[HN Gopher] Solitary Confinement's Unlikely Origins
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Solitary Confinement's Unlikely Origins
Author : tintinnabula
Score : 31 points
Date : 2023-10-26 04:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (publicdomainreview.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (publicdomainreview.org)
| underseacables wrote:
| Related, if you're ever in Philadelphia, I suggest visiting,
| eastern state penitentiary, the first penitentiary in America.
| For many years, everyone was basically in solitary confinement.
| Very sobering place.
| Exoristos wrote:
| Dickens' account of his tour of this place (and he was all for
| the "progress" solitary confinement represented then) makes it
| seem like the worst kind of torture. However, it stuck out to
| me that, at that time, solitary prisoners were _provided with
| hand work of their choice_. So today's version is more
| barbaric.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I've done some time in solitary. It is a weird thing. My first
| time I was totally unprepared and so sat naked in a cold, empty
| cell for a couple of days before I could improve my situation. As
| with anything, you learn, and my second time I managed to kick a
| book into my cell without the jailers noticing as they put me in
| there. A book is 14 hours of entertainment for your brain.
|
| Solitary is designed as "prison within prison." It is for
| offenses committed inside jail or prison. Because you are already
| confined and fucked-up in prison they have to have somewhere even
| more confined and fucked-up for you to go if they don't like what
| you do. Obviously when you're in solitary there is nowhere lower
| for you to go, so all they can do then is mess with your head.
|
| Last year I was put in solitary confinement in a jail for
| violation of a jail rule, even though I was living at my home. I
| think this is perhaps the first time that has happened in US
| history?
|
| I had sent a magazine to a friend in the jail. The jail alleged
| that it must have drugs on it because it smelled funny. It
| didn't. It was just the fresh ink. They charged me with two jail
| infractions "Abuse of the mail" and "Endangerment of public
| safety". Two offenses that are published nowhere. And certainly
| would only apply to someone who was already inside the jail, not
| someone living at home. A newspaper got hold of the story and
| asked the jail if they had done any tests on the magazine, which
| of course they had not.
|
| After a week of me writing grievances they eventually released me
| from solitary, realizing they had grossly violated my
| constitutional rights.
|
| Edit: Just to note, all my times in solitary were for activism;
| taking on my jailers for their misdeeds and unlawful activities.
| dmbche wrote:
| Were you able to sue for damages? It's quite flagrant that your
| rights have been infringed upon, from reading this.
|
| Or do you just not have recourse?
| qingcharles wrote:
| It's actually fucked-up that I totally forgot about this
| until writing this post. I find that my brain tries to erase
| a lot of the shit I've been through and block it out.
|
| I'm a serial litigant and I should have sued. You have a one
| year statute of limitation on most torts here in Illinois, so
| I've blown past that, but on federal constitutional
| violations the SoL is 2 years, so I could still sue for that
| and get relief. I'll have to think about it since I am very
| weary and litigation takes literally years, and often more
| than a decade. I'm years into litigation with the same police
| dept. right now about another constitutional violation and it
| is just 100-page motions each way every month and it gets
| very tiring. Millions of dollars of lawyer fees just to avoid
| paying $10K settlement on a case they have already lost.
| dmbche wrote:
| I absolutely understand - I'm sorry of the situation you
| are in, I'm certain it's exhausting, and it shouldn't be on
| you.
|
| I'm way out of my depth, but maybe you could reach out to
| victim's advocacy groups (you might very well have
| already!) to get some measure of support and guidance. As
| you mentionned, the SoL is limiting for your case, and it
| could be a good idea to see if you could file something and
| delay it until the other litigation is done. Again - I'm as
| out of my depth as can be.
|
| Also - just a thought - maybe you could reach out to news
| outlets or legal oriented content producers (Legal Eagle,
| Attorney Tom and the likes). The story you told here is
| harrowing and most journalists would jump on it right away,
| which could possibly be helpful, but it adds a lot to your
| plate.
|
| Wish you all the best going forward.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| You also reminded me that I never heard back from any of
| the misconduct investigations I started against the
| various officers. I will FOIA now and update. There was
| one incident where I was walking out of jail and two
| officers from another jurisdiction, operating outside of
| their legal authority, cuffed me up, without any arrest
| warrant and put me in jail and I was held for over three
| years on that one alone. I want to see what the reports
| on that one say. I also filed one against the sheriff as
| I found an old law which says it is a crime if the
| sheriff does not provide detainees with three hot meals a
| day, and yet we only got one a day. It is literally a
| crime. But how do you report a police officer committing
| a crime? It is practically impossible, especially when he
| is the guy in charge.
|
| Edit: Law is here https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/i
| lcs3.asp?ActID=2004&C... "The Warden of the jail shall
| furnish each prisoner daily with as much clean water as
| may be necessary for drink and personal cleanliness, and
| serve him three times a day with wholesome food, well
| cooked and in sufficient quantity."
