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Pros And Cons Of Solitary Confinement As A Form Of Punishment

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From a mechanical to an organic society, the breaking of laws has always been followed by punishment on the offender. Punishment has naturally become the course of action following a criminal offence, and the supposition that the offender is deserving of his punishment by society further perpetuates the notion that punishment is always fair and proportional to the committed crime. This taken for granted assumption has led to social stigma to further justify the need to keep offenders locked up and kept out of society. Therefore, solitary confinement still exist today as a form of punishment, and that is in itself one of the most immediate problems of our society for the following reasons. First, the conditions of solitary confinement involves …show more content…

If slavery was the form of material racism that existed as an institution to exclude “inferior” individuals from participating in the dominant society because of rooted psychological racism, then I assert that not only has psychological racism never ended, but more importantly, material racism as an institution continues to exist today ever more strongly in its alternate form to support the interests of psychological racism. Therefore, I contend that psychological racism and material racism have always coexisted and continue to do so, with the latter always being the instrument and perpetuator of the former; the transition from physical punishment to psychological punishment is originated in the shift from a mechanical to organic society which created the perfect circumstances for capitalists to encourage segregation of classes through the exclusion of the have nots from economic participation, thus, Du Bois's’ veil was brought back in a new form; the dehumanization of the lower class has become more discreet in which allows the re-introducement of Du Bois’s double consciousness into the minds of the punished through “being the society’s problem” and the concept of Fanon’s

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The poem “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” by Etheridge Knight is a commentary on the twentieth century American prison system. It invokes within the reader a feeling that many of the processes used to ‘correct’ a prisoner is dehumanizing. Solitary confinement is one such method. Solitary confinement should be outlawed because it is ineffective as it traumatizes the victims and is a violation of human rights. To begin, solitary

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665 Words | 3 Pages

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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By describing his feeling in jail, Raemisch represents that the condition in isolated prisons gradually but severely erodes and damages inmates’ mind. He cites Terry Kupers’ research and research from the 1980s to emphasize and validate his claim

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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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1424 Words | 6 Pages

Annotated Bibliography on Solitary Confinement Cheril L. Hall American InterContinental University CRJS405 Research Methods for Criminal Justice Solitary Confinement and Mental Health An issue we have in the correctional system is solitary confinement & mental health. Solitary confinement is the practice of confining a person that is incarcerated to a small cell for around twenty-two to twenty-three hours of the day without any social contact. The problem with solitary confinement is that it is either being done to someone that is weak minded or to someone for an extended period of time.

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Thousands of people across America are experiencing near-hell while they are locked inside a type of prison called solitary confinement. Solitary confinement must come to an end in America, even for the worst of criminals. The effects of solitary confinement consist of mental illnesses, wrongful convictions, staff members receiving trouble, the long-lasting suffering for the criminals, and the number of people experiencing it must end now. Solitary confinement can change the life of a person behind bars forever. Prisoners are left with multiple mental illnesses, and some are worse than others.

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229 Words | 1 Pages

In conclusion, the practice of solitary confinement must be put at the center of attention and reestablished with the given reform principles. As it stands now, the practice of solitary confinement is a punishment with irreversible consequences that provides no real purpose of rehabilitation for an inmate. Inmates that are subjected to solitary confinement are physiological and physically tortured. Inmates are put into solitary confinement and are later released into society with long term mental health issues, in which they return to prison as recidivists. Metaphorically speaking, prison officials are placing inmates into solitary confinement and are essentially throwing away the key.

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Third, I will examine the criticism put forward by Molefi Kete Asante, who argued that ‘double-consciousness’ should not be seen as a universal feature of black life in America since it only applies to African-Americans in certain positions in society. However, I will conclude that through looking at modern society we can see that Du Bois’ work continues to be influential and thus must be taken to be a sound investigation into ‘The Souls of Black Folk’. In the first chapter of ‘The Souls of Black Folk’, Du Bois defined ‘double consciousness’ as a ‘sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity’ (1903). Du Bois emphasised the feeling of inner conflict African-Americans feel: being Black, where you are labeled as a ‘problem’ (1903) and are ignored, pitied and stigmatised, and being American, which serves as a constant reminder of a legacy of oppression.

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First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That 's institutionalized.’ A prison should aim at retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. I am very well convinced that prison has served its first three purposes by depriving offenders’ freedom, but the

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1425 Words | 6 Pages

" If you shout or scream, your time in solitary is extended; if you hurt yourself by refusing to eat or mutilating your body, your time in solitary is extended; if you complain to officers or say anything menacing or inappropriate, your time in solitary is extended. " They overuse their power; they take their job way too personally. To close, prisoner abuse and the disregard for human dignity described in Just Mercy highlight how the urgent need for reform within the correction system is very wrong for those who are in positions of power to prioritize their responsibilities over personal

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Throughout history, oppression has manifested in many different forms, one of the most prominent being slavery and segregation in America during the 1800s and 1900s. Civil Rights activist W.E.B. Dubois comments on the unjust treatment of African Americans during his time with his literary piece Souls of Black Folk. In the book, we are able to better understand the societal hardships that African Americans endured as a “higher class” or a society that was deemed of greater worth oppressed them. However, the fact of the matter is, it wasn’t quite as simple as one group oppressing another. Instead, the oppression was greatly rooted in the individual.

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1069 Words | 5 Pages

Imagine being in the comfort of your bedroom—your own private space. Your room, the place where you sleep, relax, and can be yourself with no judgment from others. Now imagine that your room suddenly shrinks and becomes your entire house in one. This new space will be where you have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and use the bathroom. Your new and improved room is dull and doesn’t receive sunshine from windows because it is completely closed in between four naked—forget about color and decorations.

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736 Words | 3 Pages

Many disagree with solitary confinement for one main reason, and that is the mental health of the inmates being isolated. Sources go into great depth on the many negative effects severe isolation has on the psyche. For example, from studies it was said to be concluded that solitary confinement damages inmates psychologically in various ways. Inmates were found to be more suicidal, and even apt to developing mental disorders such as schizophrenia because “Their symptoms are greatly exacerbated (sometimes to the point of madness) by their forced nomadic, stimuli-deprived environments”(Mann). Inmates may experience hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia.

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376 Words | 2 Pages

The goal of this paper will firstly be to explore the specific injustices perpetrated against the African-American race during slavery in America, then to understand how these injustices work against the progress of the race towards equity from a psychological and sociological viewpoint. Finally, it will aim to explain measures that could be made to improve said equity of African Americans, by looking at how the mental scars of slavery continue to affect Black Americans in today’s United

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353 Words | 2 Pages

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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