
Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement - nols
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-why-we-must-rethink-solitary-confinement/2016/01/25/29a361f2-c384-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html
======
ThomPete
Coming from Denmark where life is max 16 years and where people rarely go to
jail just because society does not know what else to do with you and then
moving to the US, the justice system when it comes to petty crimes, always
seemed very draconian and counter productive.

For most people — just the mere notion of being in conflict with the law — is
enough to send chills down their back. How sad that something that could have
been used to actually function as a mild punishment ends up completely
destroying a life and the potential of being part of society.

In a hundred years from now people are going to look back at things like the
war on drugs as one of the most barbaric, absurd and useless pieces of
legislation ever to have been implemented. A war which ended up destroying
more lifes than it saved.

I for one applaud Obama for finally taking a stanse against this unnecessarily
strict legislation and hoping that normal otherwise law abiding citizens wont
get their lifes completely destroyed for things anyone could have done. I love
the US but the legislation I could certainly do without.

~~~
lfjmfkekdk
"In a hundred years from now people are going to look back at things like the
war on drugs as one of the most barbaric, absurd and useless pieces of
legislation ever to have been implemented."

How do you explain the rampant crack cocaine drug wars in New York and Miami
in the 1980s that killed far more Americans than they do today? You're
probably too young to realize how bad New York and Miami were before the war
on drugs. How do you explain how Asia has even more "draconian" drug laws than
the USA and yet crime is a fraction of ours?

~~~
LordKano
_How do you explain the rampant cocaine drug wars in New York and Miami in the
1980s that killed far more Americans than they do today?_

Easy, the War on Drugs began in the early 70s.

The murders and general lawlessness that you reference from the 80s are a
direct result of the War on Drugs.

~~~
lfjmfkekdk
The crack epidemic had its origins in the 1970s and became widespread in the
1980s[1]. Crack was finally targeted in 1986 with laws that heavily punished
crack dealers. This happened after crack became widespread throughout major
American cities.[2]

"The murders and general lawlessness that you reference from the 80s are a
direct result of the War on Drugs."

Where were the "murders and general lawlessness" in other countries that had
even more expansive Wars on Drugs, like Singapore or Taiwan? America's War on
Drugs is relatively mild compared to these countries that sentence drug
traffickers to death.

[1] [http://www.crack-facts.org/historyofcrack.html](http://www.crack-
facts.org/historyofcrack.html) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_epidemic#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_epidemic#History)

~~~
facetube
Executing people for nonviolent drug offences is barbaric. Under no
circumstances should atrocities like that be held up as an example for others.

------
IIAOPSW
If I had to characterize Mr. Obama's administration, I'd say he all too often
says exactly the right things (and maybe even believes them) but the
implementations (if any) leave an endless amount to be desired.

But this, like everything the last 8 years, will come out to little more than
an eloquent WashPos article. Thanks Obama.

Edit: TIL the president cannot pardon state level crimes. oops

~~~
drinchev
This is so true.

I still remember the debate about Guantanamo Bay detention camp and how he
wanted to completely close it, but nothing actually happened. [1] I don't know
which one is worse : Holding prisoners without a charge for decades or holding
criminals in solitary confinement.

1 :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#Obama.27s_attempt_to_close_the_camp)

~~~
mikeash
Nothing happened because it's not the President's decision alone. He tried,
met with huge opposition from Congress, and couldn't make it happen.

Part of the problem is that people don't understand the President's powers and
expect more from him than he can deliver.

The other part of the problem is that the President himself seems to like
promising more than he can actually deliver. He doesn't say "I'll try to close
Guantanamo, but Congress really wants to keep it open and it's ultimately up
to them." He just says, "I'll close it" and then, oops, can't.

------
chishaku
The story of Kalief Browder is heartbreaking.

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-
law](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law)

[http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kalief-
browder-1993-...](http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/kalief-
browder-1993-2015)

~~~
themartorana
What a terrible story. And it's one of thousands of others that never get
told. Just... You said it. Heartbreaking.

------
jMyles
Far too little and probably too late.

Come on Mr. President - you had the past 8 years to visit jails and prisons,
to make sweeping changes to the Federal Prison System, and to push for
legislation to seriously curtail solitary confinement, for children and adults
alike, throughout the state systems.

This may serve as a bit of notoriety on your legacy, for the position you take
here will surely only gain traction and be looked upon as utterly obvious, but
it does little to help those poor souls suffering needlessly and alone
tonight.

