Mendez, Juan - short clip - SolitaryConfinementAsTorture
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| - | I was trying to determine that solitary confinement | 0:03 |
| could cross the line into cruel inhuman | 0:06 | |
| and degrading treatment or even torture. | 0:08 | |
| And I used the provision of mental torture as a basis. | 0:11 | |
| And then I used a scientific literature | 0:16 | |
| psychiatric literature, mostly that says that after 15 days | 0:20 | |
| of being alone and not having meaningful social contact | 0:26 | |
| with anybody, your mind starts working differently. | 0:30 | |
| The same literature ascertains that in some cases | 0:34 | |
| not all, but it could be irreversible consequences. | 0:40 | |
| So basically the argument then that I made was, you know | 0:44 | |
| first we should prohibit prolonged solitary confinement. | 0:48 | |
| And the reason we should prohibit prolonged solitary | 0:54 | |
| confinement is that short term solitary confinement | 0:56 | |
| may have some legitimate uses. | 0:59 | |
| For example, to protect someone | 1:02 | |
| who would be vulnerable if | 1:04 | |
| left in the general population | 1:07 | |
| or to isolate a predator | 1:10 | |
| that could be dangerous to others | 1:14 | |
| or for very serious disciplinary offenses. | 1:17 | |
| But then it should be short term and | 1:20 | |
| and it should be surrounded by due process guarantees. | 1:23 | |
| And, you know then trying to determine | 1:29 | |
| what constitutes prolonged solitary confinement. | 1:33 | |
| I came up with a somewhat arbitrary term of 15 days | 1:36 | |
| but I say somewhat arbitrary because it is born from, or | 1:42 | |
| or borrowed from the psychiatric literature. | 1:47 | |
| It's not arbitrary in that sense. | 1:51 | |
| I'm sure there are people who can be 20 days | 1:54 | |
| in solitary confinement and the next day they're fine. | 1:58 | |
| But if you're going to legislate a cot | 2:02 | |
| then what data are you going to use? | 2:08 | |
| And I later in, you know, in public speaking, I said, well | 2:11 | |
| you know, maybe 15 days for absolute confinement, but | 2:16 | |
| if you have a couple hours a day that you can exercise | 2:21 | |
| maybe a slightly longer term would be okay | 2:24 | |
| but it should be counted in days. | 2:29 | |
| Not even in weeks, not even | 2:31 | |
| and certainly not in months or years. | 2:32 | |
| And the other thing that I called for | 2:35 | |
| was a complete ban on indefinite solitary confinement. | 2:37 | |
| Because if you don't know, you know | 2:41 | |
| when it's going to end it, it stands to reason that it | 2:44 | |
| it just adds to your anxiety to say the least. | 2:49 |
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