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Indefinite solitary confinement in Canadian prisons ruled unconstitutional

255 points by joering2 9y ago

hprotagonist 9y ago
canada, not california
- sctb 9y ago
  Thanks. We've reverted the submitted title from “CA: Indefinite solitary confinement in prisons ruled unconstitutional”.
pfarnsworth 9y ago
My theory is that drastically reduced sentences using solitary confinement might be more useful than sticking people in jail cells for longer periods of time. For example, for minor offences have 1-2 days of solitary confinement, and increase it meaningfully as the violence of the crime increases and for recidivists. The benefit is that you can isolate the prisoners completely, so that they don't engage in gang activity, drugs, etc. It's also much safer for prison guards and you can get by with less. You can also pack in a lot more convicts into a small area, but also the turnover will be much quicker, so you can handle more convicts. Solitary confinement is much much harsher, so for first-time-offenders, they will get scared straight, but they also can't get indoctrinated into more criminal activity from gang members, etc. First time offenders will get scared straight much quicker (spending only a few days or a week in solitary) vs much longer sentences.
- lallysingh 9y ago
  I don't disagree. There's another aspect to this: the deterrent aspect (for some) of spending time with hardened criminals. Also, sometimes 1-2 days completely alone sounds pretty good.
  - gpm 9y ago
    > the deterrent aspect (for some) of spending time with hardened criminals. I think getting rid of this is one of the biggest benefits of these alternative schemes. It is otherwise phrased as "the deterrent aspect of being put in a situation where you (believe?) you are likely to get raped and otherwise abused". It's cruel, unethical, and has no place in modern society.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Also, sometimes 1-2 days completely alone sounds pretty good. Thereby showing that it's not an effective deterrent?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    1-2 days != 3 years
- iovrthoughtthis 9y ago
  Does punishment work as anything but a deterrent? Can we actually change adult behaviour positively through our penal systems?
  - rosser 9y ago
    There have been some interesting, if not entirely consistent, results from "restorative justice" efforts.
  - ExactoKnight 9y ago
    Americans might realize this was proven if they look beyond their own borders and to Norway, which has the lowest recidivism rate in the world.
- Y_Y 9y ago
  But what about the effect of removing criminals from society? Or the perceived harshness in the eyes of the public ("he only got a three week sentence!")?
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    I think people will learn quickly how harsh solitary confinement is and they can readjust their expectations. Also, the sentence should be moved up meaningfully depending on the level of crime. So 3 weeks for rape would be too little, in my opinion.
    - QAPereo 9y ago
      People do not commit crimes expecting to be caught. If the death penalty is not a deterrent, how could you expect anything less to be?
- gpm 9y ago
  I have a similar theory but with torture. For minor offenses instead of imprisoning people just subject them to extreme pain for a short period of time and send them on their way. It has all the benefits you listed and it will interfere less with any job they may hold which should substantially reduce social harm (self explanatory) and recidivism rates (which have been shown to strongly correlate with employment). For anyone who likes parents theory and dislikes mine, I'd be very interested in knowing why. (I don't really think this theory is correct - but it does seem plausible)
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    They do this in some countries like Singapore or the Middle East, where they whip or cane criminals for minor offenses. I don't like the idea, because it's violent and we can't claim the upper moral hand. The beauty of solitary confinement is that it's completely non-violent but it's very harsh mentally. You can make the case that it's mental torture but it's just an edge case of regular prisons, where the number of prisoners N = 1, and the prison is the size of a cell.
    - gerbilly 9y ago
      >The beauty of solitary confinement is that it's completely non-violent it is violent. Violence does not have to be a stimulus that you present to the subject (hitting, etc...). It can be a collection of stimuli that you withhold from the subject as in this case. Someone even coined a term for it: structural violence.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence
      - pfarnsworth 9y ago
        I understand what you're saying, but I reject this usage of the word "violence". I'm using the term violence in the traditional sense, meaning causing actual physical harm, vs "preventing a basic need". Punishment is inherently restricting basic needs of some sort. If that were the case, you could argue that my disallowing my children access to Youtube Kids is "violent." I don't want to confuse the terms for the purpose of my point, which is actual physical harm.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- chki 9y ago
  In my opinion this is exactly what prison should NOT be. There are of course different theories on why we put people in prison but the main thing to achieve should not be to punish and scare people. The aim is to keep crime rates low and therefore to properly resocialize prisoners. By putting them in solitary confinement you are doing the exact opposite: not helping them but actually turning them further away from society because you are actively hurting them. Changing the prison environment to a place where criminals can actually get out of the vicious cycle they're in is the way to go. Not putting the failure to do so on them. Apart from that I also strongly believe that solitary confinement is inhumane in itself and so are life long prison sentences. (Corporal Punishment is wrong on a completely different level) The only time that people should be locked up for life is if they are mentally ill or pose a concrete threat by the time they would be released.
