18 ms·

What it’s like to spend four and a half years in solitary confinement (2015)

144 points by sturza 7y ago

pishpash 7y ago
Post right in time for quarantine.
lisper 7y ago
TL;DR: It's torture.
freepor 7y ago
Now why don’t we hear from the person he murdered: what it’s like to have your entire existence and future stolen from you. Compared to that, four years in solitary is minor.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Proziam 7y ago
  Our justice system is right, at most, 96% of the time. I'm not comfortable knowing anyone is tortured, even if you believe it is 'justified.' Knowing some prisoners are innocent makes it even more obvious that humane treatment is the only reasonable course of action.
- starpilot 7y ago
  I think this alludes to an important difference about US vs. other countries. The US has no social safety net, or a very thin one. A harsher criminal justice system makes sense when the consequences are so much greater for the victims of crimes. A family that loses its breadwinner can be on the street in no time.
  - kiba 7y ago
    Does a harsher criminal justice system actually solve anything?
    - starpilot 7y ago
      It's a greater deterrent for crimes.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
    Imposing longer prison sentences won't help support the victims family. If anything it's taking tax dollars away from the welfare system and channelling those funds to the prison system. When a person goes to prison they may also be leaving a family who are now unable to meet their needs. Harsher penalties might mean that person is unable to provide for their family for longer.
- dasil003 7y ago
  Two wrongs don't make a right. It certainly satisfies some primal urge to see a criminal get punished, but we also need to distinguish between young individuals in difficult circumstances making bad choices from how we decide to run our societal systems—there needs to be a higher bar for the latter. Leaving humanitarian issues aside for a moment: do privatized prisons w/ a punishment mentality actually reduce crime?
- simion314 7y ago
  Statically speaking there is a change You(in general - maybe you don't drive) could kill a person tomorrow with your car, something weird on the streets could distract your eyes for a second. Would it be fair to be tortured? The punishment needs to be proportional with the crime but you probably don't want to transform good people that made a mistake into bad/destroyed people so when then sentence is over instead of releasing that good person you release a new criminal you created and trained in your prison.
  - jariel 7y ago
    Accidently killing someone in a car is not murder.
    - simion314 7y ago
      But you still taken a live and hurt a family emotionally and financially. I interpreted the comment I replied that since your torture is less then the getting killed is justified. I mean me getting killed is the same if it was premeditated or not, if it was an honest accident or a stupidity/ignorance etc.
- qw 7y ago
  I have a question for you. What do you think will happen when these guys are released? Most of them will have problems for the rest of their lives. They will probably be more dangerous to society. Even if you for some reason accept the cruel punishment, you should also consider that they may move in as your neighbour when they are released. Don't you think that the mental state may cause more problems than if they were treated humanely? 76% of US prisoners are re-arrested within five years, which is higher than many other countries. Think of how many victims could be saved if the prisons were more focused on rehabilitation than punishment?
  - freepor 7y ago
    Killers should never be released, no exceptions.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Completely disagree. If you die, it's hard on those you leave behind, but for you it's either oblivion, the afterlife, or reincarnation. Perhaps that sounds flippant to you, but I've been in multiple traumatic life and death situations as well as several medical ones that were also pretty bad. While I have a strong will to live (without which I wouldn't be here) the mere fact of dying is not that big of a deal. You're going to die, just as surely as a piece of string has two ends. The notion of life going on indefinitely is not much different from the infantile or drug-induced difficulty in distinguishing between oneself and one's environment. Indeed, being conscious of this fact is the easiest way to appreciate the social-temporal context within which you exist and to some extent see your life from the outside, rather than just down the barrel of your personal future.
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  Do you know any of the details of the case? I can't find it with a quick search. Genuine question. Any judgement of this without knowing the details is misinformed.
- isodude 7y ago
  His future was taken from him as well. You are now two futures shorter. It's horrible when someone dies, but it's not obvious that the person responsible should endure any punishment. Where does your reasoning end? How far should it stretch? For how long after his punishment should he get judged? How are you to judge that four years of torment is minor, have you done it yourself? Boiling his 19 years in prison down to this comment is appaling. Where's your humanity?
