Sunny Youth Journal

Because the US government has kept what happens inside jails extremely private, not many people know the torture that prisoners go through daily. I, along with Laura Rovner, a law professor, believe that criminals should not be put in solitary confinement as it is a form of torture. Rovner talks about a man, Tommy Silverstein who was put into this torment for thrity-three years for killing a corrections officer. Although some people may think that he deserves it after what he had done, there are several reasons why many people should not have been put in solitary confinement. To start, this form of torture can result in someone not even knowing if they exist anymore, which could damage their brain and thoughts. It can result in them going insane or committing suicide, which has happened many times. In addition, when put through this, criminals are not really in our world anymore, Most of them have not even seen a blade of grass or any living thing for years. However, there are several alternatives to this. 

One option is to put criminals in a larger area with a couple of other inmates. Instead of steel walls and just a toilet and bed in their cage, they could add some other stuff that makes it less of a torture. Additionally, they could also put these people in jail instead of solitary confinement. If one is put through this torture, it may teach him a lesson, but no one in the world should deserve this sort of punishment. 

In the short story “The Moustache” by Robert Cormier, the lesson is to cherish childhood.

Mike, the main character of the story, has a moustache. His family wants time to shave it off, but he wants to keep it. His grandmother has dementia, and he goes to visit her because he feels guilty about not doing so. When he comes there, her grandmother thinks that he is his grandfather, who is also named Mike. She says that she wants to apologize for accusing him. When Mike gets home, he shaves off his moustache.

Mike got a moustache to prove that he could, and he kept the moustache because he thinks it makes him look like an adult. However, when he realizes what being an adult is like, he shaves it off.

In the TED talk, a woman named Laura Rover went over solitary confinement and what it does to people. Solitary confinement is placing a person in a small room without seeing anyone for almost their entire day. This technique of punishment is used in many countries, usually in secret because of how inhumane it is, and the damage it does to people mentally.

There is a facility that operates in Colorado where this is done routinely every day. Inmates have to spend 23 hours inside a bathroom-sized cell, and this is extremely destructive to the brain. Humans are social creatures, and not seeing another for so long can hurt us. People went crazy, and for good reason.

The US is telling lots of countries like a grand prophet that solitary confinement is inhumane, and that they should not use it, while we are using it ourselves. It is way too effective, like poison gas. Banned from WW1, using poison gas was considered a war crime, because it caused widespread suffering and pain. Solitary confinement should be dropped from use in all nations, as no person would ever deserve it.

Solitary confinement is definitely torture. It has every single aspect of torture. The definition of torture is “the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain.” which is exactly what solitary confinement is. Severe pain as punishment. Solitary confinement has all the aspects and factors of what torture is.
First, you are stuck in a tiny cell for a major amount of time. This can have many bad effects such as damaging eyesight and losing your voice. Many inmates also start going insane, such as banging their head against the wall to see if they even exist. This is very damaging and a painful experience which matches torture’s definition.
Next, some may say that the inmates deserve it. It’s still torture. Doesn’t matter what they did it’s just the fact that it is damaging and painful, which is what torture is. The entire premise of torture is what you think about what they did and how you think they should be punished. It is all personal opinion and at the end, it’s still just hurting someone who did something as punishment.
Lastly, it all ties up. Torture is hurting someone who did something. Solitary confinement is just that. Pain: loss of eyesight, loss of voice, degrading mental state, and self-harm. Everyone in solitary confinement did something bad and it’s just punishment. Which is exactly what torture is.
In conclusion, solitary confinement is torture. It matches the definition perfectly. It hurts all the victims of it, and it is a type of punishment. It may seem like the receivers deserve it, but in the end, it is torture. And torture isn’t right.

I think long solitary confinement is necessary some of the time but not necessary the other part of the time. Sometimes, it’s not cool, but other times, some people just need it. Here is why:

First of all, there are the really, really, bad guys that are repeatedly committing crimes. Like, they do it over and over again, no matter how many times you put them in jail. I think you just can’t have this in our communities because then every day would be filled with police, trying to arrest the criminals. I think the bad guys would be thinking, “Oh, the police are going to let me go after some time in jail anyways. Besides, this is kind of fun. I’ll just keep doing it.” That’s why long solitary confinement would be nice. If you could make sure that they get that there are consequences more than just “some time in jail”, then I think there’s a better chance of them not repeating their crimes over and over again. Repeating crimes are really not fun for the police, who are really trying their best to keep everything in order and help keep the criminals at bay. They risk their lives every day and it’s not that fair if they just let the criminals out again every time, forever going in a loop of crime, jail, crime, jail, crime, and jail. That’s why I think longer solitary confinement could be really useful in these cases.

But this long solitary confinement could also be a worse idea than regular jail. For example, a bad guy could commit a crime, get punished to a long time in solitary confinement, and when they get released a long while later, they might, instead of regret, have a need for extreme revenge. While being in their bathroom-sized cell for so long, they could have thought of a really, really, good plan to try following when they get released from jail. I don’t like this idea of criminals being more powerful than ever with their plan and their need for vengeance combined. It would make the police’s job so much harder, too. Instead of a lot of small, easier crimes, there would be a lot less but a lot bigger, harder, and more well-thought-out crimes. Now, if there was a prisoner, they would think, “If I go to jail like right now, I will emerge years later a more experienced, smarter, and more powerful criminal,” So of course they would choose to go to jail! In the bad guys’ minds, jail would not be a punishment anymore, but would rather be a possible gateway to success (In the criminal world)!

