With Facebook and other social media outlets finally getting some heat for allowing the perpetuation of false facts, poorly-researched articles, and, well, blatant propaganda, at least some people have taken a moment to reflect on the power of words to shape our thoughts and actions. And the reflection comes with the question of whether we are surrounding ourselves with the right kinds of words. Are we basing our ideas on facts rather than fiction? Are we being swayed by others around us rather than standing with our individual principles? Are we allowing emotion to dictate what we want to believe?

I've noticed that even when people are called out for endorsing fiction, they refuse to admit they are wrong. With the advent of social media and biased blogs and "opinion news," we can easily build ourselves into a bubble of information that only further affirms our worldviews.

Here's my take on several things that are driving the way we think and communicate with each other, for better or for worse...

Social media: In 2006, Facebook only had 12 million monthly users, and it was only 2 years old; the concept of social media was still being molded. No Instagram or Snapchat yet -- no iPhones yet, either. No #blacklivesmatter and #bluelivesmatter and #alllivesmatter duking it out over Twitter. Our main source of news was still the paper and television. Today, Facebook has 1.23 billion monthly users. Think of your last family reunion; have you ever made it through without someone butting heads with someone, or someone feeling annoyed at the brush of a shoulder or getting snubbed in ways inscrutable to the snubber, or Aunty Betty saying something off color, or a circle of cousins interjecting while Uncle Jack inaccurately tells a story? Now amplify that daily by the millions or monthly by the billions. Amplify that on every possible social media platform out there. Amplify that with every questionable news site that has sprouted up like poison ivy, and every meme that spouts unchecked facts and has a 500-thread argument between strangers raging beneath it. Social media is still a way we share pictures and good stories and positive messages, but it is also now a place where we exchange news (credible or not) and opinion, especially on issues we care deeply about.

Do you think this might make everyone a little tense? Do you think it might cause people to feel existential angst? Insecure about who they are and what they believe, so that when others contradict it, they become inflamed and offended, and they quickly surf their favorite news source to find an article that reaffirms their worldview?

Conversation has become physically easier but theoretically more difficult. 

The advent of the smartphone: The first generation iPhone came out in 2007. Today, nearly 68% of American adults have smartphones, which means the majority of us has access to video cameras, partnered with the ability to instantly publish any footage -- from our cell phones or surveillance videos, etc -- on youtube, blogs, and social media. The white-dominated media used to edit clips and frame each story to make sense of it for its majority audiences, but today, the average person has access to raw materials and thousands of different ways to frame each story. In return, people have learned to shop for their favorite interpretation.

Take a look at how the mass public handled the stories of Eric Garner. John Crawford. Tamir Rice. Terence Crutcher. Do you think that type of injustice wasn't happening before? If so, what a magical unicorn cloud you must have been living on. Those who don't want to admit there is a problem grasp for a satisfactory way to make sense of it all. Suddenly, clear evidence is up for debate; we are a jury of 242 million. People find a news sources that frame things to their liking, or they come up with stories like It wasn't this bad before we had a black president or This is just Liberal America fanning the flames. But it's right there in front of us, a tragedy playing on loop but each time with a different victim. I’ve heard people point to "black on black crime” as if this is some context that makes police brutality and poor police training excusable; as if being the same color makes murder less tragic; as if civilian violence is the same problem as a police officer abusing power; as if it insults them that we now must talk about this.

In summary, there is a dueling nature to having such access to the raw story: while it is good to have more "frames" to our news stories, it can also be dangerous when news sites are not reporting the full story in order to perpetuate a comforting narrative for its audiences.

What's more, with smartphones it has not only become easier to access evidence, but it is also easier to share our opinions almost as quickly as they pop in our heads. This means spreading information quickly without necessarily thinking deeply about it.

The addition of more news sources is a good and bad thing. The big news media is notorious for creating panic, slanting its reporting to influence policy or agenda, and so on. It's good that there is more competition now. But it's truly a negative thing that so much of the competition has become unchecked. So much of what I have investigated, from BreitBart to Jezebel, is simply atrocious journalism.

Controversy for profit: Let's not forget that our news industry, which is ever-growing and increasingly more competitive in the Internet age, thrives on controversy. When we are angry and afraid and at each other's throats, the bait is ripe for the clicking. Isn't that evident already? So when the shooting of an unarmed black man is straightforwardly unethical and devastating, it is better for those profiting if we argue about it.

Humans are stubborn in their arguments. When we feel we are being attacked, we are unwilling to hear our attacker's point of view. That is why, currently, an "attack" narrative is fueling our discourse, if you could call it that.

Today there is a lot of dysfunctional dialogue, but there is also meaningful momentum. On a more positive note, these changes have also allowed (1) a platform for a multitude of voices that can speak to what is life in America, and those uncensored voices can be amplified when they are determined; (2) the ability to produce evidence of injustice, lay it out for all to see, so that there is no logical denial of what happened to Tamir Rice and Terence Crutcher, and we can demand accountability or changes in procedure and policy where it once was overlooked; (3) a more competitive news world to challenge our former framing and one-sided narratives -- a sea of information that can push our country forward if we figure out how to use it better.

​But that's the key: we must figure out how to use it better. In the name of a better, more informed society, I ask that you challenge yourself more. Read opinion pieces that challenge your worldview, and not for the sake of posting an angry comment in response. Read balanced, nonpartisan studies about evidence-based practices that will contribute to a better world (ALWAYS question who is funding each study, what the objectives might be, and whether it was a reliable method of collecting data). Stay off of Facebook for your news. If you find that something you are reading is making you angry, ask yourself why -- is it because you feel challenged, that the truth is difficult to hear, or that it is not factual (if so, check those facts!)? Steer clear of opinion pieces regarding policy, and read straight-forward articles about what is going on in the world. Push yourself to think for yourself. Get into arguments for the sake of understanding others and with the hope that others are willing to try to understand you. Let's stop the foolish commotion that has overtaken us in this information age, everybody.

