard above the din." Do cells not have cameras? I would think it'd be feasible to detect fights with basic motion detection.
- clort 11y ago
  "The space itself appeared to be decomposing. The front wall, next to the door, was made of corroded metal. The paint on the wedge-shaped shelf had almost completely chipped away; the beds were caked in rust; and the floor underneath the toilet was stained brown and black. Dust and crumbs accumulated in every corner." You suppose this was a high tech institution?
junto 11y ago
I genuinely wonder what is cheaper. Building a couple of new prisons, or housing these convicts for the extra 30 years for the murders inside the prison due to over-crowding. I don't understand multiple occupancy cells in prison. Dangerous convicts are in prison usually for something unpleasant or violent that have done to another human being. Putting them side by side in a hen coop sounds like absolute stupidity. Unless of course the whole plan is to have them slowly kill each other off to remove the problem prone from society.
peter303 11y ago
Reminds me of my grad student office
wolfgke 11y ago
> "If you can come up with a better way to do this, understanding the fact that we are 162 percent of capacity without double celling, I'm willing to listen to you" Introduce less and shorter prison punishments into the laws so that there are simply less inmates?

223 points by miiiiiike 11y ago

dang 11y ago

Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11362269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11362269.

It's disgusting that we treat humans like this. A reasonable person can understand perspectives on both sides of many contemporary hot topics, but I see no such leeway here. Isn't it time we stand up and simply fix something which is so clearly broken?

