Comments about ‘George F. Will: Solitary confinement in U.S. prisons is inhumane and torturous’

This article rings true. We worry about water boarding 3 people while in the meantime we are actively torturing our citizens in prison.
Neither is humane. We are not a humane society, we may have humane people in our society, but they are not in control.

The purpose of jell is to get bad guys out and away from people. I can't understand that the guys in jell have a better life than they had before they got there. Does any one care that their there.I for one am glad the bad guy isn't around. If thees guys are so bad their in solitude, why not put them to sleep, forever. but How can a guy be not guilty and get years in jell for contempt of Cort. What a wast of a lot of money.

What a sad, confused society we have become in America. We worry about felons "rights" but think nothing of killing unborn children by the millions! We worry about waterboarding terrorist thugs but think killing innocent people by collateral damage with drone strikes is just fine. We are a country that has lost its soul and morality. We are a declining society like ancient Rome. May God forgive us!

So Mountainman, when did this decline start? When we killed innocent women and children at broken knee, or when we killed innocent children in Mexico, or maybe that was all ok and it didn't start until Selma...no that seems ok. How about the slaughter of children in Vietnam..umm I'm sure it traces back to the invasion of Iraq at least..no..Roe v Wade..huh?

@ Pragamtistferlife. Yes and at Waco,Texas and at Ruby Ridge too! Roe v Wade is perhaps the most evil of them all! Calling it a "choice" doesn't make it less evil!

George & Mountanman,
The treatment of prisoners matters if you expect them to integrate back into society at the end of their sentence. If the penal system further damages people and makes that impossible, we all pay. So if you simply want hotheaded revenge, George Will is saying that you've got it. If you want rehabilitation, it looks like we aren't getting there.

The problem is we have things like this happen in America. Check out the story of Mark DeFriest! Torture in America is real and legal.

The Life and Mind of Mark DeFriest - Trailer for a Documentary Film

"The purpose of jell is to get bad guys out and away from people. I can't understand that the guys in jell have a better life than they had before they got there. Does any one care that their there.I for one am glad the bad guy isn't around. If thees guys are so bad their in solitude, why not put them to sleep, forever. but How can a guy be not guilty and get years in jell for contempt of Cort. What a wast of a lot of money."

In what language is that written?

I agree with George Will. Our goal with convicts should be, as Joseph Smith said, to treat them kindly, teach them correct principles, and show them a better way. It's the only thing that works. (DNews subhead editor, there's no such word as "torturous.")

Let me play devils advocate. Support a terrorist leader is in one of our prisons. Since he is a leader, on his say so other terrorists will attack us.

Yes solitary confinement for life is hard, but it is preferable to a supermarket bombing.

Perhaps a middle ground is that trusted Americans, could visit him.

It does seem that at present, solitary confinement is way overdone. Not the half-hour timeout by any means. Intelligently done, there is a place for limited solitary confinement. But, let's face it, our penal system, like many other things in the US, is messed-up - contorted because we, as a country, are losing our way. The powers that be decided they know better than the Judeo-Christian basis of our culture. They say, "We don't need it- we can do better" And so, here we are in a big fat mess.

repubs, history lesson:

VIII

"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

The Founding Fathers were pretty clear about torture and solitary confinement. It's not "ok" just because your president said it was.

Sorry Mountainman... not buying that we are a society in decay. If we take away women's rights and reinstitute slavery then you will start making sense. Until then... not so much.

Tell the men and women who staff the jails and prisons around this nation that "Supermax" facilities are cruel or inhuman. They can tell you about having feces and urine thrown on them or being assaulted because prisoners had access to weapons. The men inhabiting a Supermax prison earned their way there. Leaders of terrorist cells; Mass murderers; Gang leaders. They got there the old-fashioned way: THEY EARNED IT! Rehabilitation? Really? You think that those guys can be rehabilitated? There has to be something there to rehabilitate first and an in-depth look into their lives will show anyone that rehabilitation is a pipe dream. George F. Will needs to spend a week in a prison yard working as a guard before he opens his pie hole on a subject he has no practical knowledge about. Just my 2 cents.

If I were to go to prison, solitary confinement is where I would want to be.