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Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons

332 points by moxie 13y ago

gruseom 13y ago
Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities.
- woof 13y ago
  Like waterboarding?
  - gruseom 13y ago
    Like waterboarding, but also not. Waterboarding was always obviously torture. No fair-minded person would ever have said that it wasn't; the suggestion is a joke. Thus the only people who had reason to say otherwise were ideologues, power-wielders, and bootlicking journalists. Solitary confinement isn't like that, and it has taken time for fair-minded people to see it in this light. The fact that the science on it is so unequivocal is a big part of this coming into (some) people's awareness, as well. That's why I said "now so obviously a form of torture". It wasn't obvious before.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Don't forget to include cowards in your list. Many people justifying waterboarding as "not torture" are simply vastly, deeply afraid of terrorism and are willing to justify terrible things so they can feel safe.
      - gruseom 13y ago
        Yeah, that's a fair point. I also should probably not have used such charged language on HN to begin with. It never does any good.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  What sets it apart from other forms of punishment? The definition of "torture" seems somewhat flexible.
  - david927 13y ago
    It's certainly considered psychological torture when lasting more than a few weeks. There are a lot of good studies to back this up. Here's a great article to get your started: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Only to a torturer seeking self justification. Which makes them guilty because to seek self justification one must know one is doing some thing wrong.
- ZirconCode 13y ago
  The problem is that psychological forms of harm are not treated with as much respect as physical forms. There are no pictures of it, you cannot see it. It is the same reason why people struggle to see a psychiatrist but not a doctor. Lack of sleep is also deployed in some countries ie. the guards won't let you sleep.
  - nraynaud 13y ago
    The real problem is that the US is part of no international treaty on human rights. Turkey and France have a way more fair process now thanks to the European Court of Human Rights. They have also put hard limits on terrorist law etc. It's slow but it's a real adult supervising the local politicians with true values.
    - alan_cx 13y ago
      The US vigorously refuses to be part of any of that. Now you know why.
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    Even physical forms of harm are downplayed if they have lower visibility than traditional forms of brutality and torture. This is a widespread trend especially in law enforcement and justice and it extends beyond prisons. Consider waterboarding. It's a hugely traumatic experience, and undoubtedly a form of torture, but because it doesn't leave bruises or break bones it is tolerated and accepted. Consider tasers and pepper spray (OC). Again, they cause pain or muscle spasms, but they don't break bones or cause bleeding or bruising so their use is tolerated at thresholds far below what would be allowed to bring about the use of physical force, even for use in restraining someone. Being pepper sprayed in the face and eyes is every bit as traumatic and physically violent as being slapped or punched, yet pepper spray is frequently used by the police in situations where physical force would be considered police brutality. The same goes for tasers.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  I don't see how, given that hell is other people, and other people in prison are quite infernal. If I ever get in prison (which I hope to avoid but nobody can be guaranteed) I hope to be in solitary.
  - Mordor 13y ago
    Perhaps the real hell is being left alone.
    - guard-of-terra 13y ago
      I tried both in my life and being left alone is so much better than forced to be with other random hostile people.
      - mcintyre1994 13y ago
        You tried being a solitary person (and decided it's for you; fair enough), not being locked in solitary confinement. Read this article, the difference is staggering.
      - apalmer 13y ago
        you do not really have a true concept of what solitary confinement really means. You are viewing solitary confinement like alone time. Human nature is such that most human beings do not psychologically deal well with being deprived of all human contact for extended periods of time. Some humans can do fine with solitary but it is a very very small percentage. I do know someone who did go to prison and basically was a slim straight haired indian prettyboy teenager in american jail... his approach was from the first day he entered prison he immediately attacked the first person he saw, went to solitary got out immediately attacked the first person he saw, did that for about 3-6 months... eventually he was so nuts he joined a gang, he liked the gang life better than the solitary
  - yardie 13y ago
    I think you fail to grasp what solitary actually means in the prison tense. It's not a few hours of sitting on the floor meditating. It is 1 hour of sunlight, you don't go anywhere, there are no computers. I used to think like that when I was younger, "going to prison getting raped?! I'll take solitary." Then someone that was released spoke at our college about what solitary really meant. I'll take my chances with the rapists.
- honzzz 13y ago
  > Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities. There might be some ethnocentrism here... I might be wrong but it seems to me like you make an assumption about this generation that is only valid in US. I live in Europe and when I think about people I know, there is nothing controversial about it and we don't have to wait for future generations - we consider it barbaric now and as far as I know it's illegal - I mean people can be put to cells alone but they can read books, they have right to go for a walk with other prisoners for an hour and stuff like that - when I talk about solitary confinement I mean conditions described in that article. I am not trying to be judgemental here - I just think that for some Americans it might be interesting to consider that in some countries things like solitary confinement or death penalty can be looked at the same or similar way that you Americans probably look at punishments like stoning to death or cutting off hands.
  - dmix 13y ago
    After a bit of research, I believe this also may be an ethnocentric view, it seems solitary confinement is only banned in Europe and still used in many other places (including the very liberal Canada). Even the UN has only made it torture if it's some <18yrs old. But that being said, I'm all for ending it. Or ending most imprisonment and moving towards restorative justice.
Myrmornis 13y ago
Too depressing to read in its entirety. One straightforward way of evaluating whether there might be anything wrong with practices in American prisons is to compare with other countries -- do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way?
- peteretep 13y ago
  > do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way Other countries with stable democracies have universal health care, don't incarcerate almost 1% of the population, have never landed people on the moon, don't spend 5% of their GDP on the military, aren't the home of Apple, Microsoft, and IBM, and so on. America has always been (and will probably always be) an edge case.
  - radicalcut 13y ago
    > and will probably always be I seriously doubt that. What goes around comes around.
  - Myrmornis 13y ago
    Actually, all nations think they are special. It's not an excuse for backwardness.
    - jacquesm 13y ago
      > Actually, all nations think they are special. Actually, they don't. And that's another way in which America is different than most other nations.
    - honzzz 13y ago