~~~
martythemaniak
What does "too late" mean? He should not have done it because it did not come
sooner? It's past some deadline and it can't/shouldn't happen?

~~~
givehimagun
'Too late' is only the first question.

Arguments like too little and 8 years to make sweeping changes - those
arguments are far too myopic and cynical to be considered sound arguments.

Instead of isolated criticism, jMyles, tell me your ideas...how would you have
done better. Issue identification is worthless to me.

~~~
jMyles
* An executive order, on day one of the presidency, prohibiting solitary confinement of children. This is a no-brainer.

* The commission of a study, on day one of the presidency, to study solitary confinement across the country. This is a no-brainer.

* An executive order, within the first year, walking solitary back to the limitations it had in decades past.

* A conference of US attorneys, headed by the attorney general, to come to a policy regarding sentencing guidelines.

* In the first year of the presidency, introduction and advocacy of legislation to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for all or nearly all nonviolent offenses.

None of these are controversial - every single one of these steps has vocal
support from at least one member of both parties in both houses of congress.

There are many more steps that might actually take a small amount of political
capital, and they too are worth doing.

But a single directive in year 8 of the presidency? There are children who
have been languishing in solitary for _years_ while this guy waited to release
this statement.

------
busterarm
Chelsea Manning very publicly spent 10 months in solitary confinement and the
President didn't say anything then...

~~~
pluma
But everybody knows it's okay to do bad things as long as you do them to evil
people. And Manning is a traitor and thus obviously evil.

/s

------
S_A_P
I see some good points and bad points in this article. I applaud the president
for looking into an issue that is traditionally ignored by leaders in the US-
the effects of our prison system on the population. I wish he hadnt stopped at
solitary confinement. Our entire prison system and matrix of crime->sentencing
needs to have a complete overhaul to remove the drug bias on sentences. Repeat
violent offenders need to be kept off the streets. Drug users need help, not
incarceration.

I also wish he hadn't taken credit for reducing crime. I think that this has
almost nothing to do with the president. Its very easy to cherry pick the
statistics you like and claim responsibility. Would he also like to take
responsibility for the continuing/increase in violence against citizens by the
police? The violations of civil liberties? Anyway, I hope that this starts
building momentum that we need to change our prison system. I think some of
the policing issues will start to work themselves out as different socio
economic groups see that cops aren't there to harass and arrest, and that drug
users may be able to get help.

~~~
coldpie
> I applaud the president for looking into an issue that is traditionally
> ignored by leaders in the US- the effects of our prison system on the
> population. I wish he hadnt stopped at solitary confinement.

I agree. Criminal justice reform is a primary plank of Clinton's platform, and
Sanders strongly supports the discussion as well. I don't think we've seen
this kind of focus in recent memory. I think this is going to be a growing
issue in coming years, as access to information about our justice system
becomes more democratized due to things like cell phones and Internet literacy
giving more avenues for spreading experiences and information to people who
previously didn't have them.

------
corywatilo
> As president, my most important job is to keep the American people safe

The author, er, the President is incorrect. His most important job is to
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. He says
this constantly, and, politics aside, it is important for every American to
remember what the actual duty of the President is, as affirmed when sworn into
office.

Side note: Why is this on HN?

~~~
akiselev
Because according to the guidelines:

》 On-Topic: _Anything that good hackers would find interesting._ That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
_(Emphasis mine)_

If it's on the front page, enough people have found it interesting and within
the guidelines.

~~~
ojbyrne
More concretely, The US Prison System is clearly broken and doing great harm.
It's an obvious opportunity for making things better, which can lead to
entrepreneurial opportunities.

~~~
lowmagnet
I don't know about that. Thus far, those "entrepreneurial opportunities" have
lead toward more incarceration, not less. For-profit prisons have contracts
that guarantee a certain level of incarceration, resulting in occupancy of the
prisons they run. This is definitely one of those things that I'd much rather
not be in the hands of entrepreneurial entities.

~~~
mikeash
Here's a counterexample:

[https://pigeon.ly](https://pigeon.ly)

They're focused on making it easier and cheaper to communicate with inmates,
who often suffer from ridiculous price gouging for things like phone calls.

It's pretty small potatoes compared to private prisons, but it's something.

------
drinchev
There is a guy that is in solitary confinement since 1983 [1]. I was shocked
when I read about him. It's a fascinating story, nevertheless so shameful for
the society.

