Solitary confinement in America's prisons: a human rights abuse?

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One in one hundred Americans are currently incarcerated, and a growing number of those incarcerated are held in conditions of solitary confinement. In Supermax prisons, administrative segregation units, and even Guantanamo Bay, prisoners spend 22 or 23 hours of every day in isolation, for weeks, months or years. This panel will discuss the expanded use of solitary confinement in the American prison system and its effects on prisoners' health and recidivism. Through this discussion, panelists will ask: Is the use of solitary confinement cruel and unusual punishment? Is it a human rights violation? And if so, what can be done?

source: About a coming panel discussion 'Solitary Confinement in America's Prisons: A Human Rights Abuse?'; shaking.stanford.edu/panels.html; STF; Discussion: 17 October 2009