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Solitary Confinement for the Innocent
The Bush administration does it again. Many detainees at Gitmo have been released – because they were never guilty of anything, merelky subkect to bounty-hunters in Pakistan. Among these victims of...
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In Prison In Texas
A double-whammy: Long-term solitary confinement produces an assortment of psychological reactions. Few prisoners are unaffected … Many prisoners have been placed on antipsychotic drugs. Most of these...
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A Culture Of Cruelty
Atul Gawande’s long article on prisons and solitary makes for disturbing reading: Prison violence, it turns out, is not simply an issue of a few belligerents. In the past thirty years, the United...
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All By Yourself
Isaac Chotiner responds to Atul Gawande: Gawande never considers the idea of punishment as an end in itself, and it is here, I think, where liberal writers tend to miss a major motiviating factor in...
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Quote For The Day
"I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing at it...
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Our Own Private Bagram
But without the torture. This is a description of a prison in Mississippi: Inmates were locked in permanent solitary confinement. In the summer, the cells were ovens, with no fans or air circulation…...
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“This Is Wrong”
This embed is invalid The president's dismissal of PJ Crowley for defending core American values is a teaching moment for me. My take here. Transcript of Frontline's interview with Manning's father...
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Alone For 28 Years
Jean Casella and James Ridgeway reprint the declaration of Thomas Silverstein, a prisoner "held in an extreme form of solitary confinement under a 'no human contact' order for 28 years": I was not only...
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A Fate Worse Than Death Penalty?
A reader writes: The comparison one of your readers made between euthanizing a person and euthanizing a dog fails to consider one of the most prominent differences between man and dog: self-awareness....
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A Fate Worse Than Death Penalty? Ctd
A reader continues the ever-expanding thread: I think the line between people who are for or against capital punishment can be drawn between those who believe humans can transform themselves from bad...
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“The Moral Scandal Of American Life”
That's Adam Gopnik's view of mass incarceration in the US: Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison...
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The Torture Of Isolation
James Ridgeway argues against the absurd over-use of solitary confinement in America's jails: Adam Cohen chimes in: Rather than reserving solitary confinement for the most vicious, unrepentant...
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“Cruel and Too Usual”
Lisa Guenther argues isolating prisoners doesn't help rehabilitate them: When we isolate a prisoner in solitary confinement, we deprive them of both the support of others, which is crucial for a...
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“There Is Nothing I’ve Experienced In My Life That Is Worse”
Shane Bauer, who was kept in solitary confinement while held hostage in Iran, visited Pelican Bay, a supermax California prison with a large solitary population. One of his guides at Pelican Bay asked...
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The Silent Mistreatment
David Berreby chronicles the plight of Sunnat, an Uzbek captured in Afghanistan at age 16 who was taken to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 – a situation made especially harrowing by his near total linguistic...
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United Against Solitary
Approximately 30,000 prisoners have entered the third day of what might be the largest hunger strike in California’s history. The strike, which has spread to Washington state, has already left ten...
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Solitary For Life
Solitary confinement has a way of outliving its justifications. First it was supposed to inspire spiritual reflection and penance, then it became a last-resort punishment. Now, Rob Fischer reports,...
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A Pen Pal In Solitary
A reader writes: I never imagined that I would someday be in a position where I personally know someone in solitary confinement, or that I would be able to confirm what Atul Gawande wrote in The New...
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Isolation Incites Violence
Andrew Gumbel explains: Prisoners going into solitary [confinement] sometimes imagine they can take advantage of their isolation to read, or study, or develop an interest in painting, but, invariably,...
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Crueler Than Fiction
Andrew Cohen marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the film Papillon with an article on the use and abuse of solitary confinement in American prisons: Pick a state, any state, and you will find...
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