• AnneBonny@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 months ago

    Other local governments and states have sought to curtail solitary confinement. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a California bill to limit the practice, saying the “overly broad” ban could jeopardize the safety of staff and other detainees.

    It seems like Newsom never makes it into the news because he did something good.

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    In New York State, lawmakers in 2021 limited solitary confinement to no more than 15 consecutive days.

    The bill would ban the practice beyond a four-hour “de-escalation” period during an emergency.

    I don’t know enough about prisons or psychiatry to say whether 15 days is too long, but four hours seems like a rather short time. People who aren’t in prison routinely spend more time than that alone as part of a normal day.

    • Alto@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      There’s a major difference between being forced into being alone (doing nothing) and choosing to spend the evening at home watching Netflix

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        How about being sent to in-school suspension? Cuz I definitely did plenty of time sitting in a quiet room with nothing to do and no human contact for an entire school day.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            Well if I’m being disruptive in class then I’m a detriment to the education of other students; it’s not like class sizes are small enough that the teacher has time to deal with me. It’s a limitation created by understaffing, I think.

            • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Totally agree. Our district has better ways of dealing with various needs of kids. It’s amazing how much better it was than when I was a kid. If a kid is disruptive they try to find and address the core issue. At least in elementary school (where they can have the biggest positive impact) ADHD? Treat it, give accommodations, etc. Behavioral or emotional issues? Bring in a psychiatrist (I’m not shitting, I saw this happen multiple times). And so on.

        • Alto@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          Your ISS may have been different from mime, but we still had to do our schoolwork for the day. Even that is far different than nothing

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            11 months ago

            I didn’t actually get to do schoolwork, probably because no one was watching me. I was just sent to sit quietly in a room with nothing to do for the entire day, completely alone.

    • treefrog@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Lock yourself in the bathroom without a phone or any other entertainment for four hours.

      Then, imagine you’re a mentally ill person who was already considering suicide as solitary is often how jails deal with inmates threatening suicide because they’re understaffed and ill equipped for mental health care.

      Get back to me afterwards and let me know if four hours was enough.

      The county jail that put me on suicide watch left me naked in solitary for four days because the mental health staff that could clear me only worked part time and a 48 hour hold was mandatory. Three meals a day was the only break from staring at the walls and watching the guards walk by.

      I assure you after two hours I was done threatening suicide. Four would have been overkill. Four days was simply humiliation and torture. I’ll never forgive that county and still have trauma responses when I visit that town.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      There’s alone and there’s alone in a small room designed to be a form of sensory deprivation when you’re in a high emotional state and lack self control.

      15 days is well into brain damage long. That’s 15 days of 0 stimulation in a small box. Generally speaking you should see another human face every few days minimum

      4 hours is good for the maximum and I’d hope they case by case give 1 or 2 hours. 4 hours in solitary doesn’t have to mean “after 4 hours you have to be let out” it can mean “after 4 hours someone comes by, checks on you and gauges your emotional state via conversation”.

      I could also be ok with situations where they have access to positive stimulation (like books) for more than that time. But that gets into the realm of “it isn’t punishment, it’s alone time to calm you down”.

      Overall our current prison system needs an overhaul led by psychologists. It isn’t giving us pro social results. It takes people who are overwhelmingly some variant of mentally ill, torturing them while sticking them with other criminals, and then plopping them back on the street with trauma, no life skills, and debt. Many of these people were never free adults when released the first time.

  • Lophostemon@aussie.zone
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    11 months ago

    Damn, you know as a harassed father there’s some days I would fucking love me some solitary confinement.

    • Neato@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      Lock yourself in the bathroom with a cot and no phone for a week. Let us know how long you last.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        No cot. They often aren’t given one. Or even a blanket. And leave the light on 24/7. And hear the voices of people screaming through the air vents, desperate for human contact. Yeah, sounds like a great escape for a parent rather than just parenting your kids.

        • treefrog@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          I wasn’t allowed toilet paper. I guess they figured I would make a mess.

          A mat, a thick canvas blanket so you can’t hang yourself. No books. No magazines. No letters because I was on suicide watch.

          Three meals a day of terrible jail food was the only thing to break things up. You sleep as much as you can but the mind and body can only sleep so much.

      • treefrog@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        The days I did in solitary during a mental health crisis was torture and I have trauma responses just driving in that county.

        I bet most people would crack without anything to do after two hours. Let alone a week.

        OC should try an hour of sitting meditation to get some idea how restless the untrained mind gets with nothing to distract itself. Then they should imagine someone else forced them to do it.

        Solitary is torture and Adams should try it before vetoing something he doesn’t understand.

        • jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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          11 months ago

          I had to leave my phone for 6 hours to get the battery changed and was twitchy the entire time. Not because I needed it, but because most of my “waste time” stuff was on it. I used to carry paperback books for instance, now ebooks. I can imagine it’s torture, as I get bored easily and in situations where “nothing” is happening I really want to start reading something… No one I know likes to just sit, even around other people (heck, it’s hard to get them to talk to other people) without scrolling on their phones. And I’m guilty too - I have no interest to sit watching other people play on their phones or eat silently…