WEBVTT - Solitary Confinement: Cruel and Unusual 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:03.640 Hey, March is tripod month, my friend, and you know 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:06.680 what that means. Yes, that means it's time to let 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:11.360 people know about your favorite podcasts, just to share the 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.400 sheer joy of podcast listening. That's right, it's t r 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.479 y pod. Still in nascent industry. A lot of people 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.880 don't know what podcasts are and helps everybody out if 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.240 you would go out and just say, hey, family member, 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:26.920 who I see it? Thanksgiving once a year? Right, you 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.000 should try out this thing called a podcast. Here's what 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:30.920 they are. Here's a cool show you should try, and 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:32.479 here's how to get it. Yeah, and it doesn't have 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:34.800 to be our show, just any podcast you like in 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.320 general that you think someone else would like, just share it. Yeah, 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:44.120 So get on board the dry pod train. Welcome to 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:53.800 Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.480 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:01.400 Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. This is Stuff you 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:10.240 should know. Crime and Punishment Party eight Yeah, yeah, and 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:11.880 a lot of stuff on this And I thought we've 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.640 got more coming. I kept keep saying we're done, but 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:19.800 we're not done. Because while we touched on solitary confinement, 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.360 in Our Prisons episode, which was a great one, was it. 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.640 Have you gone back and listen recently. You're just making 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.600 assumption now, I just remember it being a good one. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.720 It stands out. It's one of our good ones. Uh, 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.920 this is um, you know, a little more robust. Look, 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:42.319 it's solitary confinement and the ins and outs mostly outs, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.600 don't you think? Yes? And not just me. There's like 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:51.360 a whole growing body of people who are kind of 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.720 screaming their heads off. I guess, yeah, saying like, hey, 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.000 put a person in a tiny room with no interaction 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.600 or stimulation twenty three hours a day. Not good for 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.400 you as a human right, And a lot of people 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.000 are going so far as to say this, this constitutes 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:11.280 cruel and in human punishment. Yeah, it's kind of like 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.840 zukosis for humans. We talked about that in Our Zoo's episode. Yeah, um, 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.920 you know, yeah, where the animal goes insane. Yeah. What 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.680 it's not is Steve McQueen in The Great Escape throwing 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.920 the baseball against the wall. Let's probably do that for 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.440 like a half hour. No, they wouldn't give you a baseball. 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.040 Oh that's true. You know, there's nothing funny you're cute 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:41.720 about it right, um, all right, shall we Yeah, that's 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.760 so solitary. It is a huge controversial thing right now 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:50.040 because some a lot of proponents say it's extremely necessary 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.920 and that this is just the way that you're supposed 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.160 to punish people, or that it's just needed even without 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:01.760 punishment or um. Other people say, no, this is cool 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:04.160 and in human, like we said, regardless of how you 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.440 slice it is actually an American product, it's an American export. 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.080 It's being used all over the world right now. Yeah, 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.120 And depending on where you are and what prison you're in, 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:18.320 they might call it something else. They have a lot 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.400 of I mean, in this article the house Stuff Works article, 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.480 they you know, call it like lockdown, restrictive housing, segregation, isolation. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.320 But I saw a lot more uh creative names that 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.360 prisons use that you know, try to shine it up 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.240 a bit as something other than what it is. Right, 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.320 But in what it is, no matter what you call 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:42.800 it is, it's confining a prisoner to a relatively small 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.880 cell um I saw usually eight by ten or less. 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.320 And I also saw that frequently compared to a horse stable, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.760 in which comparison the um the prison cell actually comes 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.800 out the smaller of the two and you confine that 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:02.240 and this is the key you can find that person 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:05.440 to that small selfer between twenty three and twenty four 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:10.240 hours a day every day. Yeah, well I think twenty 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.640 They like some people never leave. It depends on the day. 