The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky
In the earliest days of our Republic, a group of well-meaning Philadelphia Quakers set out to reform the prison system. The idea was to remove convicts from the mayhem and corruption of overcrowded jails to solitary cells where sinners would return to mental and spiritual health through reflection. In the Walnut Street Jail, no windows would distract the prisoners with street life; no conversation would disturb their penitence. Alone with God, they would be rehabilitated.
There was a small problem. Many of the prisoners went insane. The Walnut Street Jail was shut down in 1835.
But the word penitentiary became part of the language, and the idea of placing prisoners in solitary confinement did not die. It seemed so reasonable -- so much better than chain gangs or public stocks. New prisons opened to test the theory that solitude might bring salvation to criminals.
Charles Dickens had a keen interest in prison conditions, having witnessed his father's detention in a Victorian debtor's prison. When he heard about the latest American innovation in housing convicts, he came to see for himself. At Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, the wretches he found in solitary confinement were barely human specters who picked their flesh raw and stared blankly at walls. His on-the-spot conclusion: Solitary confinement is torture. Dickens wrote:
I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers...I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body: and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh; because its wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.
A man who had seen his share of inhumanities, Dickens pronounced solitary confinement to be "rigid, strict, and hopeless...cruel and wrong."
That was 1842. Since then, piles of scientific studies, along with the vivid accounts of victims, have confirmed what was obvious to Dickens. Solitary confinement is worse than smashed bones and torn flesh. When human beings are deprived of social contact for even a few weeks, concentration breaks down, memory fades and disorientation sets in. Eventually, many prisoners experience explosive rages, hallucinations, catatonia, and self-mutilation. Some become irretrievably insane. Far from promoting safety, the most commonly cited justification, solitary confinement often amplifies violent impulses, turning prisoners into ticking time bombs who are far more dangerous to human society upon release than they ever were to begin with (see National Geographic's documentary on the subject, available on Netflix).
Human beings need social contact for normal brain function. Solitary confinement is thus a method of inflicting traumatic injury upon the human mind. "It's an awful thing, solitary," wrote former Vietnam prisoner John McCain in Faith of My Fathers. "It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment." Among its legion perversities, solitary confinement turns medical doctors into torturers; renders violent criminals more aggressive, and makes prisoners cut off from human society incapable of functioning in it.
In 1890, the United States Supreme Court nearly declared the punishment unconstitutional. It is banned by the Geneva Convention, condemned by the United Nations, and either prohibited or restricted in most civilized countries. And yet today, as Atul Gawande revealed in his gut-wrenching 2009 New Yorker article, tens of thousands of Americans are tortured in this fashion every day, out of sight, in the "Supermax" prisons that have popped up like poisoned mushrooms on the American landscape since the 1980s. Some prisoners are consigned to these Houses of Unholiness for violations - both major and minor -- of prison rules. Some for gang activity. Others for trying to escape. Or for violent behavior. Some are placed there because they are mentally ill and there is nowhere else to put them -- the equivalent of casting a sufferer of pneumonia onto an Arctic tundra.
Save for the death penalty, solitary confinement is the most extreme sanction allowed by law. Like slavery and every other form of institutionalized inhumanity, it should be banished to the dark annals of American history as an example of what happens when our humanity slumbers.
Instead, it is being used as a method of terror and coercion by the United States government upon a citizen who has not even been convicted of a crime.
As Glenn Greenwald and several other courageous journalists and bloggers have documented, Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U.S. Army Private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, has been detained in solitary confinement for the last seven months, despite not having been convicted of any crime, having been a model detainee, and having evidenced no signs of violence or even disciplinary misdemeanors. Manning has been kept alone in a cell for 23 hours a day, barred from exercising in that cell, deprived of sleep, and denied even a pillow or sheets for his bed. As Greenwald reports, "the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation." No date for a court hearing has been set.
The message of the U.S. government to its citizens in this activity is clear: blow the whistle and your brain will be mutilated before you even have a trial.