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    That's why the solitary confinement sentences would be drastically shortened, especially for first-time criminals and non-violent criminals. My other hypothesis is that people commit crimes for only 2 reasons: 1) They don't think they will get caught. For these types of people, the punishment won't be a deterrent because they believe they will never suffer the consequences. You could literally raise the punishment level to death and it wouldn't affect these people from committing the crime because they don't believe they will get caught. 2) They don't care if they get caught (ie. they don't think or care about the consequences of their actions). This can be split into 2 subgroups: a) They simply don't care about the consequences (ex. acts of passion or they are ignorant to the consequences). b) They think the consequences are "worth" it. Punishment really only will affect group 2B. The other two groups (1 and 2a) won't be deterred no matter what. So the question really is, how do we optimize deterring group 2B? Solitary confinement, to me, is a more cost-efficient way of increasing the scale exponentially while still not being drastic. Some might say that 90 days in solitary confinement is worse than a few years in jail. If that's true, then it's really cost efficient, and would serve as a cheap, quick deterrent and might prevent recidivism.
    - ExactoKnight 9y ago
- jacquesm 9y ago
  What a ridiculous comment. Really. Where to start: Solitary confinement is something that can really mess up the people that you inflict it on, ideally it would not even be in the repertoire of any normal prison. We are social animals and to deprive a person of any kind of interaction is really brutal. Having the ability to move around of your free will taken away is already pretty harsh and people commit suicide readily when faced with this possibility (which is the reason they take away your shoelaces and belt even for the shortest spans of confinement where I live), solitary confinement is several degrees above that and could very well permanently affect the psychological state of the victim (word used with great care) of such treatment. Obviously any kind of imprisonment has risks as you note but your remedy seems much worse than the original problem.
saryant 9y ago
Related: Colorado ended long-term solitary confinement in 2017. Colorado no longer keeps inmates in solitary for more than 15 days. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/solitary-confinement-colorado-prison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/solitary-confinem...
- nojvek 9y ago
  I wish this becomes a federal law. US likes to shit over Canada but I have to say Canada very much seems like a civilized country while US is going reverse.
andrewstuart 9y ago
Ugh, who could possibly advocate such an inhuman thing in the first place?
- optimuspaul 9y ago
  Voldemort, sociopaths, the morally bankrupt... I don't know. It's really messed up.
  - SamReidHughes 9y ago
    Voldemort didn't create Azkaban. The truth is, he rescued people from the place. Try reading A People's History of Wizarding Britain by Noam Chomsky to get a better perspective on things.
    - optimuspaul 9y ago
      lol, thanks for putting me in my place ;)
- simlevesque 9y ago
  Conservatives.
  - rwcarlsen 9y ago
    There are plenty of conservatives who would be against this. Why would you think a 1-dimensional spectrum would be enough to describe people's positions on any issue?
    - jmts 9y ago
      Politics has become so us-vs-them that just about any such question ends up answered with "the most general group/ideology/label in conflict with my own that fits the chosen criteria" among those that don't care to think a little more broadly about things. It drives me insane. Your views are allowed to vary. You are not a label. A person can share the beliefs of both conservatives and liberals if they choose to, because the reality of a situation is almost always far more complex than either of the extremes, and the right answers live somewhere in the middle.
ralmidani 9y ago
In the US, criminal justice is almost exclusively about inflicting maximum pain and suffering, with apparently little to no desire for punishment to have a reformative and deterrent effect. In the name of being "tough on crime", people convicted of non-violent felonies are often stripped of the Constitutional right to vote, and find it difficult to obtain gainful, legal employment for years after they have finished serving their sentences. And then we wonder why recidivism is such a problem in the US...
- frankc 9y ago
  I don't disagree exactly, but you don't think "maximum pain" has a deterrent effect? I don't want to experience maximum pain myself...
  - Retric 9y ago
    If only people in jail know how bad it is and it makes them more likely to commit more crimes then it's got the opposite effect. What you're talking about is the reputation which has little to do with the reality. We could for example use propaganda like movies to make prison seem worse without actually making it suck that bad.
  - joshontheweb 9y ago
    Apparently not enough of a deterrent to keep our prisons from over crowding. It is also inhumane in my opinion. I think that it would do everyone well to spend a weekend in solitary in jail. It is torture and should be seen as such.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      Spend a weekend in bed, not talking to anyone? I do that from time to time now. I find it relaxing.
      - joshontheweb 9y ago
        It is different when it is against your will, you have no means of entertainment / stimulation, and you don’t know how long you will be there. But don’t take my word for it. Commit a small but arrest worthy infraction on a Friday night and try it for yourself.
opo 9y ago
For some more background, Frontline did an episode on solitary confinement: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/solitary-nation/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/solitary-nation/ And if you think solitary confinement is a nightmare, how about putting 2 people in a solitary confinement cell? >...Imagine living in a cell that's smaller than a parking space — with a homicidal roommate. >...With a toilet, sink, shelf, and beds, the men were left with a sliver of space about a foot-and-a-half wide to maneuver around each other. If one stood, the other had to sit. They could palm both walls without fully extending their arms. There was no natural light, just a fluorescent bulb and small Plexiglas windows that looked out onto the hall. The solid door muffled the cacophony of shouting and door-banging ricocheting off the tier. It also blocked ventilation. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/24/the-deadly-consequences-of-solitary-with-a-cellmate#.kdsY7GPUa https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/24/the-deadly-con...