      OT: I remember being in the USA after those 9/11 terrorist attacks an they aired those "proud to be an American" commercials all the time... like they assume it's a good thing to be proud that you are a national of a certain nation. And maybe it is a good thing - I don't know. It just seemed strange to me. And all those American flags in front of regular family homes... do you still have those? You don't see that in Europe. Please do not take this the wrong way. I kind of admire your patriotism... although I think it might prevent you from seeing (and fixing) bad things.
LatvjuAvs 13y ago
Revenge.
simonbarker87 13y ago
A very sad read and the comments are even worse. This sort of thing so clearly crosses the line in to inhumanity. I appreciate that some/many of these inmates have committed awful crimes but it seems that this particular system offers no opportunity for rehabilitation and is focussed solely on punishment. I forget where I read it but I believe that there is a correlation between the severity of the punishment and it's peak effect. If it is normal imprisonment then the effect of the punishment plateaus at 18 months (ish) and if it is solitary then the (albeit greater) effect of the punishment plateaus at 30 days, after that it is achieving no extra punishment and you may as well go back in to a rehabilitation mode. I'm not saying that prison sentences should be no longer than 18 months but after this point the focus should be on (eventual) reintegration into society with new skills and education to keep them from reoffending.
- philwelch 13y ago
  It's not about rehabilitation or punishment. It's far more cynical than that. It's simply a matter of separating people from the population. Prisoners are separated from the free population; especially dangerous prisoners are separated even from the prison population.
  - ippisl 13y ago
    It's pretty easy to physically separate people but still let them communicate with others. It looks like revenge.
    - philwelch 13y ago
      Not letting them communicate is often the point. You don't want someone running a gang or something from prison.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    The main purpose of prison is to act as a disincentive. A lot of people don't commit crimes in the first place because they are scared of going to prison.
venomsnake 13y ago
That explains why the death sentence is on the books ... these are the lucky ones. That is cruel but sadly not unusual punishment.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Tomis02 13y ago
  "Born in the U.S.A." is ringing in my mind at this point.
  - BurritoAlPastor 13y ago
    I believe the Springsteen song you're thinking of is "Johnny 99": "Your honor, I do believe I'd be better off dead / So if you can take a man's life for the thoughts that's in his head / Sit back in that chair and think it over, Judge, one more time / And have 'em shave off my hair and put me on that execution line."
denzil_correa 13y ago
The "Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations" of the State of California tweeted [0] a related article [1] titled Why the Producer of "The Hangover Part III" Spends So Much Time in Prison. [0] https://twitter.com/CACorrections/status/340220581972692992 https://twitter.com/CACorrections/status/340220581972692992 [1] http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/hangover-part-iii-executive-producer-scott-budnick-california-prison-interview http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/hangover-part-iii-e...
Tomis02 13y ago
I guess a lot of people have seen Oz or documentaries about prison life in USA. I think the legitimate question would be - is solitary punishment not preferable to the life in general population?
alan_cx 13y ago
Get past the comedy, listen to the facts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPZed8af9RI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPZed8af9RI The facts stated have never been refuted. Be ashamed. Either Americans are the most criminal in the world, or the US justice system has a real problem. I mean, worse than Iran? Worse than China? South Africa? Are Americans really that bad? Perhaps now we know a certain hacker preferred death. I know I would. As a British citizen, I would genuinely rather kill my self than end up in the US justice system. Do not doubt that. And I know my government will not protect me from American "justice" either. Im sorry, but this makes me very, very angry. If a country cant get justice right and fair, then Im sorry, I believe it has no right being a country, let alone being a country that thinks it has the right to interfere on the world state, and have the sheer arrogance to pontificate on others.
- RyanMcGreal 13y ago
  "A legal system based on baseball just seems bizarre." So simple and so horribly true. Criminal justice politics in America is utterly overrun with the crudest and most cynical pandering to simple fear, revulsion and vindictiveness.
- jrokisky 13y ago
  There are many problems with the US Justice System, but those standards are impossible for any country to meet.
  - eru 13y ago
    Norway and Sweden don't seem too bad.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Assange apparently disagrees.
      - eru 13y ago
        From what I remember, he would be fine with being tried in a Swedish court. He just wanted a guarantee of no US extradition, that Sweden would not provide.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
People often ask the hypothetical of what sorts of behavior we consider normal today that people in the far future will regard as barbaric or bizarre. Our prison system is probably near the top of that list, for a variety of reasons. Not least of which is the sheer size of the prison population these days due to the war on drugs. Even more significant is the widespread societal belief that prison experience should be brutal punishment and torture, with no concern for justice, fairness, or humaneness. Prison rape is a punch-line, it's not even on the radar as a political issue. The public acknowledges, accepts, and approves of prison experiences as not merely pragmatic methods of keeping some folks separate from public society, and especially not as rehabilitory, but as retributive, vengeful, and arbitrary. These are the basest and most despicable sentiments when it comes to issues of criminal justice, but they rule the day in the 21st century as much as they ever did in the middle ages or even in the stone age. This is easily one of the most significant issues of our time, as significant and important as the Cold War in the 20th century or the struggle over the abolition of slavery in the 19th.
- jabbernotty 13y ago
  Some of what you mentioned here, if not most, seems specific to the USA, from my western European point of view. Do you know of any explanation for that?
  - InclinedPlane 13y ago
    Visibility for one. The French prison system is horrible, the British prison system is also pretty bad. Beyond that I'd have to blame the war on drugs and general societal attitudes. The general attitude seems to be that once you have been adjudicated a "bad guy" and are put into the prison population anything that happens to you is fair game.
    - AFrench 13y ago
      The French prison system is severely underfunded leading to very poor living conditions, but there is none of this attitude that it's OK for people to be raped if they're criminals. The statistics for rape in US prisons are absolutely appalling; I have never seen such data for French prisons, but I would guess, or at least hope, that it is much less common.
mcintyre1994 13y ago