But it may be that much to the shame of the U.S. government, our slumbering humanity is awakening. The solitary confinement -- the torture, for we must call it that -- of Bradley Manning is ironically shining a light on this brutality and tipping us off to the danger of authoritarianism. A United Nations probe is now investigating the Bradley case, and the drumbeat of outrage in the blogosphere grows louder every day. Protesters are organizing. Whatever one thinks of Manning and his involvement in the WikiLeaks release of classified information, there can never be any justification for torture. As Greenwald argues, such practices weaken the position of the United States government, both abroad and at home. Other countries will think twice before accepting extradition requests to a place where inhumane treatment of prisoners is sanctioned. Our moral standing in the world suffers, while the American citizenry, already suspicious of post-9/11 governmental abuses of power, grows even more alarmed. What kind of legitimacy adheres to a judicial hearing when the accused has been subject to sanity-threatening conditions? Trust and faith in American justice will deteriorate as long as such damaging practices continue.
As we spend time and rejoice with our friends and family this New Year's Eve -- enjoying the social interaction that human beings require -- let us pause for a moment to remember the thousands of people being tortured in American prisons, including Bradley Manning, and let us send our own message back to our government: We are Americans. We will not accept the intimidation and coercion of our fellow citizens, even from the Pentagon. Most assuredly, we will not accept torture in our name. Not of the accused. Not of the mentally ill. Not even of convicted criminals. When our civilized society is attacked, no matter what the justification, we will rise up to defend it.
The placement of human beings in solitary confinement is not a measure of their depravity. It is a measure of our own.
Cross-posted from New Deal 2.0.
"From the website of LTC David E. Coombs, counsel for Manning's defense: Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Speedy Trial" - pjburke (09:14 PM on 1/04/2011)
Hon. Mr. John M. McHugh
Secretary of the Army
101 Army Pentagon, Rm. 3E560
Washington DC 20310-0101
General George W. Casey, Jr.
Cheif of Staff of the Army
101 Army Pentagon, Rm. 3E672
Washington DC 20310-0200
http://www.psysr.org/materials/PsySR-Letter-Gates-Manning-Solitary-Confinement.pdf
PFC Bradley Manning's Solitary Confinement to ROBERT GATES
January 3, 2011
The Honorable Robert M. Gates
Secretary
100 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
Dear Mr. Secretary:
http://www.psysr.org/about/programs/humanrights/gates-manning-letter.php
PLS READ THIS LETTER.... ITS THE MOST SUPPORTIVE PROOF OF TORTURE TO BRADLEY.... EVERYONE WRITE TO ROBERT GATES... ASK FOR BRADLEYS RELEASE FROM THIS TO MORE HUMANE CONDITIONS..!!
For example, in the case of Fleming v. Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, Docket Number 4:03CV3307 (United States District Court for Nebraska 2006), Judge Warren K. Urbom held that a twelve-year confinement in administrative segregation did not violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
What exactly, in your view, would be the "penological justification" for prolonged pretrial solitary confinement, given that UCMJ Article 13 prohibits pretrial punishment, and -- as we've already discussed -- there is good authority upon which to base an argument that prolonged solitary confinement is a form of punishment?
But perhaps you could explain what, in your view, would be the "penological justification" for prolonged pretrial solitary confinement, given that UCMJ Article 13 prohibits pretrial punishment, and -- as we've already discussed -- there is good authority upon which to base an argument that prolonged solitary confinement is a form of punishment?
IF YOU AGREE THAT COURT DECISIONS NEEDS TO GO THERE
AND DO...O... THIS THEN SAY YES!!
Why hasn't Manning's defense attorney made such an argument?
DID YOU KNOW THAT THE USA HAS MORE PERSONS SERVING IN PRISONS THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!! I
YES THIS IS THE FACTS!!! GLAD YOU POINTED IT OUT!!
We are destroying literally millions of lives. Inner city young with no jobs, no education, and no hope
YES WE ARE !!!! AND SHAME ON THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM...!!!
