Month: June 2020

Mother knows best is a universally acknowledged truth declaring that you should listen to your mother and take her advice, because she knows best. However, the people that that phrase is usually aimed at- children and teenagers- are the ones who ignore or go against it most stubbornly. Robert Cormier’s short story “The Moustache” is a perfect example of this, and why we should all listen be listening to our mothers.

In “The Moustache”, Mike is going on a trip to visit his ailing grandmother, who has problems with her memory due to illness. Mike’s mother is checking his appearance before he goes and tells him that at seventeen years old he “has no business wearing a moustache”. However, even though it’s costing him money (he looks older and so must pay the adult fee for the cinema), Mike only says that he’s thinking about shaving it off to placate his mother, ignoring her advice even when she says that “your grandmother probably won’t even recognize you”. After she says this Mike sees “a shadow fall across her face”, implying that 1. the thought of it makes his mother sad, and 2. he knows it, and by the instinct of one who has a mother he wants to fix it. But even then, his teenage drive for autonomy and independence wins out, and he does not shave the moustache.

Then, he leaves for the nursing home where his grandmother stays, and when they see each other, the grandmother mistakes Mike for her own husband, his grandfather. She then proceeds to speak, very emotionally, about her life with her husband and her regret at being unable to apologize for something, and then apologizes for it to Mike, who she still thinks is her husband.

As you may be able to imagine, being mistaken by a close relative for their passed partner, listening to them reminisce about their life together, and apologize for something they did to that partner, made Mike deeply uncomfortable and scared. When he finally gets back home, he tells his mom all the good things- that his grandmother had looked good and healthy and called him Mike, but leaves out what he really wants to say: “you and Dad really love each other, don’t you? I mean– there’s nothing to forgive between you, is there?”. This worry about his parent’s relationship stems from his grandmother’s woes about her own, and like any child who’s grown up in a happy, healthy home with both parents, his worry of how it might affect him.

In the end, Mike does shave off his moustache, but his questions about his parents’ relationship remain. Questions this big aren’t forgotten easily, and presumably it will nag at him for some time, always in the back of his brain. But if he’d shaved off his moustache like his mother said to, his grandmother would probably not have mistaken him for her husband and scared him so, and he wouldn’t have to put up with those worries about his parents’ relationhip in the back of his head. If only he’d listened to his mother, he’d probably have felt a lot better about the visit, which would have prevented the worries plaguing him now, showing that we should all be listening to our mothers because their advice is invaluable.

Imagine being locked up in a room the size of a bathroom, alone with nothing to do. The room is made up of thick cement walls with no windows, so communication is almost impossible. For 23 hours each day, there will be nothing to do, and this process continues for many days, months, and possibly years or even decades. This is solitary confinement torture. In the Ted Talk What Happens to People in Solitary Confinement spoken by Laura Rovner, the speaker informs humans on the true horrors of solitary confinement inside the ADX prison. This torture needs to be banned because it causes severe health problems, and makes people go insane.

Humans are social creatures. From the beginning of mankind until now, humans were always organized in groups, which allowed communication and socializing. Solitary confinement completely isolates one from this group, the group of humans. Social media is one of the key gadgets for communication, and it is taken away. The speaker explained how people locked in adjacent cells would attempt to talk by screaming through shower drains, and still see little to no success. Their constant screaming would slowly take away their ability to talk, which is another torture, and they will eventually become mute. Additionally, the enraged individuals even try band their own heads on the walls for entertainment, only to cause brain damage, which is obviously not helpful. All of the ways people in solitary confinement try to entertain themselves or communicate only lead to more torture and will cause insanity. Solitary confinement needs to be banned.

A ways of treatment capable of inducing insanity is not something one should agree to. It is one of the cruelest punishments to ever exist. The speaker stated that solitary confinement causes one to forget self-existence and avoid other humans. Forgetting self-existence causes people to perform “life-checks” on themselves to see if they are alive. These “life-checks” include harming oneself, and possible even trying to suicide, which adds more onto the list of health problems. Avoiding humans is an even more serious problem. As previously stated, humans are social creatures, and solitary confinement takes away the ability to socialize. Instead of being forced into not socializing, the poor individuals are now voluntarily performing the action defying the meaning of humans. Solitary confinement is completely mind-washing people and destroying brains. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, everyone is forced to isolate themselves in their own homes, and contact with other humans is dangerous. In this scenario, COVID-19 represents the prison. Thankfully, the world has provided mankind with social media, a form of reliable communication with friends and family. Medical workers during this pandemic have a different story. Many of them are forced to live away from their family and isolate themselves in case they contract COVID-19 from working with sick patients. All over social media, there are frightening videos of crying medical workers begging for COVID-19 to go away, similarly to prisoners begging to leave the prison. This pandemic has also engaged human avoidance, which is another terrible cause of social confinement. Even though the confinement of COVID-19 is nothing near that of real solitary confinement, people are still going insane, trying to do anything to entertain themselves. Solitary confinement is a serious problem and has to be stopped.