I just don't understand how such a ridiculous system comes into being, these are people's lives, criminal yes, but people. Or do they just not think like that? I mean, let's say you get sent to the SHU, I won't go into why because that's probably impossible without introducing circular logic. Now all your "associates", ie everybody who knows you in prison, can also be sent to the SHU. The only way out quickly is for you to "debrief", accuse some other people so they can be sent to the SHU in your place. But, how many people can you genuinely criminalise who aren't known associates? Judging by the fact they read prisoner's diaries, I'd infer surveillance is quite high, so surely the number of unknown criminal associates is pretty low? If that holds, then who do you "debrief" about? Like the article said, it's a catch-22, or at least should be. Instead the guards have a - according to a judge - legal right to make up stories, attribute them to you, forge your signature and incarcerate others on that basis. It's so abstract it's bizarre. It just seems so dystopian, if you consider the world inside the prison where you're 'innocent' until you commit crime on the inside, that world would be ridiculed if they weren't criminals. Thrown in on false evidence, and the only way out is to give more false evidence. I don't understand how that ends up happening.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  The truth of the banality of evil comes into play not just at the extremes (death camps and so forth) but also at the margins.
zupatol 13y ago
There's a wealth of information on solitary confinement in the US, including a few excellent articles like this one. This makes me think that the problem is on the way to being solved. A lot still needs to be done, but solitary confinement is now declining. This site has a huge amount of information, this is probably also the place to look if you want to help: http://solitarywatch.com/ http://solitarywatch.com/ If you want to know more, a good place to start is this national geographic documentary http://documentarystorm.com/solitary-confinement/ http://documentarystorm.com/solitary-confinement/ and these two excellent articles https://www.byliner.com/susan-greene/stories/the-gray-box-an-investigative-look-at-solitary-confinement https://www.byliner.com/susan-greene/stories/the-gray-box-an... http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...
king_jester 13y ago
A lot of the comments here are completely ignorant about the state and nature of prisons, both on a small scale level for the lives of people who are incarcerated as well as at a large scale in how Amercian society supports prisons as a racist institution. I urge everyone looking for starting knowledge to start with Angela Davi's Are Prisons Obsolete?: http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-Davis/dp/1583225811 http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-Davis/dp/1...
rdl 13y ago
I think I'd rather spend 3 years in solitary (given adequate books, ability to write, etc.) than in general prison population. I accept that I'm probably an outlier, though.
- gyardley 13y ago
  Understandable - but from what I understand, your givens aren't typically given.
- Confusion 13y ago
  You think that, until you've spent a few months, perhaps only a week, in solitary confinement.
  - rdl 13y ago
    I spent 6 continuous months on Sealand with one other guy (who I avoided as much as I possibly could, saw him about 3 minutes a day if I didn't correctly time my hallway trip to avoid running into him). Lots of space, and the Internet, though.
    - igravious 13y ago
      > with one other guy so not solitary > Lots of space, and the Internet, though and not (physically or mentally) confinement either --- The only way in which you are an outlier is that you have an inflated sense of your own awesomeness.
      - vacri 13y ago
        rdl may just be unusual in this sense. As for 3min/day, even solitary prisoners have that minimal contact - bare interaction with guards when let out for exercise, or when the meals come.
        rdl 13y ago
        Yeah, it's not sensory deprivation, which seems reliably able to drive people crazy in hours to a day. It's just a really crappy form of prison (combined with some additional psychological trauma of being solitary). If you're there voluntarily, even if without the ability to easily leave, it's nowhere near as bad. I imagine political prisoners do comparatively well in solitary, too, or the extremely religious, etc. I know from the other side, religiosity and belief in one's cause are the main ways to successfully resist torture or other psychological hardship.
w_t_payne 13y ago
The nature of America's prison system is driven by the fact that middle class white people vote for politicians and policies that put poor black people through a cruel, inhumane and all-too-usual system of torture and deprivation. Is unusual sadism a national characteristic? I do not want to think so, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
- _account 13y ago
  I didn't know that the laws so clearly stated that black people are singled out to be tortured. Can you provide at least one reference to this atrocity? [I'm guessing you can't]
  - rthomas6 13y ago
    I do not agree with the hyperbole of the OP, but there are a disproportionate amount of black people in prison, black people get on average longer sentences for the same crimes, and drugs forms more commonly used by blacks carry longer sentences than the same drug in other forms (crack vs. cocaine). Are black people singled out to be tortured? No. Is the US prison system racist? The evidence points in that direction.
    - w_t_payne 13y ago
      Sorry about the hyperbole. As you probably guessed, I was lightly trolling in order to provoke a response. Whilst we do better than the long-term historic average, our societies are still deeply flawed, whilst we, as individuals (myself included) sit idly by slinging insults from the sidelines.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    Racism doesn't necessarily entail singling a group out explicitly, especially today where we have a trained smell for racism. If your intent is to single out black people, there are many ways you can target them without spelling out "black people". Specific job categories, specific neighborhoods, specific types of crime (which are hugely lopsided racially), etc etc. The same can be applied to any race. You can effectively create a law that only targets Asian immigrants without once mentioning the words "Asian immigrant". In the US race and crime are inexorably linked, and highly politicized. Through a combination of factors and people (acting both maliciously and otherwise), blacks are without a doubt targeted. Here in NYC we have a rather odious policy of stop, question, and frisk, where the police are empowered to stop anyone they deem suspicious or threatening and search them. It turns out that Blacks and Latinos are search disproportionately often, well beyond their proportional contribution to crime rate. There's nothing in the regulation that spells out that dark-skinned people should be searched more, but everyone in charge knows this is the consequence, and everyone in charge intends this to be the consequence. Racism is complicated. The fact that you don't have a hooded guy on your lawn burning a cross, screaming "lynch him!", doesn't mean it's not in front of you.
rooshdi 13y ago
Here's a link to the prisoners' contact information, if anyone wants to send letters. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/prisoners-contact-information http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/prisoners-contac...
virtualwhys 13y ago
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares...and their prisons into monasteries.
_account 13y ago
Prison is society's recourse for anti-social behavior. Does it have to be a violent and horrible place? No. The residents tend to make it that. In addition, I am against pampering in anyway, with my tax dollars, people whom I've had to remove from proper society...for anti-social behavior. Prison is supposed to be a deterrent. My biggest gripe is that I have to pay for it at all. I support banishment or death.
- rthomas6 13y ago
  Does this view not presuppose that the exhibitors of the anti-social behavior cannot be fixed or remade into useful members of society? If you believe that, fine, but if you think that some could be reformed, why is that not worth the money? "Reform", in my mind, has nothing to do with pampering. It could be even more torturous than now...For example A Clockwork Orange. Not that I'm advocating that. Does this view also not presuppose that all prisoners have exhibited anti-social behavior? I think we can both say that this is not the case. Although, prisons tend to somewhat separate the two populations.
  - _account 13y ago
