"Solitary in Iran Nearly Broke Me. Then I Went Inside America's Prisons" by Shane Bauer
Published in Mother Jones, November/December 2012
Eric
Friday, February 8, 2013
Longread #252 -- Solitary Confinement -- 2/8/13
Yet another troubling and eye-opening article about the state of prisons in America (and more specifically, California) with this one specifically addressing solitary confinement. I promise a less depressing longread related to prisons is coming on Monday...
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This issue makes me so mad. I can understand the prison guards wanting to be safe, but I don't understand why solitary confinement is the answer...and then the guards are so confused why the prisoners in solitary start acting up for attention...
ReplyDeleteI feel that this is a torture. There's no other explanation. Now we just need to figure out how to get the prisoners out and a better system put in place.
Clearly this article was written from the perspective that solitary should be ended. Much like they do in all these cases though we are only presented one side. I certainly condoning what is being done but how much to any of us really know about this? Does the fact that the author was in solitary in Iran suddenly mean he has a full and detailed understanding of solitary any where? Maybe everything he write in here is correct and solitary is never an option but I think it's tough to say. You'd like to think we don' thave a system that so fully endorses something that has absolutely not merit.
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought was interesting was the increase in large prison violence after the creation of supermax prisons. My first thought is that if they are removing the leadership they are probably making things worse. In several examples the leaders were trying to win human rights improvements or organize for a positive gain. Oncce you take those people away you are left with a headless group and is it really surprising they result to violence?
A few comments:
ReplyDelete1. You are right that this author approached the subject from the perspective of someone opposed to solitary. I actually think that this is part of what makes it a great article. The author openly acknowledges how his own experiences has shaped his feelings on the issue, and then he adds both anecdotal support and evidence from data to support that claim. The author's narrative voice in this piece to me adds a great deal to its quality overall.
2. I understand asking "what do we _really_ know?" however I think it is rebutted by a few points:
a.) There is a moral argument against prolonged solitary confinement. This is essentially the claim that solitary is equivalent to torture or to cruel and unusual punishment. Obviously, not everyone shares this moral viewpoint, but based on the evidence he cited from psychological studies (not just his own experience), it seems clear to me that the implications of solitary on a person's mental health are profound. If anything, this turns the tables on the "what do we really know" argument because what do we really know about 23 hours a day confined in a tiny cell?
b.) Part of the reason our knowledge is limited is because it is deliberately obfuscated by the penal system. This is true not only for a reporter trying to learn about the issue but also for the prisoners themselves. In circumstances like these, how (or why) would we trust those who buck almost all transparency?
c.) On a related note, even if someone accepts the argument that solitary is not immoral AND accepts that it is necessary for prison safety in ways regular civilians can't understand, I still think it is no excuse for the lack of oversight in California's system. While full "due process" as we understand it may not apply, the nature of the decision-making about who goes into solitary and for how long is shockingly totalitarian. This is also what permits the solitary confinement to go on and on and become de facto indefinite solitary confinement. Even the worst prisoners should have some protection by a process or oversight that checks abuse.
More coming...
d.) Some might say that prisoners, as a result of their crimes, are not deserving of such protections. At times, I will admit I am sympathetic to this argument. Part of the reason for that is that usually when it is made, the most heinous offenders (serial killers, rapists, etc.) are cherry-picked as the examples of people who are protected by checks and balances. At the end of the day, though, what makes this argument especially troubling is that it ignores the sheer scale of incarceration in the U.S. Moreover, as discussed with some past articles, I believe it to be the case that there are some systematic problems in our criminal justice system (and society at-large) that make it so that the burdens of prison are felt unduly by people who are already disempowered. This might mean that someone doesn't have a lawyer with enough time or interest to find examples of police misconduct or to mount a serious defense. The end point, though, is that we have many people in prison who probably shouldn't be (either b/c they are innocent or because our laws -- such as drug laws -- needlessly extend sentences and/or commit people to prison who should be getting mental health treatment). We should bear in mind that many of these people are harmed by a system of solitary like California's -- not just rapists and killers.
ReplyDeletee.) More broadly, this argument represents one that is often used to defend a problematic status quo. It's similar to the scientists for the sugar industry who didn't have to prove that sugar was bad, they just had to show that "we don't know enough" to change how sugar was regulated. It's the same thing the climate change deniers say. It's also an appeal to expertise that often reinforces traditional authority and attempts to silence criticism. I'm not saying this is always the case, but I think we have to be very wary of falling back to this kind of argument.
3. I think your point about the the failures of supermax also shows that sometimes the "experts" also don't really know what will and won't work. In some cases, they also may have strong financial incentives leading them toward certain positions (I'm sure a lot of people lined their pockets in the boom of building supermax facilities). They fail to anticipate things like creation of a power vacuum from removing organization leaders. Or they ignore how isolating prisoner advocates might foment unrest even among prisoners who previously had not acted out. Even for someone not moved by the appeals to morality and justice discussed above, the sheer practical failure of these policies seems enough to me to argue for substantial reform.
4. This is not related to this article in particular (I was mulling this over before I even saw this comment this morning, actually), but I am considering a bit of a change to the blog. My goal is to do something closer to the theme weeks in the past except to try to present over the course of a week 5 longreads that all tackle the same issue. My hope is to provide more of a point-counterpoint style that hopefully would give more perspective to these issues (and would help obviate some of your concerns about articles like this one or the one about lead) that we are only hearing one side. The challenge is that this is significantly more time-consuming, and in some cases, legitimate and well-written counterpoints can be hard to find. In any case, it's something I'm mulling over and hoping to move toward at some point in the future.
As always, thanks for reading and commenting.
Eric
I agree with basically every point both you and Lucy make, especially the high level commentary. The only "issue" i have is when you focus in specifically on solitary and ignore the wider prison problem. I'd say i lean heavily on the side of the author and the comments being made however I think that there still has to be a consideration of both sides. We can't swing from one extreme to the next (extreme of zero right for solitary and no visibility to just getting rid of it because it may be bad). Like all discussions i think there is probably a reason for both sides. As you mentioned getting multiple articles on both perspectives would help to shape this because there are plenty of ways to view just about any problem. I think when criticizing prisons the people who talk about how bad they are are almost always "outsiders," and those who actually spend their lives working the prison system view it differently, i am confident there is a reason for that and they should not be completely ignored. Some things may be barbaric but when dealing with murderers, rapists and the like you can't necessarily apply the exact rules and value you do to society at large.
ReplyDeleteI agree. One thing that I tried to remember when reading this article is that it is pretty specific to the California prison system. As he mentions, many other states have moved away from the system of solitary that California has that permits de facto indefinite solitary. It seems that there are probably some good case studies to draw on to help manage a transition away from it. Obviously, the safety of guards, staff, and other prisoners is a critical variable that has to be accounted for. But in order to start finding solutions, California (and other states with similar systems) need to admit (in a genuine way) that there's a problem with the way they are currently doing things. The article does mention some small reforms that have been undertaken, but they seemed to be more issues of terminology than any serious rethinking about the role of solitary in the state penal system.
ReplyDeleteEric