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The Negative Effects Of Solitary Confinement

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Around 250,000 children are tried sentenced or incarcerated as adults every year in the united states. In just Mercy by Brian Stevenson, Ian gets sentenced to an adult prison and experiences the horrible events that occur in them. Ian did do bad things, but making a child suffer and grow up in an adult facility while being tormented needs to change. Although Ian has messed up and broken the law, children being incarcerated in adult prisons, and being held in solitary confinement, can only lead to negative effects.
In chapter 8 of Just Mercy, Ian’s experiences in the justice system emphasize his feelings of social deprivation from the harsh punishment. Ian has been held in solitary confinement for years without having any human interaction, after his first interaction with Bryan Stevenson he wrote in his letter, “But today, just the simple handshake we shared was a welcome addition to my sensory deprived life”, he also wrote in the letter “I want these photos of myself, almost as bad as I want my freedom”.(138 Stevenson) Ian has spent a lot of time in solitary confinement and has thought of many many things during his time on his …show more content…

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? One very obvious way to fix this would be to get rid of solitary confinement overall. Some people may say, well solitary confinement can be used to isolate the weaker and younger inmates from conflict. This should not be a problem, to begin with as children should not be put in adult

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The book Just Mercy written by Bryan Stevenson focuses and discusses justice and redemption. This book discusses the author’s life and how Stevenson grew up in a poor and racially segregated neighborhood in Delaware. The settlement he grew up in was very small and most families suffered from lack of water, indoor plumbing, and chickens and pigs surrounded their play space. Stevenson attended college in Pennsylvania and perused a degree in Public Policy. This book is about getting a better understanding of mass incarceration and cruel punishment in America.

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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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In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson tells a first person account of his years defending the people who were wrongly convicted or punished by the US justice system. At the heart of the novel is the story of Walter McMillian, a man wrongly convicted of murder and sent to death row. Throughout the novel, Stevenson presents examples of individuals who were wrongfully punished due to racism and discrimination. He shows the readers how our criminal justice system unfairly impacts members of the Black community. He also highlights the destruction and devastation this can cause.

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Have you ever needed something so desperately and you still didn’t get it?We learn how the incarcerated people in the book Just Mercy have been denied their medical attention, even though they had pleaded. The book was written by Brian Stevenson, who is a Criminal Defense Lawyer. It reveals the truth of the unfair actions made by the Criminal Justice system. Its inadequacy in medical treatment is certainly a prime contribution to the deaths of many prisoners each year. We learn how some people were denied the very thing they need to survive, their medication they need to help them wake up the next morning.

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Bryan Stevenson knew the perils of injustice and inequality just as well as his clients on death row. He grew up in a poor, racially segregated area in Delaware and his great-grandparents had been slaves. While he was a law student, he had interned working for clients on death row. He realized that some people were treated unfairly in the judicial system and created the Equal Justice Institute where he began to take on prisoners sentenced to death as clients since many death row prisoners had no legal representation of any kind. In Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson focuses on some of these true stories of injustice, mainly the case of his client, Walter McMillian.

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Prisons are meant to detain those that are deemed unjust by society, based on legislation enacted by all in order to maintain order. Due to this, the average person regards prisoners as dangerous people unfit to live freely amongst others. This stereotyping of prisoners makes frequent appearances in Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, a title that recounts his journey as a lawyer over the past few decades. A Harvard Law School graduate, he finds himself intrigued with defending those wrongly facing the strictest punishments allowed: prison for life or even the death sentence. Initially at the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee, Stevenson eventually manages to move to Montgomery where he establishes the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), in an attempt

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Fathi, Director of ACLU National Prison Project talks about how it’s proven that solitary confinement leaves long lasting psychological and emotional harm. Someone with no prior history of mental illness will develop psychological symptoms if left in solitary confinement for too long. Whether someone does or does not suffer from mental illness, solitary confinement ultimately harms the person and is not a good way to take care of them. Another solution is drug courts which provides a sentencing alternative of treatment and supervision for people who have a substance abuse problem or if they have a mental disorder. Expert, John Roman, who is a research associate, suggests that having more drug courts is a good idea and will help bring the crime rate down.