con_to_dev 9y ago
Anonymous account because my employers don't know this. I spent 3 years in solitary confinement in Virginia during my 10 year sentence and the experience definitely changed me, though probably was actually beneficial in a strange way. I spent the time focused on mathematics and actually became a decent analyst near the end of it. I continued studying math until my release, after which I went to college and eventually got a PhD in it. After deciding not to pursue a career in academia, I became a developer and have recently moved into data science, which I like better because I get to use my mathematical skills along with programming. My experience is obviously atypical though. I saw many people mentally deteriorate, attempt suicide, and essentially give up hope in life while under this sanction. What is worse, the state at that time was imposing a truly inhumane punishment on the rastafarian community within prisons. Due to the rastas not following prison grooming habits by refusing to shave off their dreadlocks, the prison system moved a group of them into the hole. When I left it, some had been there for 10 years straight. I can assure you that many of these men were deeply disturbed. I was lucky in that I have a psychology that can endure this sort of abuse and come out of it stronger, but most people are not wired like this. Given what I have seen, this really is tantamount to torture. I wish so much that normal US citizens would tour a prison and see what this does to people, because maybe then this would be outlawed.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  > I spent 3 years in solitary confinement Holy crap. That's torture. Good to see you still in one piece. > Given what I have seen, this really is tantamount to torture. It is torture.
- sigstoat 9y ago
  > I wish so much that normal US citizens would tour a prison and see what this does to people, because maybe then this would be outlawed. it didn't even occur to me that you could tour a prison and see much of anything. how would you expect the effects of solitary confinement to be visible during a tour?
  - con_to_dev 9y ago
    Short term stays are not so bad, the person is stressed, but not showing signs of any real disturbance. The longer term stays are where you see the worst. You will generally notice that the person is just off in some way. They may stare into space rather than at you when you talk to them, pace around and mumble, have twitches or obsessive tics, etc. You will immediately notice who has been there awhile. Some simply have a psychotic break and this is quite obvious as well. I'll also say that I was speaking rhetorically, you generally can't visit a prison and certainly not the hole. This should be allowed though, people need to see what this does to people.
wolfgke 9y ago
This is a serious question, so please don't downvote me if you consider it ridiculous. Intuitively I would say that I were locked together in a cell with some other inmate, i would be a much worse fate than if I were locked in solitary confinement. Being locked in solitary confinement is surely not a nice fate, but as Sartre expressed it: "Hell is other people". In this sense I pretty surely would consider being locked with another inmate in a cell as the real "hell on earth". So what is so bad about solitary confinement in comparison to non-solitary confinement? As I said: If I were to choose, I would immediately choose solitary confinement by far.
- nsnick 9y ago
  Solitary confinement isn't just getting your own room. It means that you don't get to spend any time with any other inmates.
- ggm 9y ago
  There is good evidence that long term isolation is destructive of most peoples mental wellbeing. The president of Uruguay was remarkably open about the post-release mental burden of his years in solitary (he was a marxist guerilla who was capture and imprisoned for years, before becoming elected in a democratic post-coup society). You argue from the specific (your own belief you would chose to tolerate solitary over all other forms of incarceration) over the general (the body of evidence (no, I don't have a cite) is strong to suggest across cohorts, isolation has long term detrimental effect on health)
- zeroxfe 9y ago
  Solitary confinement means absolutely no social interaction at all. Also, sometimes, no light, books, or anything to engage your mind -- it's pretty close to torture. The alternative is not just "locked in with another inmate." Inmates can interact with much broader groups at various times of the day, have access to books, hobby items, games, gyms, etc. So now ask yourself -- would you choose solitary confinement over the alternative?
- Thlom 9y ago
  Prison cells should be individual, not shared with other inmates. Both from a security perspective and from an ethical perspective. Everyone, even rapists and murderers deserve personal space. But in most of the world I guess this is unrealistic. The problem with solitary confinement isn't the cell per se, but that you are locked in your cell all day, every day for months (years) on end. The only human contact you have is limited contact with the guards. If you are lucky you get 30 minutes in the yard. Alone. Over time that can drive anyone insane.
adaptivecells 9y ago