My long-winded argument aside, it's not a bad idea to take a moment to root for love. Play a game of cards with your family, go somewhere you can dance to loud music that drowns out the politics; sing with your mother in the car and ask your cousins about their health and happiness. Go on living out and internally checking your convictions despite many people who might loathe them. Remember that all humans suffer from myopia and egocentrism, including me, myself, and I. Learn that you can be friends with someone who contradicts so much of who you are or aspire to be, yet still makes you laugh and see beautiful things in the world. Appreciate that there is more to being human than being right.

In recent days, we have witnessed vengeful burning. Sobbing. Sopping. People shaking their fists and people shaking them right back. The list of names - bigot, racist, sexist, xenophobe, xylophone, hammer, what? - dictated to deaf ears, no dialogue to ensue. The new information splurged, like who are his top picks for Cabinet, and the collective groan. The hysteria and the understandable worrying. The tactful idiot and the sloppy arguer who attempts to deconstruct ideas through grammar correction. The rant and the one-word posts like "Revolution" and "Done."

And finally, there are the ones essentially saying: Go down with grace, Liberals!! We sure wouldn't have (not with a rigged election, of course!), but we just don't want the same behavior from you, the crazy, emotional Left!

I don't know which fight to pick: the blatant hypocrisy, or the fact that the Right has long ruled solely on emotion-based politics (see: Trump's fear-laden campaign. For further reference, see: War on Drugs. McCarthyism. Barry Goldwater. Ho!).

Instead, to distract from the real issues at hand, I shall pick a fight about this meme, which someone I know gleaned from The Conservative Post:

2016 might have been the year of realizing that people you love have morbidly different opinions than you. 2016 was also the year that you didn't want to come to terms with that. It was the year of shutting your eyes and throwing punches, hoping they impact the right place -- or, in other words, it was the year of pontificating on social media through ill-researched memes, pretending we had answers and that those answers were going to land on the correct ears and somehow transform the world. 

It was, and still is, a shit show.

Maybe what makes me angry about this meme, or whatever you'd call it, is that it is inaccurately hitting close to a truth. We have become a little soppy about how things make us feel -- something Conservatives flail around and cry about constantly. Our soppiness is also known as political correctness. College campuses are at the forefront of teaching people how to talk about sexual assault, substance use disorder, race, gender versus sex, and so on, as well as promoting awareness of the marginalized perspective. I do realize that the language that has emerged (for instance, cisgender or binary) is threatening to people who are new to it. No one wants to feel stupid. And it can be marginalizing for those who have not undergone the elite training in how to be politically correct. But come on, we also live in an age where it is pretty easy to learn more if you are so compelled. Learning new things is just like masturbation: you only need the Internet and an open mind. Okay now, only kidding. We politically-correct people like to make a joke once in a while.

For those who feel marginalized by an approach that is specifically meant to de-marginalize the marginalized, I'll break it down in two paragraphs. Political correctness begins with understanding that a certain voice (particularly white and male and heterosexual and cisgender, but not always. Please, just for a moment be rational and think about our history) has dominated the conversation for a long, long time, and other voices that have been talked over are asking for respect and space to be heard equally. I know this is an uncomfortable conversation for people who possess a so-called dominant voice. You must recognize that the "dominant" voice has long failed to consider that marginalized people have more authoritative knowledge about certain issues -- such as racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. We know we can't coddle everyone or always say the right thing, but it is not a negative thing to teach people how to communicate effectively cross-culturally. It is not to say that words are more important than action, or that honest and open dialogue is forbidden; it is to teach us that certain assumptions we make can further marginalize those who deserve to be equals at the table. And sometimes - no, often - our opinion IS unnecessary, because so often we speak without really asking ourselves, "Am I really an authority on this? How would I know? Why am I not listening to other people who have first-hand experience?" Politically incorrect is a white person mockingly shouting "ALL LIVES MATTER" to a scared African American mother who fears for her son's life whenever he leaves the house because STATISTICALLY he is more likely to be killed by police than his white peers. Statistics aside, you should recognize her personal experience is valid.

In sum: It's difficult yet possible to learn how to be less of an idiot about others' feelings. I didn't like it when people used to tell me I was "gross" because I have cystic fibrosis. Such experiences did not make me identify as a victim, but I will say that I found it helpful when the age of political correctness kept coworkers from prying into my private life with questions like, "Do you always breath so heavy? Are you going to die? Isn't CF that disease with all the PHLEGM!!??" That is because political correctness is not about celebrating victimhood, as many people have construed it to be. Bottom line, it is about learning how to communicate better with people who didn't grow up in the same silo. I don't see the harm in that, as long as it is not obstructing productive dialogue. And certainly, there are people who can get over-analytical or extreme about this all. But don't miss the forest for the trees.

