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Home › Politics

Cynthia McFadden | 03/30/2009 11:00 pm

Cynthia McFadden: 'Isolation Is an Extreme Measure'

By Cynthia McFadden RSS
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In response to: Is the American prison system wrong for employing solitary confinement as a means of discipline?
Cynthia McFadden

I have a rather rambling answer to this …

As a legal correspondent for much of my career, I have spent a tremendous amount of time in prisons all over the country. Isolation is an extreme measure and needs to be reserved for the most extreme cases. But having spent months at the Angola prison in Louisiana where more than 90 percent of the inmates are there for life, I think isolation has to be an option for those trying to keep such a facility running safely both for the sake of those who work there and for the sake of other inmates.  

Programs for prisoners vary widely across the country. I do think it’s worth noting that an estimated 80 percent of the people in prison are functionally illiterate. They enter that way, and by and large, leave that way. In Japan, inmates are required to learn to read. I understand their recidivism rates are far below ours. Seems like they may be on to something. 

In law school, you are taught that punishment has several purposes: to protect society, to rehabilitate, to punish those who break the law and to deter others from doing so. One day, walking through Angola’s death row, I asked the warden, an affable Christian named Burl Cain, about the latter: "Does the threat of the death penalty cause people to think twice before committing murder?" The warden paused a long moment, "Cynthia, the people doing the thinking and the people doing the shooting are two different groups of people." I suspect he’s right.

Read more about: Burl Cain, crime, Injustice, Japan, Justice, Politics, Punishment, Solitary Confinement

9 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Linda Myers
I know in the old prison at Fort Leavenworth, it was not uncommon for an inmate to be put in solitary, but they were also lucky if they had anything more on than undershorts during that time. That is a military prison, not sure how it would differ from somewhere like Lansing down the road.
By Linda Myers on 03/31/2009 12:17 am
Cheryl Mitchell
I believe solitary confinement is a good thing for the worst offenders.  Leave them alone with themselves and watch them go mad.
By Cheryl Mitchell on 03/31/2009 8:38 am
Amanda C

Japan is definitely onto something, making the inmates learn how to read. I think it’s very telling that a lot of inmates cannot read… obviously education has something to do with the rate of crime.

By Amanda C on 03/31/2009 9:27 am
Ms. Dee
Now, why didn’t we think of that.  Teach an inmate to to read…that’d probably work even better than teaching a man to fish.
By Ms. Dee on 03/31/2009 12:17 pm
Amanda C
Since everything in this society DEPENDS on your ability to read, I would say that’s a darn good idea! It also has some extra Oomph when there are real studies out there being done in real prisons on how rehabilitation reduces the return rate of inmates by 80% when they are released! WOW.
By Amanda C on 03/31/2009 12:31 pm
Barbara B
Chheryl I;m with you on this.  Prision is not meant to be pleasant and horrific crimes deserve that treatment
By Barbara B on 03/31/2009 10:43 am
EKA -
Cynthia, I Totally agree, Appropriate punishment, but civilized.
By EKA - on 03/31/2009 11:31 am
Cheryl Mitchell
There are some really bad criminals in jail who are well read.  Bad people are bad no matter if they can read or not.  And oh yes, I’m all for the death penalty.
By Cheryl Mitchell on 03/31/2009 2:03 pm
Sally K

There ARE some really bad individuals who are quite literate.  However, they are in the minority, and they are the ones for whom rehabilitation , probably, will never work.  They are the ones who have, mostly, committed unspeakable acts, and the rest of us deserve to know that they are locked up. 

  I don’t happen to believe in the death penalty for my own personal reasons, but I’m also against it because it’s not cost effective.  Additionally,  anyone who thinks that being put to death is a greater  punishment  than being kept  incarcerated for the rest of one’s natural life is absolutely mistaken.  Were I ever to find myself in the position of being incarcerated for any length of time, I would be off that third tier faster than you could say ‘jump’. 

The research has shown  that education and job training are the two things that make the biggest difference in the rate of recidivism for the segment of the inmate population that is , potentially, able to be rehabilitated.  However, as long as for profit prisons are allowed to exist with inmates being used for cheap labor, I don’t hold out a lot of hope for prison reform. 

By Sally K on 04/01/2009 1:50 pm