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:18.479 So uh, in some cases you'll be confined like that 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:20.760 for twenty three hours a day and then one hour 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:26.200 a day you get out to exercise and um shower. 0:04:26.920 --> 0:04:30.160 But maybe that's just on week days. So a weekend 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.480 you would be in there for forty eight straight hours 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.320 or longer. If the guard doesn't like you or is 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.880 in a bad mood, they might just not let you 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.880 out that day, right, And we don't want to paint 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.840 corrections officers, as you know, the movies do a good 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:51.039 enough job of demonizing them. Yeah, And if you look 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.240 into the some of the people who are being held 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.080 in solitary, some of the people who started solitary or 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.839 have stayed in their longest, you kind of understand why 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.720 someone would want to keep them as far away from 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.919 people as possible, you know. So, like it's it's a 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.600 it's a it's a complex issue. It's not cut and dried. 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.080 There's not an obvious villain in this story, and an 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.400 obvious victim in this story. Yeah, so, like I was saying, Um, 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.440 we don't want to demonize them because it's happened enough 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.480 in media and certainly films. Tom Hanks aside, I guess 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.120 in The Green Mile, he just he can't help but 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.599 be delightful. Uh, he played a well. He was actually 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:31.960 kind of I was about to say Road to Perdition. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.760 He was the good guy. He was an anti hero though, Yeah, 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.280 a bit of an anti hero. But uh, anyway, we're 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:43.120 not gonna do that. But that does still happen, you know. There. 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.240 That's why prison reform is still a thing, because there's 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:48.400 still is a lot of abuse that happens in certain 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:52.679 prisons and among certain prison guards and uh, correctional officers. 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.640 So uh, it's certainly not something that's been solved. Uh. 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:58.320 I just like to see away a little bit because 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.240 I know that we have prison guards that listen to 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.960 our show, and Chuck, we we should say the whole 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.520 point of solitary is to limit human contact as much 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.920 as possible. Yeah, so even though you are maybe interacting 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.640 with a guard here there, it's when they slide your 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.960 meal in three times a day, and that's it. You 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.320 don't see people. You um, you exercise alone. Everything you're 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.760 doing is alone. And that's the point. That's why they 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:29.680 call it solitary confinement. It is uh. So there's a 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.479 couple of types of segregation that can happen. One's called 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:38.720 disciplinary segregation. That is uh pretty obvious you have done 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.880 something that has run a foul of the prison rules um, 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:47.200 which can range from legitimate things like you know, you 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.560 start a fight, or you attacked another inmate or you 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.320 know what, caught with an extra honey bun maybe so, 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.720 or you you stole something um too a little more 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.040 petty things and that's where that's where materia gets real hinky, 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.080 Like maybe you talk back to a guard and they 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:05.800 didn't like hearing that, so they're like, all right, you 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.120 got to the hole for thirty days, right, Or maybe 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:12.360 somebody um snitched on you and you were framed clearing 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:18.160 clearing simple, right. So that's disciplinary segregation. There's also administrative segregation, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.480 and this is UM. You might be put in there 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.880 if let's say you're a sex offender who notoriously have 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.120 a rough time in prison, or you're a gang member 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.440 who has started some trouble and you know Basically they're 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.440 trying to protect uh supposedly trying to protect the prisoner 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:42.320 from harm. Yeah, by isolating them from the population. Yeah, 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.000 but whether they whether they want to stay in the 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.560 regular population or not, that decisions made for them, right, 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.400 And that's just one type of administrative Um. You can 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.560 also be put in if the regular cells are full 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.680 and they're just full up, so sorry, you gotta go 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:02.680 to solitary. Uh, with overcrowding, that's obviously a big deal. Um, 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.200 pre trial you can go in if you're not even 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.840 convicted of a crime yet, this might be put in solitary. 