Speaking of productive: Rather than griping about the "sore losers" in this election, it might be more productive to consider why this particular election was so substantial, resulting in the "whiny" uproar. I don't think it is whiny for my friend to voice worry over the fact that her entire family will likely be deported. How would you feel if you were in her position? There are thousands of American children of immigrants who will end up in foster care. We have a privately-run internment system that is already violating human rights, and Trump's plan to overload the system will only make it worse. How whiny we are! I don't think it is whiny that women are sharing their experiences of sexual assault that they have encountered since the president-elect set the tone that men can "grab pussy" without permission. I don't think it is whiny that Muslims are afraid that their basic Constitutional rights may be stripped because Trump and much of his electorate have never educated themselves on Islam, or ISIS for that matter -- two very different things, everybody. I don't think it is whiny for people with disabilities to fear they may lose their medical coverage. For me, I may have to watch as a new administration undoes all the evidence-based progress we have made in criminal justice reforms, while they operate in the name of Fear and Tough on Crime Politics (these approaches, by the way, have already been tried and empirically proven ineffective and an expensive burden on taxpayers. Ironic that Conservatives are in support, isn't it?). I shouldn't go on, because I am sure that anyone who disagrees has stopped reading by now, and anyone who agrees and decided they can't help but keep reading this rant & ramble already knows what I am talking about.

I think we sound "whiny" to Conservatives because they are sick and tired of not listening. It takes a lot of energy to block people out, especially as they become more vocal in this age of political correctness. We must be exhausting.

Back on track. The meme above. What bothers me most about this Conservative Post post is the fact that 18 year olds ARE still dying at war. They are, in fact, VOLUNTARILY enlisting to fight for your freedom while you fart around on the Internet all day. They are dying in Mosul right now, as we sit and flap our mouths. 

Finally, we are faced with the utterly illogical argument in the meme above. Just because a college student hasn't gone to war doesn't mean his or her opinion isn't valid; nor does it mean he or she does not know suffering. When I was in college, everyone appeared casual and carefree on the outside, but that didn't mean they lacked wisdom. I had friends who had endured cancer and serious personal loss. I knew many who had fled civil war and genocide, witnessed neighbors blown up in front of them. Others had served the US, or were in the reserves. Others had admirable compassion for the people around them, and they knew how to respect others who were different from them. They committed their time tirelessly to public service and improving their communities.

Besides, don't we wish less suffering on the generations that follow us? Don't we want better things for our children and grandchildren? Why does it make sense, then, to disregard their voice if they haven't experienced the mind-shattering sacrifice of combat? This only makes sense if one believes that nothing a college kid says is valid to begin with, which is irritatingly circular and myopic if you ask me.

Sixty percent of the process is swimming through yourself. I'm sinking my hands into muddy sand at the bottom, digging for sand dollars, fearing something sharp. My goggles gradually defog the more I seek what is behind one thought and another and another. I feel sometimes like when I start thinking, my thoughts are the rustle of water against my eardrums, and it takes so much effort to come back to the easy clarity of air –- it offends people that I need a few seconds to resurface, to rejoin them, to come back to listen when they call my name, but I'm not disinterested, just fighting against a strong current to come back.

​Under water there is clarity, too. Detaching means holding your nose and breath and letting the depth pressure insulate you. It means going where the current takes you, and when you fixate long enough on something blurry, it will suddenly glimmer clearly, a fish catching sunlight, and each time I can get a little closer to it. Pull me out too quickly, I’ll lose that trail; I’ll only remember the outline of that glimmer, but I won’t be able to paint its scales. I'm always conscious of this when I interrupt others in the middle of their thoughts. I know the world is important to see, to live in, to respond to, but sometimes there is something inside ourselves we need to understand in order to float on, undisrupted.

Even a two day stay with my parents requires a bit of recovery. I joked with my mother, "Maybe next time we should leave before Meet the Press comes on."

This time, my dad duped me into talking about politics with seemingly harmless bait: "So what do your friends think about Obama?" Notice the subtle wording - what do my friends think; that way, if he wants to attack, then he is attacking my friends and not me, yet I'm the one apparently speaking for my generation, and myself.

I'm willing to have an honest conversation about what President Obama has done wrong and right in his presidency, as long as two conditions exist: 1) We focus on empirical evidence and analyze it without ulterior motives, and 2) it isn't with my father. Already from the get-go, this isn't a conversation, nor is his purpose altruistic -- like to get to know me better or find some common ground in our values or even to think carefully, non-emotionally about solutions to the world's problems -- but to exert power, to exercise debate tactics imbued since his childhood (if not statistical, then anecdotal; if not reason, then emotion; if not practical, then hypothetical; and if all else fails, attack the opponent), to blow off steam that has built up from his hatred, and to relive the arguments he once had with his Liberal father.

I am following this election carefully, and no, not just the Trump-bashing opinion pieces, as much as I salivate over a good Trump-bashing. I am objectively analyzing his policy positions and character for myself. As much as one can block out media bias, I have tried, if not just to genuinely understand why so many people support him. I've listened to Trump's speeches and read his website and his social media to get a feel for what he believes, as I think everyone should do. That's as objective as you can get, trying to hear it "from the horse's mouth." Because the media is attention-hungry and profiting off our Trump fascination, I read everything with a grain of salt; I ask questions even when someone's analysis appeals to me. I have exerted much effort to understand, to the best of my human ability, the issues that our next president will actually have power to address. That means understanding how ISIS evolved, and what measures President Obama took to recover our economy after 2008 and what failed and what worked, and how police are trained and overseen, and how social programs have changed, and immigration and unemployment and racial tensions and Gitmo and the Second Amendment and --- sorry, the blood vessels in my eyes almost burst. All of those hotly-debated topics, even if you can find them presented in a nonpartisan way, are difficult to form a staunchly one-sided opinion on if you are truly thinking holistically, examining all sides of the prism, and in not just in a way that satisfies your worldview. Because as much as people like to believe that if you add water and sunlight, something green will grow, ecosystems and economies and social equity and human psychology are much, much more complex than that.

If you have made your mind up about everything, then you're not right in the head. "A wise person knows himself to be a fool," right? The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know anything. But the problem is we're all deathly afraid of being seen as fools.

