Between the Bars: Comments on 'A Bad Day'https://betweenthebars.org/posts/commentfeed/65532012-08-27T08:26:54ZComment2012-08-27T08:26:54ZNicki/people/show/5634tag:betweenthebars.org,2012-08-27:/posts/6553/a-bad-day/comments
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<a href='/people/show/5634'>Nicki</a>
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<span class='comment-date'>Posted 11 years, 7 months ago.</span>
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Your post is completely heartbreaking. As a Psychology (& criminology) student I am appauled at a system that can affect this outcome on an individual's mental health. I don't live in the U.S. but of course this scenario is no doubt playing out in prisons all over the world, every single day. I actually read an article on Facebook today linked from a prison advocacy group for women here in Australia. It was an article in the New York times today, a Psychiatrist speaking about the effects of over use of solitary confinement in the U.S.A. These were a couple of passages from that article that I thought related to your story & might interest you:<br /><br />"...depriving people of freedom may be justifiable. But prolonged isolation inflicts another kind of harm, one that can never be justified. This harm is ontological; it violates the very structure of our relational being...For the sake of justice, not only for them but for ourselves, we must put an end to the over-use of solitary confinement in this country, and we must begin the difficult but mutually rewarding work of bringing the tens of thousands of currently isolated prisoners back into the world". They were quotes from Lisa Guenther. Associate Professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University and the author of "Social Death and Its Afterlives: A Critical Phenomenology of Solitary Confinement."<br /><br />This article began..."There are many ways to destroy a person, but the simplest and most devastating might be solitary confinement. Deprived of meaningful human contact, otherwise healthy prisoners often come unhinged. They experience intense anxiety, paranoia, depression, memory loss, hallucinations and other perceptual distortions. Psychiatrists call this cluster of symptoms SHU syndrome, named after the Security Housing Units of many supermax prisons."<br /><br />This illness isn't confined to only people in solitary confinement of course, it can effect anyone overcome by the reality of living in confinement. It's a devistating reality and one I'm sure you're only too aware of. I sent you this information, not to upset you further, but to show you that there are scientific terms for the things you see, there are studies being carried out and there are people advocating for change. It hardly seems enough though does it.<br /><br />I hope for you that tomorrow is a better day. Thank you for sharing your story.<br /><br />Nicki
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Comment2012-08-27T07:34:13ZDeblegs/people/show/4973tag:betweenthebars.org,2012-08-27:/posts/6553/a-bad-day/comments
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<a href='/people/show/4973'>Deblegs</a>
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<span class='comment-date'>Posted 11 years, 7 months ago.</span>
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Thanks for writing! I finished the transcription for your post.
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