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January 17, 2016
Notable Yale Law Journal Forum essays respond to big report on solitary confinement
As reported in this prior post from this past fall, the Association of State Correctional Administrators with researchers at Yale Law School together produced an important report about solitary confinement titled Time-in-Cell: The Liman-ASCA 2014 National Survey of Administrative Segregation in Prison. This report provided updated information, as of the fall of 2014, on the numbers and the conditions of prisoners in restrictive housing nationwide.
Now the folks at the Yale Law Journal have put together through its on-line Forum this impressive collection of essays that respond to Time-In-Cell. Here are the contents with links via the essay titles:
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Only Once I Thought About Suicide by Reginald Dwayne Betts
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Worse than Death by Alex Kozinski
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Staying Alive: Reforming Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons and Jails by Marie Gottschalk
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The Liman Report and Alternatives to Prolonged Solitary Confinement by Jules Lobel
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Time-In-Cell: Isolation and Incarceration by Judith Resnik, Sarah Baumgartel & Johanna Kalb
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Time-In-Cell: A Practitioner's Perspective by Ashbel T. ("A.T.") Wall
January 17, 2016 at 11:14 AM | Permalink
Comments
Kozinski: "If we abandon the death penalty, most murderers who would otherwise have gotten the needle will instead spend the rest of their lives in the box."
Moving past the "most," how true is this really? In states without a death penalty, is solitary confinement the name of the game for all those who otherwise would be executed? Is it in other countries? I think not. In many cases, probably, we are dealing with a certain subset of prisoners deemed particularly dangerous. Such people might be isolated in various instances even without being guilty of capital level crimes.
I'm sympathetic to a degree of this "worse than death" argument though darn the individuals involved seem to disagree. A minority are "volunteers" and turn down appeals (there might be a mandatory appeal to make sure the process was okay, but extended time will warrant voluntary appeals) but most do not.
They seem to rather live, horrible as that might be, than be executed.
Posted by: Joe | Jan 17, 2016 11:49:31 AM
Over and over again with the rent seeking lies. The lawyer wants to ban solitary confinement. The sole alternative to physical control is higher levels of staffing and bigger government budget for worthless government make work jobs.
Here, for the tenth time. Solitary confinement helps people, including the confined.
http://www.jaapl.org/content/41/1/49.long
"Discussion
The results of this study were inconsistent with the hypothesis that inmates, with or without mental illness, experience significant psychological decline in AS. Intercept comparisons showed that baseline differences were largely related to mental health status. Segregated inmates with mental illness displayed more symptoms than did inmates without mental illness. Mentally ill inmates in segregation were fairly similar to their comparison groups, but, from the beginning of the study, non-mentally ill segregated inmates had more symptoms than their GP comparison group had. It should be noted, however, that all offenders, regardless of their mental health status, reported symptoms that were significantly elevated over normative community samples. Although the initial values showed group differences, the change function indicated significant change in psychological symptoms over time with early fast improvements slowing to stability. In contrast to the hypotheses, this pattern of change was similar in all five study groups."
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 17, 2016 3:35:26 PM
I demand these Yale authors spend a shift as guards, and show us how to control ultra-violent, super predators flinging body fluids and solids at the guards. Stop talking. Show up.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 17, 2016 3:38:00 PM
What is the meaning of the alligator and of the prancing gay greyhound in the coat of arms of Yale? And what are those arches, gravestones?
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 17, 2016 3:39:30 PM
It should be noted that Yale was founded by a group of Harvard dissidents who believed, Harvard was not pious enough. They were nuts, and the people at Yale are still nuts.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 17, 2016 3:47:54 PM
I think it is time to form a new penal colony where inmates can be sent to live in work camps and pay back society by making things that society needs. Put a camp in each major city. Prisons do not make any sense. We need penalties which address the crimes. Rapists get castrated. Thieves have their old parents' homes confiscated. Blind all murders.
Posted by: Liberty1st | Jan 17, 2016 4:48:55 PM
Yale Law school accepted a carjacker sentenced to nine years in prison. And it published his lying propaganda. He should have been executed, this super-predator. It is high time to defund these treason indoctrination camps. Yale should lose its tax exempt status, and be banned from all government research funding. It should be closed down straight out, by force if necessary.
I will not even try to rebut this criminal. He should be executed.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 17, 2016 8:56:09 PM
If Volokh is the poster boy for the lawyer dumbass, Kozinski is his intellectual Daddy. He is the Daddy of Daddies for the lawyer dumbass. Both are smarter than Prof. Berman and know more. Yet, they are stupider than kids in special education in Life Skills. What is evident to everyone ordinary they are completely blind to. There is nothing to rebut in Kozinski's idiotic ipse dixit.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 17, 2016 9:02:34 PM
The rest of the articles are worthless, lying, pro-criminal, pro-big government lawyer trash.