I think that is at the root of why politics have deteriorated my family. I have family members who, it feels, only look at me in a politicized way, automatically on the attack -- maybe, I rationalize, because I work for a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reform, or maybe because my book makes a statement about imperialism, how we are quick to misunderstand other cultures, and the dynamics of Islam. STUPID LIBERAL! There is no room to respect what someone does or believes because everyone is scrambling to defend their intelligence. Family dinner is no longer a place of warmth and mutual gratitude for having each other in our lives. One assumes the other half of the table is against anything they say, so they speak as if only to the air particles, just to shake something. So much love, once omnipresent, has been turned to stone. It is devastating.

Well. As Edie Brickell once sang: Choke me in the shallow water before I get too deep. Hopefully you glossed over all that to get to the humor. Below I've broken down what it means to debate with family members into a series of helpful memes.

If you have a family reunion approaching, good luck. And godspeed.

 I sat down to write and all the thoughts within me faded to an indistinguishable blur. But I will try to make myself write anyway, because those words are packed away somewhere. I started reading Hell is a Very Small Place: voices from solitary confinement. My interest in the movement to end solitary began several months ago, when I came across the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement. I am jarred and anguished that this form of torture is occurring in our country and people are not just turning a blind eye, but also encouraging it. We continue to build Supermax facilities specifically designed to house people in solitary units so we can continue this form of degradation and punishment that severely violates Geneva Convention standards. Our legislators continue to ignore proposed laws that will change this barbaric, ineffectual, and counterproductive treatment of prisoners -- not excluding children, pregnant women, people with mental illness, and elderly prisoners -- despite evidence that it costs more, leads to higher recidivism, generates violence among inmates, exacerbates and even creates serious mental problems, and has been deemed cruel and unusual. I am deeply disturbed and mortified by the practice of solitary confinement. If you think it is "radical" to fight for basic human rights of prisoners, it is time to wake up. Here is a blog post I wrote with a little more background.

I'm sure my friends find it irritating when I try to relate to their troubles or suffering through my own experiences. But today, as I began Hell is a Very Small Place, I couldn't suppress that tendency of mine. It is a tendency that allows me to feel and understand, very deeply, the problems of our criminal justice systems and the current human rights violations we are allowing.

​My transplant experience woke me to everyone's ultimate lack of control of what will, what is, and what isn't; my utter humanness and fragility; the horrible reality of human inaccuracy -- how wrong our perceptions can be and how easily the human mind can be altered by experience, environment, and exposure. I could not speak with the ventilator, and just for that amount of time I lost my sense of personhood, and it left me to internalize much of what I was experiencing. I tried to scream once just for the sake of expressing how restless I felt, but all I could do was open my mouth.

One night a week after surgery, in that hospital bed in the ICU, where I was confined by my weak body, chest tubes, and IVs, I imagined myself, so vividly, sliding out of the sheets and walking down the hall. I was only able to wiggle my right leg over a few inches before I realized I couldn't even sit up on my own. That night I had a tangible nightmare that I crawled through a rainstorm and found a silver crucifix in a puddle, and a voice said, "FIND JESUS," and I was so thirsty but could not catch the rain in my mouth. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink. I am completely blocked and unable to believe in god; I'm just not wired for it. After a hopeful and ardent stint in sixth grade, I discovered faith like that just didn't work for me. Anyway, I don't know what that nightmare meant but I think of it from time to time. I think it was my brain preparing for a void that was going to occur after the transplant, after all that medical trauma, after I had come to terms with death and had to become so indifferent to loss in order to cope. Or maybe it was my body complaining that my mouth was terribly dry. Either way, I emerged from my transplant experience restless, unsettled, and unable to sit still long enough to recall these details much.

I know that my experience with powerlessness, immobility, loss of self, uncertainty, loss of memory and loss of a sense of reality did not come close to what it is to be in solitary confinement, and not just because I had many things that someone in solitary does not (a loving family sitting with me all day, an end in sight, an unbroken trust that I would be taken care of, a far more comfortable and sanitary environment, people who wanted me to stay alive, to name a few differences). But simply reading the Foreword and Introduction of Hell is a Very Small Place was enough to unearth a feeling that I had long forgotten: I know what it is to not feel human anymore. To feel oneself disappearing, knowing that "self" is a construct that can be torn down more easily than we realize. To brutally comprehend one's own insignificance. To face the arbitrariness of that sliver between life and death.

There must be something that you, too, have experienced that can act as a magnifying glass, a translation; something that will give you a deeper understanding rather than a simple recognition that our prison system is currently violating human rights. You must have something in your arsenal of experience that you shut your eyes to, that thing you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Now multiply it; imagine experiencing it at the same intensity and uncertainty for days that turn to months that turn to years, and you may have a glimpse of what solitary confinement is.

In the chaos of Penn Station, anxiety set in. People hustling in all directions, the buzzing lights, whirl of perfume and color, and screeching train rails caused a man newly released from five straight years of solitary confinement to curl into an immovable ball. A homeless person eventually approached him and offered a compassionate hand. “You must be right out of prison. Let me help.”

This is one of several accounts Amy Fettig, Senior Staff Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, shared of her clients dealing with Special Housing Unit (SHU) Syndrome. Last Saturday, she spoke on “The Emerging Consensus to Stop Solitary Confinement” at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church at a modest yet passionate conference held by the WNY chapter of the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (CAIC).

Fettig, who is also a lawyer and directs the Stop Solitary campaign, litigates federal class action prison conditions cases through the ACLU.