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:12.480 There should be a constitutional amendment that prevents that. Yeah, 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.800 I read the story. Actually, I heard it on NPR 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.120 this weekend, which is what made me think of this thing. Uh. 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:22.920 There's a documentary on Spike TV called the Calif Browder Story. 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.200 Is that the kid who stole the backpack? Yeah? Did 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.160 you hear that? No, I just knew about it while 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.200 it was going on. Yeah, this this guy, Calif Browder um, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:36.240 when he was I think he was sixteen at the time, UM, 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.000 stole a backpack from a party. He and his buddy 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.800 get uh get I don't. I don't know if they're 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:44.640 in a car, got pulled over, but they get arrested. 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.600 They let the one guy go, but Calif Browder had 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.719 a prior charge, so they kept him for more than 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:55.720 three years in uh the Rikers Island Jail complex, and 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.000 a lot of that was in solitary confinement, confinement, and 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:02.040 this before like ultimately the charges were dropped. He wasn't 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.000 even convicted of a crime, and he was in solitary 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.320 for three years. He finally gets out. He committed suicide 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.559 lessening year after. And it's just one of the geez 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.120 one of the more egregious and sad examples of just 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:18.560 how broken the system can be here in the United States. 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:23.840 The the another UM way that it's being used that's 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:27.800 just as egregious as pre trial UM in my opinion, 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:34.079 is to house the mentally ill right after after the eighties, 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:38.040 when Reagan closed down the massive institutions that had become 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:42.320 like huge places of abuse of the mentally ill in 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:48.920 favor of um more community servicing of mental health, but 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.840 then didn't fund the communities, so that the mentally ill 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:57.000 just ended up on the street. Right prison became the 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.960 new institutions for housing mentally ill people well apparently a 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.480 favorite place to actually house the mentally ill in prison 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:10.599 is in solitary confinement. And as we'll see, UM, ostensibly 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.080 just being put in solitary confinement if you have a 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.959 completely healthy mind is really really bad for your mental state. 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.720 If you're already mentally ill or predisposed of mental illness, 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:27.079 it can be a death sentence for you. Yeah, and 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.600 uh in the United States, UM, they don't have exact 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:34.280 numbers because uh, it's just you know, states vary and 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.880 what they consider confinement solitary confinement. UM. Not a lot 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.679 of prisons want to participate in studies. There's no reporting, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.000 not very much, you know. UM, but I have the impression, Chuck, 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.040 that you could be like a congress person saying like 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.360 I want to tour your solitary wing and you would 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:54.720 get turned out. There's like that level of um self 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.520 administration by the Bureau of Corrections inside prisons. Yeah. So 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.720 the number very but UM basically most people say up 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:07.439 to a hundred thousand inmates in the United States, And again, 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.160 not all of these are in prison. Some of them 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.679 are in jail, some of them or in uh uh 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:19.360 immigrant temporary immigrant housing uh are kept in isolation. And Um, 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.920 there isn't a You don't go before a court to 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.880 get put in the whole you you know, a prison 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.480 official will dictate this. There is no recourse for a prisoner. 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.439 They call the shots. There's no oversight, can be indefinite. 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.600 You can't call your attorney and say, hey, I'm in 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:37.880 solitary and I didn't do anything. All that is talk back. 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.480 I've been in here for six months because the guard 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.400 has a problem with me. Um, there's nothing that can 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.680 be done, basically no. So that makes it an extra 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:51.160 judicial punishment with no oversight from judges or juries, which 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:58.280 is that's that's not good. And it's really widespread, not 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:02.600 just in the United States but around the world. Now, yeah, 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:04.680 well let's take a break and we'll come back and 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.920 talk a little bit about how this all got started. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:37.480 Right after this, so Chuck I said earlier that this 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:42.360 is an American invention, right, It's actually an American Quaker invention. 