ANOTHER PACK OF LIARS AND TOTALITATIAN THUGS!!!
THEY DONT STAND FOR JUSTICE!! ONLY SELF AGGRANDIZEMENT!!! SHAME ON THEM!!
OUR COUNTRIES' COURT AND JUSTICE SYSTEM IS SHAME FULL!!
ON ANY ONE DAY IN THIS COUNTRY THERE IS A TOTAL OF OVER 280,000 PEOPLE IN US PRISONS JUST ON MARIAJUNA CHARGES AND SERVING THEIR SENTANCES ALONE!!
ALL THAT MONEY THAT GOES TO HOUSE THEM COULG BE USED TO REHABILITATE THEM INSTEAD!! LIKE IN EUROPE!!
WE PRODUCE MORE CRIMINALS THIS WAY!! THIS DOESNT HELP THEM OR ANYONE!! AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE IN AND OUR COUNTRY!!
ANY OTHER RIP OFF BY OUR GOVT!! MONEY VERY BADLY SPENT TO WHAT USE!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>destroying literally millions of lives.!!!!!!! EACH AND EVERY DAY!!
IS THIS THE AMERICAN WAY???
TO DISPOSE OF AMERICAN LIVES AND AMERICAN FAMILIES IN A PERVERSE JUSTICE SYSTEM THAT SERVES NOTHING AND PROMOTES HATE AND POVERTY?>?? AND MAKE FOLKS DESTITUDE!! AND HOME LESS!!
MY COUNRTY NEEDS TO FIX THIS PROBLEM AND STOP THE INJUSTICE !! WE ARE SUBJECTGATED TOO...ON A DAILY BASIS!! WE ARE NOT FOOLS!!
Also, he has not yet even been charged with a crime. That is almost a more egregious affront to our justice system than the fact that he has been in solitary confinement for so long.
Regardless of what he has been accused of, he deserves due process. When we abridge the rights of one of our citizens, we abridge the rights of all of us.
If Manning is being deprived of sleep, he is being subjected to a unbelievably hideous and inhumane torture. Period.
BTW, he's being held under the UCMJ not the Civilian justice system.
Also, no one's denied that they guy broke the law.
1) So what? A solitary confinement case has yet to be heard by the SCOTUS. Doesn't make it any less evil.
2) Again, so what? Does a citizen give up all rights when he or she joins the military?
3) Last time I looked, innocent until proven guilty still applies in the US.
Obama's unwillingness to deal with this is yet another nail in the coffin as far as I'm concerned.
Thank you Obama for trying to do the impossible..
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=309&invol=227
The UCMJ has procedural rules for pretrial detention which are not all that very dissimilar from civilian pretrial detention rules.
Counsel for the defense can neither deny nor defend until formal charges are filed.
A quote From Paul Craig Roberts article addressing this issue…
"Murdering civilians is a war crime, and as General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the National Press Club on February 17, 2006, “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral” and to make such orders known. If Manning is the source of the leak, he has been wrongfully imprisoned for meeting his military responsibility. The media have yet to make the point that the person who reported the crime, not the persons who committed it, is the one who has been imprisoned, and without a trial".
From the Nuremberg trials…
Principle IV states: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him".
This principle could be paraphrased as follows: "It is not an acceptable excuse to say 'I was just following my superior's orders'".
So what al that means is that out of the entire military and political personal that access to that material, Manning is the one and only one that obeyed his oath to the constitution…
That's just for starters... numerous other corrupt and criminal acts are disclosed as well.
He is no hero and its sad that someone from your generation would think of him as such.
As you point out yourself, Wikileaks hasn't published everything. By handing the material to Wikileaks, Manning accomplished what he couldn't do on his own, and what you accuse him of not having tried: The leaks were focused.
Oh, by the way, the only thing we know of any significant evidence that he did, is leaking the helicopter shooting of reporters and civilians, which he has confessed to. If that's all he did, it was most definitely an extremely focused and justified leak.