justicezyx 11y ago
How we should treat the "animal" that kill people then?
- rbobby 11y ago
  Probably start by not calling them an animal? Dehumanizing someone is probably step 1 on the road mistreating them.
  - justicezyx 11y ago
    No, by "animal" I mean human as "animal". Not they are animal and I am not. We are animal. And some of us has more "animal" side of behavior. That's it. Please do not misrepresent my statement...
    - Retra 11y ago
      If you mean "human as animal", then _all_ human behavior is animal behavior. Saying "some of us have more animal behavior" is really more of an indicator that you think they are more animal than you, despite both being human. Your statement is dehumanizing. If you don't want it to be interpreted as such, then make better statements.
- whiddershins 11y ago
  All humans are capable of horrific acts. It is a part of our humanity, we are apex predators who organize socially. The evolved algorithm in our brain that manages that dissonance is extremely complex and will necessarily fail at times. We can't tolerate or condone antisocial behavior, but it is a mistake to feel safe in the thought "we" are better than "them." We are they, they are we.
  - sathackr 11y ago
    I wish there was a multi-upvote button. This, so much this. It's so easy to turn it into 'us' and 'them' So many stereotypes, so much historical(and, of course, current) violence and bloodshed because someone convinces a population how 'they' are different than 'us', 'we' are better, therefore 'they' must surrender(and become like 'us') or 'we' will force 'them' to. My favorite example? Extrajudicial killings of non-us citizens unilaterally declared to be terrorists. And since it's 'them', somehow it's moral. Terrorism is bad, but doesn't give us the right not to afford another human the protections of things we have declared to be owed to all men. If 'We hold these truths to be self evident..." then why do we only apply them to US Citizens? (And then, take them away from some US Citizens, the ones that have been declared to be 'them' no longer 'us')
  - ams6110 11y ago
    No, sorry. Some people kill or viciously assault other people, while most people don't. There's not a moral equivalence there. That said, I do think that the conditions described in the article constitute cruel and unusual punishment, at least by today's standards. I'm not sure what the framers had in mind; I'm sure 18th century prisons were not rose gardens either.
    - whiddershins 11y ago
      I heartily recommend "Why We Snap" http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Snap-Understanding-Circuit-ebook/dp/B00SI02CTQ http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Snap-Understanding-Circuit-eboo... and although a boring read, "Sex and War" http://www.amazon.com/Sex-War-Biology-Explains-Terrorism-ebook/dp/B003UBAX3A/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1458956045&sr=1-1&keywords=sex+and+war http://www.amazon.com/Sex-War-Biology-Explains-Terrorism-ebo... for a different perspective on your statements. The violent impulse is probably available to all humans, and it is plausible to say that all humans under the right circumstances can manifest extreme violence. So it becomes details. How are the various impulses moderated under various conditions. It is the precise opposite of black and white, in my opinion. edit: I am not excusing violence or advocating we tolerate antisocial behavior. I am urging compassion and empathy for people whose brains have made one or more decisions devastatingly incorrectly as a result of what may be an extremely tiny variation in programming, or an edge case that caused their brains to make the wrong decision.
- throweway 11y ago
  Thats a can of worms.
- throweway 11y ago
  Thats a can of worms.
- throweway 11y ago
  Thats a can of worms.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  Build a social system that results in fewer innocent people being killed and fewer unsullied children growing up into killers.
stopinsanity16 11y ago
(US point-of-view): in case one ignores the blaring media headlines and the incessant political noise on TV and via unsolicited phone calls, I must inform that this is an election year in this country. There is still plenty of time to mobilize disenfranchised voters to perform a "regime change" to ensure that the people who gave us private jails, funding cuts for schools , increased corporate welfare, "war on drugs", and "tough on crime" hypocrisy are voted out.
- zanny 11y ago
  The problem we are seeing this election cycle is the undemocratic consequence of first past the post. The American republic has degenerated so direly that, as is par for the course, the American people will once again be given only two choices for president (and likewise, at most two choices in every other ballot position they are eligible in this November, besides the most local of elections) of which very few non-hardline party members will be in favor of. It should also be very alarming how many primaries in the Democrat primary this year have demonstrated extensive systemic corruption of the party. Be it 7 "random" wins in Iowa, to past presidents using their authority and influence to shut down polling locations in Massachusetts for hours, to just this past week Arizona having its polling locations cut by 70% that produced waiting lines over five hours long, on top of mass relocation of voter registrations and many voters losing their party membership recognition in a closed primary. While of course I will still vote for every position I can for the person I want to win (and never for the lesser of two evils as I am provided by the establishment) the system is not orchestrated to enable the people to actually do anything any more. It would require a tremendous amount of public action, and for almost all issues - including the ones this article brings to light - Martin Niemöller's quote "First they came ..." rings true moreso today than I could imagine possible. There is tremendous apathy in America, as people only become aware or active when it is too late and their liberties and freedom have already been taken, and for the rest as long as it is not impacting their lives they will ignore it because it is "too much work" to do anything about.
  - eropple 11y ago
    > Be it 7 "random" wins in Iowa Programmer rails against randomness because it doesn't suit him. Film at 11. > to past presidents using their authority and influence to shut down polling locations in Massachusetts for hours Neither the Boston nor New Bedford locations at which Bill Clinton appeared (and I am setting aside whether it was right for Clinton to do so, because it appears to have not been illegal and the fine for such being all of $20 anyway) were closed at any point. Both remained accessible at all times. But you know that, or you should if it matters to you. > just this past week Arizona having its polling locations cut by 70% that produced waiting lines over five hours long This is the result of the VRA being gutted by the Roberts Court and the Maricopa County government (hint: really really not Democrats) choosing not to establish nearly enough polling places. But you know that, too. Or you should, if it matters to you. Because you are entitled to your opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

PaulAJ 11y ago

No problem. These guys just need to get together to launch a class-action suit against whoever is responsible alleging unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. Shouldn't take more than 15 years to wend its way up to the Supreme Court, at which point all of these guys will get voucher for a MacDonalds Happy Meal.

rdtsc 11y ago

People talk about institutional evil. This is an example of it. You can almost trace their thinking "Oh, so solitary is bad now. We'll fix it. Put two people in a 10x4 cell. See, not solitary anymore, and we doubled the capacity too. Bonuses for everyone". Ideally you'd think those who made those decision would be disciplined, pensions would be cut, etc. But nothing like that is gonna happen. Even if the family wins the lawsuit, it will be taxpayers paying for it. One a deeper level, I wouldn't be surprised if many of those involved in running the prison would be thinking things like "well good, less people less worries. So what if he kills another one". Even more perverse, in some countries, prisoners who are known to kill and attack their cellmates are used as a coercion tool. That is effective against political prisoners and other undesirables who need to "confess" or be punished -- "behave or you'll end up in Sesson's cell <wink-wink>". On paper it looks completely by the rules and clean.