  - freepor 7y ago
    My humanity is with the victim, I’m fresh out of any left over for the murderer.
miked85 7y ago
> I began to carry a gun every day, dealing with the PTSD issues, and fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. He doesn't really seem to want to take responsibility for killing someone. I am sure solitary is terrible, but so is being killed by someone like him.
- dgellow 7y ago
  What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? He’s not saying that he shouldn’t have been to prison, he’s sharing an experience being tortured by the state while purging his prison sentence.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - probably_wrong 7y ago
    > What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? It's probably an issue of poorly chosen words, but compare > fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. with > fourteen months later, I shot and killed a man. The way that it's currently written sounds like an accident: "I, a victim of PTSD, shot a man and, in a bizarre twist of events, he died from it". The passive voice there paints a disconnection between the cause and the effect. Of course, judging a man's life from two sentences is nonsense. It just so happens that those two sentences are very unfortunate. But that's on the editor.
    - austhrow743 7y ago
      Yeah his choice of language there could just as easily be applied to a hunting accident. Super minimising of his activities.
    - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
      At the same time, people are the product of our environment, so ignoring that context would also be foolish. Of course, it's easier to blame a child and sentence him to two decades of prison instead of actually fixing the urban hellholes they grew up in, so we end up with years of solitary confinement and these kind of comments on HN :-/
cl0rkster 7y ago
It's absolutely cruel and unusual punishment. The American Constitution forbids this. I've only spent three days straight in a county solitary cell for a silly threat to a judge. In that scenario, it was a glass walled cell in the high security block. Every surface is cement, and your only clothes are a Velcro tunic/blanket. Surveillance is continuous. There, the non-compliant were beaten and strapped to a wheelchair for days and not their bed. They also open your cell to let a violent offender "clean your cell for you" on a regular basis. It was awful in a way entirely unto itself in my memory. I can't even begin to imagine the conditions and lengths of time in this article.
- kortilla 7y ago
  You were in solitary confinement but had another offender come in there daily to clean the cell while you were there? I was under the impression that solitary confinement didn’t allow interaction with others.
  - p410n3 7y ago
    No cleaning. Beating.
  - close04 7y ago
    "Cleaning the cell" usually means they'll toss everything in the cell around, victim inmate included.
- w14 7y ago
  > I can't even begin to imagine the conditions and lengths of time in this article. How about 27 years and counting? [1] That Guardian article was written in 2003 and he's still in there. I can't help thinking there is more that could have been done for him. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/27/ukcrime https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/27/ukcrime
vekker 7y ago
Sounds like hell, the way he describes it. However, if you'd take those hellish elements away & ensure silence, I think long solitary confinement might work if you teach people how to meditate. That's just not being done enough in prisons right now. See "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg EDIT: I know this is probably a controversial opinion to non-meditators, but if you're going to downvote, at least provide an argument for why you don't agree.
- 0xBA5ED 7y ago
  >I know this is probably a controversial opinion to non-meditators, but if you're going to downvote, at least provide an argument for why you don't agree. I'm guessing it's the pretense that you can simply teach anyone to meditate whether or not they want to learn. Also, it suggests a system where a form of torture is potentially justified because you shift responsibility to the person being tortured. "They took the class on meditation and signed on the line that they understand how to endure solitary, so their suffering is their own fault!"
  - trevyn 7y ago
    >"_____ so their suffering is their own fault!" Well, that is the core insight, no matter the external circumstance. (Though, of course, it’s not about blame, and more like “here is the door.”) Get deep enough, and yes, being in a shitty version of solitary is the same as being in a positive fantasy of your choosing.
  - brigandish 7y ago
