11: Solitary Confinement Pt. 2

Question 1

“nothing works thesis” after the second wave of solitary confinement

Answer 1

meta-study of research from 1945-1967

conclusion that correctional treatments have no appreciable effects on rates of recidivism on convicted offenders

what’s the point? how do we reshift the way we think about the function of prison within society?

proliferation of litigation around solitary confinement and other arguably abusive practices in prisons in the 1970s

Question 2

1978 SC Hutto v. Finney

Answer 2

punitive isolation (solitary confinement) > 30 days in Arkansaw prisons constituted cruel and unusual punishment, violating the constiuttion

constrain prison administrators and attempts of experimentation

Question 3

third wave of solitary confinement (1990s-present)

Answer 3

neoliberalism causing prison privatisation
- shifting the responsibility of administration towards private for-profit corporations

minimising costs, maximising administrative efficiency
- no longer the pretence of rehabilitation

compliance with black-letter law
- Hutton v. Finney
- not the same usage of solitary confinement

supermax/control units

Question 4

phenomenology

Answer 4

school of philosophy exploring the question of being by examining structures of consciousness in that experience

prioritising the study of how things in the world appear to us through first person perspectives

Question 5

maurice merleau-ponty

Answer 5

posit the unity of the phenomenon first, then analyse its part

sense the world as a meaningful whole, not as meaningless parts
- know and perceive things as wholes before knowing all composite parts

same structure of experience/knowledge hold for every type of human experience

Question 6

• embodiment

Answer 6

cognition/knowledge of the world mediated primarily through surfaces of the body and sense of the body

body as the primary place from which we know the world, not the mind

body is deeply entangled with the world out there which it perceives
- come to know not only the world but also yourself through embodied perceptions

chiasmatic structure of being

Question 7

• intersubjectivity

Answer 7

interrelation between two people’s cognitive perspectives, shared and co-constituted by more than one conscious mind

you aren’t born with full self-knowledge but you develop a sense of yourself based on how other people in the world respond/reflect back to you

most fundamental need is our need for social relationships
- need these to understand ourselves and at a more existential level to know we exist as people/humans in the world

world co-constituted from first-person perspective and experiences but also in the world it’s co-produced with other people’s perceptions

Question 8

• becoming unhinged

Answer 8

phenomenological description of what happens when are embodied interrelation subjectivity is fractured/disorganised

why solitary confinement is an especially destructive punishment/technique

replaces everything we used to know about ourselves and the world with a single control-oriented other which doesn’t have your best interests at heart

seeks to destroy the self by restricting the sensorial experience of the world and by replacing all social relationships with only those ordained by the state/prison

Question 9

• grid space

Answer 9

objective space conceptualised as something out there in the world which has an existence in reality outside of any individual’s perception of it

Cartesian conception of space

rigid division between what is the subjective in our mind and external objective reality

Question 10

depth

Answer 10

idea that the world out there is a background against which an infinite number of potential things might appear to us and our senses

no end to the experiences which might emerge to us from the world from this depth

attune to only certain aspects of the infinite potential sensorial experiences available to our bodies

Question 11

• clear space

Answer 11

sense of the world not only as we make sense of it individually but also in conjunction with others (shared social world)

facilitates social depth with the structure of overlapping perspectives

creation and maintenance conditioned/enabled by the possibility of withdrawal
- place where there isn’t a presumed other subjectivity is not seeing/feeling/identifying you

Question 12

*night

Answer 12

experience of space unhinged from determinate objects and from the limits or outlines distinguishing people from self and non-self

pure sensorial undifferentiated experience without any meanings attached to these things.