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In Solitary Confinement Is Overused In Our Prisons, By Barack Obama

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In the article, “Solitary confinement is Overused in Our Prisons,” by Barack Obama, the point of view towards isolation is that solitary confinement negatively affects people's mental health and relationships with families and friends. The effects of isolation are conveyed by president Obama talking about the effects of solitary confinement. In the poem “ Sympathy,” by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the point of view towards isolation is that any person in isolation will be deranged from not being able to be free and the effects of isolation are conveyed by the author comparing his own experience to a caged bird. In this extended response I will discuss the point of view towards isolation in both the text and poem as well as state how those views …show more content…

This is conveyed by president Barack Obama talking about solitary confinement in his article. According to the text it states, “ It has been linked to depression, alienation, withdrawal, a reduced ability to interact with people and the potential for violent behavior. Some studies indicate that it can make mental illnesses worse and even cause new ones. Prisoners in solitary are more likely to commit suicide, especially young people and people with mental illnesses.” (P5) This shows that people held in solitary confinement are more likely to develop a worse mindset after solitary confinement than when they came into solitary confinement. It also shows that solitary confinement makes a major impact on the lives of human beings, it could kill people. Another detail from the text states, “ Those who do make it out …show more content…

According to the poem it states, “ I know why the caged bird beats his wing, Till its blood is red on the cruel bars; For he must fly back to his perch and cling.” (Lines 8,9,10) This shows that the bird doesn’t want to go back to the cage because he knows that he can't escape and be free so he hurts himself, in a sense human isolation gets deranged and angry then they tend to hurt themselves because they have no way to escape isolation. Situations like this are similar to situations that happen to people that are portrayed in “ Solitary confinement is overused in our prisons” . Another detail from the poem states, “ But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings— I know why the caged bird sings!” (Lines 19, 20, 21) This shows that the bird is praying to be free and to not be lonely so he sings to beg for freedom, this is also similar to humans because after being in isolation for a long time people would want to beg to be free. This is similar to people in solitary confinement. To sum up everything that has been said, the point of view towards isolation is that any person in isolation will be deranged from not being able to be free and the effects of

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Guenther discusses the effects of solitary confinement such as “They experience intense anxiety, paranoia, depression, memory loss, hallucinations and other perceptual distortions” (1). But doesn’t provide enough reasons as to why U.S prisons should become a rehabilitation place to help those get back into the society they were once in. she only establishments that solitary confinement and prisons are not good to inmates because they caused them to develop psychological problems. What I mean is that, the entirety of the article and her arguments gives the sense that, that’s the purpose of what she is trying to achieve here, making prisons a rehabilitation place instead of something else. But the thing is why should prisons become a rehabilitation center, Guenther claims that “Given that 95 percent of all inmates are eventually released into the public, and that many of these will be released without any form of transition or therapy, solitary confinement is a problem that potentially affects every one of us.”

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According to Bassett, 50% of suicides occur inside solitary confinmenet (419). Not to mention, inmates are sometimes physically abused by the guards in power. Through the Solitary Nation documentary, it is seen that guards sometimes have to use bigger forces like a toxic gas to get an inmate out of their cell. While it makes sense that guards have to do it for their own protection, there needs to be thought about why inmates do the things they do. When inmates suffer from their mental illnesses, they begin to lose their sense of reality as well as sense of right and wrong.

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The documentary solitary nation demonstrates the effects of solitary confinement on the prisoner’s health. There are several problems associated with using segregation as a punishment, however, the main problem is the effects to the mental health of the inmates. The documentary illustrate that some prisoner lost their sanity in solitary confinement. One example is what happened to the prisoner Adam Brulotte, at the beginning of his solitary confinement time he was optimistic and have plans to improve himself by reading books and think about his future, but only after twenty five days he started to lose his mind and become unstable, threaten to cut himself, pushes feces under the door and flooded the unit. This behavior clearly indicates segregation bad affects to the mental health of the inmates.