    > I'm guessing it's the pretense that you can simply teach anyone to meditate whether or not they want to learn Meditation techniques aren't hard to learn, they're comparable to any form of exercise. The hard bit is in doing them sincerely, just like any form of exercise. Can you teach someone press-ups? Then you can teach them meditation. You just can't make them do it, or effectively. As to signing up for solitary for an extended period, I wish I could, but only if it was humane (e.g. no violence, feces flung at me etc), which I'm willing to bet (and the article seems to back up my suspicion) prison solitary isn't.
rasengan0 7y ago
Big money from few players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEO_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEO_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreCivic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreCivic
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Would be no shame if some of those people ended up in the places they operated for profit.
sturza 7y ago
Also, here's his book: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-My-Wrongs-Redemption-American/dp/1101907312 https://www.amazon.com/Writing-My-Wrongs-Redemption-American...
johnpowell 7y ago
I generally like being alone in my room. My desk, tv, and bed are within 10 feet of each other. And I have never really put anything on my walls. Just white walls, desk, bed, and tv. I have been in a basement for the last 18 months and I have been upstairs for about 5 minutes today. I have a bathroom and fridge and microwave down here. But I have a feeding tube. That is how I ended up down here. We thought it would be the safest place to be while I was going through chemo. For six months while my immune system was garbage I just stayed down here and would only go up to get groceries or go to chemo/radiation. So I always joked that I think I could deal with solitary. I prefer being alone. All that changed about a month ago. The balloon on my PEG tube (DDG it) had deflated. And one night I went to change the gauze and while I pulled the gauze out it just started pouring out blood. In a matter of seconds my boxers had blood all over them. I was terrified. This much blood on the outside, how much blood is going into my stomach? Am I going to bleed to death? On the ride to the ER I was feeling faint.. I am getting to the solitary part. But I saw a nurse right after checking in. And she determined I wasn't bleeding to death. I was going to have a bit of a wait to see a doctor. 4 hours to be exact. But they wanted me out of the ER waiting room due to being on pembro and there had just been a case of C-19 8 hours away. So I was being walked to a room and she said they were low on places to put me. I was going to be in a "mental health" room. But they got a bed in there for me. White walls, a bed, no problem.. Huge problem! It is so hard to describe. It was basically a cinder block box and a massive metal door. Everything tucked away so you couldn't kill yourself. And it was so loud since the air had to be pumped in. And I had a bed they wheeled in for me. And the door was open so I could go to the bathroom when I wanted. If that door was closed and I couldn't get out I would have lost my shit. And I nearly lost it anyway. Something about that room was just unlike anything you can imagine. It was like being buried alive. I would imagine solitary is about a million times worse. I would classify it as torture. And my feeding tube had slipped between my stomach and the "outside skin" tearing up everything making it bleed. Just shoved it back in and loaded up the balloon with more saline and went home. And then had the tube replaced the next day during normal hours.
- WaxProlix 7y ago
  Thanks for the story, and the perspective. I appreciate it. Obviously it means nothing over the internet but I'm sitting here hoping the best for you. Good luck, man.
DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago
Unfortunately the US (no doubt others too) prison is the business of punishment. If you are poor you will get a harsher punishment. If nobody is looking you will get a harsher cheaper punishment. Working at a prison requires a certain mindset. Empathy is soon weeded out. What's left is brutality. That's the deal society has made, to hide away the hard problem of solving crime at root cause.
Danieru 7y ago
Why no comments discussing the root cause has the writer reported it: men who should be receiving non-voluntary mental treatment being forced into the prison system due to non-existence of mental facilities. Historically said mental facilities (mental asylums) were themselves inhuman and barbaric. The out cry against them lead to their closure. Yet if that just drove the prison system to new levels of inhuman and barbarism then that itself a regression. Do other countries have more successful mental services? I know Japan did not close down their asylums during the same era America did. Are those facilities acceptable?
- prox 7y ago
  Your describing 19th century practices. It’s not as if time has been standing still. These days (europe) mental health services are institutions. Often a group of buildings, ranging from very open assisted living to closed for the truly insane. While there are instances of abuse on rare occasion, it seems to be miles of from the barbarism of the 19th century. So there is a whole spectrum of classification these days so only who are truly harmful get locked up when necessary.