superuser2 11y ago
This is also what happens when well-intentioned people are vastly more successful at fighting prison construction than fighting mass incarceration. Our prisons are routinely at 1.5x, 2x, 3x capacity. Being against the prison industrial complex feels good, but in doing so you become directly, personally responsible for the fact that there are now 3 people in a cell meant for one, people living on cots in a gymnasium with no privacy whatsoever, in such close quarters that even the most patient people would be at each other's throats. Until the prison population actually declines, we ought to at least be building prisons fast enough to stay at design capacity. Google your state - you'll be amazed. Prisons aren't designed to be comfortable, but they sure as hell get a lot less comfortable with too many people in them.
- gnaritas 11y ago
  There's a simple solution to that, set people free. We don't need to build more prisons, we already imprison more of our population than any other country in the world, we have too many prisons and too many people in them. We need to imprison less people. Release all inmates who committed victim-less crimes, if more room is needed, release all inmates who committed non violent crimes-there are better ways to deal with them than prison. Prison should be for violent criminals only. Release all drug users, release all drug pushers, none of those people belong in jail.

rbobby 11y ago

Not a godly sort but this passage seems appropriate: > Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me'. These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. America has a horrible problem with incarceration. It seems obvious but if the state takes away someone's rights (freedom) the state assumes a duty of care for those individuals. And a duty of care isn't extinguished because it costs too much or would be difficult to comply with or would be politically unpopular. Specific to costs... if incarceration is costing too much then do something about the underlying root causes that result in incarceration.

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imtringued 11y ago

The point of solitary confinement is to protect inmates from attacking each other. Putting two attackers into one cell makes the problem even worse. After the first inmate murder there is no consequence for further murder, you're there for the rest of your life anyway. It doesn't matter if you kill one or twenty cellmates. For the prison this is probably a boon because their overcrowding problem is "solving itself".

Someone 11y ago
Assuming a fixed fee per prisoner-day, for a commercial prison, overcrowding is the boon. I would also hope a commercial prison would be fined if inmates die while in its care.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
> The point of solitary confinement is to protect inmates from attacking each other. The point of solitary confinement is to punish troublemaking prisoners.
JabavuAdams 11y ago
Yup, it's totally rational. When you create a system where murder is an entirely rational response, you've created an evil system.
mirimir 11y ago
Huh? The point of solitary confinement is arguably to punish.

joesmo 11y ago

I don't understand why our society thinks its ok to treat people this way just because they've been convicted of a crime. Being removed from society and put in jail IS the punishment. Why does society suddenly see these people as no longer human, trash that can be dealt with any way, packed like sardines, left helpless to be raped and murdered? Yes, some of these people have done unspeakable things, but they are being punished already. Does society itself need to continue to do unspeakable things to those convicted? Honestly, I thought we were beyond that, but I guess not. Is it any wonder that we accept torture of foreigners now when we've always accepted torture of citizens?

llamataboot 11y ago
I agree with this, but arguably jail itself is an unreasonable punishment for many/most crimes, especially under the guise of rehabilitation, which it absolutely isn't designed for. Many countries have figured out how to balance public safety, restitution/punishment, and rehabilitation in ways that are empirically more effective on all fronts than the US good-ole-boy culture of "lock em up and let God sort em out". The Scandinavian countries especially come to mind.
- joesmo 11y ago
  Of course. Putting non-violent offenders in jail doesn't even make sense when you have options like house arrest, especially jailing them before trial. I agree though, the US has an extremely cruel culture that's always, since before its creation, been based on oppression and enslavement, and it really shows up in the way it treats its citizens and others throughout the world.
neffy 11y ago
Society doesn't think like that. What US society thought, was that everything should be determined by free markets. This is what happens when you put the prison service out to the lowest bidder. And lets not even get into the part where the private companies running the prisons now have a vested interest in hiring lobbyists to provoke tougher sentencing. But perhaps it would be easier simply to stop at Society doesn't think.