SHU Syndrome, Fettig explained, is one of the many negative mental health outcomes of solitary confinement in prisons – a place that goes by many names, such as special housing, special management, isolation, segregation, and “the box.” This practice is used widely in U.S. prisons as a disciplinary measure and control mechanism for inmates. It involves confining individuals for 22 to 24 hours a day in a cell smaller than six by nine feet, providing limited contact with other human beings for days, weeks, months, and even decades. Time outdoors is limited to a caged area the size of a dog kennel.

Displaying a photographed row of steel-clad doors, Fettig described the continuous screams that echo through the pod day and night – the sounds of people losing their minds, an anguished “expression of their soul,” Fettig puts it. No physical contact is allowed during family visits, and phone calls are rare. Not only is medical and mental health care severely lacking, but prisoners are also subject to frequent abuse.

Brother Baba Eng of Prisoners Are People, Too detailed his survival through solitary in a brief talk as well. He gave a vivid, distressing description: Guards beat you naked and defecate in your food. They taunt the prisoners with barking.

Solitary confinement is, by definition of the United Nations and Geneva Conventions, a form of torture. The Mandela Rules state that isolation beyond fifteen days is cruel and inhumane. In fact, the global norm is fifteen days – but U.S. prisons far exceed that in practice.

The U.S. exceeds many global norms when it comes to imprisonment. While we make up only 5% of the world’s population, we house 25% of the world’s prisoners, or 2.3 million people. On any given day in our country, it is estimated that 80,000 to 100,000 people are held in solitary confinement. Those figures are considered an underrepresentation, as they do not include the confinement of children, people in county jails, or detainees in immigration facilities.

This is not an accurately recorded practice either, Fettig explains. A large part of the problem is that there is little to no oversight or accountability in our prisons. The public does not have access to seeing SHU pods or monitoring their conditions, and even the ACLU needs a court order to view them.

“I’ve sued states that say, ‘We don’t know who’s in solitary or how long they’ve been there,’” Fettig tells.
             
The Effects
We all know that our need for human contact is innate. It is necessary for normal socialization, stability, and – frankly – our sanity. Over thirty years of research on the effects of solitary confinement have highlighted that it’s not only detrimental to the individual but to the prison environment and community at large as well. Self-mutilation and suicide are common. A recent study of 8,000 records from Rikers Island revealed prisoners in solitary are 700 times more likely to take their own lives than people in the general prison population.

Fettig relayed a story of a client of hers who kept refusing to return his food tray to the corrections officers. The officers would drag him out of his isolation cell and beat him as punishment. Fettig asked her client why he wouldn’t just return the tray, and the man replied that it was the “only time he gets contact.” The effects of being alone are so severe he would rather be beaten than have no contact at all.

Confinement leads to confusion, memory problems, myopia, deep anxiety, PTSD, and physical and neurological damage. Brain function declines within the first seven days of isolation.

Despite this evidence, we expect to release prisoners after solitary confinement and witness successful reintegration with society.

Solitary confinement emerged as a way to control excessive prison populations. As our number of prisoners surged beginning in the 1980s and overcrowding and poor conditions led to violent outbreaks within facilities, states built Supermax prisons specifically designed for mass solitary confinement.

The theory behind solitary, however, was not vetted. Fettig warns that solitary confinement was a “gut” instinct policy, rather than one based on empirical evidence. In fact, empirical evidence shows solitary confinement makes prisons more violent and less safe for prisoners and C.O.’s. There is even a 20% higher recidivism rate for people released into society directly from solitary as opposed to being released after re-acclimating to the general prison population.
 
Myth Busting: Who Is in Solitary?
Some proponents of solitary might argue that the alarming violence and higher recidivism amongst those in solitary is self-fulfilling; it is due to the fact that “the worst of the worst” get placed there. But is this true?

Fettig’s answer is, “It’s not the people in solitary confinement; it’s the practice.”

The idea that only the most dangerous, unruly prisoners are isolated is a myth. While prisoners can be sent into confinement for fighting or breaking serious rules, only a minor infraction can in fact be reason enough to send someone there for long stretches of time. Fettig cited actions that have put her clients away such as talking back, having “too many legal documents” in their cell, and even something as benign as possessing “too many stamps”. Even more alarming, many C.O.’s are not trained to deal with mental illness, so often it is dealt with in this manner.

People with developmental disabilities, aging prisoners (over 70 years old), pregnant women, and children under the age of 18 are not excluded from this population, either. In other cases, members of the LGBTQ community who are being sexually abused by other prisoners are put in solitary as a safety precaution.

In 2014, New York State passed a bill to exclude people with mental illness from solitary confinement, instead recommending obvious alternatives such as health care and proper mental health treatment. Still, it is estimated that 20% of people in solitary suffer from mental illness. The legislation also banned isolating minors, pregnant women, and people with developmental disabilities. However, legislation is not the only step required to enforce these much-needed reforms.
 
Progress – but not fast enough
In December 2015, the NYCLU reached a historic settlement in the class action suit Peoples v. Fischer. The agreement has prompted New York State to limit the length of solitary confinement, reduce the number of people placed there, and increase rehabilitative efforts.

Still, our state has the highest percentage of people in solitary confinement. More oversight and accountability from the public is a must if this practice is to truly be corrected, Fettig recommends.

Furthermore, in an unprecedented motion this past January, President Obama announced a ban on confining juveniles and inmates serving time for low-level violations in federal prisons. While attention from our president indicates positive movement, unfortunately this executive order does not hold power over state and local prisons and jails.
     
Our legislators are in need of a harder push. The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Bill is a long way from getting passed through the New York State Senate and has yet to be added to the floor calendar. Organizations such as CAIC urge the public to sign a petition in support of this bill, call or write to their representatives, and voice their support.
           