I had a sentence that had me in for many weekends in a row (in Canada). I had some weekends where I was in a room with others, weekends where I was on my own in a very small cell, and other weekends where I was in cell with one other person. 1. In a "day room" with 5-8 others. It also had a TV. The television was a blessing and a curse. Since I wasn't the only one in the cell, I didn't have control over it, so it just blared for 12 hours straight. You couldn't leave the room and take a break from it, so it became hard to deal with at times. That room had a bathroom with a door on it, which was nice. With five people in the room it was tolerable. We all had mats on the floor. Once we were up past 5 or 6, it was mat to mat with hardly any room to maneuver. The worst part of this room was that the lights never turned off completely. It was agonizing trying to fall asleep with fluorescents on all night. One nice thing: there were windows up near the ceiling that reflected light onto the wall throughout the day. It's amazing how meaningful a bit of light becomes when you're stuck in a room for 52 hours straight. 2. I only spent one weekend by myself in solitary. It was a tiny, filthy cell. There was only enough space for my mat with just enough room left to step around it. The edges of my sheet were black by the end of the weekend. This was a rough weekend. They turned the lights off around 9pm, which was an improvement over the day room. I meditated, that helped. I could feel my mind start to warp and unravel during the weekend, so I can't imagine how others do it for weeks on end. Mid weekend a guard took pity on me and handed me a book. I had to pace myself reading it, trying to make it last. 3. Other weekends were spent in cells that were a bit wider. Two inmates to a cell, bunk beds so we weren't on the floor. This wasn't too bad, though it had a real dungeon quality to it with beige metal walls and giant rivets. No privacy when using the washroom - it was right next to the beds so you're face is a couple of feet away from your roommate's bed when you're on the toilet. The ceilings where fairly high, with a tiny window letting in a bit of light. You couldn't see out of it. It was frustrating, because you could see it used to be a full window, but they'd covered up most of it. When it got dark, the bottom of dropped out of me and I was overcome with a really profound sadness. 4. The dorm was the best experience by far. I only got one weekend in the dorm which sucked. It had around 16 bunk beds and was quite spacious. Usually they cram it full, which would have been hellish, but there were only 6 or 7 of us, so it felt luxurious. There were large windows, frosted so you couldn't see out, but it was the best thing ever. We don't realize how much light affects our mood. Having that natural light stream in all day was like mana from heaven. The dorm had two tables with benches which meant I didn't have to eat balancing my food tray on my lap, sitting on my mat. It had a TV, but the room was large enough you could go to the other end and sort of take a break from it. I got a deck of cards that weekend, which was a welcome distraction. 5. Pods: these were similar to #2, but smaller. They had a small bench to eat at, but other than that, just enough room to pace back and forth. They did have windows that you could actually see out of. That was a treat. I would just sit and stare at the trees and the sky for hours. I would feel quite melancholy and sad, but seeing the world outside made me feel somewhat connected. The cell was small enough that it felt quite psychologically oppressive. I know how a lion feels, pacing back and forth at the zoo. It's sign of mental distress, and I couldn't stop myself from doing it. One thing I noticed is that you have to find a way to break up the monotony of the day. Pace for a bit, lie on bed, pace, sit on the bed, stare out the window, lie on the bed but looking at a different section of the wall. Sunday nights were the worst. It was difficult to fall asleep, and I always ended up waking hours before we were released, not knowing what time it was. Most weekends I could get a sense of time, but in #2 and #3, there was no way to tell the time. It really messes with your mind, not knowing if an hour has passed, or 4 hours, or 30 minutes. I was fortunate in that it only ever lasted for 52 hours, but even that was difficult to endure some weekends.
mschuster91 9y ago
> Leask agreed, saying an immediate declaration of invalidity would pose a "potential danger to the public or threaten the rule of law." What the fuck. I mean, thanks to Judge Leask for invalidating this practice - but that part is utter nonsense and causes up to a year of further suffering for affected people. They're not going to walk around in society so what is being threatened here?!
- peeters 9y ago
  Administrative segregation is a legislated tool used for various problems within institutions, such as violence within the penitentiary. It's a flawed and now thankfully unconstitutional tool, but it is the established tool nonetheless. Simply removing that tool without giving Parliament time to legislate an alternative would leave them in a somewhat chaotic position. That's not to say that in the meantime, it's the status quo. Corrections Canada has essentially been put on notice, so any use of solitary going forward is going to be under more scrutiny, and hopefully some aspects of the decision (like not having the right to counsel during segregation hearings) will be corrected sooner than that.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  its normal in Canada for the supreme court to rule a law unconstitutional, and give the government a deadline to fix it.
dghughes 9y ago
Just the other day my Security instructor played to my class a video of Kevin Mitnick who mentioned during his prison sentence he was put in solitary confinement for a year. The story goes the US government believed Kevin could whistle into a payphone and trigger the launch of nuclear missiles. Solitary confinement is obviously meant to be torture. It's punishment within an organization where people are already being punished just by being there.
ohiovr 9y ago
Thank you northern neighbors for standing this way.
fnord77 9y ago
how is it constitutional in the US? Surely there have been challenges.
- garrettgrimsley 9y ago
  It isn't legal. The SCOTUS has ruled that indefinite solitary confinement violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
  - chx 9y ago
    There are people like Eric Rudolph serving multiple consecutive life sentences in ADX Florence -- how is that legal then in light of that ruling?
    - ExactoKnight 9y ago
      That FBI spy got sent there too. There really ought to be a judicial process for determining which prison you ought to be serving your sentence in. If you become enemy to the feds you get a life of absolute hell thanks to some guy high up placing you there you out of vendetta.
throwwit 9y ago
Read as: open-concept planning gains momentum to save money in cash-strapped overcrowded prison system.

