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Speaker 1: Hey, March is tripod month, my friend, and you know

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Speaker 1: what that means. Yes, that means it's time to let

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Speaker 1: people know about your favorite podcasts, just to share the

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Speaker 1: sheer joy of podcast listening. That's right, it's t r

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Speaker 1: y pod. Still in nascent industry. A lot of people

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Speaker 1: don't know what podcasts are and helps everybody out if

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Speaker 1: you would go out and just say, hey, family member,

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Speaker 1: who I see it? Thanksgiving once a year? Right, you

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Speaker 1: should try out this thing called a podcast. Here's what

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Speaker 1: they are. Here's a cool show you should try, and

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Speaker 1: here's how to get it. Yeah, and it doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to be our show, just any podcast you like in

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Speaker 1: general that you think someone else would like, just share it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So get on board the dry pod train. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's

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Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. This is Stuff you

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Speaker 1: should know. Crime and Punishment Party eight Yeah, yeah, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff on this And I thought we've

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Speaker 1: got more coming. I kept keep saying we're done, but

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Speaker 1: we're not done. Because while we touched on solitary confinement,

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Speaker 1: in Our Prisons episode, which was a great one, was it.

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Speaker 1: Have you gone back and listen recently. You're just making

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Speaker 1: assumption now, I just remember it being a good one.

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Speaker 1: It stands out. It's one of our good ones. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is um, you know, a little more robust. Look,

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Speaker 1: it's solitary confinement and the ins and outs mostly outs,

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Speaker 1: don't you think? Yes? And not just me. There's like

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Speaker 1: a whole growing body of people who are kind of

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Speaker 1: screaming their heads off. I guess, yeah, saying like, hey,

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Speaker 1: put a person in a tiny room with no interaction

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Speaker 1: or stimulation twenty three hours a day. Not good for

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Speaker 1: you as a human right, And a lot of people

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Speaker 1: are going so far as to say this, this constitutes

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Speaker 1: cruel and in human punishment. Yeah, it's kind of like

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Speaker 1: zukosis for humans. We talked about that in Our Zoo's episode. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, yeah, where the animal goes insane. Yeah. What

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Speaker 1: it's not is Steve McQueen in The Great Escape throwing

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Speaker 1: the baseball against the wall. Let's probably do that for

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Speaker 1: like a half hour. No, they wouldn't give you a baseball.

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Speaker 1: Oh that's true. You know, there's nothing funny you're cute

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Speaker 1: about it right, um, all right, shall we Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: so solitary. It is a huge controversial thing right now

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Speaker 1: because some a lot of proponents say it's extremely necessary

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Speaker 1: and that this is just the way that you're supposed

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Speaker 1: to punish people, or that it's just needed even without

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Speaker 1: punishment or um. Other people say, no, this is cool

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Speaker 1: and in human, like we said, regardless of how you

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Speaker 1: slice it is actually an American product, it's an American export.

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Speaker 1: It's being used all over the world right now. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And depending on where you are and what prison you're in,

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Speaker 1: they might call it something else. They have a lot

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Speaker 1: of I mean, in this article the house Stuff Works article,

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Speaker 1: they you know, call it like lockdown, restrictive housing, segregation, isolation.

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Speaker 1: But I saw a lot more uh creative names that

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Speaker 1: prisons use that you know, try to shine it up

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Speaker 1: a bit as something other than what it is. Right,

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Speaker 1: But in what it is, no matter what you call

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Speaker 1: it is, it's confining a prisoner to a relatively small

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Speaker 1: cell um I saw usually eight by ten or less.

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Speaker 1: And I also saw that frequently compared to a horse stable,

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Speaker 1: in which comparison the um the prison cell actually comes

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Speaker 1: out the smaller of the two and you confine that

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Speaker 1: and this is the key you can find that person

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Speaker 1: to that small selfer between twenty three and twenty four

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Speaker 1: hours a day every day. Yeah, well I think twenty

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Speaker 1: They like some people never leave. It depends on the day.

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Speaker 1: So uh, in some cases you'll be confined like that

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Speaker 1: for twenty three hours a day and then one hour

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Speaker 1: a day you get out to exercise and um shower.

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Speaker 1: But maybe that's just on week days. So a weekend

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Speaker 1: you would be in there for forty eight straight hours

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Speaker 1: or longer. If the guard doesn't like you or is

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Speaker 1: in a bad mood, they might just not let you

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Speaker 1: out that day, right, And we don't want to paint

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Speaker 1: corrections officers, as you know, the movies do a good

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Speaker 1: enough job of demonizing them. Yeah, And if you look

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Speaker 1: into the some of the people who are being held

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Speaker 1: in solitary, some of the people who started solitary or

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Speaker 1: have stayed in their longest, you kind of understand why

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Speaker 1: someone would want to keep them as far away from

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Speaker 1: people as possible, you know. So, like it's it's a

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Speaker 1: it's a it's a complex issue. It's not cut and dried.

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Speaker 1: There's not an obvious villain in this story, and an

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Speaker 1: obvious victim in this story. Yeah, so, like I was saying, Um,

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Speaker 1: we don't want to demonize them because it's happened enough

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Speaker 1: in media and certainly films. Tom Hanks aside, I guess

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Speaker 1: in The Green Mile, he just he can't help but

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Speaker 1: be delightful. Uh, he played a well. He was actually

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Speaker 1: kind of I was about to say Road to Perdition.

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Speaker 1: He was the good guy. He was an anti hero though, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a bit of an anti hero. But uh, anyway, we're

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Speaker 1: not gonna do that. But that does still happen, you know. There.

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Speaker 1: That's why prison reform is still a thing, because there's

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Speaker 1: still is a lot of abuse that happens in certain

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Speaker 1: prisons and among certain prison guards and uh, correctional officers.