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:46.480 The Friends Society of Friends came up with the idea 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.840 of solitary confinement first, and I feel like we talked 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.000 about this in the Prison episode two. The whole idea 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.480 was that, Um, at the time, you know you might 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.079 be put to to labor or work or um just 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.160 left to hang around your fellow inmates in jail. And 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.720 the idea behind solitary originally that the Quakers came up 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.280 with was that you should be given time to reflect 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:13.680 on your punishment and quiet solitude, and the hope was 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:18.080 that eventually you would become penitent and be redeemed. And 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.240 that's where the word penitentiary came from to describe prisons. 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.400 That's right. This is the late eighteenth century when they 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.880 came up with it at the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:30.719 which sounds lovely. It does sound kind of like a 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.679 nice place to be. I bet it wasn't. Uh. Flash 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.599 forward a bit to the kind of early third of 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:40.319 the eighteen hundreds and eighteen twenty nine Eastern State Penitentiary 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:44.040 in Pennsylvania. They said, you know what, we're gonna try 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.400 experimenting with how we deal with prisoners, and we're gonna 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:51.720 try this thing called lockdown. Uh. They found that it 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:55.200 didn't work very well. These inmates were socially dysfunctional, a 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.240 lot of them killed themselves, and so in eighteen twenty 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.040 nine they abandoned it and said, this is not a 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.400 good idea Yeah, within the first forty years of it 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.640 being invented, they're like, no, we shouldn't be doing this 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.160 to people. And they went in favor of the Auburn 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:15.120 State Prison and Upstate New York's method of putting people 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:18.800 the hard labor that became the the um the what 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:20.800 you what you did when you got sent to prison, 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.160 rather than put into solitary, and they kept solitary around 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:27.440 like you didn't go away entirely, Like basically every prison 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.040 had a hole. You get thrown in the hole, but 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:31.800 you get thrown in the hole for like days or 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:35.040 weeks or something like that to punish you for something 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.640 you did in the prison. Yeah, and they still say, 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.120 like experts still say it can be a useful tool 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.000 in prison if you do put someone in there for 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.400 three to five days or I think the u N 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.080 says no more than two weeks, fifteen days, I think 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.920 is what they came up with. Yeah, So you know, 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:52.800 the point is is not to say like, well, I mean, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:54.440 I'm sure there are tons of people that say you 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.000 shouldn't do it at all, but experts say that it 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.280 can be a deterrent for you know, poor behavior or 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.080 whatever in prison. But people being in there for months 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.200 and years is the issue at hand. So it was 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:10.840 used sparingly, but it was still around throughout the most 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.400 of the twentieth century. Alcatraz famously had D Block, which 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:18.680 was like a solitary block. Um. But then on October 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:23.960 twenty everything changed in the current incarnation of the use 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:29.720 of solitary confinement was born on that day at Marian Prison, 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:34.800 Marian Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois. So there were two 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.440 different incidents where prison guards were killed that day. Yes, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:44.160 it's not two separate things, right, yeah, And um, the 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:48.040 the warden put the prison on lockdown and just kept 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:51.720 it there. And what the warden basically invented in in 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.840 retaliation for these two murders on this day was what's 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.760 now known as a super max prison. It's where all 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:03.440 of the prisoners are kept ultimately in isolation for twenty 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.960 three to twenty four hours a day, uh, throughout the prison. 