Torture In Prison

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

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

Prison reform has been an ongoing topic in the history of America, and has gone through many changes in America's past. Mixed feelings have been persevered on the status of implementing these prison reform programs, with little getting done, and whether it is the right thing to do to help those who have committed a crime. Many criminal justice experts have viewed imprisonment as a way to improve oneself and maintain that people in prison come out changed for the better (encyclopedia.com, 2007). In the colonial days, American prisons were utilized to brutally punish individuals, creating a gruesome experience for the prisoners in an attempt to make them rectify their behavior and fear a return to prison (encyclopedia.com, 2007). This practice may have worked 200 years ago, but as the world has grown more complex, time has proven that fear alone does not prevent recidivism. In the 19th century, Dorothea Dix, a women reformer and American activist, began lobbying for some of the first prison reform movements.

Solitary confinement is the act of housing a convict for 22-23 hours a day in an isolated cell, completely free from any human contact for an extended period of time. Going from days to possibly decades while sitting in these cells. There are more than 80,000 men, women, and children in solitary confinement in prisons across the United States according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Not including thousands more in jails, juvenile facilities, immigration detention centers and military prisons. After experiencing confinement some inmates suffer from negative mental health effects that can possibly lead to suicide. Solitary confinement should be abolished all across the United States because of the severe negative effects it has on prisoners.

This week’s text revealed that offenders spending more than six years in a supermax prison, will suffer from mental illness. Long term solitary confinement promotes anger, confusion, and depression within inmates (Schmalleger & Smykia, 2015). Nevertheless, there are no studies that support the claim of confinement causing mental illness. If a person causes harm to any innocent victim for any reason and is convicted of the heinous crime(s) he or she should be sentenced

The United States is home to half of the world’s total imprisoned population (BBC News). In the nineteenth century, solitary confinement was thought to promote reform in prisoners. However, modern research suggests that locking a human being in a jail cell the size of a handicap bathroom stall for more than 22 hours a day does more harm than good. In spite of these scientific discoveries, prisons in the United States continue to use solitary confinement as a method of incarceration. Due to the negative impact prolonged solitude has on the human mind, solitary confinement should be outlawed as a form of torture.

What are your thoughts about the prison system? Today 's prisons are so bad that prisons in the United States hold 5 percent of the US population. Many people get sent to jail cause of the 3 law strike because a lot of minorities are caught with drugs. Plus the government is wasting 75 billion dollars on these facilities instead of using the money in a better way like making programs for the prisoners that need help with mental health or other stuff.

“I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything.”This is a quote from Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in prison and many of those years in solitary confinement. He only got through with intense determination which many criminals don’t have. Solitary confinement should not be allowed and must be banned. Solitary confinement, or SHU(special housing unit), causes severe mental problems as well as brain damage. Solitary confinement violates basic human rights. SHU is not just used for the “worst of the worst”, it is a common punishment for misbehavior in

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

Professionalism as Bartollas and Siegel define it “refers to a set of character strengths and personal values directed at providing the highest quality service to others in the workplace, both colleagues and clients” (2013). In the field of corrections, professionalism affects not only those working in the facility or those imprisoned within its walls, but the families of inmates and officers /correctional staff, the local community, and the relationships within the law enforcement community as well.

Shawshank’s Redemption, an all-time best movie produced in 1994 starred and led by actors Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. A story about two imprisoned men’s experience with the corrupted prison institution through their way of self-redemption. There is a line, which was well read by Morgan Freeman, I am particularly fond of. Here I quote ‘These walls are funny. 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

In order to do this they need to make new centers to help prisoners inside better themselves. In Alabama prisons may soon shut down 14 of its prisons for overcrowding, neglect, and violence in the state’s correction systems. In the prison St. Clair Holman in Alabama the prison system makes prisoners act different. There is no safety, security or supervision. “We have people being killed, sexually assaulted, raped, stabbed on daily basis at St. Clair, Holman, and multiple facilities; it’s a systemwide problem,” said Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which represents Alabama prisoner.” Within this quote we see that in St. Clair prison, inmates get raped and stabbed. These are reasons why prisons should be reformed. Prisoners shouldn’t be hurt for whatsoever problems. Conversely, Penal Reform International article suggested different reasons to reform prisons one that stood out to reform the particular prison in Alabama was this, Provide a healthy, safe environment. “Spaces that are filled with sunlight, outside views, therapeutic color schemes and normalized materials, encourage inmates’ participation, reduce stress, incidents and assaults and decrease staff absenteeism.” Considering the fact that prisoners in Alabama are brutally hurting each other in their cells, we can conclude that if prisons provided a safe environment bad

In Michael Levin’s “The Case for Torture”, he uses many cases of emotional appeal to persuade the reader that torture is necessary in extreme cases. There are many terms/statements that stick with the reader throughout the essay so that they will have more attachment to what is being said. Levin is particularly leaning to an audience based in the United States because he uses an allusion to reference an event that happened within the states and will better relate to the people that were impacted by it. The emotional appeals used in this essay are used for the purpose of persuading the reader to agree that in extreme instances torture is necessary and the United States should begin considering it as a tactic for future cases of extremity.

By definition, solitary confinement is the isolation of a prisoner in a separate cell as a form of punishment. This technique has been practiced in the United States since the early 1800’s and arguments on whether or not it should be practiced followed very soon after its institution. Arguments surrounding solitary confinement are slightly diverse, ranging from full support to views denouncing it. The arguments are more complex than just pro versus con; however, some reside in the middle of the argument, acknowledging its flaws and expecting reform, but also acknowledge the base purpose of the institution.

“Prison within prison”. That’s one way that correctional officials described solitary confinement. An average of twenty-two hours in a small, isolated cell is the daily enduring of a prisoner in solitary confinement. This movement began back in the 1800s, however, over the last two hundred or so years, heads still clash over the use of this method. Based on the research that I have conducted, I undoubtedly support the removal of solitary confinement in prisons. The negative physical, mental and sociological effects outweigh the potential positives that solitary confinement may or may not bring. I do agree that solitary confinement is a barbaric practice that has serious social consequences.