The problem of torture and stopping it is one that has concerned people of all backgrounds, who belive solitary confinement is torture and are fighting for these actions to stop.
The TedX talk is about how Laura Rovner has been fighting for the U.S government to stop solitary confinement as a punishment, because she believes that long-time isolation is torture. She goes on to describe the horrors of a build-up of insanity over years of solitary confinement. “One prisoner, she says, befriended a wasp which flew into their cell by feeding it and talking to it like a friend.” Other prisoners would cut themselves just to feel the pain in order to get the feeling they were an actual human being. Almost all prisoners felt like they didn’t belong in any world. A prisoner said that he couldn’t focus on things far away with his eyes due to years of just looking at things 10 feet away from him. Some prisoners had their vocal cords out of practice and could not talk because they were barely allowed to talk inside the prison. And worst of all, many prisoners believed that this was too much for them to take and they attempted suicide. Unfortunately, many of them succeeded. In totality, almost all prisoners who managed to come out of the prison had the experience with them the rest of their lives.
I feel that Laura Rovner is right, because these so-called “Punishments, not torture”, are literally the same as being treated as an animal and put in a zoo, but even worse, because at the supermax, prisoners can barely see anyone. I know the Eighth Amendment protected criminals from this, but I don’t know what happened that changed that law. Criminals have basic human rights, and the definition of human rights are “moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behaviour and are regularly protected as natural and legal rights in municipal and international law.” As long as you are a Homo Sapien, you have these rights. Criminals, as evil as some of them are, are still humans! At least they should get basic human rights, not get locked up twenty three hours a day seven days a week in a cell the size of a small bathroom without even seeing anyone else except their prison officer once in a long time!
To encapsulate, I belive that criminals should get basic human rights. For example, they could be allowed to step outside, see the scenery and run around in a field for exercise, not run around in a large cage! These torture actions have a horrendous effect on the prisoners, who not even them deserve such a treatment, and will only lead to human corruption.