Some may say that people who commit such terrible crimes deserve to be tortured in solitary confinement, but this perspective is near-sighted. To clear up the understanding, many of these same people also agree to stop the death sentence. To start off, torture is much worse than a death sentence. The death sentence is quick and fast, but torture is slow. Would one rather die instantly without pain, or endure through months of merciless insanity? The decision is obvious. Additionally, even if the criminal survives solitary confinement, their brain will be seriously affected because a crime so terrible probably will result in decades of confinement. Instead of quickly killing without pain, humanity has decided to torture one’s brain with such an extent that makes people suicide.

In conclusion, solitary confinement, or should it be called pure cruelty, needs to be banned. Solitary confinement causes insanity and extreme health damage. By banning this torture, humanity can rid the suffering of millions of individuals, their hopeless friends, and family. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, once said “The healthy man does not torture others – generally, it is the tortured who turn into tortures.” Solitary confinement is something evil that poisons the mind.

Isolation is bad, if you send too much time in isolation you could lose eyesight and go crazy. In the video the place looked every small and that the walking area is a cage. That first the place looked really good but then when you walk in the cell zone and goodness is gone and that a place of despair replaced the happiness. All of the people are craving to talk to someone but when they can talk everyone’s vocal cords are unused and they are rusty so they can barely last a hour. In that hour they talked about the bad stops in that area.

Then we can look at the government side the people in the cells has done bad things like killing people. The people are evil and they deserve to be there and they should be grateful that they that a room even if they horrible stuff.

Then on the people in the cells side the people in there are going crazy and that the prison is for even worse people because then barely can talk and then need people to talk to. Because in the video the person said that the people in the cells were yelling out of the shower and another person befriended a wasp that flew in the room.

I think that they don’t deserve to be there because everyone should just go to prison for their life because no one wants to be there and that I watch a youtube video about it and it looked really bad.

Mike is eager to grow up. In fact, although he is only seventeen, he grows a mustache, though his mother tells him he has “no business wearing” it. The mustache makes Mike seem older, which may be why he wants to keep it. Despite his desire to seem more like an adult, however, Mike still displays several signs of childishness. But ultimately, he learns that he shouldn’t be so anxious to become an adult.

Mike, yearning to be seen as a grown up, likes his older sister’s boyfriend because he “doesn’t treat (Mike) as Annie’s kid brother.” However, Mike, at first, is immature even though he tries to maintain a grown up appearance. He procrastinates, “build(ing) a life on postponement.” Also, he agrees to see his grandmother as a sort of duty call, but also just to drive his father’s car over the speed limit, having “an ambition to see the speedometer hit seventy-five,” though he had previously promised to drive carefully.

During his visit with his grandmother, Mike realizes that he isn’t prepared to be an adult yet. When she mistakes his identity, Mike doesn’t know if he should play along or tell his grandmother that he isn’t her husband, but her grandson. Mike becomes overwhelmed, and he wants “to get of there.”

Nevertheless, the visit allows Mike to mature and shed his shell of childishness. He realizes that the people he know are real people, they are “somebody.” They “exist outside of their relationship,” and have other sides that may not have been shown. Though this revelation scares Mike at first, it also allows him to really grow up. While realizing that it’s okay to stay a child for longer, Mike also becomes more aware and matures in his understanding of himself and others.

The US condemns other countries for torturing their prisoners, such as North Korea, Iran, etc. However, America doesn’t exactly not torture prisoners. In a maximum-security prison called ADX, all of the prisoners are punished with solitary confinement. There are stuck inside a tiny room for 23 hours. This torture may not be the one you think of, such as ones with pain, but being alone for an extended amount of time can be very damaging. Do you think that preventing prisoners from seeing other people violates their rights?

Socializing with other people is an essential thing that humans need. Laura Rovner says that humans find out their identities by interacting with other people. Some prisoners literally go insane from solitary confinement, banging their heads against the walls, doing unnatural things, and other actions we wouldn’t even think of doing. Other prisoners cut themselves to be reminded that they are still part of this world, attempt suicide, and also try to interact with other people by yelling into the shower vent but it results in them losing their voice.

