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.)

[houseofcantor]

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.)

RationalWiki obviously has no conception of ADC-Yuma. How is the Big House not banishment? How is it an archaic idea when it is the manifestation of modern prison? When you have communities such as Florence and Chino that strive for a "non-correctional identity?" After tourism, incarceration is the next largest industry in Arizona; what is to be the business, confinement or torture? An ethical society can rationalize one but not the other; should we not be ethical?

When I rolled up on Dakota unit, the coroner was rolling out. There was "diplomatic fallout" concerning the integration of Mexican nationalists and California Latinos. The solution? Banishment in the form of segregation, after six inmates lost their lives while the internal society spiraled outward in cycles of vengeance. Wheels within wheels. The American "criminal element" manifests the same social norms as the greater society. Vengeance.

I'm not an anarchist because I consider "lawlessness rulez! FTW!" Rather, that any form of society is based upon similarity of moral imperative; that a certain amount of ethical standard is coded into interpersonal relationships to such an extent that law may be able to fulfill a more idealized function than "existing only when broken." This is the Arizona Revised Statutes:



And I am an archaist whose only law is the ethical code of "I love." Six years of living at the same address has produced a history of having the cops show up at my door in response to the lawlessness of my neighbors. It is a safe assumption that they would classify me "Christian."

[Epimethean]

So, we create our own modern Siberia, and let them have their own society somewhere out of Barrow. Not sure Alaska's population, indigenous or otherwise, would like that at all. Escapees, vehicles, etc. not likely workable at all.

[reverendjeremiah]

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.)

There really are no good ideas when it comes to this. Also your arguement is based on a falacy, that there has to be "wild space" for a banishment to occur. This is NOT required for a banishment to happen.

In the anarcho commune of Christiania, the Denmark police department would encourage junkies and criminals to move to Christiania if they didnt like being arrested. When the junkies went to the commune the commune kicked them out. In this situation it was clearly not about banishment, and more about a government pushing their problems upon a non-government (funny though, since these governments claim to have all the answers, yet they pushed their problems off on the anarchist society to deal with). The commune tried to help them, but could not, so they sent them back to their original city. The cops would cathc them, put them in police cars, and drive them to the gate of Christiania again. THAT is an example of pushing your problems unto other people.

In an anarcho commune, murder is something that practically never happens. So we would not be pushing murderers off onto other communities. Also, as evidenced by Christiania, those who were born in the communestayed in the commune, and were never a burdon upon the others. the only trouble makers were those who came in from other communities to start fights, rob or rape, because they have been told by their govt that "anarchy" means "shoot, kill, rape and pillage". This is an example of another communities failing members infiltrating a peaceful community to disrupt it.

In other words, banishment of willing and indiginous members of an anarcho community is practically unheard of. Murder between indiginous and willing members of an anarcho community is also just as unheard of.

Trouble makers in an anarcho community are almost 100% always visiting outsiders who think they can run roughshod over a community. They think "anarchy" is "do whatever the fuck you want to anyone", then they see the peaceful people of an anarcho community and then think to themselves "This is easy pickings!" what they dont know is that an anarcho community polices itself. that every member is bound to protect the others through communal interest. Within 24 hours these trouble makers are peacefully escorted to the main gate and told never to return again.

Returning another communities visiting trouble maker is not banishment, nor is it placing stress upon that community any more than it has already made for itself.

If anything, the neighboring communities of an anarcho commune will be the ones placing stress upon the shared system and their fellow neighbors, not the anarchists.

[houseofcantor]

So, we create our own modern Siberia, and let them have their own society somewhere out of Barrow. Not sure Alaska's population, indigenous or otherwise, would like that at all. Escapees, vehicles, etc. not likely workable at all.

You're not thinking of the electronic fence and the necklace... and exploding heads.

Let's say you take a spot in Nevada where the government owns all the land, you draw three concentric circles, where the outside in minimum security whose primary function is to keep the middle in the middle. The middle keeps the high in the high, and the high televises gladiator games. Workable, feasible, economically self sustaining. One prison complex for the entire country. Let the inmates run the asylum. What's the problem? Presumption of innocence. Ethical standard. Empathy.

[Epimethean]

Platonic ideal, irreconcilable with current American reality.

[Autumnlicious]

American "reality" (really a delusion) notwithstanding, I think learning from the British penal system might be more constructive than letting our emotions run the show.

After all, if they can make a functioning society in an incredibly small place while tolerating a diverse society, there is no reason the US cannot do the same.

[Epimethean]

Reality being a matter of the compound of (real) emotions and the pragmatics of finding a place that would welcome such a potential problem, I have to say it is a fun idea that is unlikely to get anywhere-unless the U.S. takes over some new patch of land. I'd be all for sending them to some spot the U.S. "makes safe," say in Somalia or the Middle East. Heck, then we might not even need to have guards. The prisoners would need them, however.

[reverendjeremiah]

WTF...oh...its Epimethian


carry on.

[Epimethean]

Right, as opposed to our "Honk if you love serial killers" Rev.