Abstract
In Part II we look at the boundaries of torture and the ethical issues they bring to light. In this chapter we turn to what many consider the worst form of torture, solitary confinement. A disaster in terms of a method of rehabilitation (as intended by the Quakers who put it to use years ago), solitary confinement has brought about any number of harms and no apparent benefits.
When forces are beyond your control, there’s not a lot you can do.
—Albert Woodfox.
It’s an awful thing solitary... It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.
—Sen. John McCain.
There is torture of mind as well as body; the will is as much affected by fear as by force. And there comes a point where this court should not be ignorant as judges of what we know as men.
—Justice Felix Frankfurter.
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Teays, W. (2019). Solitary Confinement. In: Doctors and Torture. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 80. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22517-9_7
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