Good and Mad Reading for the Weekend

Our good and mad reading comes from something that showed up earlier this week in The New York Times:  a moving column about solitary confinement by philosophy professor Lisa Guenther.  Guenther makes a compelling argument that solitary confinement should really make us hopping mad not just because it  is inhumane and can permanently damage a person's mental health, but also because this kind of damage just can't be good for recidivism or public safety:

We tend to assume that solitary confinement is reserved for “the worst of the worst”: violent inmates who have proved themselves unwilling or unable to live in the general population. But the truth is that an inmate can be sent to the hole for failing to return a meal tray, or for possession of contraband (which can include anything from weapons to spicy tortilla chips). According to the Bureau of Justice, there were 81,622 prisoners in some form of “restricted housing” (code for solitary confinement) in 2005. If anything, these numbers have increased as isolation units continue to be built in prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers across the country. Given that 95 percent of all inmates are eventually released into the public, and that many of these will be released without any form of transition or therapy, solitary confinement is a problem that potentially affects every one of us. ...

Deprived of everyday encounters with other people, and cut off from an open-ended experience of the world as a place of difference and change, many inmates lose touch with reality. What is the prisoner in solitary confinement at risk of losing, to the point of not getting it back? ...

When we isolate a prisoner in solitary confinement, we deprive them of both the support of others, which is crucial for a coherent experience of the world, and also the critical challenge that others pose to our own interpretation of the world. Both of these are essential for a meaningful experience of things, but they are especially important for those who have broken the law, and so violated the trust of others in the community. If we truly want our prisons to rehabilitate and transform criminal offenders, then we must put them in a situation where they have a chance and an obligation to explain themselves to others, to repair damaged networks of mutual support, and to lend their own unique perspective to creating meaning in the world.

We ask too little of prisoners when we isolate them in units where they are neither allowed nor obliged to create and sustain meaningful, supportive relations with others. For the sake of justice, not only for them but for ourselves, we must put an end to the over-use of solitary confinement in this country, and we must begin the difficult but mutually rewarding work of bringing the tens of thousands of currently isolated prisoners back into the world.

Are we ultimately safer if prison destroys a person's mental health, social responsibility, and sense of connection to others?  Should it really surprise us when prisoners who were deprived of their sense of community and connectedness return to society, can't stay grounded, and commit more crimes?

How we treat prisoners is a public safety issue.