llamataboot 11y ago

Mass Incarceration is truly one of those things I can't think too much about or I just feel an unrelenting hopelessness and rage. It seems absolutely diabolical to me that in the United States we have simply taken away the humanity of so many people (with absolutely egregious racial and class disparities) in the name of keeping "us" "safer". Not only is it an absolute failure from a moral perspective, it doesn't work from any pragmatic perspective either. Costs are high, recidivism is shocking, and prisons seem to be designed to absolutely foster the worst parts of the human-animals locked in cages. I don't think there's an easy answer. From a systemic perspective we are locked into a socio-political ratchet. It is far easier to argue for harsher treatment for "criminals", with zero political downside, than to argue the opposite. As long as prison seems to be something that happens to other people: darker, poorer, less educated, there is an empathic gap that exists that makes it hard for the average schmo just trying to get by with his 60 hours a week of work to care very much. I can only hope that someday we'll look back on the fact that the United States had the second highest incarceration rate in the entire world as an absolute black mark, right up there with slavery and genocide, or colonialism.

llamataboot 11y ago
By "human-animals" I was not being disparaging. I think all humans are animals, with large parts of the animal-brain still intact. Any animal locked in a tiny cage tends to start exhibiting highly strange and anti-social behaviors that wouldn't be the norm at all outside of captivity.
chillwaves 11y ago
They are locking up drug users. There is a heroin epidemic in this country and they just lock them up when they need treatment. My friend was locked up, got out on bail and OD'd two nights ago. It didn't have to happen.
- mirimir 11y ago
  This! It's plainly the Drug War that's filled prisons. Sorry about your friend :(

djejjejbe 11y ago

Cruel and unusual punishment. But the US doesn't give a fuck about law, justice, or the Constitution. The people should stop giving a fuck about their corrupt government. These problems will not be solved politically or non violently.

nuttinwrong 11y ago

One look at that cell photo in the article and I think I would bash my head into the wall until I was dead. To think about living in those conditions is unimaginable. To do this to another human being, no matter what crime they committed is pure cruelty. I'd like to see the people who voted for these laws spend 10 days in that cell. Absolutely disgusting.

briandear 11y ago
If more people thought like you, perhaps more people would think twice before raping, murdering and robbing. I have trouble sympathizing with violent criminals.
- ljf 11y ago
  OK, but what is making the US a more violent place than other comparable countries? http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/02/is_the_u_s_more_violent_than_other_countries_what_the_data_shows.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/10/02/is_the_u_s...
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    USA is a historically-colonized nation with a large diverse population. "Comparable" would be Mexico, Brazil, or Nigeria. Comparing USA to Netherlands is a joke.
    - atemerev 11y ago
      OK then. In Nigeria, incarceration rate per 100,000 people is 30. In Mexico, 196. In Brazil, 193. In the US, 737.
      - jessaustin 11y ago
        I don't disagree with you, but my comment addressed 'ljf's question about violence, directly above it. This myth that USA should exactly resemble a tiny homogeneous European nation has been encouraged by the prison-LEO-judicial-industrial complex in order to argue for ever more draconian punishments: "We're not like Holland yet, so let's lock up 100,000 more minorities!"

