Arguments Against Solitary Confinement

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Solitary confinement is a form of total isolation. It is used to punish uncooperative inmates or to keep habitually violent inmates apart from other prisoners. According to an article in The New York Times, inmates endure inhumane living conditions:
The death row inmates at Angola spend 23 hours a day in windowless concrete cells that measure 8 by 10 feet. They are allowed to leave the cell for one hour each day to shower, make phone calls or walk along the tiered walkway beside their cells. Three times a week, they can use that hour to go outside to sit in a small outdoor cage. (Stack) Louisiana automatically puts death row inmates in solitary confinement, so inmates can be in solitary confinement for a matter of days or a matter of decades
Gary Deland the former director of the Department of Corrections in Utah states, “Solitary limits prisoner violence by limiting physical contact with other inmates and staff. Simply put, limiting or controlling violent prisoners' interaction with other prisoners greatly limits the potential for violence” (qtd in Katel). While solitary confinement may be necessary to limit violence between inmates, the ramifications of solitary confinement cannot be justified. Solitary confinement causes mental illnesses and increases the likeliness of inmates to become more violent. Limiting the physical contact of violent prisoners is possible without completely isolating them form human
These mentally ill patients are not being treated which increases the severity of their illness and results in inmates trying to take their own lives. People are natural social beings; it is in human nature to converse and interact with one another. Isolation from human interaction drastically decreases the mental stability in inmates. Imagine playing the quiet game for decades, then add a small prison cell with no sunlight, grey metal walls, and the constant glow of fluorescent lights. As Nicholas Trenticosta, a lawyer for an inmate in Angola prison, once said, “Solitary confinement and these isolation conditions are cruel and unusual punishment” (qtd in Stack). Allowing violent prisoners to converse with psychologists or even other inmates in a safe environment could improve their behavior, opposed to solitary confinement, which increases violent behavior in inmates. The world does not need murders to become more violent or develop more mental disorders because of solitary

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