The recent thread about life imprisonment vs. death penalty had me thinking about a related topic:
I will be the first to say I am not knowledgeable about incarceration and the corrections system (maybe Little Nemo is the forum authority?) But it seems that a lot of the measures at SuperMax prisons such as ADX Florence are actively counterproductive, unless the intention is simply to make someone suffer in a punitive way.
Many of the aspects of ADX Florence - solitary confinement, tiny cells, etc. - seem designed to make people go insane, which would be rather counterproductive to prison-staff safety. And doesn’t that craziness lead to things like prisoners smearing feces over surfaces, etc., which surely cannot be in the interest of the prison guards either?
Is it not possible to have larger cells, allow prisoners human interaction without compromising safety? Again, IIRC the purpose of Florence ADX is to house the Hannibal Lecter types, along with al-Qaeda types who others might try to forcefully rescue, but surely making them go mentally ill cannot be beneficial to anyone?
It’s my understanding that super-max prisons are not for normal inmates. They are for the worst of the worst. Inmates are put there to protect the inmate, the staff and other inmates and of course, society. It’s not designed as additional punishment but in response to behavior they exhibited to earn such restricted accommodations. It’s as if the prisoner holds the key to making it out of super-max by learning to behave.
In many instances the reason the inmates are in ADX Florence is because of what they did in less restrictive prisons, with larger cells and more human contact. Thus security is going to be a higher priority than the psychological welfare of the inmates. That’s not carte blanche for torture; just these are very dangerous people already.
It must suck badly to be in there. It would suck worse for other people if they were anywhere else.
IIRC, there are plenty of people in ADX Florence who aren’t the supermax-type of threat to people. Dzhokar Tsarnaev (the Boston Marathon bomber) is in SuperMax, and he doesn’t seem like a Hannibal Lecter type (although I, of course, am not a criminal psychologist).
And even if someone is a Hannibal Lecter, surely putting him in solitary confinement could only make him more Hannibal Lecter-ish?
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IIRC, there are plenty of people in ADX Florence who aren’t the supermax-type of threat to people. Dzhokar Tsarnaev (the Boston Marathon bomber) is in SuperMax, and he doesn’t seem like a Hannibal Lecter type (although I, of course, am not a criminal psychologist).
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IIRC, Ted Kaczynski as well. My WAG is they are there as much to protect them from the general population as because they are a threat in the way Shodan was saying. Certainly the majority of prisoners in SuperMax prisons are there because of their actions in other, less restrictive prisons, but some are there because if they were put in a regular prison they would probably be killed fairly quickly…though, again, that’s just a WAG on my part as I’m assuming that’s the reason.
The country needs at least one prison that is as escape-proof as human ingenuity can make it. In years past, that niche was filled by Alcatraz; now it’s filled by Supermax.
It has yet to be established that SuperMax, or any prison for that matter, is “designed to drive people insane,” nor that it is even possible to create insanity in a person in which insanity did not already exist. Show me both of these things, then we can talk.
Read the links I provided. Now, unless you are saying only the insane are put in extended solitary confinement…no, wait-that doesn’t make any sense either, because why would you want to torture someone who is already insane?
I don’t think any of your links (I only read the study, for full disclosure, though skimmed the others) constitutes a conscious design decision to ‘drive people insane’. So, I don’t think the continuum is there for the assertion that it’s between ’ “pleasant place” and “designed to drive people insane”'. I think it’s designed for control of highly dangerous prisoners, and that the possible or potential psychological effects, especially for those who are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole are lower priority factors (if they are factored in at all to those making the design and procedural decisions wrt solitary confinement).
Frankly, it probably beats the alternative, which in the US would be execution (or release into a general population where either they would or could harm others or could or would be harmed by their fellow prisoners), but I concede that it’s not optimal from the perspective of the prisoners so incarcerated.
From here: In Federal prisons solitary confinement is known by the euphemism “SHU”(Special Housing Unit), and about the horrible, violent and dangerous things you have to do to get assigned to a SHU?
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From here: In Federal prisons solitary confinement is known by the euphemism “SHU”(Special Housing Unit), and about the horrible, violent and dangerous things you have to do to get assigned to a SHU?
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We are, however, discussing the SuperMax prisons…and I don’t think you are sent to one of those (and put in permanent solitary confinement in there…I don’t believe every prisoner even in SuperMax are, but might be misremembering) because of ‘insolence towards a staff member’ or ‘encouraging a group demonstration or protest’.
I’m no prison architect, but it seems to me that a prison could be made as escape-proof as SuperMax, but at the same time:
Allow for some form of human communication, maybe by video/voice link;
Allow larger prison cells;
Allow more time for exercise, etc. (SuperMax prisoners only get 1 hour out of the day out of the cell,) seems it could be expanded to 3-6 hours a day without compromising the escape-proofness of the prison at all
Allow reading materials, or nonviolent video games
Allow a larger exercise area (IIRC, SuperMax exercise areas are purposely made extremely tiny)
I don’t think they will allow electronics like video games. The problem with reading was pointed out in one of my previous links: people in prolonged solitary confinement find it difficult to retain what they have read, and eventually give up in frustration.
Inmates “earn” their time in segregation. They also earn their way out of segregation by following rules and demonstrating that they are no longer a treat to themselves, the staff or others. It’s really hard to have much sympathy for those who can’t abide by some simple rules.
Just to be clear, isolation isn’t really removal from all human contact. Isolation essentially means no physical contact. Prisoners in “isolation” live in a gallery of side-by-side cells; they can and do talk to other prisoners.
Prisoners in isolation are allowed reading materials, either their own material or material from the prison library. They also generally have access to a radio. No video games though.