Around the Nation Solitary Confinement: Punishment Or Cruelty?
An estimated 80,000 American prisoners spend 23 hours a day in
closed isolation units for 10, 20 or even more than 30 years.
Now, amid growing evidence that it causes mental breakdown, the
Federal Bureau of Prisons has decided for the first time to
review its policies on solitary confinement. Eastern State
Penitentiary in Philadelphia, which pioneered solitary
confinement, is a castle of a prison that was meant to reform
incarceration itself when it opened in 1829. The idea behind the
prison's solitary confinement areas was to use sensory
deprivation to reform inmates. The thought was that the
isolation and quiet would free the innately good soul. "They
believed that isolation here was going to bring about the best
of these inmates. Change them for life. Make them penitent,"
says Sean Kelley, director of public programming at the historic
site. "There is a lot of evidence that that is not what
happened." For many reasons that sound familiar today