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Speaker 1: So uh, it's certainly not something that's been solved. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I just like to see away a little bit because

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Speaker 1: I know that we have prison guards that listen to

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Speaker 1: our show, and Chuck, we we should say the whole

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Speaker 1: point of solitary is to limit human contact as much

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Speaker 1: as possible. Yeah, so even though you are maybe interacting

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Speaker 1: with a guard here there, it's when they slide your

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Speaker 1: meal in three times a day, and that's it. You

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Speaker 1: don't see people. You um, you exercise alone. Everything you're

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Speaker 1: doing is alone. And that's the point. That's why they

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Speaker 1: call it solitary confinement. It is uh. So there's a

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Speaker 1: couple of types of segregation that can happen. One's called

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Speaker 1: disciplinary segregation. That is uh pretty obvious you have done

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Speaker 1: something that has run a foul of the prison rules um,

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Speaker 1: which can range from legitimate things like you know, you

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Speaker 1: start a fight, or you attacked another inmate or you

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Speaker 1: know what, caught with an extra honey bun maybe so,

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Speaker 1: or you you stole something um too a little more

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Speaker 1: petty things and that's where that's where materia gets real hinky,

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Speaker 1: Like maybe you talk back to a guard and they

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Speaker 1: didn't like hearing that, so they're like, all right, you

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Speaker 1: got to the hole for thirty days, right, Or maybe

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Speaker 1: somebody um snitched on you and you were framed clearing

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Speaker 1: clearing simple, right. So that's disciplinary segregation. There's also administrative segregation,

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Speaker 1: and this is UM. You might be put in there

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Speaker 1: if let's say you're a sex offender who notoriously have

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Speaker 1: a rough time in prison, or you're a gang member

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Speaker 1: who has started some trouble and you know Basically they're

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Speaker 1: trying to protect uh supposedly trying to protect the prisoner

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Speaker 1: from harm. Yeah, by isolating them from the population. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but whether they whether they want to stay in the

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Speaker 1: regular population or not, that decisions made for them, right,

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Speaker 1: And that's just one type of administrative Um. You can

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Speaker 1: also be put in if the regular cells are full

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Speaker 1: and they're just full up, so sorry, you gotta go

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Speaker 1: to solitary. Uh, with overcrowding, that's obviously a big deal. Um,

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Speaker 1: pre trial you can go in if you're not even

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Speaker 1: convicted of a crime yet, this might be put in solitary.

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Speaker 1: There should be a constitutional amendment that prevents that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I read the story. Actually, I heard it on NPR

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Speaker 1: this weekend, which is what made me think of this thing. Uh.

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Speaker 1: There's a documentary on Spike TV called the Calif Browder Story.

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Speaker 1: Is that the kid who stole the backpack? Yeah? Did

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Speaker 1: you hear that? No, I just knew about it while

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Speaker 1: it was going on. Yeah, this this guy, Calif Browder um,

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Speaker 1: when he was I think he was sixteen at the time, UM,

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Speaker 1: stole a backpack from a party. He and his buddy

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Speaker 1: get uh get I don't. I don't know if they're

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Speaker 1: in a car, got pulled over, but they get arrested.

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Speaker 1: They let the one guy go, but Calif Browder had

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Speaker 1: a prior charge, so they kept him for more than

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Speaker 1: three years in uh the Rikers Island Jail complex, and

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Speaker 1: a lot of that was in solitary confinement, confinement, and

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Speaker 1: this before like ultimately the charges were dropped. He wasn't

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Speaker 1: even convicted of a crime, and he was in solitary

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Speaker 1: for three years. He finally gets out. He committed suicide

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Speaker 1: lessening year after. And it's just one of the geez

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Speaker 1: one of the more egregious and sad examples of just

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Speaker 1: how broken the system can be here in the United States.

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Speaker 1: The the another UM way that it's being used that's

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Speaker 1: just as egregious as pre trial UM in my opinion,

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Speaker 1: is to house the mentally ill right after after the eighties,

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Speaker 1: when Reagan closed down the massive institutions that had become

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Speaker 1: like huge places of abuse of the mentally ill in

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Speaker 1: favor of um more community servicing of mental health, but

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Speaker 1: then didn't fund the communities, so that the mentally ill

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Speaker 1: just ended up on the street. Right prison became the

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Speaker 1: new institutions for housing mentally ill people well apparently a

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Speaker 1: favorite place to actually house the mentally ill in prison

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Speaker 1: is in solitary confinement. And as we'll see, UM, ostensibly

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Speaker 1: just being put in solitary confinement if you have a

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Speaker 1: completely healthy mind is really really bad for your mental state.

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Speaker 1: If you're already mentally ill or predisposed of mental illness,

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Speaker 1: it can be a death sentence for you. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: uh in the United States, UM, they don't have exact

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Speaker 1: numbers because uh, it's just you know, states vary and

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Speaker 1: what they consider confinement solitary confinement. UM. Not a lot

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Speaker 1: of prisons want to participate in studies. There's no reporting,

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Speaker 1: not very much, you know. UM, but I have the impression, Chuck,

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Speaker 1: that you could be like a congress person saying like

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Speaker 1: I want to tour your solitary wing and you would

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Speaker 1: get turned out. There's like that level of um self

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Speaker 1: administration by the Bureau of Corrections inside prisons. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: the number very but UM basically most people say up

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Speaker 1: to a hundred thousand inmates in the United States, And again,

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Speaker 1: not all of these are in prison. Some of them

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Speaker 1: are in jail, some of them or in uh uh

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Speaker 1: immigrant temporary immigrant housing uh are kept in isolation. And Um,

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Speaker 1: there isn't a You don't go before a court to

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Speaker 1: get put in the whole you you know, a prison

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Speaker 1: official will dictate this. There is no recourse for a prisoner.

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Speaker 1: They call the shots. There's no oversight, can be indefinite.