255 points by joering2 9y ago

hprotagonist 9y ago

canada, not california

sctb 9y ago
Thanks. We've reverted the submitted title from “CA: Indefinite solitary confinement in prisons ruled unconstitutional”.

pfarnsworth 9y ago

My theory is that drastically reduced sentences using solitary confinement might be more useful than sticking people in jail cells for longer periods of time. For example, for minor offences have 1-2 days of solitary confinement, and increase it meaningfully as the violence of the crime increases and for recidivists. The benefit is that you can isolate the prisoners completely, so that they don't engage in gang activity, drugs, etc. It's also much safer for prison guards and you can get by with less. You can also pack in a lot more convicts into a small area, but also the turnover will be much quicker, so you can handle more convicts. Solitary confinement is much much harsher, so for first-time-offenders, they will get scared straight, but they also can't get indoctrinated into more criminal activity from gang members, etc. First time offenders will get scared straight much quicker (spending only a few days or a week in solitary) vs much longer sentences.

lallysingh 9y ago
I don't disagree. There's another aspect to this: the deterrent aspect (for some) of spending time with hardened criminals. Also, sometimes 1-2 days completely alone sounds pretty good.
- gpm 9y ago
  > the deterrent aspect (for some) of spending time with hardened criminals. I think getting rid of this is one of the biggest benefits of these alternative schemes. It is otherwise phrased as "the deterrent aspect of being put in a situation where you (believe?) you are likely to get raped and otherwise abused". It's cruel, unethical, and has no place in modern society.
- icebraining 9y ago
  Also, sometimes 1-2 days completely alone sounds pretty good. Thereby showing that it's not an effective deterrent?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- craftyguy 9y ago
  1-2 days != 3 years
iovrthoughtthis 9y ago
Does punishment work as anything but a deterrent? Can we actually change adult behaviour positively through our penal systems?
- rosser 9y ago
  There have been some interesting, if not entirely consistent, results from "restorative justice" efforts.
- ExactoKnight 9y ago
  Americans might realize this was proven if they look beyond their own borders and to Norway, which has the lowest recidivism rate in the world.
Y_Y 9y ago
But what about the effect of removing criminals from society? Or the perceived harshness in the eyes of the public ("he only got a three week sentence!")?
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  I think people will learn quickly how harsh solitary confinement is and they can readjust their expectations. Also, the sentence should be moved up meaningfully depending on the level of crime. So 3 weeks for rape would be too little, in my opinion.
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    People do not commit crimes expecting to be caught. If the death penalty is not a deterrent, how could you expect anything less to be?
gpm 9y ago
I have a similar theory but with torture. For minor offenses instead of imprisoning people just subject them to extreme pain for a short period of time and send them on their way. It has all the benefits you listed and it will interfere less with any job they may hold which should substantially reduce social harm (self explanatory) and recidivism rates (which have been shown to strongly correlate with employment). For anyone who likes parents theory and dislikes mine, I'd be very interested in knowing why. (I don't really think this theory is correct - but it does seem plausible)
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  They do this in some countries like Singapore or the Middle East, where they whip or cane criminals for minor offenses. I don't like the idea, because it's violent and we can't claim the upper moral hand. The beauty of solitary confinement is that it's completely non-violent but it's very harsh mentally. You can make the case that it's mental torture but it's just an edge case of regular prisons, where the number of prisoners N = 1, and the prison is the size of a cell.
  - gerbilly 9y ago
    >The beauty of solitary confinement is that it's completely non-violent it is violent. Violence does not have to be a stimulus that you present to the subject (hitting, etc...). It can be a collection of stimuli that you withhold from the subject as in this case. Someone even coined a term for it: structural violence.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_violence
    - pfarnsworth 9y ago
      I understand what you're saying, but I reject this usage of the word "violence". I'm using the term violence in the traditional sense, meaning causing actual physical harm, vs "preventing a basic need". Punishment is inherently restricting basic needs of some sort. If that were the case, you could argue that my disallowing my children access to Youtube Kids is "violent." I don't want to confuse the terms for the purpose of my point, which is actual physical harm.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
chki 9y ago
In my opinion this is exactly what prison should NOT be. There are of course different theories on why we put people in prison but the main thing to achieve should not be to punish and scare people. The aim is to keep crime rates low and therefore to properly resocialize prisoners. By putting them in solitary confinement you are doing the exact opposite: not helping them but actually turning them further away from society because you are actively hurting them. Changing the prison environment to a place where criminals can actually get out of the vicious cycle they're in is the way to go. Not putting the failure to do so on them. Apart from that I also strongly believe that solitary confinement is inhumane in itself and so are life long prison sentences. (Corporal Punishment is wrong on a completely different level) The only time that people should be locked up for life is if they are mentally ill or pose a concrete threat by the time they would be released.
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  That's why the solitary confinement sentences would be drastically shortened, especially for first-time criminals and non-violent criminals. My other hypothesis is that people commit crimes for only 2 reasons: 1) They don't think they will get caught. For these types of people, the punishment won't be a deterrent because they believe they will never suffer the consequences. You could literally raise the punishment level to death and it wouldn't affect these people from committing the crime because they don't believe they will get caught. 2) They don't care if they get caught (ie. they don't think or care about the consequences of their actions). This can be split into 2 subgroups: a) They simply don't care about the consequences (ex. acts of passion or they are ignorant to the consequences). b) They think the consequences are "worth" it. Punishment really only will affect group 2B. The other two groups (1 and 2a) won't be deterred no matter what. So the question really is, how do we optimize deterring group 2B? Solitary confinement, to me, is a more cost-efficient way of increasing the scale exponentially while still not being drastic. Some might say that 90 days in solitary confinement is worse than a few years in jail. If that's true, then it's really cost efficient, and would serve as a cheap, quick deterrent and might prevent recidivism.
  - ExactoKnight 9y ago
jacquesm 9y ago
What a ridiculous comment. Really. Where to start: Solitary confinement is something that can really mess up the people that you inflict it on, ideally it would not even be in the repertoire of any normal prison. We are social animals and to deprive a person of any kind of interaction is really brutal. Having the ability to move around of your free will taken away is already pretty harsh and people commit suicide readily when faced with this possibility (which is the reason they take away your shoelaces and belt even for the shortest spans of confinement where I live), solitary confinement is several degrees above that and could very well permanently affect the psychological state of the victim (word used with great care) of such treatment. Obviously any kind of imprisonment has risks as you note but your remedy seems much worse than the original problem.