- brigandish 7y ago
  I live in Japan and I can't tell you about the asylums. What I can tell you is that mental health is a huge stigma, there are plenty of people you'll see in the street or in shops/cafes etc who appear in need of mental help, and there are violent attacks every so often that you probably wouldn't hear about abroad but are again, obviously the work of people who are mentally disturbed. As I say, I don't know anything about the asylums here but the idea that they could be any good seems incredibly unlikely to me, based on my general experience (and what I've heard from other foreigners here). Edit: typo
- praptak 7y ago
  What lead to their closure in US was Reagan's defunding: https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/amp https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_leg...
  - 7y ago
pell 7y ago
Torture. It should be abolished.
holler 7y ago
I wonder what the physiological effects on the body are from years of no sunlight, no physical exertion, and constant stress? Must have atrophied like crazy.
bvandewalle 7y ago
The issue is that we still treat prisons as a medieval revenge tool instead of a reinsertion phase for the prisoners. American prisons are a shame and there is absolutely no way that convicts come out of it ready to participate to society. This youtube channel gives a good perspective on how inhumane life is in American prisons: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzmkeda2XiYpETOP5MjotrQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzmkeda2XiYpETOP5MjotrQ
- thinkingemote 7y ago
  Its not just prison, it's the entire perception of crime and punishment in the US. Its why convicts cannot vote in elections even when they get released. Its why they still have the death penalty. And why victims families can watch them being executed. Its eye for an eye, punishment and not forgiveness and rehabilitation. Its much deeper than the quality of life behind bars.
  - close04 7y ago
    The system is also exceptionally biased (certainly so for a democratic country where ostensibly people are free, equal, and corruption is low) against the lower income layers of the society and based on race, while the top layer of income/influence gets a wildly, ridiculously different experience. [0][1][more] The US doesn't seem to have a justice and penal system, they have a modern slavery system. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus#Criminal_charges_and_probation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus#Criminal_charge...
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    > Its why convicts cannot vote in elections even when they get released. Just felons, not anybody who's been convicted of a crime. Not justifying it, just making the distinction. I still believe it's wrong.
    - dkdk8283 7y ago
      The felony bar gets lower and lower: it’s not hard to get anymore.
dchyrdvh 7y ago
It's another time someone mentions the Plato's Cave. The reason this allegory often makes deep impression is that Plato was initiated, not just a philosopher, and thus actually knew what he was talking about and that allegory is a carefully worded model of reality, as accurate as it could be told at that time.
- popup21 7y ago
  I'm aware of Plato's cave, however, I don't get your reference to him being initiated. Could you go a bit deeper?
CheesecakeFred 7y ago
You can measure the health of a society in how they treat the weak and helpless (helpless in this case in regards to prisoners who are at the whim of the prison). In this regard, America is profoundly sick and defective. It is of course true, instead of rehabilitating, they are breeding criminals in prison. It's an abomination.
somberi 7y ago
Eva Zeisel is an important American designer. She also happened to be my next door neighbor. Over dinner, she recounted her 12-months in solitary confinement in Siberia, for having protested against Stalin's regime. She has written a bit about this experience. She was 97 when I knew of her and even though she was ageing, her faculties were sharp (Extra Pepperoni is the only way to have a Slice, she said). I asked her what lessons from the Solitary confinement stayed with her. She said "The value of knowing that there was no yesterday and probably there will be no tomorrow. And somehow I need to resist the urge to use, the intentionally left behind blunt knife to cut my veins. And the value of dressing warm". I cannot even imagine what it must have been. She was some human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Zeisel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Zeisel
sybarita 7y ago
It's obviously torture. If you've ever spent one night in a holding cell/mental health hospital situation you know it's absolutely 100% inhumane. It's only nazis who've never been in that situation who think like "oh well we have to do something with people like that you know". We have to help them, not lock them in a fucking box. It's a heinous crime committed every single day by the state and complicit officials. Should be abolished today.