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Speaker 1: You can't call your attorney and say, hey, I'm in

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Speaker 1: solitary and I didn't do anything. All that is talk back.

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Speaker 1: I've been in here for six months because the guard

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Speaker 1: has a problem with me. Um, there's nothing that can

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Speaker 1: be done, basically no. So that makes it an extra

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Speaker 1: judicial punishment with no oversight from judges or juries, which

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Speaker 1: is that's that's not good. And it's really widespread, not

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Speaker 1: just in the United States but around the world. Now, yeah,

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Speaker 1: well let's take a break and we'll come back and

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how this all got started.

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Speaker 1: Right after this, so Chuck I said earlier that this

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Speaker 1: is an American invention, right, It's actually an American Quaker invention.

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Speaker 1: The Friends Society of Friends came up with the idea

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Speaker 1: of solitary confinement first, and I feel like we talked

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Speaker 1: about this in the Prison episode two. The whole idea

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Speaker 1: was that, Um, at the time, you know you might

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Speaker 1: be put to to labor or work or um just

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Speaker 1: left to hang around your fellow inmates in jail. And

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Speaker 1: the idea behind solitary originally that the Quakers came up

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Speaker 1: with was that you should be given time to reflect

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Speaker 1: on your punishment and quiet solitude, and the hope was

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Speaker 1: that eventually you would become penitent and be redeemed. And

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Speaker 1: that's where the word penitentiary came from to describe prisons.

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Speaker 1: That's right. This is the late eighteenth century when they

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Speaker 1: came up with it at the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: which sounds lovely. It does sound kind of like a

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Speaker 1: nice place to be. I bet it wasn't. Uh. Flash

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Speaker 1: forward a bit to the kind of early third of

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Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds and eighteen twenty nine Eastern State Penitentiary

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. They said, you know what, we're gonna try

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Speaker 1: experimenting with how we deal with prisoners, and we're gonna

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Speaker 1: try this thing called lockdown. Uh. They found that it

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Speaker 1: didn't work very well. These inmates were socially dysfunctional, a

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Speaker 1: lot of them killed themselves, and so in eighteen twenty

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Speaker 1: nine they abandoned it and said, this is not a

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Speaker 1: good idea Yeah, within the first forty years of it

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Speaker 1: being invented, they're like, no, we shouldn't be doing this

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Speaker 1: to people. And they went in favor of the Auburn

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Speaker 1: State Prison and Upstate New York's method of putting people

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Speaker 1: the hard labor that became the the um the what

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Speaker 1: you what you did when you got sent to prison,

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Speaker 1: rather than put into solitary, and they kept solitary around

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Speaker 1: like you didn't go away entirely, Like basically every prison

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Speaker 1: had a hole. You get thrown in the hole, but

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Speaker 1: you get thrown in the hole for like days or

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Speaker 1: weeks or something like that to punish you for something

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Speaker 1: you did in the prison. Yeah, and they still say,

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Speaker 1: like experts still say it can be a useful tool

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Speaker 1: in prison if you do put someone in there for

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Speaker 1: three to five days or I think the u N

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Speaker 1: says no more than two weeks, fifteen days, I think

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Speaker 1: is what they came up with. Yeah, So you know,

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Speaker 1: the point is is not to say like, well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure there are tons of people that say you

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Speaker 1: shouldn't do it at all, but experts say that it

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Speaker 1: can be a deterrent for you know, poor behavior or

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Speaker 1: whatever in prison. But people being in there for months

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Speaker 1: and years is the issue at hand. So it was

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Speaker 1: used sparingly, but it was still around throughout the most

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Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Alcatraz famously had D Block, which

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Speaker 1: was like a solitary block. Um. But then on October

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Speaker 1: twenty everything changed in the current incarnation of the use

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Speaker 1: of solitary confinement was born on that day at Marian Prison,

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Speaker 1: Marian Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois. So there were two

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Speaker 1: different incidents where prison guards were killed that day. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's not two separate things, right, yeah, And um, the

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Speaker 1: the warden put the prison on lockdown and just kept

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Speaker 1: it there. And what the warden basically invented in in

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Speaker 1: retaliation for these two murders on this day was what's

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Speaker 1: now known as a super max prison. It's where all

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Speaker 1: of the prisoners are kept ultimately in isolation for twenty

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Speaker 1: three to twenty four hours a day, uh, throughout the prison.

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Speaker 1: And it's like a prison within a prison. Each inmate

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Speaker 1: is in their own individual prison within the larger prison,

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Speaker 1: and that's called super max prison. Yeah, and we talked

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Speaker 1: about those a lot in the Prisons episode. These became

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Speaker 1: uh uh not the new standard because you know, not

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Speaker 1: all prisons of super max. But they became more widespread

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Speaker 1: for sure through the nineties, um partially because of Bill

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Speaker 1: Clinton in he signed the very famous crime Bill, which,

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Speaker 1: among other things and it was famously known as the

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Speaker 1: three strikes Bill. Well, yeah, that's what created the exploding

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Speaker 1: prison population in large part. Yeah. And Clinton he still

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Speaker 1: defends this as um going a long way to alleviate crime. Uh,

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Speaker 1: even like during this most recent election he was being

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Speaker 1: called out for it and and saying like this was,

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Speaker 1: you know, a good thing, and um, the detractors still say, no,

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Speaker 1: this is what started in a big, big way incarceration

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Speaker 1: as as a business model in this country. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: apparently the US now has twent of the global prison

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Speaker 1: population but only five percent of the global population as

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Speaker 1: a whole. Yeah, that's really disproportionate. And apparently we're second

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Speaker 1: at least on paper to the Seychelles um for the

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Speaker 1: percentage of people in prison. Every seven hundred sixteen of

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Speaker 1: every hundred thousand people in the US is in prison,

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Speaker 1: and in the Seychells it's seven of every hundred thousand.