saryant 9y ago

Related: Colorado ended long-term solitary confinement in 2017. Colorado no longer keeps inmates in solitary for more than 15 days. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/solitary-confinement-colorado-prison.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/opinion/solitary-confinem...

nojvek 9y ago
I wish this becomes a federal law. US likes to shit over Canada but I have to say Canada very much seems like a civilized country while US is going reverse.

andrewstuart 9y ago

Ugh, who could possibly advocate such an inhuman thing in the first place?

optimuspaul 9y ago
Voldemort, sociopaths, the morally bankrupt... I don't know. It's really messed up.
- SamReidHughes 9y ago
  Voldemort didn't create Azkaban. The truth is, he rescued people from the place. Try reading A People's History of Wizarding Britain by Noam Chomsky to get a better perspective on things.
  - optimuspaul 9y ago
    lol, thanks for putting me in my place ;)
simlevesque 9y ago
Conservatives.
- rwcarlsen 9y ago
  There are plenty of conservatives who would be against this. Why would you think a 1-dimensional spectrum would be enough to describe people's positions on any issue?
  - jmts 9y ago
    Politics has become so us-vs-them that just about any such question ends up answered with "the most general group/ideology/label in conflict with my own that fits the chosen criteria" among those that don't care to think a little more broadly about things. It drives me insane. Your views are allowed to vary. You are not a label. A person can share the beliefs of both conservatives and liberals if they choose to, because the reality of a situation is almost always far more complex than either of the extremes, and the right answers live somewhere in the middle.

ralmidani 9y ago

In the US, criminal justice is almost exclusively about inflicting maximum pain and suffering, with apparently little to no desire for punishment to have a reformative and deterrent effect. In the name of being "tough on crime", people convicted of non-violent felonies are often stripped of the Constitutional right to vote, and find it difficult to obtain gainful, legal employment for years after they have finished serving their sentences. And then we wonder why recidivism is such a problem in the US...

frankc 9y ago
I don't disagree exactly, but you don't think "maximum pain" has a deterrent effect? I don't want to experience maximum pain myself...
- Retric 9y ago
  If only people in jail know how bad it is and it makes them more likely to commit more crimes then it's got the opposite effect. What you're talking about is the reputation which has little to do with the reality. We could for example use propaganda like movies to make prison seem worse without actually making it suck that bad.
- joshontheweb 9y ago
  Apparently not enough of a deterrent to keep our prisons from over crowding. It is also inhumane in my opinion. I think that it would do everyone well to spend a weekend in solitary in jail. It is torture and should be seen as such.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Spend a weekend in bed, not talking to anyone? I do that from time to time now. I find it relaxing.
    - joshontheweb 9y ago
      It is different when it is against your will, you have no means of entertainment / stimulation, and you don’t know how long you will be there. But don’t take my word for it. Commit a small but arrest worthy infraction on a Friday night and try it for yourself.

opo 9y ago

For some more background, Frontline did an episode on solitary confinement: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/solitary-nation/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/solitary-nation/ And if you think solitary confinement is a nightmare, how about putting 2 people in a solitary confinement cell? >...Imagine living in a cell that's smaller than a parking space — with a homicidal roommate. >...With a toilet, sink, shelf, and beds, the men were left with a sliver of space about a foot-and-a-half wide to maneuver around each other. If one stood, the other had to sit. They could palm both walls without fully extending their arms. There was no natural light, just a fluorescent bulb and small Plexiglas windows that looked out onto the hall. The solid door muffled the cacophony of shouting and door-banging ricocheting off the tier. It also blocked ventilation. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/24/the-deadly-consequences-of-solitary-with-a-cellmate#.kdsY7GPUa https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/24/the-deadly-con...

