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Comment by therobot24 | Hacker News Reader

It's hard to draw correlation between someone captured in iran and the many convicts in solitary confinement. Prisoners aren't just put into solitary for any arbitrary reason, many times it's due to a consistent history of violence outside and inside the prison system. While a woman and her husband getting nabbed is a completely different situation.

In any case, it seems obvious that solitary will affect mental health. But what do we do for consistently violent offenders? Clearly they do not function in general population. Do they get a solitary buddy to talk to for a few hours a day?

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Prisoners in the USA are, in fact, put into solitary for some pretty arbitrary reasons, including the types of books they read. You might find this article by Shane Bauer, one of the hostages held by Iran, interesting:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confine...

I remember seeing that video and balking - even reading Machiavelli's the Prince can get you thrown in solitary under the pretense you are gang affiliated.

If you're interested in the prison industrial complex, the very same Shane Bauer is using my site, Beacon, to crowdfund an entire year of in depth, independent, and ad-free reporting on the prison system in America.

http://www.beaconreader.com/projects/the-prison-problem

You'll directly impact his ability to produce original long form pieces.

And there was recently a story of a "good samaritan" in San Francisco who helped an injured person on the street and called 911, and ended up in solitary by the end of the night:

https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/

If you want to criticize Pennington's placement in Security Housing, fine. But don't pretend that he's just an innocent leftist being persecuted by the Man. He's a gang member. And his gang's black Marxist politics don't make it any less violent.

http://motherjones.com/documents/458735-pennington-return-to...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Guerilla_Family

Agreed. What do we do with violent schizophrenics, the Michael Owen Perrys, the Charles Bronsons?

The groups arguing for reform respond that solitary is rarely used for violent criminals, and more often used for other rule infractions: http://www.justicefellowship.org/solitary-confinement https://afsc.org/resource/solitary-confinement-facts

I'm not sure that answers the question though. In absence of solitary, what measures are appropriate to curtail violence, or to enforce prison rules?

Maybe there's a middle solution, where more oversight can be used to prevent its overuse? But it doesn't seem like there are many alternatives to control the behavior of someone who is already confined.

How about send them to a psychiatric hospital which is equipped to deal with their situation, rather than locking them in a box? If someone is so mentally unstable that they cant handle the human contact of prison gen pop, maybe a psychiatric hospital is where they actually belong.

I think that'd be a good move, but it wouldn't address some of the violent offenders, and currently our mental health network isn't at the scale it should be to handle the problem. We absolutely should do that over the long term, but it requires a fundamental policy shift, and a willingness for governments to spend money on a group of people who basically have no political voice out of the recognition that it's the right thing to do.

It's not the only component of the problem of prison population control, but deinstitutionalization under Reagan absolutely punted the mental health issue to the prison system.

I worked in the criminal justice system in an inner city for a medium sized metro area. We'd have cases where a guy would repeatedly break into a business, not to steal anything of value, he was just schizophrenic and felt he needed to be in there some nights. Turning him back on the street perpetually screws over the business owner, incarceration without treatment risks ruining his already fragile life. There weren't an abundance of good options, and everyone in the courtroom, prosecution, judge, public defender, they all recognized it.

This was an extreme example, but mental health issues weren't atypical. It wasn't the majority, but a substantial fraction (guessing here, maybe 10-20%?) of the cases I saw involved some underlying mental health issues.

The criminal justice system is just at its worst with these defendants too. For serious crimes, juries just never find them sympathetic, even if their mental health issue is not sociopathy, but something like down's syndrome, it's basically impossible to get a sympathetic jury, despite the fact that it's supposed to be a "jury of peers."

We really need mental health courts. We need to recognize, like we did with drug courts, that some of these cases just aren't a normal criminal justice issue. They have their own special issues that require a special set of expertise and special policy options. We also need mental health facilities or in home monitoring to handle the problem.

That all means massive amounts of money, but it would be money well spent on social justice, and some costs would even be recouped by lowering the burden on the rest of the system, which is an ill fit for this social problem.

On the other hand, there's only so far you can go with this. The Supreme Court has found that prisoners have a right to refuse treatment (with certain exceptions), and many do. Other violent offenders don't have any particular mental illness, just take every opportunity to defy prison rules. Some prison rules are arbitrary, but some aren't.

I still think guards need a robust range of tools at their disposal to control behavior, but I'd be all for much greater oversight and access to appellate review of disciplinary decisions. I'm glad cops in California are experimenting with body cameras, maybe guards will start being required to wear them too. Less wrongful liability for the prison, less behind the scenes violence against inmates, maybe everyone wins.

You said Charles Bronson, but did you mean Charles Manson?

No, I meant the famously violent prisoner, trying to use a US and non-US example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bronson_(prisoner)

Not the star of Death Wish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bronson

Sorry, I can see where that would have been confusing.

Apparently Charles Manson has been placed in solitary for debatable reasons: http://mansondirect.com/solitary-confinement.html

Interesting, thanks!

What other western countries do with them? It is an honest questions, they have neither solitary nor capital punishment.

At minimum, I guess you can keep them separated without turning off every single possible sensory inputs. E.g., let them know what time it is and allow turn on/off freaking light. While you are at it, allow them listen to music, read books, watch movies and give them access to paper and pen. The big problem is not only that they are isolated. It is also almost complete turn off of all sensory inputs.

If they need to be away from others, allow them at least phone with people, either with each others or with outside word.

Another thing to do would be to reserve that treatment only for really dangerous people. Do not send them inmates that only annoyed someone, broke some minor rule or insist on something you do not want to give them. Do not send there non-dangerous inmates for "their own protection" put then somewhere where they can be in touch with non-dangerous inmates instead.

Third, conditions in prison have direct impact on how badly dangerous inmates they generate. Maybe there could be something done about those too?

Maybe some kind of intranet access to chat with other prisoners locally ? It does not replace human contact, but it can bring some benefits nonetheless to make one feel less lonely.

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