But, if that didn’t happen, then this could also be pretty bad. The police officers are also human, after all. Putting another human in solitary confinement for years can be stressful, worrisome, and uncomfortable for the police as well as the prisoner. The prisoner would most likely go crazy from the lack of social relations or lack of communicating. In the Ted Talk from today, the lady said that some prisoners even tried to commit suicide. Some tried to yell to each other through the shower drains. Some started smearing poop on the walls or cutting themselves to keep feeling human and themselves. You see, years of solitary confinement and years of no social interaction can really make you crazy. One guy who experienced being in solitary confinement made artwork depicting what he felt during that time. He couldn’t put his misery into words and he probably couldn’t speak for more than an hour, anyways. Years of not being able to speak to someone else would wear out the prisoners’ vocal cords.

And that’s why I think solitary confinement can be really, really bad… But for the really, really, really, really, really bad guys who really, really, really, really, deserve it, it can still be used. Very rarely, when we meet someone so bad that even jail cannot stop them, then we should put them in long solitary confinement. But other than that, I think it’s very, very sad.

Yes, Long Term Solitary Confinement should Be banned. It should be banned because it is a very harmful type of torture. It is a type of torture because in Solitary Confinement, the prisoners are in a really small bathroom where you can only walk like 2 steps forwards and 2 steps backward. There is only a bed and a toilet. They barely leave there cells and any other living organisms. 1 prisoner would lie down on the floor for hours just to see the feet of somebody walking by. Another prisoner had a wasp fly into his/her cell and befriended it, talking to it and feeding to it like a friend. A lot of them had become nearsighted. After talking for 1 hour, most of the prisoners lost their voices because they didn’t use their vocal cords very often anymore. Even short term Solitary Confinement is a nightmare. If that’s not torture, then what is? No one should have to deal with that in this world.

U.S. has told other countries about banning torture but it still happens inside U.S. though! The reason most people don’t know about this is because most prisons hide this information behind their walls. Not letting reporters, lawyers, and sometimes even family members if they think the prisoner is gonna tell them too much information about them. They don’t let the family members even visit even if they scheduled it sometimes.

These are the reasons why Long Term Solitary confinement should be banned. If people don’t think so, spend 1 day inside your bathroom without any living contact. See how it feels.

In Denver, there is a huge facility that holds 400 men in solitary confinement 23 hours of the day. In today’s TED talk, we see how a Laura Rovner, a civil rights judge explains how these criminals, who have done acts of national treason to the US should be treated better.

Now Laura Rovner so gloriously stated that these men are being tortured. I, though, unlike before, completely disagree. Though these people are being held in the worst conditions, what did they do to deserve this? Well, they most likely did huge acts of mass murder or were terrorizing us. if we do what Laura Rovner says we should: treat them as guests of the most utmost splendor, we are just inviting them to do it again. We need to but them in solitary confinement for those who deserve it. But not as long as they are now. People can be held there for 40 years. We need to respect, yet punish them for what they did.

We do not need to invite them to do it again, but we also need to limit their time there. So I completely disagree with some of Mrs. Rovner’s points, I agree with some of them. If we do this, we will not completely devastate them, yet still punish them, we can restore our community, yet also not allow criminals to get away for their crimes. >_<

When Cathryn ate scrambled eggs,
“She reacted to penicillin,” says Dr. Greg.
Now she works in a lab with a gauge
but she got an allergy to rats
that sent her to the big H.

She studied mice
that went crazy
when they attached a microbe
that wasn’t very nice.
But then she fed
the mice the microbe
and they got better and didn’t turn red.

Years later, a concept called
immunotherapy
has come as a
treatment
that might work terribly.
It starts by the person “say”
eating the opposed food
a little every day.

She found out that
the gut had antibiotics
and the skin did not.
She also found out
that gut microbes might be
how to solve allergies!

Quarantine is not fun, and we all know that. But what’s worse? Being in prison. Prisoners only get 1/24 of a day (or 1 hour) outside in the ADX, a famous prison known for its secureness. Now you might be like, well that’s not too bad compared to quarantine! At least you get to go outside for 1 hour, and you get to rest for basically the whole day (although everybody wants to do something now and then). In quarantine, we do countless hours of work on the computer, with not much time to rest. However, you DO get to look outside and see the brightness of the sun, and all of the grass, maybe your garden. For prisoners, they never see even plain grass or the mountains behind the prison. For the other 23 hours, even a glimpse of something living is lucky. Think about that! Also, because they can’t see much, they’re eyesight is much worse, and can’t focus on things far away. Now you see why prisons are worse than quarantine, right? But wait! There’s still more! Prisoners are tortured, which is also known as solitary confinement. This is a violation of human rights! There are not many things we can do, however, because most of this torture is happening behind prison walls, where only the government can see what’s happening, and the public has no idea about it.

In the Ted talk she talks about how solitary confinement is bad. I completely agree and also think that it shouldn’t be a thing. Even if people did really bad things they don’t deserve it. Nobody deserves to be is solitary confinement. It is very torturous and absolutely nobody deserves it.

She says that nobody actually knows what is happening in prisons, and nobody knows if someone is actually being hurt. When these people are by themself they sometimes wonder if they are even relevant to the world or are even actually there. Sometimes they loose their voice after only talking for an hour or so. Some people can’t even see far distances because they are so used to only seeing 3 feet in front of themself in their own cell.

Nobody should be kept in solitary confinement for more than 15 days or it is basically torture. These people although bad shouldn’t have to go through solitary confinement for so long. One of these prisoners were kept there for more than 30 years. Nobody should have to be by themself for that long. It is very harmful to these prisoner’s mental health.

Nobody should have to go through solitary confinement, it is practically torture. Many people go through pains but this is probably one of the worst. It is very hard to live in solitary confinement for so long. A lot of people start to go crazy in solitary confinement. It is very bad and shouldn’t be used as a punishment.