Solitary Confinement Violates the Basic Concept of Human Dignity

Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment distinguished by living in single cells with little or no contact to other inmates, strict measures to control contraband, and the use of additional security measures and equipment. It is specifically designed for disruptive inmates that are security risks to other inmates, the prison staff, or the prison itself. It is mostly employed for violations of discipline, such as murder, hostage-taking, deadly assault, and rioting. However, it is also used as a measure of protection for inmates, whose safety is threatened by other inmates.

Prison authorities consider solitary confinement an administrative placement measure, not a punishment, but it has been seen that it hasn’t worked out as expected.

Solitary confinement violates the basic concept of human dignity. This person can’t really decide for themselves. Prisoners spend 22.5 to 24 hours a day in an 80-square-foot, concrete, windowless cell — about the size of a king-size bed. They can’t make phone calls. And they’re often denied visitors and physical activity, according to Mercury Today.

In a Modest Proposal wrote by Jonathan Swift, he said that ‘‘in those times when any young person was put to death , the executioner sold the carcass to a person of quality and the body of a plump girl of fifteen was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor’’. Both examples represent the suffering of a human that has no dignity and decision over his own life. Everybody should have dignity and that is something that shouldn’t be taken away from someone.

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In addition to violate human dignity, solitary confinement also causes significant mental and physical pain and suffering. It has been researched that the fact of having someone in almost complete lockdown and isolation, causes in the person mental and physical suffering. One example can be the suffering presented in Third World America by Alison Wright in which through a photo essay she shows us images about poverty in families and she says that due to the poverty ‘‘children’s health is so affected that diabetes is prevalent , and many are overweight with severe psychological problems’’. We see how isolation causes big suffering and mental issues, no human being should be exposed to such inhumanities. A system created by the government shouldn’t create such harm in someone. In the Angels of Bread, Martin Espada makes a brief statement in which he says that ‘‘ If the abolition of slaves-manacles began as a vision of hands without manacles , then this is the year’’, referring himself to the years as something good and freedom for the slaves as well as the prisoners.

One advantage of solitary confinement is that when the system looks to punish someone who committed a crime, solitary confinement is done in the hopes that the inmate will want what was taken from them and, in their effort to get back what was taken, learn to comply with the rules and regulations of the institution. It also depends the type of crime someone commits. Sexual offense and attempting someone’s life is more deeply penalized and these are the type of people who are confined. In a recent study by Paul Appelbaum, M.D., the Dollard Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and, Law at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a past APA president told that. Solitary confinement doesn’t have a psychological effect on inmates and it actually works for them to not commit the awful crimes they committed.

In conclusion everyone deserves to have their rights. Dignity makes people who they are and that is something no one can take from them. Everybody is born the same way and are made from bone and flesh. Some people deserve a thing like solitary confinement for the wrong things they did or bad choices. At the end, no one can’t judge anyone, everybody makes their own decisions. No one should be told what to do or have his rights violated. Human rights are for every person and non should be taken from them.