# Solitary Nation or "What to do with rule breakers in jail?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 17, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764 "2015-06-17T16:47:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MikeF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/1 "2015-06-17T16:47:13Z")
Frontline had an interesting show on solitary confinement in U.S. prisons last night. The report highlighted the negative consequences of placing inmates in solitary confinement. My question is, assuming solitary confinement (particularly for punitive purposes) is ineffective, what should be done with inmates who break the rules in prison? Minor offenses? Take away the TV or whatever. But what about serious assaults on staff or other inmates? ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/2 "2015-06-17T17:02:36Z")
If they’re in solitary, how would they assault other inmates? Isn’t that the kind of behavior that lands them in solitary in the first place? Given that the stress of solitary confinement seems to drive them to suicide in extreme cases, I don’t know that we need to make the punishment worse. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/3 "2015-06-17T17:07:18Z")
You _have_ to have some mechanism by which you can render someone physically incapable of attacking anyone, if you cannot render them unwilling to do so. Letting them see and talk to other people does not necessarily interfere with that. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/4 "2015-06-17T17:11:04Z")
Yeah. The solitary part is punishment. It’s obviously possible to put the prisoners into a setup where they can talk to each other but cannot stab each other. The problem with using long-term solitary is it stops being punishment and is now just torture. One reason it’s torture is when you start talking about months to years of solitary, the individual has no opportunity to respond to the punishment and show they no longer deserve to be punished. You just keep punishing and punishing them until they go insane. In some cases, prisoners with life sentences are just kept in solitary forever - you have no intention of ever letting them out, so you are just torturing them until they are dead. Remember the movie The Green Mile? Where the death row inmates were kept in separate cells a few feet from each other? That would be a simple way to keep the prisoners where they are unable to harm each other but won’t go crazy from lack of inter-human comunication. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/5 "2015-06-17T17:16:51Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Remember the movie The Green Mile? Where the death row inmates were kept in separate cells a few feet from each other? That would be a simple way to keep the prisoners where they are unable to harm each other but won’t go crazy from lack of inter-human comunication. They’d find a way, darts made out of toilet paper or something. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/6 "2015-06-17T17:38:12Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > One reason it’s torture is when you start talking about months to years of solitary, the individual has no opportunity to respond to the punishment and show they no longer deserve to be punished. I know that’s the position of the European Court of Human Rights, but I do not agree with that statement. The reason I think it’s bullshit is because there is no test for whether a violently aggressive prisoner still needs to be isolated that does not require violating your duty of care to at least one other person. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/7 "2015-06-17T17:58:33Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > I know that’s the position of the European Court of Human Rights, but I do not agree with that statement. The reason I think it’s bullshit is because there is no test for whether a violently aggressive prisoner still needs to be isolated that does not require violating your duty of care to at least one other person. The solitary confinement cells are often sealed rooms where sound cannot enter or leave. There is nothing in them but the bed/toilet/sink. The prisoners are generally kept in them 23 hours a day, and when they are removed for a small amount of exercise, they have no opportunity to communicate with anyone. If you have a violently aggressive prisoner, your two options are not gen pop or a “hole” intended to punish. You could stick them in a cell where they can see and communicate with several other prisoners but cannot reach them with any kind of weapon. (I guess you could give them an intercom system or some kind of lower tech method with plexiglass and baffles that let sound but not knives and darts through). You could give them access to adequate reading material and television to watch. You could give them the opportunity to perform some kind of productive task that does not require them to come into contact with other prisoners. And so forth. The reason the solitary cells are made that way is as a punishment - but there is no point in punishing someone if they can’t reform (as it turns out, some of these violent individuals may actually be missing pieces of their brain and thus unable to reform even if they want to) or you aren’t going to give them a second chance anyway. The fundamental problem here is that the prison-industrial complex gets accolades from the public if prisoners are tortured until death. This is considered a good thing. The rampant rapes and the frequent deaths from disease are also part of the punishment. The public feels that anyone who has broken the rules should be made to suffer until they are dead. Every time a prisoner is given a second chance but commits a violent crime, the public brays for all prisoners to be held in jail for ever longer periods of time, and for the conditions to be kept as inhumane as possible. “That’ll teach em”. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/8 "2015-06-17T18:01:36Z")
