Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Solitary Confinement
After listening to this story from NPR on the radio, I found myself struggling with the idea of solitary confinement, and other ways that men are punished. One of my favorite quotes is this one, by Eugene Debs: "While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free”. This is what I contemplated as I listened. I thought of the fact that we only get one chance on this earth, one chance to make a life that fulfills us. And to think that one mistake (granted, one huge mistake) would warrant 36 years in a solitary cell 23 hours a day, after a trial that was biased by prejudice. I find it so tragic that a human life can be thrown away so easily, even if it is the life of a murderer. Now, don't get me wrong, murderers should be punished. However, I disagree with this idea of solitary confinement, and I disagree with our inherently unjust justice system, and I disagree with the idea that criminals never get second chances. Especially if it is only because of their race. I am an idealist, and ideally, I would live by Debs' quote, and consider myself not to be free while one human life rots in a cell. However, it is a corrupt world in which we live, and it would take a mighty wind to reverse the dangerous course of our justice system. Can this wind ever begin to blow?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I completely agree. There must be other ways of punishment than solitary confinement---I mean, think about the amount of their life that has been lost and that they can never get back. I thought of something---what if they are innocent? No amount of legal settlement or apologies could ever get them that part of their life that they lost. (That's another part of our justice system I don't agree with---how people can spend 20 years in jail, completely innocent, with that part of their lives taken away from them while the guilty person is free.)
Murderers should most definitely be punished, but solitary confinement is NOT the answer.
This is also somewhat off-topic, but here I go: I read an article in Vanity Fair a few months ago by Christopher Hitchens where he underwent waterboarding. Remember how we talked about it in Crosby's class last year? How it gives people the feeling of drowning so they will beg the people who are doing it to stop and then they'll confess and (hopefully) give the US government some much-needed information? I just hate the very idea. Even if they are terrorists, it's still a form of torture, and I don't think that's right for ANYONE. Besides, who knows if the information they give is even correct? After being waterboarded, wouldn't the average person say anything in order to stop it? I can't believe that we can talk about freedom and equality and still torture people like that (or with solitary confinement, for that matter). It seems hypocritical...
Confinement has unnatural and unwanted effects on the prisoner (remember the Stanford prison experiment?). I think many people agree that our punitary system is ineffective and often unjust, but I rarely see efforts made to change it.
Thanks for posting this--it would have made for a fantastic discussion during our transcendentalism unit. Keep posting!
Post a Comment