Thursday, April 02, 2009

Is Solitary Confinement Torture?

Solitary Confinement: Possibly Torture, Definitely Hell comments on the story on solitary confinement by Atul Gawande in this past week’s New Yorker that asks "is it torture?".

"The answer isn't a categorical 'yes,' but it's probably not a categorical 'no' either--it is plausible that some cases of solitary confinement in the U.S. might qualify as torture under international law."

"All that said, of course, this legal question about torture isn’t really the main point of the article—Gawande isn’t suggesting that prison officials be brought up on torture charges, but rather that we rethink the policy of throwing tens of thousands of prisoners each year into solitary confinement."

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