At the very least, people are growing more aware. In New York, a ban on the infamous “loaf” stirred discussion on how we feed inmates. Recently, The Guardian released a 3-D virtual experience of solitary confinement on their website. But is discussion leading to action?

It appears easy for people to dismiss our prison conditions with a wave of the hand and an assumption that if they deserve to be in prison, they deserve to be treated poorly. But pragmatism and evidence have eroded this logic to a dull nub; we cannot continue to address crime with inhumane acts. By turning a blind eye to this revolting form of torture, this clear violation of human rights, do we not lose a part of our own humanity as well?
 
 
 
 
Further Reading:
 
“Historic Settlement Overhauls Solitary Confinement in New York.” (16 December 2015). New York Civil Liberties Union. http://www.nyclu.org/news/historic-settlement-overhauls-solitary-confinement-new-york
 
Panetta, Francesca. (27 April 2016). “6x9: a virtual reality experience of solitary confinement.” The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/27/6x9-vr-virtual-reality-experience-solitary-confinement-faqs-explainer
 
 
“Solitary Confinement Facts.” American Friends Services Committee. http://www.afsc.org/resource/solitary-confinement-facts
 
Quandt, Katie Rose. (26 February 2014). “Is This the Beginning of the End for Solitary Confinement?” Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/02/children-pregnant-women-developmentally-disabled-solitary-confinement-reform-new-york
 
Shear, Michael D. (25 January 2016). “Obama Bans Solitary Confinement of Juveniles in Federal Prisons.” The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/us/politics/obama-bans-solitary-confinement-of-juveniles-in-federal-prisons.html?_r=0
 
Senate Bill S2659. The New York State Senate. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/bills/2015/S2659
 
Casella, Jean and Aviva Stahl. “Opening the Door: What Will It Take to End Long-Term Solitary Confinement in America’s Prisons? Colorado Could Be the First to Find Out.” Solitary Watch. http://solitarywatch.com/2016/04/29/opening-the-door/
 
“Think Outside the Box.” New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement. http://nycaic.org/legislation/

Can we be anything we want to be? Depends on what you want, I guess. If I wanted to dream small, then yea, I could probably be anything I wanted. But are we saying the possibilities are endless, or that everything is possible? The difference being we can create infinite new pathways for ourselves, but maybe not every option will actually be possible for us. This is everyone's limitation: there are some things we are not cut out for. We might not be smart enough, strong enough, healthy enough, tall enough, fearsome and persuasive enough, and so on. That is the crux of picking a career with chronic illness.

For me, with a tracheotomy tube and a windpipe with scar tissue that doesn't seem to want to properly heal, a suppressed immune system, and the extra baggage that comes with CF post-transplant, I know there are limitations to what I can do. The adage You can be whatever you want died long ago. But I must pursue what I can within reason; follow my dreams as far as my health will allow; compromise where I need to; redirect. What makes such a demand so difficult is that there are times when I am so healthy and full of energy that I can do the work of two people. During those times, I take on as much as I can so I can make it worth it. I seamlessly juggle full time work, marriage, family, volunteering, mortgage, book promotion, and grad school on the side. And then I slip and everything scatters. I find I am great at commitments until I can't be.

My advice to you, fellow transplant recipients, fellow CF patients, fellow survivors of chronic illness, is that no matter how much you take on when you are well, be sure that each entity will accommodate your circumstances. First and foremost, find a career that will be flexible when you need it to be. That does not mean you can't handle a demanding job, because many of us can; it just means you need that demanding job to accommodate your health, not the other way around. Some people might not feel comfortable disclosing their chronic illness with their employer, but I say the people you make long-term commitments to should know and accept that sometimes your situation switches with the wind - you catch a cold that turns to pneumonia in a few days, your body does something wacky, new medical demands fly out of nowhere. That takes a lot of stress off you worrying who you might disappoint. It can also make it easier to plan ahead.

Most importantly, you need to accept the fact that life can change more quickly than you want it to. If you resist, such change will be more painful than it already is. One month I was a new college graduate, on my way to Lake Placid with my family and knee-deep in freelance writing projects I had committed to; the next month, I was on an operating table, the doctors scrambling to get a pulse.

You know that your illness won't allow you to ignore it, so don't plan as if you can. Instead, plan with a degree of openness: with your spouse, your family, your employer, your teachers, and so on. Let them in, even just a little, so they can see that there may be times that you need to reroute before your illness takes the steering wheel. Lastly, remember that you always need room for enjoying life. Just because you need flexibility to handle your medical demands does not mean you shouldn't also expect room for happiness.

In Criminal Justice Ethics, Cyndi Banks takes a multi-pronged approach to analyzing punishment. How do we define punishment? What are the end goals and purpose? What values should it promote? These questions reach a broad scope of opinion, depending on who is asked. Regardless, restorative justice fits into the theoretical framework of punishment.

​Punishment should first and foremost serve the function of protecting society. This can be done by incapacitating those who cannot be rehabilitated, and restoring those who can into productive, beneficial citizens. Restorative justice is built on the belief that a supportive community can transform negative behaviors.

Restorative justice aims to heal victims, offenders, and the community. For victims, this may involve restoring property, healing injuries, and bringing back “a sense of security” (Banks, 2013, p. 128). Victims are involved in the justice process and given a voice; they are encouraged to tell their story and have the offender and/or community respond with empathy. On the other end, offenders are supported and controlled by social management, rather than a punitive, detached system. This means they are given the tools and resources to restore their bonds with the community and make better choices. To accomplish this, the community must stretch beyond stigmatizing criminality and adopt a supportive mentality for the victim and offender. True restorative justice occurs with all three entities: victim, offender, and community.