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Speaker 1: But stay shells as a population of so that kind

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Speaker 1: of excuse it. And they think that the largest prison

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Speaker 1: state really is um North Korea that it has a

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Speaker 1: larger port proportion of its population in prison the US.

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Speaker 1: So technically the U s would be number three, but

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Speaker 1: we would just be trailing North Korea. It's not something

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Speaker 1: you want to trail. It's not not a country that

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Speaker 1: you want to be super close to as far as

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Speaker 1: like prison population percentages. No. Um. So, like we said before,

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Speaker 1: there are even experts that say that solitary confinement can

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Speaker 1: have a place in prison as a deterrent for bad behavior. UM.

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Speaker 1: And like I mentioned earlier, two separate things here. Bad

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Speaker 1: behavior is one, but you know, mentally ill, we just

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Speaker 1: don't have enough space. Um. You know all these other

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Speaker 1: reasons of the truly abhorrent ones. UM. But like I said,

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Speaker 1: deterrent is a big one. UM. There there is a

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Speaker 1: lot of legitimacy to protecting UM prisoners from fellow prisoners.

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Speaker 1: They're at high risk for being injured or killed, that's

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Speaker 1: legit obviously. If they're a danger, you know, have attacked

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Speaker 1: guards or other inmates, then uh a need for separation,

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Speaker 1: like you can make a case you know there for sure, Um,

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Speaker 1: if they're prone to escape, yeah, maybe they need their

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Speaker 1: own little room. I mean, that's that's one of the

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Speaker 1: big ones that for for proponents of super max prisons

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Speaker 1: that like this is it's a prison within a prison,

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Speaker 1: and they have to get out of that first prison

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Speaker 1: and then they're still in the other prison. It just

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Speaker 1: just makes it much more difficult to get out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you escape and you go on and commit

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Speaker 1: more crimes, murder someone while are on the lamb Uh.

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Speaker 1: You can definitely make an argument that keeping people like that, um,

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Speaker 1: these repeat offenders or repeat escape e offenders in solitary.

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Speaker 1: So those are some of the arguments for Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: then I I don't know if you said it already,

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Speaker 1: but that having that extra way to punish someone who's

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Speaker 1: already in prison is another reason proponents say you need

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Speaker 1: to have this as a tool to kind of maintain order,

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Speaker 1: like if you legitimately run a foul of rules or yeah,

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Speaker 1: like yeah, exactly, because I mean, if you if you

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Speaker 1: kill another inmates, sensibly you're going to go through trial again,

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Speaker 1: but the you know that you could be executed for

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Speaker 1: for that, and that would be different than just being

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Speaker 1: in prison. But if you weren't, then that's basically like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you're in prison for life. Already, Well we're gonna add

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Speaker 1: another life sentence onto that, you know, Like, there's only

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Speaker 1: so much you can do to someone who's in prison

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Speaker 1: short of executing them. Uh, And the solid solitary confinement,

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Speaker 1: proponents say provides that extra layer, right. And the reason

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Speaker 1: it provides that extra deterrent though, is because of the

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Speaker 1: impact it has been shown to have on the mind

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Speaker 1: of inmates. And there's a few problems with this. Before

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Speaker 1: we get into it, we should say there's they're very

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Speaker 1: little studies. And one of the reasons why there there

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Speaker 1: are so few studies is because there's so little access

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Speaker 1: to prisoners in solitary confinement by researchers. It's just not allowed.

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Speaker 1: They're just kept out. Yeah. I saw a lot of

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Speaker 1: these studies were longitudinal studies about isolation of the elderly

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Speaker 1: and like the effect it can have on them. Well,

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Speaker 1: there's a big worry I've seen that that's like the

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Speaker 1: next health crisis is going to be loneliness and disconnectedness. Um.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's where they've gotten a lot of

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Speaker 1: the data because the the prisoners are unavailable for study

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Speaker 1: there in solitary and in that same vein possibly disingenuously. Um.

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Speaker 1: The ones that have been able to be interviewed say

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Speaker 1: they've gotten out of prison and now they're available to

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Speaker 1: be interviewed. Um. The proponents of um SO of solitary

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Speaker 1: confinement say that the prisoners are just they're just telling

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Speaker 1: researchers what they think they want to hear, or they're

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Speaker 1: really playing up their story or whatever. But what they

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Speaker 1: found is that there there seems to be a basis

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Speaker 1: for the idea that there are demonstrably negative impacts on

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Speaker 1: mental health that are possibly permanent and irreversible that comes

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Speaker 1: from staying in solitary confinement for prolonged times. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean there have been some studies. There was one on

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Speaker 1: the Pelican Bay Prison in California, and it said, Uh,

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Speaker 1: people in solitary for long periods, uh, suffer from depression, anxiety, apathy, hallucinations,

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Speaker 1: panic attacks, paranoia. Um, this is a big one. Hypersensitivity

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Speaker 1: external stimuli basically sound and light. Right. Uh. Sometimes they're

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Speaker 1: kept in the dark. Sometimes the light never goes off,

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Speaker 1: so they you know, have no sense of you know,

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Speaker 1: no circadian rhythm of day or night, which makes sleep

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Speaker 1: extraordinarily difficult to Apparently, prisoners who are in solitary will

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Speaker 1: basically stay in bed all day and then they don't

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Speaker 1: sleep much at night. But they're not really getting good

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Speaker 1: sleep during the day either, So it's not like the

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Speaker 1: circadian rhythm has flip flopped. It's been spread out over

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Speaker 1: the day rather than um so which prevents it from

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Speaker 1: getting actually real rest because they're constantly at rest. Uh.

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Speaker 1: What else difficulties UM thinking, concentration, memory, UM, they become

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Speaker 1: angry and violent, they could suffer from dizziness, UM, heart palpitations, perspiration.