    I suppose that good people can make a[singular and non-violent] mistake or error in judgement which can run them a foul of the law. These people don't require reform. They are typically leaniently sentenced, pay for their mistake and move on. I also suppose that others are more habitually and fundamentally anti-social. These people are not worth the effort of trying to 'save'. The brains have literally been wired for this behavior[over the course of many years]. They must be removed from society. There are also those somewhere in between natural-born killer and 'busted for pot'. These people are responsible for their own personal choices. If they keep making bad choices of their own volition I have no compassion for them. [I say this from first hand experience dealing with a close relative who is a lifelong fuck-up.]
    - apalmer 13y ago
      I dont necessarily agree with your moral standpoints however the statement "They are typically leaniently sentenced, pay for their mistake and move on.", this is not typically the case... there are plenty of people who receive light sentences and plenty who get the book thrown at them for non violent first time offenses
joyeuse6701 13y ago
Hmm, you know, this is a comparison of two different prison systems with two different prisoners. I fail to see a control here. As much as the observation of one person that has been through a system would be valuable insight looking into another, I don't find it anything more than subjective. I bring up the point about two different prisoners in that 1. I don't believe all prisoners should be treated alike and 2. Different strokes for different folks. As for baseline humanity, again that is subjective. Pirates viewed marooning with some jug of water and a knife and shot as humane. I don't think that fits today's standards of humane treatment. The article suggests that because of one man in the system the exception if you will, is getting screwed, we must do more to prevent this from happening. I'd argue that if this was a computer system, one exception isn't something to write home about. Many exceptions depending on how you define it however... Systemic exceptions are expensive to fix and will cost us all a good amount in practice, so the real question we may ask ourselves is, how much money are we willing to put in taxes to overhaul the system? More specifically how much are each one of us willing to pay? A lump some of a dollar? Sure. A million dollars? Not so sure. Anyway, it's a mother jones article, it and many like it prey on the notion of self-hate and guilt-ridden introspection that many of the U.S. audience loves to talk about, including me!
thoughtcriminal 13y ago
So what the hell is Obama doing anyway? He's done nothing but wring his hands and give lip service to human liberties. You have to give Obama credit though, he is supernaturally charismatic and completely amoral, not to mention the best centrist in US political history. I think that when he is gone and his powers of charisma and diversion have long dissipated, history will not be kind to him. He never had the courage and compassion to do the right thing.
moxie 13y ago
Many of the structures that make up our society (jails, taxes, laws, rulers) were not "our" creation, but the creation of kings. When those kings were deposed, rather than abolishing the structures those kings had created, they were instead largely preserved and put under "democratic" control. It could be that this was a mistake: that there's something structurally intrinsic to the instruments of monarchies that can not be eradicated, regardless of who nominally controls them. ACAB.
- rdl 13y ago
  What are structures that make up our society that were not creations of kings? (i.e. things created in the last hundred or two years, under democracy). Are these any less difficult to change? Fiat-money Central Banks mostly were created under democracies, and seem quite resistant to change. Social-welfare programs. Anything related to lobbying. I think the razor points to "institutions are highly resistant to change", not anything specific to monarchy vs. democracy.
  - chc 13y ago
    I don't think moxie is suggesting that they are durable because of their origin, but something more along the lines of what you're saying. I think the point is that they aren't the sort of thing a modern democracy would come up with on its own, but they're very hard to get rid of once you've allowed them in. (Not meaning to put words in anyone's mouth — just offering the thought the way my brain processed it.)
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Maybe I've just been wholly indoctrinated, but I don't see how laws are the sort of thing that wouldn't have been created. From what I can tell, any group of humans stuck together for a time comes up with rules, and laws are simply the codification of these rules.
      - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        I think you can reasonably distinguish between having laws and having a criminal justice system as currently implemented. For example, you can have laws without having police officers or prosecutors or prisons. This is effectively what the civil court system does. That does leave the question of what to do with those who commit the most serious crimes like rape and murder, but those are a small minority of the crimes currently prosecuted and are generally not the ones that best exemplify the failure of the existing justice system.
Irishsteve 13y ago
Wow 42 years in solitary confinement for a 'political' prisoner http://sfbayview.com/2012/hugo-pinell-is-42-years-in-isolation-about-to-end/ http://sfbayview.com/2012/hugo-pinell-is-42-years-in-isolati...
cooperq 13y ago
If you enjoyed this article, there is a fantastic book explaining all of the problems with the American prison system and the 'Felon' Label that goes along with it. It's called "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander. Highly recommended reading.
lawnchair_larry 13y ago
After reading this article, keep in mind that Andrew Auernheimer is also in a SHU, for having someone update his twitter account on his behalf. And the reason he is in prison in the first place is for changing an integer on the end of a URL. Do these punishments make sense to anyone?
- edyoung 13y ago
  The punishments make sense to the people meting them out. The prison authorities transparently use isolation in an SHU as punishment for making them look bad or for inconveniencing them. The two inmates mentioned in the article who acted as 'jailhouse lawyers' seem like good examples of this. Anyone in prison who offers any resistance to the power of the authorities is very likely to be treated this way, even if they are merely requesting legally-guaranteed rights or marginally better treatment, because doing so acts as an example to others. Auernheimer was imprisoned, it seems to me, primarily for unrepentantly embarrassing those in positions of power, and later transferred to the SHU for the same reason.
gcb0 13y ago
Most states have private prisons. We read about that all the time, mainly on how profitable they are. But unlike private health care, there's no one even poking it with a stick in the start up world.
- scotty79 13y ago
  I think that's the core of the problem. Once you make an industry out of something it's bound to grow.
crazy1van 13y ago
Well, we in the US have made just about everything a crime, so it's no wonder that we have a ton of people in jail. Gone are the days when people didn't need to consult a team of lawyers to stay compliant with the law...they just instinctively knew that things like stealing and murder were illegal. With so many startups and entrepreneurs here on HN, I bet tons of you have violated laws for taxes, banking, employment, or zoning at one time or another and you probably had no idea.
nichols 13y ago
Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons... "But it wasn't until I started posting on Hacker News that I truly realized man's inhumanity to man..."
Uchikoma 13y ago
Interesting how many people here are hand waving to explain this with immigrants, blacks etc. when from the outside everyone else sees it as the brutal "eye for an eye" policy that runs US thinking, society and foreign relations.