con_to_dev 9y ago

Anonymous account because my employers don't know this. I spent 3 years in solitary confinement in Virginia during my 10 year sentence and the experience definitely changed me, though probably was actually beneficial in a strange way. I spent the time focused on mathematics and actually became a decent analyst near the end of it. I continued studying math until my release, after which I went to college and eventually got a PhD in it. After deciding not to pursue a career in academia, I became a developer and have recently moved into data science, which I like better because I get to use my mathematical skills along with programming. My experience is obviously atypical though. I saw many people mentally deteriorate, attempt suicide, and essentially give up hope in life while under this sanction. What is worse, the state at that time was imposing a truly inhumane punishment on the rastafarian community within prisons. Due to the rastas not following prison grooming habits by refusing to shave off their dreadlocks, the prison system moved a group of them into the hole. When I left it, some had been there for 10 years straight. I can assure you that many of these men were deeply disturbed. I was lucky in that I have a psychology that can endure this sort of abuse and come out of it stronger, but most people are not wired like this. Given what I have seen, this really is tantamount to torture. I wish so much that normal US citizens would tour a prison and see what this does to people, because maybe then this would be outlawed.

jacquesm 9y ago
> I spent 3 years in solitary confinement Holy crap. That's torture. Good to see you still in one piece. > Given what I have seen, this really is tantamount to torture. It is torture.
sigstoat 9y ago
> I wish so much that normal US citizens would tour a prison and see what this does to people, because maybe then this would be outlawed. it didn't even occur to me that you could tour a prison and see much of anything. how would you expect the effects of solitary confinement to be visible during a tour?
- con_to_dev 9y ago
  Short term stays are not so bad, the person is stressed, but not showing signs of any real disturbance. The longer term stays are where you see the worst. You will generally notice that the person is just off in some way. They may stare into space rather than at you when you talk to them, pace around and mumble, have twitches or obsessive tics, etc. You will immediately notice who has been there awhile. Some simply have a psychotic break and this is quite obvious as well. I'll also say that I was speaking rhetorically, you generally can't visit a prison and certainly not the hole. This should be allowed though, people need to see what this does to people.

wolfgke 9y ago

This is a serious question, so please don't downvote me if you consider it ridiculous. Intuitively I would say that I were locked together in a cell with some other inmate, i would be a much worse fate than if I were locked in solitary confinement. Being locked in solitary confinement is surely not a nice fate, but as Sartre expressed it: "Hell is other people". In this sense I pretty surely would consider being locked with another inmate in a cell as the real "hell on earth". So what is so bad about solitary confinement in comparison to non-solitary confinement? As I said: If I were to choose, I would immediately choose solitary confinement by far.

nsnick 9y ago
Solitary confinement isn't just getting your own room. It means that you don't get to spend any time with any other inmates.
ggm 9y ago
There is good evidence that long term isolation is destructive of most peoples mental wellbeing. The president of Uruguay was remarkably open about the post-release mental burden of his years in solitary (he was a marxist guerilla who was capture and imprisoned for years, before becoming elected in a democratic post-coup society). You argue from the specific (your own belief you would chose to tolerate solitary over all other forms of incarceration) over the general (the body of evidence (no, I don't have a cite) is strong to suggest across cohorts, isolation has long term detrimental effect on health)
zeroxfe 9y ago
Solitary confinement means absolutely no social interaction at all. Also, sometimes, no light, books, or anything to engage your mind -- it's pretty close to torture. The alternative is not just "locked in with another inmate." Inmates can interact with much broader groups at various times of the day, have access to books, hobby items, games, gyms, etc. So now ask yourself -- would you choose solitary confinement over the alternative?
Thlom 9y ago
Prison cells should be individual, not shared with other inmates. Both from a security perspective and from an ethical perspective. Everyone, even rapists and murderers deserve personal space. But in most of the world I guess this is unrealistic. The problem with solitary confinement isn't the cell per se, but that you are locked in your cell all day, every day for months (years) on end. The only human contact you have is limited contact with the guards. If you are lucky you get 30 minutes in the yard. Alone. Over time that can drive anyone insane.