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:09.800 And it's like a prison within a prison. Each inmate 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.040 is in their own individual prison within the larger prison, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:16.200 and that's called super max prison. Yeah, and we talked 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.240 about those a lot in the Prisons episode. These became 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:24.120 uh uh not the new standard because you know, not 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.320 all prisons of super max. But they became more widespread 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:31.760 for sure through the nineties, um partially because of Bill 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.800 Clinton in he signed the very famous crime Bill, which, 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:38.840 among other things and it was famously known as the 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.400 three strikes Bill. Well, yeah, that's what created the exploding 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.680 prison population in large part. Yeah. And Clinton he still 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:52.760 defends this as um going a long way to alleviate crime. Uh, 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.880 even like during this most recent election he was being 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.440 called out for it and and saying like this was, 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.240 you know, a good thing, and um, the detractors still say, no, 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:08.440 this is what started in a big, big way incarceration 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:12.400 as as a business model in this country. Yeah. And 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:17.520 apparently the US now has twent of the global prison 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.439 population but only five percent of the global population as 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:26.639 a whole. Yeah, that's really disproportionate. And apparently we're second 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.480 at least on paper to the Seychelles um for the 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:38.119 percentage of people in prison. Every seven hundred sixteen of 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.520 every hundred thousand people in the US is in prison, 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.399 and in the Seychells it's seven of every hundred thousand. 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:47.680 But stay shells as a population of so that kind 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.480 of excuse it. And they think that the largest prison 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:55.240 state really is um North Korea that it has a 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.560 larger port proportion of its population in prison the US. 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.200 So technically the U s would be number three, but 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.200 we would just be trailing North Korea. It's not something 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:08.919 you want to trail. It's not not a country that 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.000 you want to be super close to as far as 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:16.879 like prison population percentages. No. Um. So, like we said before, 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:21.640 there are even experts that say that solitary confinement can 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:26.640 have a place in prison as a deterrent for bad behavior. UM. 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:30.160 And like I mentioned earlier, two separate things here. Bad 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.199 behavior is one, but you know, mentally ill, we just 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.120 don't have enough space. Um. You know all these other 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:41.400 reasons of the truly abhorrent ones. UM. But like I said, 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.359 deterrent is a big one. UM. There there is a 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:50.160 lot of legitimacy to protecting UM prisoners from fellow prisoners. 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:52.960 They're at high risk for being injured or killed, that's 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:58.200 legit obviously. If they're a danger, you know, have attacked 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.359 guards or other inmates, then uh a need for separation, 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:06.960 like you can make a case you know there for sure, Um, 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.760 if they're prone to escape, yeah, maybe they need their 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.960 own little room. I mean, that's that's one of the 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.400 big ones that for for proponents of super max prisons 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.080 that like this is it's a prison within a prison, 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:20.879 and they have to get out of that first prison 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.640 and then they're still in the other prison. It just 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:25.880 just makes it much more difficult to get out. Yeah, 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.240 I mean, you escape and you go on and commit 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:31.160 more crimes, murder someone while are on the lamb Uh. 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:35.119 You can definitely make an argument that keeping people like that, um, 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:41.120 these repeat offenders or repeat escape e offenders in solitary. 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:43.600 So those are some of the arguments for Yeah. And 0:19:43.640 --> 0:19:46.200 then I I don't know if you said it already, 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:51.200 but that having that extra way to punish someone who's 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.760 already in prison is another reason proponents say you need 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.400 to have this as a tool to kind of maintain order, 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:03.240 like if you legitimately run a foul of rules or yeah, 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.600 like yeah, exactly, because I mean, if you if you 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:10.119 kill another inmates, sensibly you're going to go through trial again, 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.480 but the you know that you could be executed for 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:17.200 for that, and that would be different than just being 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.920 in prison. But if you weren't, then that's basically like, oh, 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.120 you're in prison for life. Already, Well we're gonna add 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.200 another life sentence onto that, you know, Like, there's only 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:28.600 so much you can do to someone who's in prison 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:33.520 short of executing them. Uh, And the solid solitary confinement, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:40.560 proponents say provides that extra layer, right. And the reason 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.760 it provides that extra deterrent though, is because of the 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.760 impact it has been shown to have on the mind 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:52.520 of inmates. And there's a few problems with this. Before 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.920 we get into it, we should say there's they're very 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.600 little studies. And one of the reasons why there there 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:02.480 are so few studies is because there's so little access 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:06.920 to prisoners in solitary confinement by researchers. It's just not allowed. 