23 hours a day in a room for more than 30 years. :(

1 :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Silverstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Silverstein)
2 :
[https://thomassilverstein.wordpress.com/](https://thomassilverstein.wordpress.com/)

~~~
emptybits
Thanks for the Thomas Silverstein fact. TIL. The "other side" does explain
their rationale, valid or not:

> "When an inmate kills a guard, he must be punished," a Bureau of Prisons
> official told author Pete Earley. "We can’t execute Silverstein, so we have
> no choice but to make his life a living hell. Otherwise other inmates will
> kill guards too. There has to be some supreme punishment. Every convict
> knows what Silverstein is going through. We want them to realize that if
> they cross the same line that he did, they will pay a heavy price."

The solitary confinement practice needs a spotlight on it. A long-term "no
human contact" order seems like torture. I'm glad Obama recognizes the risk of
this in juveniles at least.

~~~
mason240
That seems like a very appropriate response to someone with a history of
killing others.

~~~
pluma
They're not doing it to stop him from killing others. They're doing it to make
him an example so others don't kill guards.

The quote pretty much straight up says that it's an intentional cruel
punishment to deter others from doing the same.

------
blfr
Jimmy Carter 2.0: after decades in power, now he wants to rethink policy.
Maybe tomorrow he will condemn extrajudicial executions? Or Guantanamo? And
sky's the limit once he's out of office.

It's one thing that politicians try this but why do people, even smart people,
buy it?

~~~
skj
Decades in power?

~~~
blfr
Obama has been holding various public offices since 1997, Carter between '63
and '80.

------
haberman
It is so hard for me to imagine that socializing with hardened criminals (and
being subject to violence at their hands) could be better for me
psychologically than being alone. In some ways, that makes solitary even more
scary to know that this is true.

~~~
o0o0_ooo
It's not true. Most people in prison, even some murderers, are not as inhuman
as you might believe.

~~~
mason240
Would want to share a cell with someone who has history of hurting or killing
others?

~~~
vkou
Solitary confinement is not 'not having a cellmate'. Solitary confinement is
being locked in a tiny concrete cell, with no bars, no windows, and no chance
to speak with another human being. Indefinitely.

~~~
mason240
So the answer is yes, you would like to share a cell and living space with
someone who has a history of hurting or killing those around him.

------
Pietertje
The example he gives is heartbreaking, however the solution he poses is only
treating, in this particular case, symptons of two other issues:

Why does it take 2 years to stand trial for a petty crime? Why is the accused
sent to prison while awaiting trial for a petty crime?

Edit: added 'in this particular case'

~~~
qrendel
I'm not familiar with this particular case, but there are people who get
completely lost in the Rikers island prison system.

This actually almost happened to me, though not at Rikers island: I was
arrested under a false accusation of a crime I didn't commit, and while I was
supposed to have been released after an hour, there was some mess up where
they thought I'd already been released and so kept me in there for around an
extra 12 hours. It only even got fixed that fast because my lawyer made a huge
deal out of it.

Now imagine the same thing happening, but without a good advocate on your
side, in a much larger prison, and ongoing for years or decades instead of
just half a day.

------
runarb
The article has:

 _16-year-old named Kalief Browder from the Bronx was accused of stealing a
backpack_

 _" stealing a backpack"_ doesn't sound so bad, but in the newyorker[0] ha is
out on parole and _" charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault"_.

Robbery and assault by someone out on parole are a fare way from stealing a
backpack.

I totally agree that the use of solitary confinement is probably to widely
used and the story of Kalief Browder is sad, but after reading a bit more
about it I feel a little bit tricked by this story. I wish the journalist cold
better lay out the whole premises at the start, so I can easier make up my own
opinion.

0: [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-
law](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law)

------
DanielBMarkham
I'm with the president on this. Sure wish he'd actually do something, though.

As an example of what he could do, there are a few folks from both parties who
share agreement that the prison system needs reform. It wouldn't have been too
difficult to have co-wrote this piece with them. Heck, then at the end we
could have read about the actual legislation sponsored, instead of him just
hoping somebody, somewhere will send some to him.

Perhaps this president has a different idea of his job than I do. He seems
very interested in pretending to be outside the system, dispassionately
analyzing it, announcing where we've all failed and where we might do better.

This is a great skill for a candidate, and it'll probably serve him well after
he leaves the job, but right now? Might be better to do less preaching and a
little more compromising. Perhaps I'm being too tough on him. Don't know.
Apologies if that's the case. I do note that observers from both parties have
described him as being distant and disengaged.

