User:Dsola1/sandbox

Article Evaluation

1. Intro of the article gives an understandable definition and description of what solitary confinement is.

2. Adding to History section:It's been around almost as long as we have been known as the United States. It was seen as a new way of 'reform' by a group of people called the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.

3. Adding to the Psychological Effects section: Researchers at McGill University paid a group of male graduate students to stay in small chambers that were to replicate solitary confinement cells. This study was to conduct an experiment on sensory deprivation and how it can cause psychiatric disorders while in solitary confinement as you are deprived of most of your senses in there. The plan was to observe these students for six weeks, but not a single one lasted more than seven days. It really does depend on how much time you spend there and the strength of the mind can really be tested.

4. Adding to Effects/Psychiatric: Self-harm is greatly increased among inmates who are in solitary confinement. It was seven times higher among the inmates as seven percent of the jail population was confined in isolation and fifty-three percent of all acts of self harm took place there. Self-harm included, but was not limited to cutting, banging heads, self-amputations of fingers and/or testicles. The challenges rose as these inmates were in bare cells, but it drove these prisoners to jumping off their beds head first into the floor or even biting through their veins in their wrists.

5. Talk page has discussions and points that lead to the author of the article being incredibly bias- and I completely agree. The article only focuses on the negative uses of solitary confinement and doesn't cite most of his statements, leading me to believe their personal opinions. When it comes to a topic as controversial as this, both sides need to be seen clearly and fairly as not just emphasize of the inhuman and evil part of this practice.

6. Privileges to be able to see loved ones, such as family members, are either restricted or denied- which has shown to be an important factor of the rehabilitation aspect of the correctional system.

7. Adding to the Mentally ill section: The mentally ill are actually allowed in solitary confinement. If the inmate wasn't already suffering from a psychiatric disorder, being placed in solitary confinement increases the chances of the development of a psychiatric disorder.