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.800 They're just kept out. Yeah. I saw a lot of 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:15.360 these studies were longitudinal studies about isolation of the elderly 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.200 and like the effect it can have on them. Well, 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:20.199 there's a big worry I've seen that that's like the 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:25.640 next health crisis is going to be loneliness and disconnectedness. Um. 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:27.800 But yeah, that's that's where they've gotten a lot of 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.600 the data because the the prisoners are unavailable for study 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:37.560 there in solitary and in that same vein possibly disingenuously. Um. 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:42.640 The ones that have been able to be interviewed say 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.080 they've gotten out of prison and now they're available to 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:51.480 be interviewed. Um. The proponents of um SO of solitary 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:55.720 confinement say that the prisoners are just they're just telling 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.320 researchers what they think they want to hear, or they're 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.439 really playing up their story or whatever. But what they 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.840 found is that there there seems to be a basis 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:10.320 for the idea that there are demonstrably negative impacts on 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:15.080 mental health that are possibly permanent and irreversible that comes 0:22:15.119 --> 0:22:19.000 from staying in solitary confinement for prolonged times. Yeah, I 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:21.040 mean there have been some studies. There was one on 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.280 the Pelican Bay Prison in California, and it said, Uh, 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:31.439 people in solitary for long periods, uh, suffer from depression, anxiety, apathy, hallucinations, 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:36.280 panic attacks, paranoia. Um, this is a big one. Hypersensitivity 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:42.400 external stimuli basically sound and light. Right. Uh. Sometimes they're 0:22:42.440 --> 0:22:45.600 kept in the dark. Sometimes the light never goes off, 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.119 so they you know, have no sense of you know, 0:22:49.600 --> 0:22:52.800 no circadian rhythm of day or night, which makes sleep 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:58.479 extraordinarily difficult to Apparently, prisoners who are in solitary will 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.600 basically stay in bed all day and then they don't 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:04.720 sleep much at night. But they're not really getting good 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:06.560 sleep during the day either, So it's not like the 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:10.880 circadian rhythm has flip flopped. It's been spread out over 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:14.880 the day rather than um so which prevents it from 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:20.080 getting actually real rest because they're constantly at rest. Uh. 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:25.880 What else difficulties UM thinking, concentration, memory, UM, they become 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:31.480 angry and violent, they could suffer from dizziness, UM, heart palpitations, perspiration. 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:35.800 Basically like we're saying, zukosis, Like you're trapped in this 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:39.199 little box and it's not like, well, you can just 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:42.160 read all day and educate yourself or something, or paint well. 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.000 And in cases where they are, yes, because a lot 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:47.960 of times they're not given those things. But most time 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:51.840 you're you're not allowed any form of stimulation or entertainment. 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:55.280 So in in plenty of cases you are, like, you're 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:57.399 still allowed to say books or something like that. But 0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.919 apparently one of the things you run into very quickly 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:03.600 in solitary is you lose your taste for reading, even 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:07.520 though that's all you have to do, because you can't 0:24:07.560 --> 0:24:12.440 remember what you read a few pages previously, so you're 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:15.640 you're having so many problems with your memory that you're 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:19.800 not able to retain enough of what you're reading to 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:23.359 make a book worthwhile. So you just stopped reading after 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:26.600 a while. Wow. Uh so where could this lead in 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:31.280 a physical sense? Um? They have done studies and they 0:24:31.320 --> 0:24:34.359 show that if you're in solitary for extended periods, you 0:24:34.440 --> 0:24:38.080 have a higher rate of self mutilation and suicide. Um. 0:24:38.119 --> 0:24:41.360 They did one five year study from two thousand four 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:45.120 in California, I think, in their whole prison system, and 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:50.040 almost fifty of all inmate suicides were committed by those 0:24:50.040 --> 0:24:54.280 in isolation. And see, that's a tough thing for someone 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:59.119 who who uh doesn't believe that that that isolation is 0:24:59.119 --> 0:25:01.920 a real problem. That's a that's a that's a tough 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:03.960 one for them to just get rid of. Because the 0:25:04.000 --> 0:25:06.720