332 points by moxie 13y ago

Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities.

woof 13y ago
Like waterboarding?
- gruseom 13y ago
  Like waterboarding, but also not. Waterboarding was always obviously torture. No fair-minded person would ever have said that it wasn't; the suggestion is a joke. Thus the only people who had reason to say otherwise were ideologues, power-wielders, and bootlicking journalists. Solitary confinement isn't like that, and it has taken time for fair-minded people to see it in this light. The fact that the science on it is so unequivocal is a big part of this coming into (some) people's awareness, as well. That's why I said "now so obviously a form of torture". It wasn't obvious before.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Don't forget to include cowards in your list. Many people justifying waterboarding as "not torture" are simply vastly, deeply afraid of terrorism and are willing to justify terrible things so they can feel safe.
    - gruseom 13y ago
      Yeah, that's a fair point. I also should probably not have used such charged language on HN to begin with. It never does any good.
sliverstorm 13y ago
What sets it apart from other forms of punishment? The definition of "torture" seems somewhat flexible.
- david927 13y ago
  It's certainly considered psychological torture when lasting more than a few weeks. There are a lot of good studies to back this up. Here's a great article to get your started: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Only to a torturer seeking self justification. Which makes them guilty because to seek self justification one must know one is doing some thing wrong.
ZirconCode 13y ago
The problem is that psychological forms of harm are not treated with as much respect as physical forms. There are no pictures of it, you cannot see it. It is the same reason why people struggle to see a psychiatrist but not a doctor. Lack of sleep is also deployed in some countries ie. the guards won't let you sleep.
- nraynaud 13y ago
  The real problem is that the US is part of no international treaty on human rights. Turkey and France have a way more fair process now thanks to the European Court of Human Rights. They have also put hard limits on terrorist law etc. It's slow but it's a real adult supervising the local politicians with true values.
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    The US vigorously refuses to be part of any of that. Now you know why.
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Even physical forms of harm are downplayed if they have lower visibility than traditional forms of brutality and torture. This is a widespread trend especially in law enforcement and justice and it extends beyond prisons. Consider waterboarding. It's a hugely traumatic experience, and undoubtedly a form of torture, but because it doesn't leave bruises or break bones it is tolerated and accepted. Consider tasers and pepper spray (OC). Again, they cause pain or muscle spasms, but they don't break bones or cause bleeding or bruising so their use is tolerated at thresholds far below what would be allowed to bring about the use of physical force, even for use in restraining someone. Being pepper sprayed in the face and eyes is every bit as traumatic and physically violent as being slapped or punched, yet pepper spray is frequently used by the police in situations where physical force would be considered police brutality. The same goes for tasers.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
I don't see how, given that hell is other people, and other people in prison are quite infernal. If I ever get in prison (which I hope to avoid but nobody can be guaranteed) I hope to be in solitary.
- Mordor 13y ago
  Perhaps the real hell is being left alone.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    I tried both in my life and being left alone is so much better than forced to be with other random hostile people.
    - mcintyre1994 13y ago
      You tried being a solitary person (and decided it's for you; fair enough), not being locked in solitary confinement. Read this article, the difference is staggering.
    - apalmer 13y ago
      you do not really have a true concept of what solitary confinement really means. You are viewing solitary confinement like alone time. Human nature is such that most human beings do not psychologically deal well with being deprived of all human contact for extended periods of time. Some humans can do fine with solitary but it is a very very small percentage. I do know someone who did go to prison and basically was a slim straight haired indian prettyboy teenager in american jail... his approach was from the first day he entered prison he immediately attacked the first person he saw, went to solitary got out immediately attacked the first person he saw, did that for about 3-6 months... eventually he was so nuts he joined a gang, he liked the gang life better than the solitary
- yardie 13y ago
  I think you fail to grasp what solitary actually means in the prison tense. It's not a few hours of sitting on the floor meditating. It is 1 hour of sunlight, you don't go anywhere, there are no computers. I used to think like that when I was younger, "going to prison getting raped?! I'll take solitary." Then someone that was released spoke at our college about what solitary really meant. I'll take my chances with the rapists.
honzzz 13y ago
> Solitary confinement is now so obviously a form of torture that it's surprising this is still controversial. Future generations will surely look on it the way we look on past barbarities. There might be some ethnocentrism here... I might be wrong but it seems to me like you make an assumption about this generation that is only valid in US. I live in Europe and when I think about people I know, there is nothing controversial about it and we don't have to wait for future generations - we consider it barbaric now and as far as I know it's illegal - I mean people can be put to cells alone but they can read books, they have right to go for a walk with other prisoners for an hour and stuff like that - when I talk about solitary confinement I mean conditions described in that article. I am not trying to be judgemental here - I just think that for some Americans it might be interesting to consider that in some countries things like solitary confinement or death penalty can be looked at the same or similar way that you Americans probably look at punishments like stoning to death or cutting off hands.
- dmix 13y ago
  After a bit of research, I believe this also may be an ethnocentric view, it seems solitary confinement is only banned in Europe and still used in many other places (including the very liberal Canada). Even the UN has only made it torture if it's some <18yrs old. But that being said, I'm all for ending it. Or ending most imprisonment and moving towards restorative justice.

Myrmornis 13y ago

Too depressing to read in its entirety. One straightforward way of evaluating whether there might be anything wrong with practices in American prisons is to compare with other countries -- do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way?

peteretep 13y ago
> do other nations with stable democracies use solitary confinement in a similar way Other countries with stable democracies have universal health care, don't incarcerate almost 1% of the population, have never landed people on the moon, don't spend 5% of their GDP on the military, aren't the home of Apple, Microsoft, and IBM, and so on. America has always been (and will probably always be) an edge case.
- radicalcut 13y ago
  > and will probably always be I seriously doubt that. What goes around comes around.
- Myrmornis 13y ago
  Actually, all nations think they are special. It's not an excuse for backwardness.
  - jacquesm 13y ago
    > Actually, all nations think they are special. Actually, they don't. And that's another way in which America is different than most other nations.
  - honzzz 13y ago
    OT: I remember being in the USA after those 9/11 terrorist attacks an they aired those "proud to be an American" commercials all the time... like they assume it's a good thing to be proud that you are a national of a certain nation. And maybe it is a good thing - I don't know. It just seemed strange to me. And all those American flags in front of regular family homes... do you still have those? You don't see that in Europe. Please do not take this the wrong way. I kind of admire your patriotism... although I think it might prevent you from seeing (and fixing) bad things.