144 points by sturza 7y ago

pishpash 7y ago

Post right in time for quarantine.

lisper 7y ago

TL;DR: It's torture.

freepor 7y ago

Now why don’t we hear from the person he murdered: what it’s like to have your entire existence and future stolen from you. Compared to that, four years in solitary is minor.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Proziam 7y ago
Our justice system is right, at most, 96% of the time. I'm not comfortable knowing anyone is tortured, even if you believe it is 'justified.' Knowing some prisoners are innocent makes it even more obvious that humane treatment is the only reasonable course of action.
starpilot 7y ago
I think this alludes to an important difference about US vs. other countries. The US has no social safety net, or a very thin one. A harsher criminal justice system makes sense when the consequences are so much greater for the victims of crimes. A family that loses its breadwinner can be on the street in no time.
- kiba 7y ago
  Does a harsher criminal justice system actually solve anything?
  - starpilot 7y ago
    It's a greater deterrent for crimes.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
  Imposing longer prison sentences won't help support the victims family. If anything it's taking tax dollars away from the welfare system and channelling those funds to the prison system. When a person goes to prison they may also be leaving a family who are now unable to meet their needs. Harsher penalties might mean that person is unable to provide for their family for longer.
dasil003 7y ago
Two wrongs don't make a right. It certainly satisfies some primal urge to see a criminal get punished, but we also need to distinguish between young individuals in difficult circumstances making bad choices from how we decide to run our societal systems—there needs to be a higher bar for the latter. Leaving humanitarian issues aside for a moment: do privatized prisons w/ a punishment mentality actually reduce crime?
simion314 7y ago
Statically speaking there is a change You(in general - maybe you don't drive) could kill a person tomorrow with your car, something weird on the streets could distract your eyes for a second. Would it be fair to be tortured? The punishment needs to be proportional with the crime but you probably don't want to transform good people that made a mistake into bad/destroyed people so when then sentence is over instead of releasing that good person you release a new criminal you created and trained in your prison.
- jariel 7y ago
  Accidently killing someone in a car is not murder.
  - simion314 7y ago
    But you still taken a live and hurt a family emotionally and financially. I interpreted the comment I replied that since your torture is less then the getting killed is justified. I mean me getting killed is the same if it was premeditated or not, if it was an honest accident or a stupidity/ignorance etc.
qw 7y ago
I have a question for you. What do you think will happen when these guys are released? Most of them will have problems for the rest of their lives. They will probably be more dangerous to society. Even if you for some reason accept the cruel punishment, you should also consider that they may move in as your neighbour when they are released. Don't you think that the mental state may cause more problems than if they were treated humanely? 76% of US prisoners are re-arrested within five years, which is higher than many other countries. Think of how many victims could be saved if the prisons were more focused on rehabilitation than punishment?
- freepor 7y ago
  Killers should never be released, no exceptions.
anigbrowl 7y ago
Completely disagree. If you die, it's hard on those you leave behind, but for you it's either oblivion, the afterlife, or reincarnation. Perhaps that sounds flippant to you, but I've been in multiple traumatic life and death situations as well as several medical ones that were also pretty bad. While I have a strong will to live (without which I wouldn't be here) the mere fact of dying is not that big of a deal. You're going to die, just as surely as a piece of string has two ends. The notion of life going on indefinitely is not much different from the infantile or drug-induced difficulty in distinguishing between oneself and one's environment. Indeed, being conscious of this fact is the easiest way to appreciate the social-temporal context within which you exist and to some extent see your life from the outside, rather than just down the barrel of your personal future.
Carpetsmoker 7y ago
Do you know any of the details of the case? I can't find it with a quick search. Genuine question. Any judgement of this without knowing the details is misinformed.
isodude 7y ago
His future was taken from him as well. You are now two futures shorter. It's horrible when someone dies, but it's not obvious that the person responsible should endure any punishment. Where does your reasoning end? How far should it stretch? For how long after his punishment should he get judged? How are you to judge that four years of torment is minor, have you done it yourself? Boiling his 19 years in prison down to this comment is appaling. Where's your humanity?
- freepor 7y ago
  My humanity is with the victim, I’m fresh out of any left over for the murderer.