I believe that isolating prisoners shouldn’t be allowed. If it’s necessary, then only for a few days like how the UK has a 15-day limit. Some people think that torture can be allowed for people who are extremely bad, such as mass murderers. However, if America says that torture is unacceptable, then we shouldn’t have it at all. No matter the extent of someone’s actions, that person is still a person. Confining them is basically treating them like an animal and it would probably only lead to worse behavior.

What is your insight on solitary confinement? Should it be allowed for a short period of time, or just have it banned completely? And if these people who have done terrible things don’t get this kind of punishment, what other things can suit them?

Teenagers, elders, and siblings alike, everybody is their own person. They have their own memories and experiences, as well as relationships with others. An ongoing idea throughout “The Moustache” by Robert Cormier is establishing an identity. The main character Mike learns by the end of the story that the other in his life are their own people too, and that he should savor his time with them.

Mike is an average seventeen year old boy who, as he approaches adulthood, wants to feel like an individual and to be seem as one. For example, his older sister has a boyfriend named Harry. Mike really likes him because he treats him as a separate person instead of in the context of his sister. Also as the title suggests, he wears a mustache. Although everyone including him knows that it does not suit him, he keeps it anyway because it sets him apart from others his age and makes him feel more grown up. However, he does not necessarily think of others in the same way. But he learns so through his encounter with his grandmother. She is old, weak, and sometimes delusional. He he visits her in a nursery, she mistake him for her husband, who Mike was named after. Since he died young, she voices everything she wanted to say to him, and wishes that she were more honest. Listening to her experiences, Mike learns that his grandmother had been young once too, and also had a real life. He always thought of her as just his grandmother, but now he sees her as an individual with her own past.

In addition to seeing the identities of others, Mike also realizes how fast life comes and goes. There were many things his grandmother wanted to say to her husband, but he was taken too soon. When he gets home, he immediately shaves off his mustache. He thinks of asking his parents, “there’s nothing to forgive between you, is there?”(Cormier 7). By growing out his mustache, Mike wants to become a mature adult. But his meeting with his grandmother convinced him otherwise. He now knows to just slow down and take in life.

To conclude, Mike learns two important life lessons in the story. His grandmother teaches him both about acknowledging the other people in his life and also appreciating them. The mustache that previously demonstrated his maturity is gone, as he learns to enjoy his time with his family.

The case of whether or not criminals should be in solitary confinement has been on for years. It was one not allowed, but yet it came back. Federal Government’s most secure prison that is known as ADX, and information has been locked away from the rest of the community. This secrecy mostly affects the family members of the prisoners in this prison. However, this is not about ADX and their secrets. We don’t know for sure what is going on in that prison, other than the fact that prisoners are held in that tiny room for 23 hours and let out for one hour in yet again a caged area outside. They are basically locked in like animals.

Now, solitary confinement is a way of torture. There are many disagreements and agreements on how prisoners should be disciplined for their past actions. Let’s take a deep example of someone getting murdered. The murderer is sent to a prison and sentenced to solitary confinement for life. There are mixed feelings on whether solitary confinement is the right punishment. Personally, solitary confinement should not be practiced. As stated, many times in the talk, this way of torture leads to serious effects on mental health. It alters their human mind, leads them to lose the ability to have a social life, and possibly cause them to start losing their minds. For sentences of solitary confinement that are not life sentences, this way of torture is extremely bad for the prisoner. Prison is a place for punishment, but it is also the place where prisoners realize their mistake and become better. It may not be totally true, but for some people, prison has helped them. By sentencing someone to solitary confinement, it could easily strap away their human identity.

Now for some places that agree with solitary confinement, this would probably be because of religion in that certain area. Maybe solitary confinement would let them think and repent for their mistakes, but after a while, people in solitary confinement will not be able to stand being locked up and will act up maybe twice as bad as they were before because of the damage being done to their mental health. Solitary confinement should not be used anywhere because of the terrible effects it has. Afterall, being locked up in solitary confinement is like being an animal in a cage. Prisoners may have done bad things that hopefully they will learn and regret, but they are still humans even though the things they did were terrible. I am not saying what way we should treat prisoners, but solitary confinement is definitely not the way for anyone because it tortures someone to the point of completely damaging one’s mental health.

Over the past few months, the entire world has been on lockdown mode due to the global pandemic, Covid-19. Many people have been suffering due to this new change, but there are other people who have been suffering a lockdown for longer than anyone can imagine. Solitary confinement is a reality that many people face all over the world in prisons. Personally, quarantine has not been unmanageable, but I simply cannot bear the thought of being locked up in a seven by ten feet concrete cell. Solitary confinement is inhumane because it causes mental illness and goes against a human being’s rights.