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Major Ethical Issues of Solitary Confinement Solitary confinement can affect a person’s physical and mental health simply because it deprives an individual of their need to interact with others on a daily basis. Solitary confinement, which is used to restrain violent and volatile inmates from the general prison population, is done in increments ranging from several months to years. In an article retrieved from the American Psychological Association, ‘Alone, in ‘the Hole’’, the author states that, “for most of the 20th century, prisoners' stays in solitary confinement were relatively short.” This was the standing rule, in which inmates visited what is known as ‘the hole’, for several weeks to months. As time went by, the average length of stay

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There needs to be a balance between the solitary confinement and length of time that is allowed for an individual to be in isolation. When a person

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Solitary confinement has so many harsh conditions that negatively affect these prisoners. The practice of solitary confinement should be put to an end due to the long term damage it causes to one’s physical and mental health. The rooms that are used for solitary confinement are made very uniquely in order for these prisoners to feel trapped, isolated, and alone. They are put in dangerous conditions which may not look dangerous to the naked eye, but do actually damage these inmates. The prison cells that are used for solitary confinement are extremely concerning.

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If we compare the bird’s wings to Tom Robinson’s hope, the feet to his heart, and his action of  running to the action of opening his throat to sing, we can visualize the song that Tom Robinson would sing, one about him losing hope and not wanting anyone to control his life anymore, and so in this manner he is very much like the caged bird in this poem. Similarly, Tom Robinson’s physical struggles can be compared to the caged bird in the poem “Sympathy”. In the novel it’s written “Tom

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Solitary confinement is, “Living in a concrete box the size of a walk-in closet. You get tour meals through a slot, you do not see other inmates, and you never touch or get near another human being”(Stevenson 129). Solitary confinement is a punishment not fit for humans. Humans need social interaction to live. We have established how messed up solitary confinement is, but how do we fix it?

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Within the United States, approximately 80,000 prisoners are currently in solitary confinement (Nolan and Amico). For countless people, that is 80,000 too many. Encyclopedia Britannica states, “Solitary confinement is a form of incarceration in which a prisoner is isolated from other inmates.” Critics of this controversial practice characterize it as inhumane. However, simultaneously an opposing side of the argument supports solitary confinement.

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The bird represents a black person, who is restricted by the cage, or racism, which stops him from being able to experience the beautiful river and sun, or society. Second Stanza Summary This stanza furthers the suffering of the bird trapped in the cage, especially on a physical level. The narrator also expresses understanding as to why the bird bangs its wing against the outside of the cage to no avail.

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Some common symptoms associated with isolation are insomnia, a lack of appetite, and trembling. These can escalate to heart palpitations, which is a tell-tale sign that the punishment has gone too far. Despite these warnings, the incline in suicides tells us that changes in our current laws need to happen to force preventative measures onto staff in federal prisons. A study occurred in 1951 at McGill University in which a paid group of voluntary graduate students stayed in a confinement room, to conduct a study on sensory deprivation. The plan was to observe these students for 6 weeks, nevertheless not one of the students lasted for more than 7 days.

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Some might argue that solitary confinement is actually effective and has its benefits, however this is not the case since this punishment only seems to make criminals much more dangerous when they leave prison than they were before and research shows that inmates who left solitary confinement experience increased anger and end up committing the kind of criminality that society is looking to prevent by using this method of punishment. Thus, solitary confinement ultimately fails as a rehabilitative measure, and as a way to "settle down" problematic

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In conclusion, the two poems have similarities and differences. Sympathy and Caged Bird revealed the struggles the birds and the slaves faced; going through tortures. The caged birds are just like slaves being whipped and being locked up. Many times, others would be hurting on the inside, but many don’t express it on the outside, so that’s why the caged bird

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The last line of the poem is “for the caged bird sings for freedom” (Angelou) this tells us that the caged bird yearns to be like the free bird. Angelou uses several descriptive images for the reader to be able to envision her words: bird, winds, floats and sky for freedom because the free bird has power, as “he soars in the sky” (Angelou) and clipped wings, tied feet and cage for confinement because the caged bird is oppressed as “caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown. ”(Angelou)

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In the poems “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, both portray captive birds that sing. However in “Sympathy”, the bird pleads with god for freedom, whereas in “Caged Bird” the captive bird calls for help from a free bird. In “Sympathy” the bird knows what freedom feels like since there was a time where the bird was once free, but now is trapped. In the first stanza the use of imagery revealed how freedom felt before the bird was caged.

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