LatvjuAvs 13y ago

Revenge.

simonbarker87 13y ago

A very sad read and the comments are even worse. This sort of thing so clearly crosses the line in to inhumanity. I appreciate that some/many of these inmates have committed awful crimes but it seems that this particular system offers no opportunity for rehabilitation and is focussed solely on punishment. I forget where I read it but I believe that there is a correlation between the severity of the punishment and it's peak effect. If it is normal imprisonment then the effect of the punishment plateaus at 18 months (ish) and if it is solitary then the (albeit greater) effect of the punishment plateaus at 30 days, after that it is achieving no extra punishment and you may as well go back in to a rehabilitation mode. I'm not saying that prison sentences should be no longer than 18 months but after this point the focus should be on (eventual) reintegration into society with new skills and education to keep them from reoffending.

philwelch 13y ago
It's not about rehabilitation or punishment. It's far more cynical than that. It's simply a matter of separating people from the population. Prisoners are separated from the free population; especially dangerous prisoners are separated even from the prison population.
- ippisl 13y ago
  It's pretty easy to physically separate people but still let them communicate with others. It looks like revenge.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Not letting them communicate is often the point. You don't want someone running a gang or something from prison.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  The main purpose of prison is to act as a disincentive. A lot of people don't commit crimes in the first place because they are scared of going to prison.

venomsnake 13y ago

That explains why the death sentence is on the books ... these are the lucky ones. That is cruel but sadly not unusual punishment.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Tomis02 13y ago
"Born in the U.S.A." is ringing in my mind at this point.
- BurritoAlPastor 13y ago
  I believe the Springsteen song you're thinking of is "Johnny 99": "Your honor, I do believe I'd be better off dead / So if you can take a man's life for the thoughts that's in his head / Sit back in that chair and think it over, Judge, one more time / And have 'em shave off my hair and put me on that execution line."

denzil_correa 13y ago

The "Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations" of the State of California tweeted [0] a related article [1] titled Why the Producer of "The Hangover Part III" Spends So Much Time in Prison. [0] https://twitter.com/CACorrections/status/340220581972692992 https://twitter.com/CACorrections/status/340220581972692992 [1] http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/hangover-part-iii-executive-producer-scott-budnick-california-prison-interview http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/hangover-part-iii-e...

Tomis02 13y ago

I guess a lot of people have seen Oz or documentaries about prison life in USA. I think the legitimate question would be - is solitary punishment not preferable to the life in general population?

alan_cx 13y ago

Get past the comedy, listen to the facts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPZed8af9RI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPZed8af9RI The facts stated have never been refuted. Be ashamed. Either Americans are the most criminal in the world, or the US justice system has a real problem. I mean, worse than Iran? Worse than China? South Africa? Are Americans really that bad? Perhaps now we know a certain hacker preferred death. I know I would. As a British citizen, I would genuinely rather kill my self than end up in the US justice system. Do not doubt that. And I know my government will not protect me from American "justice" either. Im sorry, but this makes me very, very angry. If a country cant get justice right and fair, then Im sorry, I believe it has no right being a country, let alone being a country that thinks it has the right to interfere on the world state, and have the sheer arrogance to pontificate on others.

RyanMcGreal 13y ago
"A legal system based on baseball just seems bizarre." So simple and so horribly true. Criminal justice politics in America is utterly overrun with the crudest and most cynical pandering to simple fear, revulsion and vindictiveness.
jrokisky 13y ago
There are many problems with the US Justice System, but those standards are impossible for any country to meet.
- eru 13y ago
  Norway and Sweden don't seem too bad.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Assange apparently disagrees.
    - eru 13y ago
      From what I remember, he would be fine with being tried in a Swedish court. He just wanted a guarantee of no US extradition, that Sweden would not provide.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

People often ask the hypothetical of what sorts of behavior we consider normal today that people in the far future will regard as barbaric or bizarre. Our prison system is probably near the top of that list, for a variety of reasons. Not least of which is the sheer size of the prison population these days due to the war on drugs. Even more significant is the widespread societal belief that prison experience should be brutal punishment and torture, with no concern for justice, fairness, or humaneness. Prison rape is a punch-line, it's not even on the radar as a political issue. The public acknowledges, accepts, and approves of prison experiences as not merely pragmatic methods of keeping some folks separate from public society, and especially not as rehabilitory, but as retributive, vengeful, and arbitrary. These are the basest and most despicable sentiments when it comes to issues of criminal justice, but they rule the day in the 21st century as much as they ever did in the middle ages or even in the stone age. This is easily one of the most significant issues of our time, as significant and important as the Cold War in the 20th century or the struggle over the abolition of slavery in the 19th.

jabbernotty 13y ago
Some of what you mentioned here, if not most, seems specific to the USA, from my western European point of view. Do you know of any explanation for that?
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  Visibility for one. The French prison system is horrible, the British prison system is also pretty bad. Beyond that I'd have to blame the war on drugs and general societal attitudes. The general attitude seems to be that once you have been adjudicated a "bad guy" and are put into the prison population anything that happens to you is fair game.
  - AFrench 13y ago
    The French prison system is severely underfunded leading to very poor living conditions, but there is none of this attitude that it's OK for people to be raped if they're criminals. The statistics for rape in US prisons are absolutely appalling; I have never seen such data for French prisons, but I would guess, or at least hope, that it is much less common.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

I just don't understand how such a ridiculous system comes into being, these are people's lives, criminal yes, but people. Or do they just not think like that? I mean, let's say you get sent to the SHU, I won't go into why because that's probably impossible without introducing circular logic. Now all your "associates", ie everybody who knows you in prison, can also be sent to the SHU. The only way out quickly is for you to "debrief", accuse some other people so they can be sent to the SHU in your place. But, how many people can you genuinely criminalise who aren't known associates? Judging by the fact they read prisoner's diaries, I'd infer surveillance is quite high, so surely the number of unknown criminal associates is pretty low? If that holds, then who do you "debrief" about? Like the article said, it's a catch-22, or at least should be. Instead the guards have a - according to a judge - legal right to make up stories, attribute them to you, forge your signature and incarcerate others on that basis. It's so abstract it's bizarre. It just seems so dystopian, if you consider the world inside the prison where you're 'innocent' until you commit crime on the inside, that world would be ridiculed if they weren't criminals. Thrown in on false evidence, and the only way out is to give more false evidence. I don't understand how that ends up happening.