adaptivecells 9y ago

I had a sentence that had me in for many weekends in a row (in Canada). I had some weekends where I was in a room with others, weekends where I was on my own in a very small cell, and other weekends where I was in cell with one other person. 1. In a "day room" with 5-8 others. It also had a TV. The television was a blessing and a curse. Since I wasn't the only one in the cell, I didn't have control over it, so it just blared for 12 hours straight. You couldn't leave the room and take a break from it, so it became hard to deal with at times. That room had a bathroom with a door on it, which was nice. With five people in the room it was tolerable. We all had mats on the floor. Once we were up past 5 or 6, it was mat to mat with hardly any room to maneuver. The worst part of this room was that the lights never turned off completely. It was agonizing trying to fall asleep with fluorescents on all night. One nice thing: there were windows up near the ceiling that reflected light onto the wall throughout the day. It's amazing how meaningful a bit of light becomes when you're stuck in a room for 52 hours straight. 2. I only spent one weekend by myself in solitary. It was a tiny, filthy cell. There was only enough space for my mat with just enough room left to step around it. The edges of my sheet were black by the end of the weekend. This was a rough weekend. They turned the lights off around 9pm, which was an improvement over the day room. I meditated, that helped. I could feel my mind start to warp and unravel during the weekend, so I can't imagine how others do it for weeks on end. Mid weekend a guard took pity on me and handed me a book. I had to pace myself reading it, trying to make it last. 3. Other weekends were spent in cells that were a bit wider. Two inmates to a cell, bunk beds so we weren't on the floor. This wasn't too bad, though it had a real dungeon quality to it with beige metal walls and giant rivets. No privacy when using the washroom - it was right next to the beds so you're face is a couple of feet away from your roommate's bed when you're on the toilet. The ceilings where fairly high, with a tiny window letting in a bit of light. You couldn't see out of it. It was frustrating, because you could see it used to be a full window, but they'd covered up most of it. When it got dark, the bottom of dropped out of me and I was overcome with a really profound sadness. 4. The dorm was the best experience by far. I only got one weekend in the dorm which sucked. It had around 16 bunk beds and was quite spacious. Usually they cram it full, which would have been hellish, but there were only 6 or 7 of us, so it felt luxurious. There were large windows, frosted so you couldn't see out, but it was the best thing ever. We don't realize how much light affects our mood. Having that natural light stream in all day was like mana from heaven. The dorm had two tables with benches which meant I didn't have to eat balancing my food tray on my lap, sitting on my mat. It had a TV, but the room was large enough you could go to the other end and sort of take a break from it. I got a deck of cards that weekend, which was a welcome distraction. 5. Pods: these were similar to #2, but smaller. They had a small bench to eat at, but other than that, just enough room to pace back and forth. They did have windows that you could actually see out of. That was a treat. I would just sit and stare at the trees and the sky for hours. I would feel quite melancholy and sad, but seeing the world outside made me feel somewhat connected. The cell was small enough that it felt quite psychologically oppressive. I know how a lion feels, pacing back and forth at the zoo. It's sign of mental distress, and I couldn't stop myself from doing it. One thing I noticed is that you have to find a way to break up the monotony of the day. Pace for a bit, lie on bed, pace, sit on the bed, stare out the window, lie on the bed but looking at a different section of the wall. Sunday nights were the worst. It was difficult to fall asleep, and I always ended up waking hours before we were released, not knowing what time it was. Most weekends I could get a sense of time, but in #2 and #3, there was no way to tell the time. It really messes with your mind, not knowing if an hour has passed, or 4 hours, or 30 minutes. I was fortunate in that it only ever lasted for 52 hours, but even that was difficult to endure some weekends.

mschuster91 9y ago

> Leask agreed, saying an immediate declaration of invalidity would pose a "potential danger to the public or threaten the rule of law." What the fuck. I mean, thanks to Judge Leask for invalidating this practice - but that part is utter nonsense and causes up to a year of further suffering for affected people. They're not going to walk around in society so what is being threatened here?!

peeters 9y ago
Administrative segregation is a legislated tool used for various problems within institutions, such as violence within the penitentiary. It's a flawed and now thankfully unconstitutional tool, but it is the established tool nonetheless. Simply removing that tool without giving Parliament time to legislate an alternative would leave them in a somewhat chaotic position. That's not to say that in the meantime, it's the status quo. Corrections Canada has essentially been put on notice, so any use of solitary going forward is going to be under more scrutiny, and hopefully some aspects of the decision (like not having the right to counsel during segregation hearings) will be corrected sooner than that.
throwaway2048 9y ago
its normal in Canada for the supreme court to rule a law unconstitutional, and give the government a deadline to fix it.

dghughes 9y ago

Just the other day my Security instructor played to my class a video of Kevin Mitnick who mentioned during his prison sentence he was put in solitary confinement for a year. The story goes the US government believed Kevin could whistle into a payphone and trigger the launch of nuclear missiles. Solitary confinement is obviously meant to be torture. It's punishment within an organization where people are already being punished just by being there.

ohiovr 9y ago

Thank you northern neighbors for standing this way.

fnord77 9y ago

how is it constitutional in the US? Surely there have been challenges.

garrettgrimsley 9y ago
It isn't legal. The SCOTUS has ruled that indefinite solitary confinement violates the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.
- chx 9y ago
  There are people like Eric Rudolph serving multiple consecutive life sentences in ADX Florence -- how is that legal then in light of that ruling?
  - ExactoKnight 9y ago
    That FBI spy got sent there too. There really ought to be a judicial process for determining which prison you ought to be serving your sentence in. If you become enemy to the feds you get a life of absolute hell thanks to some guy high up placing you there you out of vendetta.

throwwit 9y ago

Read as: open-concept planning gains momentum to save money in cash-strapped overcrowded prison system.