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I'm curious, with so much time in jail and so much
| ongoing litigation, how do you make money to cover food &
| shelter? Do you have children or do you find this
| activism gets in the way of that kind of lifestyle?
| qingcharles wrote:
| I don't. I get my food from food pantries, and a friend
| has given me temporary shelter. Luckily I have no
| children, which is a huge blessing I thought about often
| during my decade locked up. I would have hated to leave
| children behind, especially as jail visits can often be
| close to non-existent and the phones were too expensive
| and too difficult to access.
| fsckboy wrote:
| are you saying that "well cooked" food means "hot meal"?
| qingcharles wrote:
| That is my interpretation, essentially. We were given no
| cooked food for two of the three meals. One was peanut
| butter and two slices of bread, and the other was a slice
| of cold meat and two slices of bread. While you could say
| that the bread was "well cooked", that clearly isn't the
| intention of the law.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I don't think Americans know how uncivilized our prison system
| is, especially compared to a lot of Europe. Or maybe they do,
| and we're just a very vindictive society. Sorry you had to
| experience it first hand.
| throwaway447 wrote:
| As an American, who has spent time in a prison in
| Europe/Germany and was put in solitary confinement under 24/7
| monitor supervision, I tend to disagree. The reason why I was
| put there: I claimed to be a US citizen and wanted to talk to
| my embassy. Since I don't know US prison, take my opinion
| with a grain of salt. But fuck Europe!
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| After seeing a few documentaries on them (but never going
| to jail in the US or EU), I am now of the opinion that
| European jails seem as fucked up, but have a much more
| humane veneer. They are much more likely to give prisoners
| huge quantities of psychoactive drugs, and often
| essentially force them to go to intense therapy sessions,
| which could be considered a form of psychological torture.
| US jails don't do any of that, but have a lot of other
| issues.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| US guards often push drugs for side money
|
| (Guards who are overworked and underpaid)
| qingcharles wrote:
| From being in jail, the jails do give the prisoners
| whatever psychoactive drugs are needed to zombify them.
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| There must be more to the story than just that.
| nativeit wrote:
| I have spent 21.5 days in solitary confinement. It's inhumane
| torture. The reasons why one might find themselves in such a
| scenario does nothing to ameliorate that simple fact. It's
| inhumane. It's torture.
| qingcharles wrote:
| And what is its purpose? It is clearly 100% punitive as there
| is no rehabilitative part to time in solitary.
|
| The first time I did 10 days for a non-crime. I had my trial
| on day 9, was found not guilty and released the next day back
| to population. That's some Alice in Wonderland shit right
| there -- do the time, then maybe do the crime?
| jacquesm wrote:
| This really is beyond fucked up. It's the kind of thing that
| creates legitimate 'enemies of the state'.
| akomtu wrote:
| In the dzogchen buddhism, there is an excercise that amounts to a
| voluntary 2-month long solitary confinement in a small room with
| no light and sounds. The perception of time melts down,
| hallucinacions occurs, but the trainee is prepared to deal with
| it, and at the end reaches a clarity of mind that he couldn't
| have obtained otherwise.
|
| On a related note, the hells (if you believe in such things) are
| built around the same idea: reduction of freedom. At first the
| space dimensions are being lost one after another, and the hard
| offenders appear completely immobilized, but in return they gain
| an unusual clarity of mind to think about their deeds. If that's
| not enough, the time dimensions go away: first they turn into
| small loops of endless repetitions, and then disappear entirely.
| This final state is known as the Pit.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The word 'voluntary' sort of negates the rest of the comment.
| You can't compare voluntary solitary confinement with
| involuntary solitary confinement.
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