Hacker News Reader

Comment by shakna | Hacker News Reader

> truly punitive would involve torture

And it does. Methods like solitary do classify as torture under international laws.

The not approved, but still happens, "code red"s that get employed by both staff and inmates, are very clearly torturous.

Slave labor, could also classify as torture. Especially when those meager wages are decimated by the basic costs of things. Such as the per-minute charges to read free ebooks that has been rolling out, or the ridiculous charges to connect by phone or email to anyone not living in the same hell that you are - something that has been shown to help the mental state of the incarcerated.

View on HN

Anything other than solitary is torture. Exposure to other criminals is cruel. Having a cellmate who could kill you in your sleep is especially shocking; sleep deprivation is unquestionably torture.

Solitary confinement increases the chance of heart attack, hypertension and stroke by 30% [0]. That's because it is a stressful environment that people are not meant to function in.

That's 30% up when compared to those prisoners who might be fearing that their cell might kill them. Solitary is more stressful than that environment, objectively.

[0] https://massivesci.com/notes/cardiovascular-health-compariso...

The study applies to "a third of individuals in solitary confinement". I guess those were the extroverts. What about the other two thirds of individuals in solitary confinement? It seems likely that those people don't support the desired conclusion.

Whatever the case may be, there is also the matter of them being a bad influence on each other.

1/3rd of people is more than statistically significant, so yes, it does support that conclusion. That solitary is bad for your health, and worse than general prison life.

> 1/3rd of people is more than statistically significant, so yes, it does support that conclusion.

It decidedly does not support the conclusion. The percent of the population studies were those who had filed a lawsuit about solitary confinement. This is the definition of a biased sample.

> Anything other than solitary is torture.

This point is completely proven to be false by the fact that people are having their QOL indicators trashed.

1) You're replying to the wrong comment.

2) Your basis for "This point is completely proven to be false by the fact that people are having their QOL indicators trashed" is what? The statistically-biased study you posted?

> 1) You're replying to the wrong comment.

Are you not in this thread? [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176652

> 2) Your basis for "This point is completely proven to be false by the fact that people are having their QOL indicators trashed" is what? The statistically-biased study you posted?

You didn't like that study? And thus refuse to have any other conversation? Fine. Lets have some more.

[0] https://www.themarshallproject.org/documents/3234404-Aiming-... - The government knows it is harmful, and is tracking and pushing for reduction of its use.

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... - It increases mortality after release. (Study where N=229,297).

[2] https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us1012ForUpl... - It stunts the growth of juveniles and leads to a variety of mental health problems.

[3] http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/appsych/opus/issues/2015/spring/co... - Here's an earlier study that also covers the hyptension systems already mentioned.

[4] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cbm.627 - In juveniles, it increases recidivism, and causes mental and physical health problems.

QoL indicators from all studies are showing problems. Solitary Confinement is above the threshold where it can be safely used against any one person.

> And thus refuse to have any other conversation?

Where are you getting this stuff? I never said anything about refusing to have any other conversation. And you responded to the wrong comment above. You quoted another commenter and responded to it in a reply to me. That's not how threaded forums work.

Are you confusing me with other HNer again here?

> Are you confusing me with other HNer again here?

Nope.

> You quoted another commenter and responded to it in a reply to me. That's not how threaded forums work.

That's exactly how thread topics work. That's the context of the conversation.

> Solitary is more stressful than that environment, objectively.

That entirely depends on the person. Go talk to a corrections officer. Some folks go mad in solitary, others find relief from the daily threat of physical violence and do OK.

Countering data with anecdotes is useless. It doesn't aid any discussion. Any piece of data can have a contrary anecdote. Gravity can have anecdotes that say it doesn't exist.

Some may well find solitary helpful. However, if the vast majority of data finds that it is harmful, physically and mentally, then we should not use those outliers to gauge whether or not something is effective.

Question: do you know anyone who has served in prison? What do you propose to do with those inmates with life sentences who are raping and murdering in open population? And thank god protective custody (in same place/conditions as solitary) is available, for the sake of the people at risk of rape and murder in open population.

I don't doubt that living in a small area has measurable effect on the mental and cardiovascular health of many inmates. But what is the alternative? Let those inmates live in open population? Try for a moment to imagine being a physically weak inmate in a prison where some psychopath has decided you're a snitch. Can you imagine the fear that induces? And then when the violence happens, the weak inmate will be lucky to come out alive.

Seriously, that's a real question. What's the alternative for murderous, raping inmates who pose an active thread to inmates and wardens? Maximum security prisons have many of them. Where do they go with no solitary?

> Question: do you know anyone who has served in prison?

Yes, but that's irrelevant to the conversation at hand. That solitary is torture and hurts people far more than it helps them. That that's what the science says.

As I've said, anecdotes are irrelevant. Data is.

> But what is the alternative? Let those inmates live in open population?

> ...

> Maximum security prisons have many of them. Where do they go with no solitary?

Maximum security prisons don't just have the two extremes of solitary and open population. Normal prisons usually have more than gen pop and solitary.

If rehabilitation is the goal, and not just punishment, then prisons tend to be less violent overall. These statistical outliers who go around attacking everyone also reduce in frequency.

Happily, your efforts will likely be for naught. Even if most people don't care about the many incarcerated victims of prisoner violence, powerful people do care about violence against prison wardens and staff, so solitary is unlikely to go away.

I'm 100% for significant prison reform. We have far, far too many nonviolent offenders, or offenders who made a one-time really poor decision in a bar fight or something similar, housed together in prison with psychopaths, gang members, and ultra-violent inmates. But until the day comes when only habitually violent prisoners are housed together in prison, facilities for solitary confinement are needed, not only for violent prisoners, but for people in protective custody.

An inmate died after being locked in a scalding shower for two hours. His guards won’t be charged.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/2...

Just one of the many cases of institutionalised torture.

And it is the states, the prisons responsibility to find a humane way to incarcerate people, if you fail so miserably at it, it just shows how morally bankrupt your country is.

Yeah, this really gets me. How can a civilized society allow for systematic torture of people. The two are mutually exclusive.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com