While restorative justice is not a “punishment” in the traditional sense, the way incapacitation or the death sentence is, it falls under this category because, based on Banks’ descriptions, it 1) involves the community showing disapproval (in that an offender must accept responsibility); 2) allows offenders to make amends for the harm they have caused; and 3) will stop offenders from committing crimes again (2013).

Where does restorative justice fit into the justice system? First, one must acknowledge the role of incapacitation and retribution. Some sociopathic tendencies cannot be treated or amended, the crimes so heinous that there are no solutions but incapacitation and retribution. These forms of punishment are important because there is no other leverage in the criminal justice system for protecting against individuals who sincerely do not care about society, law and order, rehabilitation, or the value of life itself. They feel no remorse, so the punishment should treat them with the same indifference. In other words, retribution is a “fight fire with fire” technique; it is concerned with justice and justice alone. Such is the case with someone like the notorious Ted Bundy, who murdered an estimated forty victims, believed killing was a divine experience, and never admitted remorse. He received the death penalty for his crimes, which, given the number of lives he mercilessly took, was the only fitting punishment that didn't violate the constitution...

In the average case, however, the trouble with judging whether someone is capable of rehabilitation or restoration is that remorse is not always easy to discern, especially not in a court setting. There are conflicting ideas of what constitutes an indicator of “genuine” remorse, which makes such a judgment call so subjective (Zong, 2014).

Aside from the extremes, which do not currently make up the majority of our prison population, punishment should be reparative, designed to amend wrongs and prevent further harms to society. These concepts flourish with restorative justice.

There are also aspects of retribution in restorative justice (Banks, 2013). An offender may be ordered to pay reparations to a victim or victim’s family or complete community service. While some advocates for restorative justice argue that punitive tactics like reparations have no place in this method, reparations can serve as a bridge to healing the damage to the community and victims. It might go toward repairing a broken window, replacing a stolen item, helping to rebuild a burnt house, assist with a victim’s medical bills, and so on. This goes toward allowing offenders to make amends.
Opponents to restorative justice argue that victims might feel the crimes they suffered are taken less seriously than those that result in a prison sentence, and it may suggest that “society has a different attitude toward certain kinds of behavior” (Banks, 2013, p. 129). This is not necessarily so; it might just suggest that certain offenders are easier to work with and “restore.”

Additionally, there is always the possibility that telling their story or having an offender reach out to express remorse (which won't always be part of the arrangement) could trigger victims and cause them to relive trauma. However, restorative justice, when done correctly, is supposed to be on the victim’s terms. An offender is approached first to ensure that he/she will cooperate in apologizing and expressing remorse before asking anything of the victim (Sherman & Strang, 2007).

Another argument in favor of restorative justice is that it produces results; in other words, it stops certain offenders from committing crimes again. Punitive measures may or may not have a deterrent effect. For instance, there is no difference in deterrence for crimes that bring about the death penalty versus life in prison (Banks, 2013). Some criminologists argue that the criminal justice system has a deterrent effect; others state that “the criminal may well fear the law but still break it” and professional criminals do not experience the same shock at getting caught (Banks, 2013, p. 119). To truly prevent future crimes, then, we must employ more than fear. Banks points out a perspective that law-abiding citizens act within the law not out of fear but because of “moral inhibitions and norms of conduct” (p. 119). Restorative justice can aim to change these norms of conduct for an offender. Through proper treatment programs and personal management strategies, as well as a supportive community instituting these norms, an offender’s moral mindset may be influenced. This idea draws upon Sutherland’s theory of differential association, which posits that our interaction with others teaches us values, attitudes, and motives. Furthermore, analysis on restorative justice found that it “substantially reduced repeat offending for some offenders,” reduced post traumatic stress for victims, “reduced crime victims’ desire for violent revenge against their offenders,” reduced recidivism, and lowered criminal justice costs (Sherman & Strang, 2007).

Restorative justice is not flawless. It is a difficult task to engage victim and community, especially if the majority believe in a traditionally punitive approach. The process requires everyone to buy into the belief that interacting with offenders will improve the entire situation; otherwise, cooperation from all three entities will be nearly impossible to achieve.

Furthermore, this process does not require families of offenders to participate, though this support system can be critical for an offender to amend behaviors. Incorporating the family could bring about a much larger success rate. Finally, drawing a line between what to be punitive toward and what to be rehabilitative toward can be problematic; who makes these decisions? Who decides which criminals can be “restored” and which are beyond reach?

Not all convicted criminals are “dangerous or dishonest people.” Restorative justice allows people to rejoin society as better citizens, less likely to commit crimes again. When an offender feels a supportive community around him, and a "light" at the end of the tunnel that says a new path is possible, he will be less likely to want to harm that community.

Sources:
Banks, C. (2013). Criminal justice ethics: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Sherman, Lawrence and Heather Strang. (2007). Restorative Justice: the evidence. The Smith Institute. http://www.iirp.edu/pdf/RJ_full_report.pdf

Zong, Rocksheng, MD., Madelon Maranoski, et. al. (2014). “So You’re Sorry? The Role of Remorse in Criminal Law.” Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 42:1:39-48. http://www.jaapl.org/content/42/1/39.full
​

The United States currently over-incarcerates its citizens, and it is not morally justified because it is unsustainable, inhumane, and the product of unethical policies. Approximately 2.3 million people are currently incarcerated in state and federal prisons, juvenile correctional facilities, and jails (Wagner & Rabuy, 2015).
​
Before continuing a practice that affects such a large number of our citizens (not just those in prison, but their families and communities as well), we need to ask the question: Is this working? Is it ethical to continue a practice that may be doing more harm than good?