This reminds me of the question researchers asked many years ago. Doctor A
comes in and takes his time with you, he's polite and interested. Doctor B is
gruff and rushed, doing only as little as he thinks necessary to get the work
done. Which is the better doctor?

The answer is, of course, you don't know. Without seeing results, all you can
really comment on is style. Ideally you'd want a doctor that had both
technical and interpersonal competence. But without taking a hard look at what
kinds of results occur, all a layman can do is comment on the stylistic nature
of what they've observed.

So it is here. This is a very-well written piece. My intent here is not to
criticize the president or play politics, simply to point out that the tech
community has a _lot_ of issues we care about, no matter what our party is.
And there are a ton of folks who can make a good case for one thing or
another. It's important that we sort out folks who can make a great speech but
get little done from those who might not be able to put seven words together
-- and could actually implement the changes we have to have.

~~~
MrZongle2
_" Sure wish he'd actually do something, though."_

...kind of sums up most of his presidency, doesn't it?

------
grandalf
After nearly 8 years of drone strikes and escalation of many of Bush's worst
human rights abuses, we get this kind of insulting and silly propaganda,
intended to help create the impression that Obama was a humanitarian.

We should all be insulted by this...

------
jqm
Not only is the criminal justice system abusive (a problem itself) it plain
isn't working.

The thing is... there are some extremely bad people in the system who know the
ins and outs and consider prison just another place to abuse others while
being taken care of.

We have too many laws. We spend to much time worrying about little stuff and
not enough about big stuff. My personal opinion (I realize this is not likely
to be a popular one) is that we need to stop locking people up for little
things and return to public hanging for big things. Smoking crack might be
stupid but is it really a crime?

On the other hand someone brutally killing a child for fun doesn't deserve to
even breathe our air. Something like this is beyond rehabilitation. It is
broken. Put an end to it without delay and return the raw material to the
earth. But don't monkey around with solitary confinement. It is inhumane and
in my opinion probably more so than hanging.

~~~
tempestn
I don't agree with capital punishment at all, for a number of reasons that I
won't get into here, but I can at least see a reasonable case being made for
it. But _public hanging_? In what way could that possibly be good for society?
If regular capital punishment doesn't work as a deterrent, I can't imagine
that making it public would do much better.

Although after seeing public hangings the will for capital punishment in
general would probably drop sharply, so maybe that would be a benefit.
Seriously though, the idea of public hangings is barbaric.

I don't disagree with you as far as not locking people up for things like drug
use though.

~~~
jqm
And how is what we are doing now not barbaric? Which is actually more
barbaric? It turns out people sometimes see the barbarism in others while
missing their own.

There is a reason public executions happened for so long (and still happen in
vast swaths of the world). Partially to serve as warning and as a deterrent
and maybe partially so society feels they are participating in punishment (or
revenge if you prefer). Is it effective? I would assume to some extent.

Maybe we need to revisit some of the concepts of public shame (ok..maybe old
school hanging is a bit extreme.. but jut to throw ideas around) rather than
hiding offenders behind bars at the hands of sadistic guards and fellow
inmates in some grey bureaucracy. Which is my estimation not only doesn't
really work but is even more barbaric.

------
mgleason_3
Did anyone else notice the parts about 2 years for stealing a backpack or
violence at the hands of the guards?

Maybe solitary isn't the problem?

------
mceoin
Completely off topic, but I was surprised that this article has ads.
Presumably WashPo cashed in nicely on this little spoke.

------
digi_owl
The level of jingoism and lack of nuance and long term perspective in here is
worrying.

------
vox_mollis
What we _really_ need to rethink is imprisonment in general. The elimination
of corporal punishment has led to this state of affairs. Nothing is more cruel
and unusual than stealing a person's _time_. Whip wounds heal. And oftentimes,
the violence experienced inside is worse than a whipping.

~~~
xutopia
No... just no!!!

Physical harm has lasting consequences on vulnerable people. Some people have
anxiety lasting a lifetime because they were subjected to corporal punishment
as a child!

~~~
saint_fiasco
To be fair, you should compare corporal punishment against imprisonment, not
against nothing.

Corporal punishments has long lasting consequences, but so does imprisonment.

------
tempodox
Will he be able to actually do something or will they all block each other so
nothing changes? Won't the Tea Party find out that less solitary confinement
will utterly destroy the U.S. and make it totally Un-American?

------
rogersmith
"i order drone strikes on innocent civilians on a weekly basis but i think the
way we treat criminals in the US is inhumane"