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Speaker 1: Basically like we're saying, zukosis, Like you're trapped in this

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Speaker 1: little box and it's not like, well, you can just

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Speaker 1: read all day and educate yourself or something, or paint well.

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Speaker 1: And in cases where they are, yes, because a lot

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Speaker 1: of times they're not given those things. But most time

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Speaker 1: you're you're not allowed any form of stimulation or entertainment.

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Speaker 1: So in in plenty of cases you are, like, you're

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Speaker 1: still allowed to say books or something like that. But

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Speaker 1: apparently one of the things you run into very quickly

384
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Speaker 1: in solitary is you lose your taste for reading, even

385
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Speaker 1: though that's all you have to do, because you can't

386
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Speaker 1: remember what you read a few pages previously, so you're

387
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Speaker 1: you're having so many problems with your memory that you're

388
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Speaker 1: not able to retain enough of what you're reading to

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Speaker 1: make a book worthwhile. So you just stopped reading after

390
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Speaker 1: a while. Wow. Uh so where could this lead in

391
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Speaker 1: a physical sense? Um? They have done studies and they

392
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Speaker 1: show that if you're in solitary for extended periods, you

393
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Speaker 1: have a higher rate of self mutilation and suicide. Um.

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Speaker 1: They did one five year study from two thousand four

395
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Speaker 1: in California, I think, in their whole prison system, and

396
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Speaker 1: almost fifty of all inmate suicides were committed by those

397
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Speaker 1: in isolation. And see, that's a tough thing for someone

398
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Speaker 1: who who uh doesn't believe that that that isolation is

399
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Speaker 1: a real problem. That's a that's a that's a tough

400
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Speaker 1: one for them to just get rid of. Because the

401
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 1: other stuff, you can say, well, that's all self reporting

402
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Speaker 1: by a prisoner in solitary, So maybe they're just kind

403
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: of making it up or playing it up if they're

404
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 1: mutilating themselves. One guy mutilated his own genitalia, another person

405
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:22,040
Speaker 1: blinded himself. Um, and then you have all of these

406
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Speaker 1: um completed or attempted suicides. Uh. Those are like hard

407
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: numbers that you just can't ignore that. You would think

408
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Speaker 1: people otherwise wouldn't do that if they weren't in solitary

409
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Speaker 1: or else the solitary population wouldn't represent such a high

410
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Speaker 1: proportion of suicides and attempted suicides in the prison, you know. Yeah,

411
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Speaker 1: they've also done studies for post prison uh in two

412
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Speaker 1: thousand seven at the University of Washington, they said prisoners

413
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Speaker 1: released directly from supermax into the community committed crime sooner

414
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Speaker 1: than prisoners who have been transferred, even if only for

415
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Speaker 1: a few months before release to a general prison population. Yeah,

416
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 1: I saw that too, And the I think the basis

417
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: of that is that you don't have social support or

418
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: social stimulation from other people, right, even if it's somebody

419
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: you don't really like, if you're interacting with them, you're

420
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: getting something from interacting with them, right. And one of

421
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:26,439
Speaker 1: the problems that you run into in solitary apparently is

422
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 1: you start to focus on stuff. Very small things can

423
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:37,400
Speaker 1: become the basis of like raging anger and psychosis and um,

424
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: because there's nobody there to tell you like, that's not

425
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,199
Speaker 1: that big of a deal, or man, just let it go.

426
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: There's no one there to give you that social support,

427
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: to to just let you talk off the ledge exactly,

428
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: So the smallest thing can become something of immense important

429
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 1: and if it, if it clicks with something like your rage,

430
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: you're gonna space in the indefinite time you're in solitary

431
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: thinking about that one thing and stewing, Like think about

432
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 1: when you stew over something, right, and and just how

433
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:12,920
Speaker 1: it gets harder and harder to let go the more

434
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: you stew You're just making that neural pathway stronger and

435
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: stronger thinking about it. Imagine having nothing but that to

436
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: think about for years. Apparently it's a really bad side

437
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 1: effect of solitary, and that comes from not having that

438
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:32,159
Speaker 1: social interaction with people to say you're being weird. Well,

439
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 1: and this is just me talking, but I imagine it

440
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: doesn't increase your sense of empathy because you you gain

441
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: empathy by interacting with people. So if you're released directly

442
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: into the public at large etter being in super max,

443
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: you just don't have that that normal day to day

444
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: interaction with people, So you may be more likely to

445
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: commit a crime because you don't care about other people.

446
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 1: That would be It's it's a pretty reasonable explanation to me. Uh,

447
00:27:57,840 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 1: and then you know, we'll take a break here in

448
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: a second. But another a big impact is simply the

449
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 1: financial burden that taxpayers pay it. And I went through

450
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:11,959
Speaker 1: this one uh uh paper academic paper on the cost,

451
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: and it's really varies all over the place. But I'll

452
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 1: just say one of the time, it costs a lot

453
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: more money to house someone in solitary or super max

454
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 1: than a regular prison population. I mean, I've seen it

455
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: kind of all over the map. Our article says, uh

456
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: fifty eight thousand dollars a year for a regular seventy

457
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 1: eight grand per year. It's kind of all over the place,

458
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: but those are pretty in line. It's it's always a

459
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: lot more money. But I mean, how would you even

460
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,360
Speaker 1: keep track of that if if different prisons have different

461
00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 1: definitions for you know, solitary confinement. At the very least,

462
00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: we need to get this stuff standardized. This step one yeah, yeah, Um,

463
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: all right, let's take our final break and uh we'll

464
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: come back and talk a little bit more about the

465
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: rest of the world. And um, shall we touch on

466
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 1: the angle of three case? All right, so you said

467
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: this is a American export, Um, it does happen all

468
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: over the world, but there are countries, UH, specifically England

469
00:29:41,120 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: and some other European countries that have UM kind of

470
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 1: seen the light uh in a way of reform. UM.