Direct action groups of victim families should visit these intellectual pro-criminal trash.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 17, 2016 9:04:47 PM
Doug,
This blog would be much improved if you banned SC. His comments are a distraction and are vulgar.
A Reader
Posted by: A Reader | Jan 18, 2016 8:16:31 AM
I don't like banning people but a stream of comments like that really abuses Doug's patience. One isn't enough?
Posted by: Joe | Jan 18, 2016 11:50:55 AM
For what it's worth, I agree that this blog would get a better comment discussion if SC were banned.
Posted by: Agree with A Reader | Jan 18, 2016 12:42:31 PM
A Reader. Many have demanded that, some quite prominent and powerful. Some have called for my being investigated for murder. All that is lawyer retaliation. I oppose the murder of lawyers and judges, because they would just be replaced by their happy competition.
Prof. Berman would be better off banning me. However, the ban would mean an end to communication with the people of earth. You would have only one frequent commentator speaking for the substantive right of victims to not be victimized after my banning. I believe you would go after that person next. There are others, but they are not that assertive.
Be specific. What is it about my comments of loving correction of the legal profession that you find untrue or inappropriate? Do you mean Kosinski's ipse dixits are not rambling and emotional? Do you expect more from a person with an IQ so astronomical, it cannot even be measured?
I do not think you should be banned. I think you should try a rebuttal instead.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 18, 2016 12:50:38 PM
Joe. Stream of comments? Check yourself out, first. You can't shut up.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 18, 2016 12:51:58 PM
A Reader. What is your opinion of accepting as a Yale Law student, an ultra-violent, superpredator carjacker, tried as an adult, and sentenced to nine years in state prison, who then assaulted a guard? Then exploiting his experience in solitary confinement to further the bigger government funding agenda of the left?
Do you have any criticism of that?
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 18, 2016 12:57:37 PM
Agree with A Reader. Do you have any comment about the study I cited and its summary? Would you have known about it otherwise, or would your big government agenda propaganda have gone unrebutted? Do you even understand the alternative to solitary confinement and why the left is going after solitary confinement? Is there no room for a single dissenting voice in your rent seeking agenda?
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 18, 2016 1:02:24 PM
I do not know the program that is behind this blog. One problem is that editing of comments is not possible. If editing can be turned on, a single comment can be modified as mistakes or omissions come to mind.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 18, 2016 1:04:22 PM
Over ten comments in a thread, especially many that are not responsive to anyone in comments, would be pretty much for me.
Posted by: Joe | Jan 18, 2016 2:09:00 PM
When Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, continually attacked the policies of King Henry II, the good King (in a drunken state) is said to have exclaimed, "Will no one rid of me of this churlish priest?" It is said that this remark induced some exuberant knights to murder the good Archbishop in the cathedral (I once visited the very spot)--For which deed, the good King was compelled to seek penance from the Pope and endure scourging with the lash.
While wishing all the best to S.C. in his endeavors, and wishing him a long and happy life, I ask you, Prof. Berman: Will you not at last ban this churlish commentator?
His hysterical, often incoherent, always rude, always insulting, often homophobic, always misogynistic, sometimes anti-semitic rants cause me and many others to stay away this formerly preeminent blog.
Posted by: observer | Jan 18, 2016 2:59:30 PM
Observer. Have you ever learned anything new from a comment? I comment on 1 in 3 posts, on subjects of interest. Why can't you control yourself and skip my comments?
I was invited to C&C. I went. Then Kent said, you must change your tone. I said, I can't, and never returned, even though I am not blocked. I was a guest there.
Do you believe that minds can be read? That the future can be foreseen? That the standards of conduct should be set by a fictitious character? Why fictitious? So the standard may be objective, of course.
You lawyers are not churlish. Nor are you insane. You are part of an evil criminal cult enterprise. And the word, civility, is lawyer code for not questioning the cult beliefs. How can you fail at every self stated goal of every law subject, and accept the cult indoctrination? That is the easiest question to answer. It brings in $trillion a year and the power to make 99% of US government policies.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 18, 2016 6:07:30 PM
As to anti-Semitism, I have criticized the Jews. They are over-represented in the legal profession. But they sit there and quietly memorize legal doctrine plagiarized from the Medieval Catechism. They do not question the use of Latin phrases in the law. They quietly accept the common law written by the judge, a monk, who served Edward I, Longshanks. He invented making Jews wear Stars of David when walking outside. That is worse than in the Sharia where Jews must walk on the edge of a walkway. He gathered his Italian Jewish money lenders in one place, and killed them all, paying off his "mortgage," giving his soldiers free rein with their assets and families. He then enacted a law banning the Jews from England. It was not repealed for 400 years until the ascendancy of Oliver Cromwell. Is it OK for his portrait to hang in the Gallery of Great Law Makers of the US House of Representatives?