Mental illness is something that is very prominent in the world and there is an entire month dedicated to spreading awareness about it. Many different factors can go into creating or aiding the cause of mental illness. The environment of only concrete and steel doors can and will cause a person to go insane and develop different mental illnesses such as : depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. Currently, there are approximately 2.2 million inmates in the United States. 356,000 of those inmates are mentally ill, and approximately 100,00 inmates are in solitary confinement.

On top of causing and creating mental illnesses, solitary confinement is a “violation of the prohibition against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment found in international human rights law.” Even the worst of criminals are still human, therefore are obligated to basic human rights such as the right to social security, freedom of expressions, and freedom of thought. Solitary confinement is seen as torture and many people are protesting to have it removed. “For many prisoners, solitary confinement is a sentence worse than death.” This shows how torturous solitary confinement really was.

Although solitary confinement is not illegal, it violates almost every right that a human has. Even the worst of the worst criminals and inmates have basic human rights. “To first and foremost say it’s been a long time coming for this crucial and horrible thing called ‘SEGREGATION’…There’s men that’s been on lock-up for 20 or 30 years and without write-ups.” Torture is inhumane, not to mention illegal, yet the government does it everyday. The U.S. government and country as a whole may have come a long way since racial segregation in the 1960’s and back. However, if solitary confinement continues to exist in the U.S., we will be taking leaps backwards.

Sources :
https://www.amnestyusa.org/the-shocking-abuse-of-solitary-confinement-in-u-s-prisons/#:~:text=While%20there%20may%20be%20instances,in%20international%20human%20rights%20law.

https://www.youthforhumanrights.org/what-are-human-rights/universal-declaration-of-human-rights/articles-16-30.html

https://law.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/solitaryconfinementreport.pdf

In theory, the United States Criminal Justice System ensures lawbreakers get punishment proportional to the crime they have commited. However, although the U.S. condemns other countries such as China or Russia for utilizing torture, our usage of Solitary Confinement is not different. The effects of such isolation are serious, and are essentially torture that just goes by a different name. This violation of human rights does not benefit society, and worst of all, this situation is being covered up and swept under the rug.

According to the TED talk, “What Happens To People In Solitary Confinement,” in the ADX, a federal prison in Colorado, prisoners faced symptoms of lonliness, including lack of usage of vocal cords, dissociation, insanity, and attempted suicide. When they do get out of prison, the inhabitants are likely to be cut off from the world, as people are defined by their connections and relationships to others.

Prison’s purpose for the most part is to correct people and to make them suitable for society again. However, damaging them beyond repair is not going to help. No matter what heinous crime one has committed, the correct reaction should not to hurt them more and make that criminal into a more dangerous one, but should be to rehabilitate and restore them. However, this will only occur in a Utopian story, and will never happen anytime soon in reality if the Justice System stays this way.

Although such brutal torture is being tolerated by the U.S. government, they refuse criticism by keeping all these practices in secrecy. Ironically, our country calls out other countries’ use of this, but shields our own people from these truths. This is because we are too lazy to find another better, more humane method.

Solitary Confinement has no place in our Criminal Justice System, as it does not help prisoners, and is a lazy, inhumane way of torturing people.

Torture is easily one of the most immoral and inhumane ways to punish someone. Although many forms of torture are banned under international law, there is still one form many individuals underestimate, due to the lack of physical pain being done on the people being tortured. That method is solitary confinement, and it is one of the worst methods of torturing someone. It damages an individual’s mental health and can make them consider or try suicide, many of them succeeding. However, can the use of solitary confinement be justified?

The answer is no. Long-term solitary confinement should never be used on someone, and no one deserves it either. Solitary confinement is very harmful to one’s mental health, and many people believe that it is inhumane due to the mental instability it causes. Before, there was a belief that solitary confinement would force self-reflection or remorse. Instead, many prisoners went insane, and that shows solitary confinement serves no long-term positive purpose. It does not do anything positive for the prisoners, and only makes them worse.

However, many individuals still think that solitary confinement is justifiable if the person it is being used on committed devastating crimes. However, they are false. Solitary confinement only damages one’s mental health, and does not have any benefit to the ones that it is being enforced on. Death penalty is a less inhumane punishment for a prisoner with devastating crimes, since it causes less mental pain on them. However, that does not mean that death penalty should be used either.

(unfinished)