471
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,479
Speaker 1: They rarely use it in England anymore. UH. In the

472
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties they started kind of thinking about it and saying,

473
00:29:56,440 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe either thing to do is is

474
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: incentivized are most dangerous prisoners, give them a little bit

475
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: more control and give them incentives for good behavior rather

476
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: than just the threat of punishment for bad behavior. And

477
00:30:12,960 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: they found that it worked. Um. There was much less

478
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: violence uh when they were housed in units of ten

479
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,719
Speaker 1: people rather than being in those individual cells where they

480
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:27,000
Speaker 1: could earn privileges like ah, more contact with other people,

481
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: more phone calls, more visits. UH. They found it had UH.

482
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: They said, the results have been impressive. The use of

483
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: long term isolation in England is now negligible. So they

484
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: found good results. UH. And then it just seems like

485
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 1: more and more states UM are enacting things like uh

486
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: like juveniles should never be in isolation. I think I

487
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: should never be. Yeah New York did I think just

488
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years, even I think Obama

489
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,959
Speaker 1: abandoned in those two in federal prison as well mentally

490
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 1: ill in the um. Yeah, juveniles can't be People under

491
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: twenty one can't be kept in solitary because apparently, if

492
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: it is having these pronounced effects on the brain, it

493
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: would have even larger effects on the developing brain of

494
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: a juvenile. Absolutely, so that that would be really bad. Yeah,

495
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,760
Speaker 1: that was the case I was talking about before with

496
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: the the NPR story. That kid. I think he was

497
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: sixteen at the time, seventeen when it started the incarceration,

498
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: and he was still developing. He said. At the end

499
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: he said he was twenty one, he felt like he

500
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: was forty and then you know, like I said, he

501
00:31:39,160 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: killed himself within a year after he got out. Really sad.

502
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: And this is again, this is not some hard and criminal.

503
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: He was never convicted of a crime. Right, he was

504
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: in pre trial holding, right? Is that clear? Uh? Who

505
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: else this? Juan mindez Um, he's a u N I've

506
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 1: never heard of this title? Are un special? Yeah? Have

507
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 1: you heard of that? It's fancy? Yeah, what is that?

508
00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: It's like a special investigator there, Like we we want

509
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: to know about this, So we're gonna ask you to

510
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: go out and find out everything you can and give

511
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 1: us a report. I think it's a reporter in French,

512
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 1: so you win. Uh. He presented a report in sixteen,

513
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: just last year to the General Assembly that basically said,

514
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 1: there's a trend towards reform all over the world when

515
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: it comes to solitary and the writing is kind of

516
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: on the wall that this is it's it's just making

517
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,479
Speaker 1: things worse. Yes. The thing is, though, is there's a

518
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: lot of people who still say, especially inside UM Bureaus

519
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: of Corrections, that say, no, this is not you. You're

520
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: all being played for fools. This is not a problem,

521
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: and it's very useful. And there was actually a study

522
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 1: UM by the Colorado Bureau of Corrections Department of Corrections,

523
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 1: one of the two UM they they funded it or

524
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: one of their researchers carried it out, and it found

525
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 1: that UM that the mental health of inmates can actually

526
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: improve in solitary confinement. And everyone was like, that isn't

527
00:33:14,640 --> 00:33:17,479
Speaker 1: it's strange that this is the only study that has

528
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: ever found anything like that. It's it was funded by

529
00:33:20,840 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Prisons in Colorado UM, and the methodology

530
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: has been attacked as a very controversial study. But what

531
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: gets me is that critics of the study have used

532
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: the same criticism that critics of the UM studies that

533
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,840
Speaker 1: show solitary confinement is problematic used, which is they they

534
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: said that the reason the prisoners were just telling the

535
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: researchers what they think they wanted to hear, which is like,

536
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. I've actually thought about how how how

537
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: bad my crime was, so you could probably let me

538
00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: out now, you know, so that that that study. I

539
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 1: didn't read the study, but from what I understand, it's

540
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: it's there's flaws to it, and it's the only one

541
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:09,839
Speaker 1: that came up with that. You think that if if

542
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:14,239
Speaker 1: the Bereau of Corrections had come up with something substantial,

543
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: every state prison system would be running the same tests

544
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: to find now and to back up their case. Right.

545
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 1: You know who's really big on this is uh David Simon,

546
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:28,879
Speaker 1: the guy who created the wire. He is uh kind

547
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: of and and you know what we should finish well,

548
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if it will be the last one,

549
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: but we should totally do one on private prisons. Um.

550
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:38,840
Speaker 1: We touched on that a little bit in Prisons, but

551
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: that deserves its own show. That's sort of one of

552
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 1: his big um things. He's Uh, I guess what you'd

553
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: call it a passion project now is trying to and

554
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:52,839
Speaker 1: he's super smart guy. Like hearing an interview with him

555
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: is really really interesting. But uh, yeah, it's kind of

556
00:34:56,400 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: one of the things he's dedicating us work two now

557
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: is exposing these for profit prisons and incarceration as an

558
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:06,799
Speaker 1: industry in the United States. He just testified in front

559
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: of Congress recently, right, so it wouldn't surprise me. Um,

560
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: should we talk about the Angola three case a little bit? Yes? Please?

561
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: So our house Stuff Works article starts with an intro

562
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 1: about a man named Albert Wood Fox and he was

563
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 1: one of the infamous Angola Three from Angola, Louisiana State Prison,

564
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: which is known as the bloodiest prison in the South. Uh.