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Solitary confinement, in my opinion, is cruel and unusual punishment. If there was not a mental-health crisis in America, and there was in fact a rehabilitation-focused prison system, solitary confinement would be greatly reduced and used much more sparingly. What is the point of driving people to madness by putting them in isolation? It would be so much cheaper for tax payers to change the system to a more effective one that actually reduces

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Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, is a powerful book that provides you with another perspective of racial injustice. This book features injustices done to young people and innocent people. Some kids as young as middle schoolers have been put behind bars for their entire lives. Being a caucasian male, I have never been the victim of racial and sexual abuse. Learning about our justice system made me sorrowful and outraged.

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According to the criminal justice system, children underage who commit a criminal act are sent to an adult prison. Children don’t have to be sentenced for 10-15 years just because of a small crime that wasn’t against the law. Stevenson states “The lawyer didn’t realize that two of the charges against Ian were punishable with sentences of life imprisonment without parole” (Stevenson 128). Stevenson believes that no one deserves to be physically abused because they can become ill or suicidal. In the 1980’s, our country was giving lots of attention to black and brown children because of their poor actions and threats towards people.

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There are many victims of unfortunate circumstances in the world today, yet some of these results could have been easily avoided. In the novel, Just Mercy, the author Bryan Stevenson addresses many cases in which children under the age of 18 are incarcerated within the adult criminal justice system. By treating children as adults in the criminal justice system their innocence and undeveloped person, become criminalized. These children become dehumanized and only viewed as full-fledged criminals and as a result society offers no chance sympathy towards them. Stevenson argues that children tried as adults have become damaged and traumatized by this system of injustice.

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1. Which social problems are treated in this book? Why did they develop? Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption focuses on many social problems, including the miscarriage of justice to the poor, disabled and minorities; along with the poor living conditions in prisons, and the cruel and unusual punishment. The miscarriage of justice developed throughout our country’s history.

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The article, The Steep Costs of Keeping Juveniles in Adult Prisons by Jessica Lahey states that “due to the imbalance of power between children and adults, not to mention between children and prison staff, sexual abuse of juveniles in adult prison is underreported; fewer than one in 10 of the juveniles surveyed reported their abuse.” ( ). The adult prison is not safe because of the abuses between the staff and juvenile, they need to be aware of what happens in the adult system. Lahey wants to show how dangerous the adult system is by stating what actually happens in prison to the juveniles because of the adult prisoners and the staff. Lahey also explains about how the lack of services and safety, “juveniles housed in adult prisons are 36 times more likely to commit suicide than juveniles housed apart from adult offenders.”

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In my honest opinion solitary confinement in the U.S. is not justified and only does more harm than good. Not only is it a rash punishment, but it is one of the worst kinds of psychological tortures that could be inflicted upon an inmate. Human beings are undoubtedly social creatures and without the mere contact of another person the mind decays and ultimately leads a person to anger, anxiety, and hopelessness. Psychologists also claim that solitary confinement and isolation in general also cause depression or the loss of ability to have any "feelings", cognitive disturbances, such as confused thought processes and disorientation, perceptual distortions, such as hypersensitivity to noises and smells, distortions of sensations, and hallucinations affecting all five senses, as well as paranoia and psychosis which often times involve schizophrenic type symptoms, and finally, the worst of all symptoms, being self-harm such as self-mutilation, cutting and even suicide attempts.

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Doing so has had countless adverse effects on the youth. Despite this, many prisons and facilities have turned a blind eye to these negative factors, and continue to plant them in the adult systems. Children should not have to be put in jails and prisons with adults because they have an increased chance of being raped, educational services are often too expensive, and their minds are inclined to becoming mentally unstable, which often leads to suicide. Solutions to these issues include lifting the ban that prevents grants to be awarded to inmates, and abolishing children from adult jail facilities altogether. Conversely, others may argue that these children deserve this treatment, children are becoming more intelligent and know right from wrong, and that these sentences will show others what can potentially happen.

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