Arguments Against Solitary Confinement

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Solitary confinement should not be used as a punishment for prisoners because it does not help prepare them to return to society, but instead just hurts them even more. Putting a person in solitary confinement can diminish their mental state and make it harder for them to be able to improve as a human being. Cesar Francisco Villa is a man who has been in solitary confinement for eleven years. Sitting in solitary confinement did not help him, as he explains, “By the third week, I found myself squatting in a corner of the yard, filing fingernails down over coarse concrete walls. My sense of human decency dissipating with each day” (Qtd. in Casella and Ridgeway). Keeping prisoners locked away can only worsen their mental state. Trying to reshape
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