565
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,760
Speaker 1: And originally these three men, Albert wood Fox, Herman Wallace,

566
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: and Robert King were sent to prison for armed robbery

567
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: and once they got in there, they started a Black

568
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:48,560
Speaker 1: Panther chapter within prison and tried to expose some of

569
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:52,040
Speaker 1: the atrocities going on in prison, how they retreated what

570
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: was going on with the guards. And that was not

571
00:35:55,000 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: a popular move to say the least, So, uh, they

572
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: did things like hunger strikes, work strikes started to get

573
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 1: a lot of attention in the nineteen seventies calling for

574
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:10,359
Speaker 1: an investigations and so and Gola said, you guys are

575
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: going in solitary UM forever. Yeah, apparently that's that's something

576
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 1: that is commonly used for as well as to squash

577
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:23,840
Speaker 1: dissent or criticism of the prison system or the prison rules. Yeah,

578
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:29,720
Speaker 1: that's pretty awful. It is so UM Albert wood Fox,

579
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:31,920
Speaker 1: who was kind of the focus of this article that

580
00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: I read, he was in prison, UH in solitary for

581
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: forty five years, and they're not positive, but they think

582
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 1: that he is the person who was in solitary confinement

583
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:49,560
Speaker 1: the longest in the United States forty five years. Dude.

584
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: I know, the fact that he's out and walking talking

585
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: is pretty insane. There's another one of his um, his

586
00:36:56,960 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 1: buddies or at least fellow inmates, UH is still in

587
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 1: in lockdown UM in Angola and has been since I

588
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:09,759
Speaker 1: think the eighties, right, Yeah, I don't This wasn't one

589
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: of the Angola three, but it was a guy named

590
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 1: George Gibson and he is an Angola. Yeah, he's been

591
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: in lockdown since. And these are six by I mean

592
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:20,839
Speaker 1: not like eight by ten is big, but these were

593
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,839
Speaker 1: six by nine ft cells. And UM, here's the thing

594
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: they were. You know, if you look at the evidence,

595
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 1: there's a lot of documentaries and um, I mean, you know,

596
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 1: very famous cases. They were essentially put in lockdown to

597
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,640
Speaker 1: squash this descent. But what they were officially put in

598
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: for was for killing a prison guard. Um. But according

599
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,640
Speaker 1: to most people, that did not happen. It was not them. Uh.

600
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: There were so many inconsistencies or obfuscations. There were missteps.

601
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: There was a bloody print at the murder scene that

602
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: didn't match any of these guys. Uh. They never compare

603
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:04,400
Speaker 1: that bloody handprint too or was it a handprint or

604
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 1: a footprint I had to print? They never compared that

605
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: to any of the other prisoners and that were had

606
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: access to potentially kill this guard. And there were very

607
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:17,680
Speaker 1: few people that even could have done this. It's not

608
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,320
Speaker 1: like it was the whole prison population. Uh. There was

609
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: DNA evidence that could have freed them that was conveniently

610
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: lost by prison officials. Uh. They had plenty of alibi

611
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 1: witnesses that had nothing to gain, Like they didn't get

612
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 1: an exchange, uh for for anything like good behavior to

613
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 1: get more free time. They said, these guys weren't anywhere

614
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: near the murder scene at the time. These other prisoners

615
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 1: and their main witness, Hezekiah Brown Uh. Basically in retrospect,

616
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: everyone says, this guy lied under oath so he could

617
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: get more privileges. He was a serial rapist serving life,

618
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: and he agreed to testify an exchange for more cigarettes,

619
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: birthday cakes TV time and the birthday cakes was kind

620
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 1: of interesting. Bert Uh and the warden later on when

621
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: he was reminiscing in this documentary, the warden of the

622
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: prison said, Hezekiah was one of these guys where you

623
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: could put words in his mouth, and so they were

624
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: essentially enough doubt to where the family members of the

625
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:22,440
Speaker 1: guard that was killed said, we don't think these guys

626
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: did it, and we want to find out who did it.

627
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 1: And eventually they were. They were all freed for different reasons.

628
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:35,400
Speaker 1: One of them, Herman, was freed because despite all this

629
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: misconduct in the investigation, in the trial Uh and constitutional

630
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: violations and racism, he was eventually freed because they excluded

631
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: women um from one of his trials, which is a

632
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 1: violation of the fourteenth Amendment, which was interesting. And he

633
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 1: died three days after he got out of cancer I know,

634
00:39:54,160 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: very tragic. Uh. Albert was finally released h um, but

635
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 1: not because of uh, I'm sorry. Albert was was not

636
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: released because of continued practicing of black pantherism. They called it.

637
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: That's not even a real thing. You can't make that up.

638
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: You can't keep somebody in there for that. What. Yeah.

639
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 1: And then finally in two sixteen, after forty three years

640
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:25,160
Speaker 1: and ten months I think we said forty five years, um,

641
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 1: Albert was released, uh from isolation and from prison, which

642
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: is I'm sure there's a movie in the works about

643
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: these guys. But again, there was no transition process, right.

644
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: He was just in solitary confined one day and then

645
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,879
Speaker 1: the next day he's out of prison, not just out

646
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,360
Speaker 1: of solitary, out of prison. And from what I've from

647
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: from what the research I've run across, it's if you

648
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: were in solitary, you are more likely to commit a crime,

649
00:40:51,719 --> 00:40:55,839
Speaker 1: You are less able to identify with other people. And

650
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: if the point of prison is to rehabilitate people, or

651
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: at the very least to um not release them until

652
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: they're they're ready to be rejoint society, yeah, then solitary

653
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: confinement is the antithesis of that. You're stripping someone of

654
00:41:10,200 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: their humanity and their ability to relate to humanity on

655
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: a physiological neurological level. So it runs contrary to our

656
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: ideas of prisons. Yeah. And if you're thinking, what about

657
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 1: the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual punishment, that seems like

658
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: and many cases like an open and shut kind of thing.

