Solitary Confinement in Subcomittee
Today marks the first-ever hearing on solitary confinement by the U.S. Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, but social scientists and legal scholars have been considering solitary’s detrimental effects for years. Scharff Smith reviews the literature and concludes that such effects depend on how long people are isolated and the conditions of their confinement.