InclinedPlane 13y ago
The truth of the banality of evil comes into play not just at the extremes (death camps and so forth) but also at the margins.

zupatol 13y ago

There's a wealth of information on solitary confinement in the US, including a few excellent articles like this one. This makes me think that the problem is on the way to being solved. A lot still needs to be done, but solitary confinement is now declining. This site has a huge amount of information, this is probably also the place to look if you want to help: http://solitarywatch.com/ http://solitarywatch.com/ If you want to know more, a good place to start is this national geographic documentary http://documentarystorm.com/solitary-confinement/ http://documentarystorm.com/solitary-confinement/ and these two excellent articles https://www.byliner.com/susan-greene/stories/the-gray-box-an-investigative-look-at-solitary-confinement https://www.byliner.com/susan-greene/stories/the-gray-box-an... http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...

king_jester 13y ago

A lot of the comments here are completely ignorant about the state and nature of prisons, both on a small scale level for the lives of people who are incarcerated as well as at a large scale in how Amercian society supports prisons as a racist institution. I urge everyone looking for starting knowledge to start with Angela Davi's Are Prisons Obsolete?: http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-Davis/dp/1583225811 http://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-Davis/dp/1...

rdl 13y ago

I think I'd rather spend 3 years in solitary (given adequate books, ability to write, etc.) than in general prison population. I accept that I'm probably an outlier, though.

gyardley 13y ago
Understandable - but from what I understand, your givens aren't typically given.
Confusion 13y ago
You think that, until you've spent a few months, perhaps only a week, in solitary confinement.
- rdl 13y ago
  I spent 6 continuous months on Sealand with one other guy (who I avoided as much as I possibly could, saw him about 3 minutes a day if I didn't correctly time my hallway trip to avoid running into him). Lots of space, and the Internet, though.
  - igravious 13y ago
    > with one other guy so not solitary > Lots of space, and the Internet, though and not (physically or mentally) confinement either --- The only way in which you are an outlier is that you have an inflated sense of your own awesomeness.
    - vacri 13y ago
      rdl may just be unusual in this sense. As for 3min/day, even solitary prisoners have that minimal contact - bare interaction with guards when let out for exercise, or when the meals come.
      - rdl 13y ago
        Yeah, it's not sensory deprivation, which seems reliably able to drive people crazy in hours to a day. It's just a really crappy form of prison (combined with some additional psychological trauma of being solitary). If you're there voluntarily, even if without the ability to easily leave, it's nowhere near as bad. I imagine political prisoners do comparatively well in solitary, too, or the extremely religious, etc. I know from the other side, religiosity and belief in one's cause are the main ways to successfully resist torture or other psychological hardship.

w_t_payne 13y ago

The nature of America's prison system is driven by the fact that middle class white people vote for politicians and policies that put poor black people through a cruel, inhumane and all-too-usual system of torture and deprivation. Is unusual sadism a national characteristic? I do not want to think so, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

_account 13y ago
I didn't know that the laws so clearly stated that black people are singled out to be tortured. Can you provide at least one reference to this atrocity? [I'm guessing you can't]
- rthomas6 13y ago
  I do not agree with the hyperbole of the OP, but there are a disproportionate amount of black people in prison, black people get on average longer sentences for the same crimes, and drugs forms more commonly used by blacks carry longer sentences than the same drug in other forms (crack vs. cocaine). Are black people singled out to be tortured? No. Is the US prison system racist? The evidence points in that direction.
  - w_t_payne 13y ago
    Sorry about the hyperbole. As you probably guessed, I was lightly trolling in order to provoke a response. Whilst we do better than the long-term historic average, our societies are still deeply flawed, whilst we, as individuals (myself included) sit idly by slinging insults from the sidelines.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  Racism doesn't necessarily entail singling a group out explicitly, especially today where we have a trained smell for racism. If your intent is to single out black people, there are many ways you can target them without spelling out "black people". Specific job categories, specific neighborhoods, specific types of crime (which are hugely lopsided racially), etc etc. The same can be applied to any race. You can effectively create a law that only targets Asian immigrants without once mentioning the words "Asian immigrant". In the US race and crime are inexorably linked, and highly politicized. Through a combination of factors and people (acting both maliciously and otherwise), blacks are without a doubt targeted. Here in NYC we have a rather odious policy of stop, question, and frisk, where the police are empowered to stop anyone they deem suspicious or threatening and search them. It turns out that Blacks and Latinos are search disproportionately often, well beyond their proportional contribution to crime rate. There's nothing in the regulation that spells out that dark-skinned people should be searched more, but everyone in charge knows this is the consequence, and everyone in charge intends this to be the consequence. Racism is complicated. The fact that you don't have a hooded guy on your lawn burning a cross, screaming "lynch him!", doesn't mean it's not in front of you.

rooshdi 13y ago

Here's a link to the prisoners' contact information, if anyone wants to send letters. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/prisoners-contact-information http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/prisoners-contac...

virtualwhys 13y ago

and they shall beat their swords into plowshares...and their prisons into monasteries.