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jasondebo 11y ago

It's so dangerous! Part of me wants to see Sesson get hanged at the town square and another part of me wants to pay-per-view to see the next execution!

danieltillett 11y ago

A terrible story. The thing that sticks with me is the whole situation was rational. You have a murderer who will never be released (nothing to lose) who wants to live alone. The only way he can get this is to kill someone and we somehow expect anything other than the outcome that resulted.

afandian 11y ago

I couldn't bring myself to read the article past the death. Were the prison authorities charged with murder? Did any charges stick?

tyingq 11y ago
I doubt anything will come of it. This happened: http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/03/inmate-who-gave-birth-to-baby-in-toilet-files-suit-alleging-cruel-and-unusual-punishment-at-dawson-state-jail.html/ http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/03/inmate-who-gave-b... (tldr, inmate delivers her baby in a cell, with no medical oversight, at all) No criminal charges. They did shut down the jail, but likely for other reasons.

justin_vanw 11y ago

I don't buy the thesis here that 'solitary confinement' is the reason this happened. These guys were both murderers before (including when they were free in the world and totally unconfined) and seemed unbothered by the thought of killing each other. These guys are exceptionally aggressive and with major psychological issues on top. They are going to kill over and over unless they change (not likely) or we simply never let them interact with another human. This is the consequence of having any person like the two highlighted in this article living and breathing and having the ability to interact with any other human. If you are going to lock them up and never let them interact with anyone ever again, then that is considered torture as well: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-torture-of-solitary-confinement/2013/02/20/ae115d74-7ac9-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-tort... So the choice is to either let them kill each other (you can try to stop it, but so long as they have physical access to other people they will kill them for no reason), or you don't allow them that access and this is torturing them. Seems like a Catch-22. For my money putting horrible people like this together is a way of letting them solve societies problems by killing each other. It's certainly not desirable to have this happen, but clearly nobody is solving it in any other way.

Rapzid 11y ago
I don't like the title much either. They weren't actually in solitary confinement anyway. It was just a small cell.

aristidb 11y ago

One quote stuck with me: “But it’s a tough place to do time. People that say cons have it easy, they ain’t never been in Menard.” Not an American, but between saying that cons have it easy and the fact of mass incarceration in the first place, it seems that there's a certain mercilessness in American culture.

beardicus 11y ago
We certainly seem to prefer punishment and retribution over rehabilitation. Many americans view prison as a deterrent, thus making it more horrible should deter more potential criminals. There's also a disturbing attitude towards (largely male) prison rape. It is completely acceptable to joke about it, even on national late-night television, and the attitude is clearly one of "prisoners are terrible sub-humans and deserve to be raped by their peers". It's really messed up.
oh_sigh 11y ago
Who exactly says cons have it easy? I've never heard that one before.
- tyingq 11y ago
  Google for something like: why do we treat prisoners better than Lots of results, most highly misinformed. People imagine that most/all prisoners get 3 meals a day, television, etc. Not true.
- sokoloff 11y ago
  I've definitely heard complaints along the lines of, "those prisoners get 3 squares [meals] a day; that's better than what a lot of people outside get..."
mpclark 11y ago
Yup, and that cell looks like a truly horrible place to accommodate a person (let alone two). My woodshed is nicer than that.

willu 11y ago

"The only way to alert a guard was to bang on the door and hope the sound could be heard above the din." Do cells not have cameras? I would think it'd be feasible to detect fights with basic motion detection.

clort 11y ago
"The space itself appeared to be decomposing. The front wall, next to the door, was made of corroded metal. The paint on the wedge-shaped shelf had almost completely chipped away; the beds were caked in rust; and the floor underneath the toilet was stained brown and black. Dust and crumbs accumulated in every corner." You suppose this was a high tech institution?

junto 11y ago

I genuinely wonder what is cheaper. Building a couple of new prisons, or housing these convicts for the extra 30 years for the murders inside the prison due to over-crowding. I don't understand multiple occupancy cells in prison. Dangerous convicts are in prison usually for something unpleasant or violent that have done to another human being. Putting them side by side in a hen coop sounds like absolute stupidity. Unless of course the whole plan is to have them slowly kill each other off to remove the problem prone from society.

peter303 11y ago

Reminds me of my grad student office

wolfgke 11y ago

> "If you can come up with a better way to do this, understanding the fact that we are 162 percent of capacity without double celling, I'm willing to listen to you" Introduce less and shorter prison punishments into the laws so that there are simply less inmates?