659
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: But um, there's never been a ruling on that. Now

660
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: the courts said not today, and in the mood today,

661
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: here's some other day, because after all, who cares about

662
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:49,799
Speaker 1: the inmates, right? Their inmates, their criminals. Uh. If you

663
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: want to know more about inmates and criminals and solitary confinement,

664
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: you can type those words in the search part how

665
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:58,799
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Since I said search parts, time

666
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:06,760
Speaker 1: for listener mail. All right, a quick correction first. Um,

667
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: it's called World Geography with Josh Part two. I get

668
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: a wrong a lot. Uh just sit there and check

669
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: out maps. Well, I'm the worst world geography, but you

670
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,799
Speaker 1: love maps. I do love maps, which is weird. I think.

671
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: I just I don't talk about it because I know

672
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: I'm not any good at it. Uh So in our

673
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 1: famine episode, I think you said, what were the two

674
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 1: countries Botswana and Ethiopia. Yeah, we're neighbor, they're not a

675
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 1: few thousand miles apart. A couple of thousand, not a

676
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,239
Speaker 1: few thousand, all right, So we like the correct things

677
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: we get wrong. Um. And another thing we got wrong

678
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: in Jess was, um, when we did our listener mail

679
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:55,000
Speaker 1: from Australia with the Assie lingo. Yeah, surely the Australians

680
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:57,399
Speaker 1: got that we were joking, right, I don't think so.

681
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: We got a lot of response saying guys, you got

682
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 1: it so wrong. Yeah, they like kind of exasperated, like,

683
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 1: how did you how did you get it this wrong?

684
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 1: We were just kidding around. Yeah, we knew we were

685
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: wrong on that stuff. Where is that famous Australian sense

686
00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: of humor? But um, I'm gonna read this one from

687
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: Matt just because it's the first one that came up

688
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 1: on my phone because it didn't have one prepared. You're

689
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 1: like the Assassin and no Country for Old Minton. It's

690
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 1: all about fake What a great movie. Um. So officially,

691
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: Matt says Marca's is McDonald's. Didn't know that. That's not true.

692
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 1: He said it rhymes with packers, Green Bay packers, so macers,

693
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:46,399
Speaker 1: I guess bottle. Oh is where you buy alcohol. That's wrong? Uh, servo, chuck,

694
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: You got it right. It was a petrol station. Okay,

695
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:52,920
Speaker 1: maybe that one. Dirries or cigarettes round to the curries,

696
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: also called darts or cancer sticks. Wrong, Piste is drunk,

697
00:43:58,040 --> 00:43:59,879
Speaker 1: we know that. I don't know what you said in jest.

698
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:02,600
Speaker 1: Thought your bit was really funny. It wasn't that funny.

699
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 1: I wasn't very happy with myself. It could have been

700
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: way funnier. I thought it was good. Um. Although he

701
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: says Piste is drunk enough to not drive, I don't

702
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: know what that means in Australia. I know where that

703
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: line is because you veer off the road. You're just

704
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: in the outback. As long as you have some water

705
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: and you're drunk, you're fine. A stubby is a beer.

706
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:24,400
Speaker 1: It's specifically a three hundred and seventy five millilite a

707
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: bottle of beer. Three pint. It's a pint, okay, Why

708
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: why don't you just call it a pint? He said.

709
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: It's also a style of Tradesmen work shorts with a

710
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 1: pocket big enough to hold a bottle of beer. We

711
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 1: call those cargo shorts or beer shorts. Um. A slab

712
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:49,040
Speaker 1: is a case of beer, which is twenty four of stubbies. Okay,

713
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 1: um v B plus stubbies means from Victoria, like me,

714
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:58,600
Speaker 1: Victoria bitter beer is a vb um Foster's also it's

715
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:02,759
Speaker 1: probably Victorian from the Carlton United Breweries Carlton as his

716
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:08,280
Speaker 1: Melbourne brewery. Uh. In fact, the first ever artificial ice

717
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: created was to make beer cold in Australia. What interesting?

718
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 1: And he says, by the way, there's a lot of

719
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:18,520
Speaker 1: Aussie slang that is not relevant travel books. I read

720
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:22,160
Speaker 1: them myself and laugh as nobody in Australia talks that way.

721
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,360
Speaker 1: It's a big fat joke that every Aussie can convince

722
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: his foreigners. Danger is girt, g u r t ste.

723
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: You're clear of girt, drop bears, hoop snakes and yawi's

724
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what's going on now. I think

725
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 1: a hoop snake if that's another name for hookworm. Okay,

726
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 1: what's a drop bear? The drop bear is the it's

727
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: your fecal material containing hookworm eggs. And yeah, he's that's

728
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: what you say when you drop a hoop bear for

729
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 1: getting a famous hoop slanging fight. Boy, I could see

730
00:45:56,880 --> 00:46:00,760
Speaker 1: how this could be an endless cycle of emails forever

731
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: and ever, let's keep it going kind of like a

732
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:05,760
Speaker 1: hookworm life cycle. Uh. The above written is true today,

733
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,319
Speaker 1: as your contributor wrote, no trademarks involves as far as

734
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:13,640
Speaker 1: I know, Stubby work shorts origin might be contested. And

735
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: that is from Matt. Thanks Matt. What does Matt mean

736
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 1: in Australia? How you like your feet before you enter

737
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: a dwelling? Okay, thanks Matt. If you want to get

738
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 1: in touch of this, like Matt did, you can tweet

739
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast. I'm also

740
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: at josh um Clark check me out. You can hang

741
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: on with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant

742
00:46:35,640 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 1: and at Stuff you Should Know. You can send us

743
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,880
Speaker 1: an emails to Stuff podcast at house stuffworks dot com

744
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 1: and has always joined us at home on the web.

745
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this

746
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, does it how Stuff Works

747
00:46:53,160 --> 00:47:00,120
Speaker 1: dot com. M