miked85 7y ago

> I began to carry a gun every day, dealing with the PTSD issues, and fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. He doesn't really seem to want to take responsibility for killing someone. I am sure solitary is terrible, but so is being killed by someone like him.

dgellow 7y ago
What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? He’s not saying that he shouldn’t have been to prison, he’s sharing an experience being tortured by the state while purging his prison sentence.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- probably_wrong 7y ago
  > What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? It's probably an issue of poorly chosen words, but compare > fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. with > fourteen months later, I shot and killed a man. The way that it's currently written sounds like an accident: "I, a victim of PTSD, shot a man and, in a bizarre twist of events, he died from it". The passive voice there paints a disconnection between the cause and the effect. Of course, judging a man's life from two sentences is nonsense. It just so happens that those two sentences are very unfortunate. But that's on the editor.
  - austhrow743 7y ago
    Yeah his choice of language there could just as easily be applied to a hunting accident. Super minimising of his activities.
  - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
    At the same time, people are the product of our environment, so ignoring that context would also be foolish. Of course, it's easier to blame a child and sentence him to two decades of prison instead of actually fixing the urban hellholes they grew up in, so we end up with years of solitary confinement and these kind of comments on HN :-/

cl0rkster 7y ago

It's absolutely cruel and unusual punishment. The American Constitution forbids this. I've only spent three days straight in a county solitary cell for a silly threat to a judge. In that scenario, it was a glass walled cell in the high security block. Every surface is cement, and your only clothes are a Velcro tunic/blanket. Surveillance is continuous. There, the non-compliant were beaten and strapped to a wheelchair for days and not their bed. They also open your cell to let a violent offender "clean your cell for you" on a regular basis. It was awful in a way entirely unto itself in my memory. I can't even begin to imagine the conditions and lengths of time in this article.

kortilla 7y ago
You were in solitary confinement but had another offender come in there daily to clean the cell while you were there? I was under the impression that solitary confinement didn’t allow interaction with others.
- p410n3 7y ago
  No cleaning. Beating.
- close04 7y ago
  "Cleaning the cell" usually means they'll toss everything in the cell around, victim inmate included.
w14 7y ago
> I can't even begin to imagine the conditions and lengths of time in this article. How about 27 years and counting? [1] That Guardian article was written in 2003 and he's still in there. I can't help thinking there is more that could have been done for him. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/27/ukcrime https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/27/ukcrime

vekker 7y ago

Sounds like hell, the way he describes it. However, if you'd take those hellish elements away & ensure silence, I think long solitary confinement might work if you teach people how to meditate. That's just not being done enough in prisons right now. See "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg EDIT: I know this is probably a controversial opinion to non-meditators, but if you're going to downvote, at least provide an argument for why you don't agree.

0xBA5ED 7y ago
>I know this is probably a controversial opinion to non-meditators, but if you're going to downvote, at least provide an argument for why you don't agree. I'm guessing it's the pretense that you can simply teach anyone to meditate whether or not they want to learn. Also, it suggests a system where a form of torture is potentially justified because you shift responsibility to the person being tortured. "They took the class on meditation and signed on the line that they understand how to endure solitary, so their suffering is their own fault!"
- trevyn 7y ago
  >"_____ so their suffering is their own fault!" Well, that is the core insight, no matter the external circumstance. (Though, of course, it’s not about blame, and more like “here is the door.”) Get deep enough, and yes, being in a shitty version of solitary is the same as being in a positive fantasy of your choosing.
- brigandish 7y ago
  > I'm guessing it's the pretense that you can simply teach anyone to meditate whether or not they want to learn Meditation techniques aren't hard to learn, they're comparable to any form of exercise. The hard bit is in doing them sincerely, just like any form of exercise. Can you teach someone press-ups? Then you can teach them meditation. You just can't make them do it, or effectively. As to signing up for solitary for an extended period, I wish I could, but only if it was humane (e.g. no violence, feces flung at me etc), which I'm willing to bet (and the article seems to back up my suspicion) prison solitary isn't.