Studies on whether mass incarceration has decreased crime rates have been conflicting over the years. Snyder & Stinchcomb found a study that examined data from 1972-2000 and concluded that “the effect of prison growth on crime diminishes as the scale of imprisonment increases” (2006). Tough on crime policies that lead to higher incarceration rates might have an initial impact on decreasing crime rates, but there is a point where these numbers level off. Furthermore, in more recent years incarceration rates have not had as much impact on violent or property crime rates and has led to certain dynamics that may even cause crime to increase (2006). Based on this research, it would be unethical to continue a trend of mass incarceration when we know that not only is it not working to the extent that it should, but it is also harming communities. This is the main reason that over-incarceration cannot be morally justified.

Secondly, mass incarceration is unsustainable. On average, it costs $31,286 annually, or $85.72 per day, to incarcerate someone in state prison, though costs vary state to state depending on certain factors such as overcrowding, overflow of state prisoners to local jails, and incarceration rates for low-level offenders (Henrichson & Delaney, 2012). This is significantly more than the cost of having someone on probation supervision, which costs an average of $3.50 per day, according to a Pew Center research study (Banks, 2013). As US government debt grows, spending issues become a debate of economics: what are we creating for future generations? Are we operating in a sustainable way? What will be the consequences of unchecked spending? Addressing mass incarceration would be a significant step in addressing such concerns.

For the same reasons that over-incarceration is unsustainable, it is inhumane. When the system is overloaded and prisons have pressure to operate on set budgets, logic would have it that they would cut costs among the prisoners first – from health care to food quality. Standards in prison have to be just good enough to keep prisoners from revolting against guards and administrators; therefore, prisons will budget just beyond that threshold. In California, the US Supreme Court ruled that overcrowded prisons violated the constitution’s amendment against cruel and unusual punishment (Banks, 2013). Prisoners crowding into cells, suffering from inadequate health care, and receiving inadequate nutrition are the effects of over-incarceration. There is furthermore a question of how overcrowding affects mental health, and whether this affect might contribute to high recidivism rates. By providing inhumane conditions in prison, are we simply perpetuating a cycle of violent crime by turning out prisoners with mental health problems?

Finally, mass incarceration is immoral simply because it is the product of unethical policy making. The public has a large influence on criminal justice policy, but it is often driven by hysteria rather than empirical evidence. Moral panics are an “irrational response to that panic that was out of proportion to the actual threat offered” (Banks, 2013, p. 188), and they are driven by media images that are not wholly representative of the truth. Cullen, Fisher, and Applegate argue that “policy making based on what citizens want is unfortunately constrained by the ignorance of the public on many aspects of crime and crime control” (Banks, 2013, p. 193). This shows that mass incarceration has not furthered any objectively good ends, but rather has been the product of irrational behavior.

Moral panic is fueled by media images. News outlets and TV shows choose which stories are worthy of relaying to the public, which is inherently a subjective process; since media rely on viewership ratings, they may be more apt to air stories that are either highly emotional or out-of-the-ordinary for the average viewer. Reiner, Livingston, and Allen point out that crime stories tend to focus on “special” and “discrete” cases (Banks, 2013). This does not enhance people’s understanding of their safety but distorts their image of true criminality, which in effect will cause an irrational approach to policymaking. When people view highly volatile yet “special” crimes on television or the internet from the safety of their living rooms, they begin to perceive the risk as higher than it actually is. As Surette posits in the “law of opposites,” the “nature of crime, criminals, and victims portrayed in the media is generally the complete opposite of the pattern shown through official crime statistics or victim surveys” (Banks, 2013, p.249).

Instead of morality policymaking, we need to look at the solutions empirically proven to work best. For instance, instead of incarcerating people with substance use disorders, drug courts and rehabilitation services could be a more humane, effective (and cost-effective) strategy.

The harm of mass incarceration is tantamount. Aside from the reasons listed above, there is a breakdown of the individual: prisoners learn to function in a system that aims to have total social control, which breaks down their ability to function outside of that system. They are separated from their families and limited in their communication to the outside world. Prisoners in maximum security facilities are restricted from socializing, such as in Pelican Bay, where all meals are eaten in the cells and outdoor time happens in tiny yards confined by 20-foot-high walls (Banks, 2013). These practices all have the effect on the socialization of prisoners who will have a more difficult time returning to society. In a word, they are dehumanized. In such confinement and limitation, they are not gaining soft skills, job training, or interpersonal skills that will help them thrive “on the outside”; instead, they may actually be losing those skills as they adapt to the environment they are in. This in turn exacerbates the problems that may have landed them in prison in the first place, such as lack of socio-economic opportunity, lack of education, anger management problems, absence of respect for human life, and so on. (That said, there are low-security prisons and jails that offer programming of this nature that I will analyze at another time). If we plan on sending millions of individuals back into society after exacerbating root problems that may have led to the initial crime, how can anyone pose the argument that prison protects the public?

In conclusion, mass incarceration is unethical because: it is too ineffective to justify the cost; it is too costly to provide humane conditions; it is perpetuating societal ills rather than solving them; it is the product of unethical policymaking; and it is unsustainable for future generations.

Sources:
Banks, C. (2013). Criminal justice ethics: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Henrichson, Christian & Ruth Delaney. (2012). “What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers.” Vera Institute of Justice. http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/price-of-prisons-updated-version-021914.pdf

Wagner, Peter & Bernadette Rabuy. (2015). “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2015.” Prison Policy Initiative. http://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2015.html