_account 13y ago

Prison is society's recourse for anti-social behavior. Does it have to be a violent and horrible place? No. The residents tend to make it that. In addition, I am against pampering in anyway, with my tax dollars, people whom I've had to remove from proper society...for anti-social behavior. Prison is supposed to be a deterrent. My biggest gripe is that I have to pay for it at all. I support banishment or death.

rthomas6 13y ago
Does this view not presuppose that the exhibitors of the anti-social behavior cannot be fixed or remade into useful members of society? If you believe that, fine, but if you think that some could be reformed, why is that not worth the money? "Reform", in my mind, has nothing to do with pampering. It could be even more torturous than now...For example A Clockwork Orange. Not that I'm advocating that. Does this view also not presuppose that all prisoners have exhibited anti-social behavior? I think we can both say that this is not the case. Although, prisons tend to somewhat separate the two populations.
- _account 13y ago
  I suppose that good people can make a[singular and non-violent] mistake or error in judgement which can run them a foul of the law. These people don't require reform. They are typically leaniently sentenced, pay for their mistake and move on. I also suppose that others are more habitually and fundamentally anti-social. These people are not worth the effort of trying to 'save'. The brains have literally been wired for this behavior[over the course of many years]. They must be removed from society. There are also those somewhere in between natural-born killer and 'busted for pot'. These people are responsible for their own personal choices. If they keep making bad choices of their own volition I have no compassion for them. [I say this from first hand experience dealing with a close relative who is a lifelong fuck-up.]
  - apalmer 13y ago
    I dont necessarily agree with your moral standpoints however the statement "They are typically leaniently sentenced, pay for their mistake and move on.", this is not typically the case... there are plenty of people who receive light sentences and plenty who get the book thrown at them for non violent first time offenses

joyeuse6701 13y ago

Hmm, you know, this is a comparison of two different prison systems with two different prisoners. I fail to see a control here. As much as the observation of one person that has been through a system would be valuable insight looking into another, I don't find it anything more than subjective. I bring up the point about two different prisoners in that 1. I don't believe all prisoners should be treated alike and 2. Different strokes for different folks. As for baseline humanity, again that is subjective. Pirates viewed marooning with some jug of water and a knife and shot as humane. I don't think that fits today's standards of humane treatment. The article suggests that because of one man in the system the exception if you will, is getting screwed, we must do more to prevent this from happening. I'd argue that if this was a computer system, one exception isn't something to write home about. Many exceptions depending on how you define it however... Systemic exceptions are expensive to fix and will cost us all a good amount in practice, so the real question we may ask ourselves is, how much money are we willing to put in taxes to overhaul the system? More specifically how much are each one of us willing to pay? A lump some of a dollar? Sure. A million dollars? Not so sure. Anyway, it's a mother jones article, it and many like it prey on the notion of self-hate and guilt-ridden introspection that many of the U.S. audience loves to talk about, including me!

thoughtcriminal 13y ago

So what the hell is Obama doing anyway? He's done nothing but wring his hands and give lip service to human liberties. You have to give Obama credit though, he is supernaturally charismatic and completely amoral, not to mention the best centrist in US political history. I think that when he is gone and his powers of charisma and diversion have long dissipated, history will not be kind to him. He never had the courage and compassion to do the right thing.

moxie 13y ago

Many of the structures that make up our society (jails, taxes, laws, rulers) were not "our" creation, but the creation of kings. When those kings were deposed, rather than abolishing the structures those kings had created, they were instead largely preserved and put under "democratic" control. It could be that this was a mistake: that there's something structurally intrinsic to the instruments of monarchies that can not be eradicated, regardless of who nominally controls them. ACAB.

rdl 13y ago
What are structures that make up our society that were not creations of kings? (i.e. things created in the last hundred or two years, under democracy). Are these any less difficult to change? Fiat-money Central Banks mostly were created under democracies, and seem quite resistant to change. Social-welfare programs. Anything related to lobbying. I think the razor points to "institutions are highly resistant to change", not anything specific to monarchy vs. democracy.
- chc 13y ago
  I don't think moxie is suggesting that they are durable because of their origin, but something more along the lines of what you're saying. I think the point is that they aren't the sort of thing a modern democracy would come up with on its own, but they're very hard to get rid of once you've allowed them in. (Not meaning to put words in anyone's mouth — just offering the thought the way my brain processed it.)
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Maybe I've just been wholly indoctrinated, but I don't see how laws are the sort of thing that wouldn't have been created. From what I can tell, any group of humans stuck together for a time comes up with rules, and laws are simply the codification of these rules.
    - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
      I think you can reasonably distinguish between having laws and having a criminal justice system as currently implemented. For example, you can have laws without having police officers or prosecutors or prisons. This is effectively what the civil court system does. That does leave the question of what to do with those who commit the most serious crimes like rape and murder, but those are a small minority of the crimes currently prosecuted and are generally not the ones that best exemplify the failure of the existing justice system.

Irishsteve 13y ago

Wow 42 years in solitary confinement for a 'political' prisoner http://sfbayview.com/2012/hugo-pinell-is-42-years-in-isolation-about-to-end/ http://sfbayview.com/2012/hugo-pinell-is-42-years-in-isolati...

cooperq 13y ago

If you enjoyed this article, there is a fantastic book explaining all of the problems with the American prison system and the 'Felon' Label that goes along with it. It's called "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander. Highly recommended reading.

lawnchair_larry 13y ago

After reading this article, keep in mind that Andrew Auernheimer is also in a SHU, for having someone update his twitter account on his behalf. And the reason he is in prison in the first place is for changing an integer on the end of a URL. Do these punishments make sense to anyone?

edyoung 13y ago
The punishments make sense to the people meting them out. The prison authorities transparently use isolation in an SHU as punishment for making them look bad or for inconveniencing them. The two inmates mentioned in the article who acted as 'jailhouse lawyers' seem like good examples of this. Anyone in prison who offers any resistance to the power of the authorities is very likely to be treated this way, even if they are merely requesting legally-guaranteed rights or marginally better treatment, because doing so acts as an example to others. Auernheimer was imprisoned, it seems to me, primarily for unrepentantly embarrassing those in positions of power, and later transferred to the SHU for the same reason.

gcb0 13y ago

Most states have private prisons. We read about that all the time, mainly on how profitable they are. But unlike private health care, there's no one even poking it with a stick in the start up world.

scotty79 13y ago
I think that's the core of the problem. Once you make an industry out of something it's bound to grow.

crazy1van 13y ago

Well, we in the US have made just about everything a crime, so it's no wonder that we have a ton of people in jail. Gone are the days when people didn't need to consult a team of lawyers to stay compliant with the law...they just instinctively knew that things like stealing and murder were illegal. With so many startups and entrepreneurs here on HN, I bet tons of you have violated laws for taxes, banking, employment, or zoning at one time or another and you probably had no idea.

nichols 13y ago

Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons... "But it wasn't until I started posting on Hacker News that I truly realized man's inhumanity to man..."

Uchikoma 13y ago

Interesting how many people here are hand waving to explain this with immigrants, blacks etc. when from the outside everyone else sees it as the brutal "eye for an eye" policy that runs US thinking, society and foreign relations.