Is long-term solitary confinement torture?

[Rev. Rye]

3 years at ADC-Yuma has gotta be like an associate's is criminal psychology.

It's all fucking torture. One does not isolate the social animal and call it ethical, in my book. From an inside perspective, criminals should get their own Australia. Their own society. The escape and cause lawlessness in our lawful society - and both societies are forced to evolve.

Im all for banishment of rule breakers..of course, my list of laws could easily be written on ones hand. The type of society I advocate has a near non-existant murder rate as well.

There's one basic problem, and RationalWiki has nailed it on the head:



Banishment...is not a good idea. This is because other people don't want your criminals either. Can you imagine the diplomatic fallout if one of our criminals ended up somewhere else and committed crimes? (And they would probably be immediately banished by whichever state they went to, leading them to become homeless nomads.) Banishment relies on a sense of a "wild space" that, in most of the world, doesn't really exist anymore. Except for certain parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, there are no more "tribal lands" that people can just escape to. Even Mexico has become a fully functioning state (except perhaps in Oaxaca--and good luck trying to disappear to there!) This is an archaic idea with no place in the modern world. (Note: You could try to do it all Heinlein style and set aside a bit of land to banish people too. This would then be a prison.)