AMERICA imprisons 2.2m people—more than any other country in both real and relative terms. About 4.4% of those prisoners, on any given day, are serving time while virtually bereft of human contact. The conditions in solitary confinement are grim: prisoners sit alone in 6-by-10 ft windowless cells for all but an hour or so a day, eating meals that are, themselves, punitive. In many prisons, inmates are served a post-apocalyptic meal called Nutraloaf but known more popularly as “the brick” or “the loaf”—a dry, flavourless, 1100-calorie product that makes people gag. But mealtime may be the highlight of one’s day in solitary. A chorus of critics say that time in a “special housing unit” (or “SHU”) brings severe mental and emotional harm to prisoners without making prisons any safer for inmates or staff.
Last week, a major agreement to tamp down the use of solitary confinement in the Empire state was reached...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1U2l9nj
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