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I think it's that people have a hypothetical difficult choice. In gen-pop you can get stabbed to death or raped or beaten because while there are a few social h

I think it's that people have a hypothetical difficult choice. In gen-pop you can get stabbed to death or raped or beaten because while there are a few social heroes fighting the system that wind up in prison there are also killers and thugs. So in a hypothetical you can take the risk of losing your mind to the crushing solitude or risk being killed by a gang member iniate. Either way, you're in a bad situation.

sentenza 13y ago
Solitary is worse. Sticks and stones will break your bones, but if your personality crumbles away, you will lose _you_.
- zacinbusiness 13y ago
  Very true. And honestly I'd rather be stabbed to death (I think) than go nuts. Especially if I were aware of it. This is why I'm terrified of things like Alzheimer's.
e12e 13y ago
Try to remember that while prison isn't pleasant by any stretch, life isn't like a tv series or movie either. As far as I can tell (from what I've read) some of the worst parts of the US prison system, are the mega-jails that you are sent to before sentencing. I very, very much doubt that most people (even those that enjoy books etc) would prefer solitary confinement to some form of gen-pop. We are social creatures, and being completely alone, without being able to do anything about our situation (not by choice) is quite terrible when it stretches out over time.
VMG 13y ago
That's not all an argument for mandatory solitary confinement. That's an argument for a better prison system.
jccc 13y ago
“It’s an awful thing, solitary,” John McCain wrote of his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—more than two years of it spent in isolation in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cell, unable to communicate with other P.O.W.s except by tap code, secreted notes, or by speaking into an enamel cup pressed against the wall. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” And this comes from a man who was beaten regularly; denied adequate medical treatment for two broken arms, a broken leg, and chronic dysentery; and tortured to the point of having an arm broken again. A U.S. military study of almost a hundred and fifty naval aviators returned from imprisonment in Vietnam, many of whom were treated even worse than McCain, reported that they found social isolation to be as torturous and agonizing as any physical abuse they suffered. And what happened to them was physical. EEG studies going back to the nineteen-sixties have shown diffuse slowing of brain waves in prisoners after a week or more of solitary confinement. In 1992, fifty-seven prisoners of war, released after an average of six months in detention camps in the former Yugoslavia, were examined using EEG-like tests. The recordings revealed brain abnormalities months afterward; the most severe were found in prisoners who had endured either head trauma sufficient to render them unconscious or, yes, solitary confinement. Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic injury. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...

sentenza 13y ago

Solitary is worse. Sticks and stones will break your bones, but if your personality crumbles away, you will lose _you_.

zacinbusiness 13y ago
Very true. And honestly I'd rather be stabbed to death (I think) than go nuts. Especially if I were aware of it. This is why I'm terrified of things like Alzheimer's.

e12e 13y ago

Try to remember that while prison isn't pleasant by any stretch, life isn't like a tv series or movie either. As far as I can tell (from what I've read) some of the worst parts of the US prison system, are the mega-jails that you are sent to before sentencing. I very, very much doubt that most people (even those that enjoy books etc) would prefer solitary confinement to some form of gen-pop. We are social creatures, and being completely alone, without being able to do anything about our situation (not by choice) is quite terrible when it stretches out over time.

VMG 13y ago

That's not all an argument for mandatory solitary confinement. That's an argument for a better prison system.

jccc 13y ago

“It’s an awful thing, solitary,” John McCain wrote of his five and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam—more than two years of it spent in isolation in a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cell, unable to communicate with other P.O.W.s except by tap code, secreted notes, or by speaking into an enamel cup pressed against the wall. “It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” And this comes from a man who was beaten regularly; denied adequate medical treatment for two broken arms, a broken leg, and chronic dysentery; and tortured to the point of having an arm broken again. A U.S. military study of almost a hundred and fifty naval aviators returned from imprisonment in Vietnam, many of whom were treated even worse than McCain, reported that they found social isolation to be as torturous and agonizing as any physical abuse they suffered. And what happened to them was physical. EEG studies going back to the nineteen-sixties have shown diffuse slowing of brain waves in prisoners after a week or more of solitary confinement. In 1992, fifty-seven prisoners of war, released after an average of six months in detention camps in the former Yugoslavia, were examined using EEG-like tests. The recordings revealed brain abnormalities months afterward; the most severe were found in prisoners who had endured either head trauma sufficient to render them unconscious or, yes, solitary confinement. Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic injury. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_...