I cannot recall the figures off the top of my head, but around 80% of suicides and suicide attempts take place in Seg units, and a wildly disproportionate number of malicious fires take place in Seg units.I did quite a project on the issue of fire in prisons and was struck by this particular statistic. When a prisoner lands in the seg, there is no further they can fall, they have truly hit rock bottom. With all that in mind, the use of seg units for longer term incarceration is extremely carefully monitored. There really does have to be an overwhelming case for keeping a prisoner in a seg unit for over a week, and much more so for longer periods. Prisoners in seg units are checked every day by medical staff, their cases are subject to scrutiny every day. So why keep a prisoner in isolation? - firstly its not isolation in the sense of the ‘cooler’, such prisoners have the right to supervised exercise, they have rights of communication with family and visitors and they are housed fairly near to other accommodation units - they can frequently have an awareness of life going on around them - so in that sense they are not as isolated as you might imagine. The risk to the seg prisoner has to be balanced to the risk they pose to other prisoners, which can be extreme - google up Robert Mawdsley for example, or a case I know of where two prisoners decided to consume a third - I will not name those individuals since they are not quite so publicly known as the former. There is the risk to prison staff, and finally some prisoners remain a serious danger to members of the public even when in prison, these can be terrorists, or revenge seekers or organised criminals. The rights of those under threat from prisoners must be taken into account when considering what to do with a prisoner. These longer term cases are rare, but the reality is that whilst such individuals are alive, then the use of isolation will always be with us. Seg units may be used for short term punishment, isolation in seg units is generally for the protection of others. Anyone got any clever ideas about how to keep extremely dangerous individuals alive and under control, individuals who WILL kill others? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/9 "2015-06-17T18:45:45Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > Anyone got any clever ideas about how to keep extremely dangerous individuals alive and under control, individuals who WILL kill others? None that involve keeping them alive. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/10 "2015-06-17T18:48:47Z")
Not to deny the reality of this problem, but I think we need to drastically reduce our prison population before we can hope to address this type of problem. Maybe if we didn’t have gazillion people in jail in the first place, we wouldn’t have such a big problem with having to resort to solitary. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/11 "2015-06-17T18:50:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > None that involve keeping them alive. Are you a disbeliever in rehabilitation, then? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/12 "2015-06-17T18:59:49Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Are you a disbeliever in rehabilitation, then? For “individuals who WILL kill others”, I am aware of its limitations. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/13 "2015-06-17T19:06:04Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > For “individuals who WILL kill others”, I am aware of its limitations. And I am aware that we lack the current future-telling ability to pick those current prisoners out of the system. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/14 "2015-06-17T19:30:12Z")
If you think it takes a fortune teller to give you the odds on rehabilitating [Robert Maudsley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mawdsley), you need to take the Psychic Hot Line off your speed dial. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/15 "2015-06-17T19:53:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Not to deny the reality of this problem, but I think we need to drastically reduce our prison population before we can hope to address this type of problem. Maybe if we didn’t have gazillion people in jail in the first place, we wouldn’t have such a big problem with having to resort to solitary. I agree with this line of thinking and take it further, prison should not be as bad as it is, this way there are places we can put such people as the OP is asking without resorting to perhaps what may be the cruelest thing one can do to another human being. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/16 "2015-06-18T06:39:07Z")
