# Why is solitary confinement such a bad punishment? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 15, 2004, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241 "2004-04-15T22:30:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Amethyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@Amethyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amethyst)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/21 "2004-04-16T17:07:35Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > While these might be accurate descriptions in North Korea or Iran, I doubt that Amercian solitary confinement is this harsh. I hope **Qadgop** wanders into this thread and gives us the straight dope on solitary confinement. Other western nations have used solitary confinement into recent times… I remember in reading Catch me if You Can, Frank Abnigail spend time in a French prison in the 60’s or 70’s with very harsh conditions in solitary confinement. And if I recall from the book, the Scandanavians saved him from going to an Italian prision which was supposedly even worse. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/22 "2004-04-16T17:57:47Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > Doubt no more. It can be like that. More on this over the weekend. Thanks **Qadgop** , I look forward to your smiting of my ignorance. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/23 "2004-04-16T18:10:06Z")
You ain’t got nothing warden, bring it on! I can do the time standing on my head! Standing on my head! _SLAM! click_ Oh, hello…would joey like to come out of his pouch? That’s a good joey… ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/24 "2004-04-16T20:32:03Z")
> [@Fear Itself](#): > > While these might be accurate descriptions in North Korea or Iran, I doubt that Amercian solitary confinement is this harsh. I hope **Qadgop** wanders into this thread and gives us the straight dope on solitary confinement. If you watch prison stuff on tv, the inmates invariably say it is by far, the hardest time they’ll ever do. People need interaction. It’s part of what makes us human. It destroys something inside when you spend extended periods of time with no interaction whatsoever. These guys might see a guard once a day, maybe less frequently. I’d go nuts. I’m a social butterfly by nature. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/25 "2004-04-16T20:34:13Z")
> [@tamaraqueenofgoths](#): > > From what I understand, there is also no clock in a solitary confinement cell - so, you have no light, barely any sound, you can’t see anybody, even the guards - you basically only know the time of day by when they bring you food. It is my understanding that there is ALWAYS light. They never turn it off. Even when you sleep. I think in the old days, when solitary was being locked in a box for weeks or months (Steve McQueen-style), it was dark, but not in modern prisons. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2004, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/26 "2004-04-16T22:38:14Z")
i have read that there are no clothes or bedding in sc. just you, concrete, and a drain. when eastern state penn first opened prisoners where brought in blindfolded, and placed in a cell. there would be some sort of work to be done in the cell, shoes to cobble, wood to build into furniture, etc. food would be sent through a slot in the door. for an hour a day you would get to go to the outside cell, while the guard would collect the completed work and place new work in your inside cell. the guards would never speak to the prisoners. then on happy, lucky, sunday a quaker would stop by to pray with you. quakers were known far and wide for their wild and crazy ministries, nothing like a visit from a quaker! (i’m using heavy sarcasm here.) it is amazing more of the prisoners didn’t kill themself with the daily work, clunking themselves with the wood or something. the quakers theory was that prisoners needed to be quiet and reflect on their crime alone with god. they thought that prisoners interacting with each other would lead to very bad things, like improving their criminal knowledge and going on to bigger and better crimes. they actually had a good point there, just a very harsh way of implementing it. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/27 "2004-04-17T00:57:55Z")
If you take the audio tour at Alcatraz you quickly find out how bad solitary would be. You are in a cold, concrete, pitch black box. No amenities of any kind. The prisoner that described it said that to occupy his time, he removed a button from his clothes, would throw it in the air and then try to find it. There’s nothing quite like a few weeks of a good game of “Find the Button”. ---
**Author:** ![mike1dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@mike1dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mike1dog)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/29 "2004-04-17T03:49:45Z")
I remember several years ago reading about solitary confinement on Alcatraz. The cell the inmates were put in had no light. To pass the time the inmate would pull a button off of his shirt, throw it on the floor and search for it on his hands and knees over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![mike1dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@mike1dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mike1dog)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/30 "2004-04-17T03:50:51Z")
OOPs sorry KRM. Didn’t read all the posts. ---
**Author:** ![vinniepaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@vinniepaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vinniepaz)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/31 "2004-04-17T06:18:21Z")
i was under the understanding that you were locked up solitary for 23 hours a day but you got one hour to exercise, talk with your lawyer, etc. etc. which brings up the point of what of prisoners appealing their cases? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241/32 "2004-04-17T22:15:42Z")
Rather than describe my own experiences with my patients and solitary confinement, I’m gonna direct you to [this site](http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1141/7_37/68364208/p1/article.jhtml?term=). It’s relatively accurate in an anecdotal way, and not too terribly biased IMHO. But it really doesn’t address just how we’re supposed to deal with people with very bad behaviors, which threaten not only their fellow inmates but those of us who are supposed to care for and monitor them. I really don’t want to sift thru the dirty laundry where I am employed. Not here anyway. And we have a warden who works hard to see the rules are obeyed by staff, and abuses in the system are addressed. I respect him tremendously, and I’m a pretty liberal sort of guy. Having said that, our corrections people didn’t really want a supermax facility, but the politicians said we needed one, so it was built. I will add that a lot of the inmates in solitary confinement are **not** nice people. Their behavior is generally what got them there, and their behavior in seg often doesn’t improve rapidly. I’ve seen more pleasant monkey colonies to be around. Spit and shit and piss and semen gets flung around a lot. And they all have tales of being misunderstood and mistreated. Some of the tales are true. Most are not. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-solitary-confinement-such-a-bad-punishment/240241.md?page=1)