rasengan0 7y ago

Big money from few players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEO_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEO_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreCivic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoreCivic

anigbrowl 7y ago
Would be no shame if some of those people ended up in the places they operated for profit.

sturza 7y ago

Also, here's his book: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-My-Wrongs-Redemption-American/dp/1101907312 https://www.amazon.com/Writing-My-Wrongs-Redemption-American...

johnpowell 7y ago

I generally like being alone in my room. My desk, tv, and bed are within 10 feet of each other. And I have never really put anything on my walls. Just white walls, desk, bed, and tv. I have been in a basement for the last 18 months and I have been upstairs for about 5 minutes today. I have a bathroom and fridge and microwave down here. But I have a feeding tube. That is how I ended up down here. We thought it would be the safest place to be while I was going through chemo. For six months while my immune system was garbage I just stayed down here and would only go up to get groceries or go to chemo/radiation. So I always joked that I think I could deal with solitary. I prefer being alone. All that changed about a month ago. The balloon on my PEG tube (DDG it) had deflated. And one night I went to change the gauze and while I pulled the gauze out it just started pouring out blood. In a matter of seconds my boxers had blood all over them. I was terrified. This much blood on the outside, how much blood is going into my stomach? Am I going to bleed to death? On the ride to the ER I was feeling faint.. I am getting to the solitary part. But I saw a nurse right after checking in. And she determined I wasn't bleeding to death. I was going to have a bit of a wait to see a doctor. 4 hours to be exact. But they wanted me out of the ER waiting room due to being on pembro and there had just been a case of C-19 8 hours away. So I was being walked to a room and she said they were low on places to put me. I was going to be in a "mental health" room. But they got a bed in there for me. White walls, a bed, no problem.. Huge problem! It is so hard to describe. It was basically a cinder block box and a massive metal door. Everything tucked away so you couldn't kill yourself. And it was so loud since the air had to be pumped in. And I had a bed they wheeled in for me. And the door was open so I could go to the bathroom when I wanted. If that door was closed and I couldn't get out I would have lost my shit. And I nearly lost it anyway. Something about that room was just unlike anything you can imagine. It was like being buried alive. I would imagine solitary is about a million times worse. I would classify it as torture. And my feeding tube had slipped between my stomach and the "outside skin" tearing up everything making it bleed. Just shoved it back in and loaded up the balloon with more saline and went home. And then had the tube replaced the next day during normal hours.

WaxProlix 7y ago
Thanks for the story, and the perspective. I appreciate it. Obviously it means nothing over the internet but I'm sitting here hoping the best for you. Good luck, man.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE 7y ago

Unfortunately the US (no doubt others too) prison is the business of punishment. If you are poor you will get a harsher punishment. If nobody is looking you will get a harsher cheaper punishment. Working at a prison requires a certain mindset. Empathy is soon weeded out. What's left is brutality. That's the deal society has made, to hide away the hard problem of solving crime at root cause.

Danieru 7y ago

Why no comments discussing the root cause has the writer reported it: men who should be receiving non-voluntary mental treatment being forced into the prison system due to non-existence of mental facilities. Historically said mental facilities (mental asylums) were themselves inhuman and barbaric. The out cry against them lead to their closure. Yet if that just drove the prison system to new levels of inhuman and barbarism then that itself a regression. Do other countries have more successful mental services? I know Japan did not close down their asylums during the same era America did. Are those facilities acceptable?