[hijack] According to the author Rory Miller, some introverts prefer solitary. He’s known of cases where they commit infractions to be sent there. For an extrovert though, it can be torture. [/hijack] Fun fact: “In 2004, only 40 out of 75,000 inmates held in England and Wales were placed in solitary confinement cells.” [Solitary confinement - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement) Alternatives, from wikipedia: 1. Well, if the prisoner is nuts you might consider -you know- treatment for mental health. Nah. 2. Encourage visitations. 3. Regular re-evaluation. Pretty thin gruel IMHO. But then there’s the British experience. The wiki article also reviews the pro-solitary confinement research. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/17 "2015-06-18T12:21:34Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > The fundamental problem here is that the prison-industrial complex gets accolades from the public if prisoners are tortured until death. Cite? > [@](#): > > This is considered a good thing. Cite? > [@](#): > > The rampant rapes and the frequent deaths from disease are also part of the punishment. Cite? > [@](#): > > The public feels that anyone who has broken the rules should be made to suffer until they are dead. Cite? > [@](#): > > Every time a prisoner is given a second chance but commits a violent crime, the public brays for all prisoners to be held in jail for ever longer periods of time, and for the conditions to be kept as inhumane as possible. “That’ll teach em”. Cite? That’s one hateful paragraph you’ve written. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/18 "2015-06-18T15:07:30Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > With all that in mind, the use of seg units for longer term incarceration is extremely carefully monitored. There really does have to be an overwhelming case for keeping a prisoner in a seg unit for over a week, and much more so for longer periods. > > \ > > Anyone got any clever ideas about how to keep extremely dangerous individuals alive and under control, individuals who WILL kill others? You are talking about the UK prison system, which is mostly functional. _Solitary Nation_ was talking about US prisons, which are barely functional. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/19 "2015-06-18T16:02:12Z")
From Justice Kennedy [today](http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-1428_n64o.pdf): > [@](#): > > There is no accepted mechanism, however, for them to take into account, when sentencing a defendant, whether the time in prison will or should be served in solitary. So in many cases, it is as if a judge had no choice but to say: “In imposing this capital sentence, the court is well aware that during the many years you will serve in prison before your execution, the penal system has a solitary confinement regime that will bring you to the edge of madness, perhaps to madness itself.” Even if the law were to condone or permit this added punishment, so stark an outcome ought not to be the result of society’s simple unawareness or indifference. > > [. . .] > > These are but a few examples of the expert scholarship that, along with continued attention from the legal community, no doubt will aid in the consideration of the many issues solitary confinement presents. And consideration of these issues is needed. Of course, prison officials must have discretion to decide that in some instances temporary, solitary confinement is a useful or necessary means to impose discipline and to protect prison employees and other inmates. But research still confirms what this Court suggested over a century ago: Years on end of near-total isolation exacts a terrible price. See, e.g., Grassian, Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement, 22 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol’y 325 (2006) (common side-effects of solitary confinement include anxiety, panic, withdrawal, hallucinations, self-mutilation, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors). > In a case that presented the issue, the judiciary may be required, within its proper jurisdiction and authority, to determine whether workable alternative systems for long-term confinement exist, and, if so, whether a correctional system should be required to adopt them. Interesting tea leaves on whether the practice will survive constitutionally. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764/20 "2015-06-18T17:44:03Z")
Seems to me that part of the problem with solitary confinement as currently practiced in the US is the sensory deprivation aspect of it. It’s not just that these people are confined and have no physical contact with other people, they are also denied sensory input by being confined in what are essentially concrete boxes with absolutely nothing to do. So what do they do? Stare at the wall? Plot mayhem? Self-injure to get some attention/out of the cell for medical treatment? All of the above? Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t prisoners in _protective_ custody, that is, in solitary because they are at risk of harm rather than because they can’t behave, are given many more perks like reading material, TV, and so forth? Are they less inclined to act out? See, I totally get the need the need to prevent the worst sorts of criminals from harming others, including other criminals. For that, yes, you need to physically separate them. But _giving someone literally nothing to do_ for 23 hours of the day is not going to improve anyone. At least give them a TV (probably behind thick bullet-proof plastic - we can make it voice controlled with an over-ride at the guard station for volume or when an announcement of some sort is needed) or _something_ to do, to distract them, to pass the time. If it makes those guys safer to handle without putting others at risk why not? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/solitary-nation-or-what-to-do-with-rule-breakers-in-jail/722764.md?page=2)