Prisons and Punishment

For the second essay:Brown v. Plata reveals a disconnect between mass incarceration and the ethos of caregiving, which, as Blomberg shows, was an important part of the early prison movement. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in Brown v. Plata

, “A prison that deprives prisoners of basic sustenance, including adequate medical care, is incompatible with the concept of human dignity.”

Prisons have become places of pure confinement, and the use of solitary confinement continues,despite findings by psychiatrist Stuart Grassian and the social psychologist Hans Toch that even short-term exposure to solitary confinement causes a variety of mental problems in inmates such as hallucinations, persecutory delusions, hyper-responsiveness to stimuli, acute confusion, and memory disturbances.

ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS for the essay

1.What should the role of solitary confinement be in managing prisons?

2. What what should the role of the prison be in society – as a cure or as a place of detention?

Be sure to frame your response around the problem of the history of the prison and the assigned readings.

For your convenience, I have posted Brown v. Plata on Canvas. Should you cite this case from Canvas, the citation will be to the page in Word and not to the actual page numbers of the case.So cite the case like this: (Brown, 5).

In the text, the reference goes like this: In Brown v. Plata,the Supreme Court held blah blahblah(Brown comma followed by a page number in the Word document). All citations to cases in Latzer’s book are to be cited as: (Latzer, followed by a page),and the same goes for Blomberg.

But you should know this, because it is in the Writing

Guidelines.There is no need to repeat the full name of any case after your first mention. So, write it this way: In Brownblah blahblah –not: in Brown v. Platablah blahblah. Do not write an essay on your feelings about this subject without reference to any ideas or thinkers discussed in class. It is acceptable to use outside research, but not at the expense of the assigned readings.

To cite the articles posted on Canvas, follow these instructions:

Mass incarceration-1: cite as mass incarceration-1.

Mass incarceration-2: cite as mass incarceration-2.

Mass incarceration-3: cite as Rakoff.

Mass incarceration-4: cite as Gottschalk.

Solitary-1: cite as Eichelberger.

Solitary-2: cite as Goode.

Solitary-3: cite as Wallace-Wells.

Solitary-4: cite as CJR.

Solitary-5: cite as DOJ.