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Why isn't there more constitutional litigation over the "hellhole" that is extended solitary confinement?

By Douglas A. Berman

Today I finally found the time to read this terrific examination of solitary confinement appearing in the March 30 issue of The New Yorker.  The piece by Atul Gawande is titled "Hellhole: The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture?". Here are just a few choice snippets from a piece that merits a full read: Most hostages survived their ordeal [involving solitary confinement] although relationships, marriages, and careers were often lost.  Some found, as John McCain did, that the experience even strengthened them.  Yet none saw solitary confinement as anything less than torture.  This presents us with an awkward question: If prolonged isolation is ? as research and experience have confirmed for decades ? so objectively horrifying, so intrinsically cruel, how did we end up with a prison system that may subject more of our own citizens to it than any other country in history has?...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 29, 2009 (boomark / email).