Solitary Confinement Is Cruel And Ineffective

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Nelson Tello Ms. Wallace English 3 29 April 2024 The Abolishment of Solitary Confinement Solitary confinement is an ineffective system that needs to be abolished. Solitary confinement is the act of isolating a prisoner in a cell with little to no contact with others as a form of punishment. Solitary confinement has been used in prisons across America and other prisons around the world. Solitary confinement should be abolished as it has been proven to be psychologically harmful, counterproductive to its goal, and internationally condemned. One reason solitary confinement should be abolished is that it has proven to be psychologically harmful. When prisoners spend any period of time in solitary confinement, they report mental complications such …show more content…
The purpose of solitary confinement is to punish someone and to deter them from doing another bad action in the future. People who have been placed in solitary confinement are likely to be placed again, often for more serious offenses than the one they originally got placed into solitary confinement for in the first place. According to an article in Scientific American, “Researchers have found that prisoners in solitary quickly become withdrawn, hypersensitive to sights and sounds, paranoid, and more prone to violence and hallucinations” (Solitary Confinement is Cruel and Ineffective). Prisoners placed in solitary confinement are likely to be violent once released and will most likely end up back in solitary confinement for a violent offense. Not only is solitary confinement not a working system, but it is also counterproductive and does not work as an effective form of punishment as it only proliferates the problem it is trying to solve. Another reason solitary confinement should be abolished is that it is internationally condemned. Many countries and organizations have come out in opposition to the use of solitary confinement. According to an article on Human Rights Watch, “International treaty bodies and human rights experts—including the Human Rights Committee,the Committee against Torture, and both the current and former UN Special Rapporteurs on Torture—have concluded