The article I chose is “Banning the Bing: Why extreme solitary confinement is cruel and far too usual punishment.” Dr. Elizabeth Bennion, a professor of Political Science at Indiana State University, South Bend, Indiana is the author. The article was published in the Indiana Law Journal Volume 90, Issue 2. The journal can be found at http://search.ebscohost.com.lib.kaplan.edu/ login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=101743264&site=ehost-live. Sensory deprivation for extended periods of time is the epitome of cruel and unusual punishment. The United State, arguably the personification of civility, power, justice, and democracy “tortures” human beings by exposing them to sensory deprivation through the draconian use of solitary confinement as punishment.…show more content… Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. At the annual meeting of the American Bar Association (August 2003), Justice Kennedy said, “When the door is locked against the prisoner, we do not think about what is behind it…Were we to enter the hidden world of punishment, we would be startled by what we see.” Dr. Banning also presented expert analysis from doctors and scholars with many years of experience with the perils of sensory deprivation both in a prison setting and outside of the prison walls. Statistics were also presented. For example, in August/September 2013 a large-scale prison hunger strike lasted for sixty days in the California Department of Corrections. The hunger strike involved approximately thirty thousand prisoners. At the end of the hunger strike nearly 10 protestors a day were collapsing or otherwise needed medical treatment. The demand of the prisoners was a direct result of the state’s procedure and the use of solitary confinement as punishment. The instances that a prisoner spent more than a decade in solitary confinement are staggering. Prisoners free of psychological issues did not have the luxury of leaving solitary confinement in the same state they entered. In California, 2% of the prison population is housed in isolation, and yet that 2% accounted for 42% of all prison suicides from 2006 to 2010 (Bennion,
