With ≈80,000 inmates suffering in solitary confinement today, it should be abolished because it is torturous which violates the 8th amendment on cruel and unusual punishment (Wedekind, 2011). Torture is defined as "extreme anguish of body or mind"; (dictionary.com). Solitary confinement is no longer used as a punishment of last resort and lacks medical supervision inflicting extreme anguish to both the body and mind. Solitary confinement is an inhumane practice and un-proportional to the low severity level of crimes punished in prisons. Research from expert psychiatrists found that a third of solitary inmates were “actively psychotic and/or acutely suicidal” (Grassian, 2016). It’s time that congress acknowledges the cruelty of solitary confinement.
This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.