If he killed hundreds of Jewish money lenders, he killed hundreds of thousands of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh people. Where are the law students and lawyers of those ethnicities? Why is the portrait of a genocidal maniac hanging the Gallery of the US House of Representatives. To my knowledge, that is the only time I criticized the Jews. Is that criticism anti-Semitic, or is it pro-Semitic?
Then did you see what he did to the homosexual lover of his son in the movie Braveheart? Where are the gay law students and lawyers?
The cowardice of these lawyer victims, outside of PC, is shocking to me.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 18, 2016 6:18:58 PM
S C, maybe turn it down a couple notches and dont post a thread full.
Maybe then this will get somewhat diluted. Maybe? My Observation.
Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jan 18, 2016 7:27:19 PM
I reluctantly join in in Observer's remarks. S.C., do us all a favor: get off this blog! Professor Berman, step up and be a professor: banish S.C!
Posted by: Dave from Texas | Jan 18, 2016 11:19:35 PM
I remain disinclined to banish anyone, but this thread leads me to be considering a post/word limit for S.C. If he does not make a reasonable effort to limit his rants/rhetoric --- I am going to be inclined to delate all but one or two comments from him each day.
I apologize to readers who find SC's comments as a significant impediment to otherwise enjoying this blog and I hope they will let me know if they think a comment quota might be sufficient to encourge SC to keep it in check.
Posted by: Doug B. | Jan 19, 2016 1:12:25 AM
Doug,
When I saw that there were 24 comments on this post, I honestly thought before clicking that over half would be SC.
Turns out, I was right.
Posted by: Guy | Jan 19, 2016 10:53:01 AM
Prof. Berman. Click on your Article on MLK. You posted six comments about one matter. This article has links to six subjects. I commented on each separately. Your rate of commenting per subject matter is triple mine. Each of your comments is also about ten times longer than most of mine. Half of my comments are demands that people engaging in personal attack address the subject of the article.
You allowed personal ad hominem attacks on me, without deleting any personal and defamatory attack. Advocacy for the black crime victim is labelled racism. Advocacy for the black thug is called humanitarian, in this Twilight Zone world.
I now demand that each personal attack commentator disclose its party affiliation, and the fraction of its regular income or that of its employer coming from government.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 19, 2016 9:32:26 PM
The big difference, SC, is that this my blog and people stop by because they are interested in what I have to say. And many of these same folks have said repeatedly that they are very tired of seeing your rants against lawyers.
That all said, if you only do a few sober comments a day, I suspects complaints about you (and my inclination to put you on a comment quota) will diminish. But for now, you are on notice and on probation, and you should know many think I have waited far too long to propose even this modest limit on your tendency to make the comment sandbox a lot less fun/informative for others.
Posted by: Doug B. | Jan 19, 2016 9:52:37 PM
Prof. Berman. I appreciated your hospitality and your personal friendliness. I wish you well in all your future endeavors. Will not be back.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Jan 19, 2016 11:31:36 PM
S.C. writes "Prof. Berman. I appreciated your hospitality and your personal friendliness. I wish you well in all your future endeavors. Will not be back."
Good luck, S.C.! As for me, all I can say is "Free at last, free at last, great God Almighty, we are free at last"!
Posted by: Dave from Texas | Jan 20, 2016 9:45:06 AM
Maybe S.C. & B.O. should team up and start their own blog about the many redeeming values of being intelligent and delving into the positive attributes of self bloviating. I always looked at S.C.'s rants as background noise and usually just skipped over them. Can't even envision what this guy would be like if I met him on the street but I'm sure he'd come across the same as he did on this blog, most times really boring.
Posted by: Anti-bloviator | Jan 21, 2016 5:12:31 PM
A reader truly lives a thousand lives once reading a book with many characters and storylines. is a blogpost about it. Reading broadens our horizons.
Posted by: Sandra Harris | Apr 19, 2016 9:34:50 AM
A reader truly lives a thousand lives once reading a book with many characters and storylines. http://bigessaywriter.com/blog/essays-on-reading-a-reader-lives-a-thousand-lives is a blogpost about it. Reading broadens our horizons.
Posted by: Sandra Harris | Apr 19, 2016 9:35:18 AM
hey thank you
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