Last week there was an exhibit on solitary confinement set up on campus. I had never given much thought to it other than when watching "Orange is the New Black." The exhibit had a model of a cell which anyone could go into, a video playing in the back, and lots of papers to pick up and read. They all claimed the same thing; being in solitary confinement for more than fifteen days is torture. Like many people I talked to and heard from, I was skeptical of the legitimacy of that claim. Some of my skepticism came from not knowing the definition of torture. I only thought about Guantanamo Bay; I thought that torture could only be done when it was someone inflicting it onto someone else, not keeping someone alone.
So on a Wednesday night when I should have been doing homework, my friend invited me to come with him while he sat in the box. He thought that knowing I was outside would make his time better, and of course I agreed. He signed up for an hour long block and came out twenty minutes later. I decided to take the rest of his time slot and also could only stand to be in for twenty minutes. There was a bed, a toilet, and nothing else. In the model cell there was an iPod which played at approximately half the volume what you would actually hear in a solitary cell a recording of a real area. There was banging and kicking on the door, crying, screaming, howling, after a while it stopped sounding like humans and became more like animals. Every bang I would jump, every cry I would cringe. I went to the model cell at the end of the day and the iPod was dead, so in order to hear and have the full experience it had to stay plugged into the wall. That meant I was not only alone, but stationary for the whole time. I sat on the bed, counted the bricks, picked at the paint, played with my hair, and waited as long as I could. Eventually the noise, the immobility, and the sheer nothingness got to me and I knocked on the door to be let out.
The Center for Constitutional Rights explained, “In August 2011, Juan Mendez, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, concluded that even 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and 15 days is the limit after which irreversible harmful psychological effects can occur.” I absolutely believe it is true. Torture, as explained by the volunteers, is when something physical occurs to you which damages you mentally.
And this torture is done for no good reason. Solitary confinement costs far more than normal cells, does not make inmate’s behavior better, and does not act as a deterrent for crime. One of the volunteers said that her son was put in solitary confinement for taking an extra milk at dinner. There are so many problems with the criminal justice and prison system, but this is one that must be fixed right away. After I experienced twenty minutes of what some people are subjected to for years, I knew that it is not acceptable. If fifteen days is the legal definition of torture, no one should be in there that long.
It is time to reevaluate the way inmates are treated and ensure that nonviolent criminals, people who take extra milk, general human beings are not tortured within the legal confines of prison.