prox 7y ago
Your describing 19th century practices. It’s not as if time has been standing still. These days (europe) mental health services are institutions. Often a group of buildings, ranging from very open assisted living to closed for the truly insane. While there are instances of abuse on rare occasion, it seems to be miles of from the barbarism of the 19th century. So there is a whole spectrum of classification these days so only who are truly harmful get locked up when necessary.
brigandish 7y ago
I live in Japan and I can't tell you about the asylums. What I can tell you is that mental health is a huge stigma, there are plenty of people you'll see in the street or in shops/cafes etc who appear in need of mental help, and there are violent attacks every so often that you probably wouldn't hear about abroad but are again, obviously the work of people who are mentally disturbed. As I say, I don't know anything about the asylums here but the idea that they could be any good seems incredibly unlikely to me, based on my general experience (and what I've heard from other foreigners here). Edit: typo
praptak 7y ago
What lead to their closure in US was Reagan's defunding: https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_legacy_violence_the_homeless_mental_illness/amp https://www.salon.com/2013/09/29/ronald_reagans_shameful_leg...
- 7y ago

pell 7y ago

Torture. It should be abolished.

holler 7y ago

I wonder what the physiological effects on the body are from years of no sunlight, no physical exertion, and constant stress? Must have atrophied like crazy.

bvandewalle 7y ago

The issue is that we still treat prisons as a medieval revenge tool instead of a reinsertion phase for the prisoners. American prisons are a shame and there is absolutely no way that convicts come out of it ready to participate to society. This youtube channel gives a good perspective on how inhumane life is in American prisons: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzmkeda2XiYpETOP5MjotrQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzmkeda2XiYpETOP5MjotrQ

thinkingemote 7y ago
Its not just prison, it's the entire perception of crime and punishment in the US. Its why convicts cannot vote in elections even when they get released. Its why they still have the death penalty. And why victims families can watch them being executed. Its eye for an eye, punishment and not forgiveness and rehabilitation. Its much deeper than the quality of life behind bars.
- close04 7y ago
  The system is also exceptionally biased (certainly so for a democratic country where ostensibly people are free, equal, and corruption is low) against the lower income layers of the society and based on race, while the top layer of income/influence gets a wildly, ridiculously different experience. [0][1][more] The US doesn't seem to have a justice and penal system, they have a modern slavery system. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Couch [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus#Criminal_charges_and_probation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Petraeus#Criminal_charge...
- nkrisc 7y ago
  > Its why convicts cannot vote in elections even when they get released. Just felons, not anybody who's been convicted of a crime. Not justifying it, just making the distinction. I still believe it's wrong.
  - dkdk8283 7y ago
    The felony bar gets lower and lower: it’s not hard to get anymore.

dchyrdvh 7y ago

It's another time someone mentions the Plato's Cave. The reason this allegory often makes deep impression is that Plato was initiated, not just a philosopher, and thus actually knew what he was talking about and that allegory is a carefully worded model of reality, as accurate as it could be told at that time.

popup21 7y ago
I'm aware of Plato's cave, however, I don't get your reference to him being initiated. Could you go a bit deeper?

CheesecakeFred 7y ago

You can measure the health of a society in how they treat the weak and helpless (helpless in this case in regards to prisoners who are at the whim of the prison). In this regard, America is profoundly sick and defective. It is of course true, instead of rehabilitating, they are breeding criminals in prison. It's an abomination.

somberi 7y ago

Eva Zeisel is an important American designer. She also happened to be my next door neighbor. Over dinner, she recounted her 12-months in solitary confinement in Siberia, for having protested against Stalin's regime. She has written a bit about this experience. She was 97 when I knew of her and even though she was ageing, her faculties were sharp (Extra Pepperoni is the only way to have a Slice, she said). I asked her what lessons from the Solitary confinement stayed with her. She said "The value of knowing that there was no yesterday and probably there will be no tomorrow. And somehow I need to resist the urge to use, the intentionally left behind blunt knife to cut my veins. And the value of dressing warm". I cannot even imagine what it must have been. She was some human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Zeisel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Zeisel

sybarita 7y ago

It's obviously torture. If you've ever spent one night in a holding cell/mental health hospital situation you know it's absolutely 100% inhumane. It's only nazis who've never been in that situation who think like "oh well we have to do something with people like that you know". We have to help them, not lock them in a fucking box. It's a heinous crime committed every single day by the state and complicit officials. Should be abolished today.