Kunzel article

Kunzel's first article outlines both the Auburn and Philadelphia systems of incarceration, the Auburn system allowing prisoners to experience some level of sociability while the Philadelphia system practiced total prisoner isolation. As a reader digests this information and these prison models, one might think that they are outdated, namely the Philadelphia model, and that we have surely evolved in our efforts to incarcerate individuals who the state deems deserving of such punishment.Unfortunately this is not the case.Disturbingly most prisons across the U.S. have evolved very little and in many ways sharply resemble 19th century modes of imprisonment. The idea that contemporary prisons are in fact inhumane and can be categorized as torture is a fiercely debated topic. A Center for Constitutional Rights article, https://ccrjustice.org/home/get-involved/tools-resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/torture-use-solitary-confinement-us-prisons, discusses one of many lawsuits that have been filed across the country claiming that solitary confinement is essentially torture. 

"In the early nineteenth century, the U.S. led the world in a new practice of imprisoning people in solitary cells, without access to any human contact or stimulation, as a method of rehabilitation. The results were disastrous, as prisoners suffered severe psychological harm. The practice was all but abandoned. Over a century later, it has made an unfortunate comeback. Instead of torturing prisoners with solitary confinement in dark and dirty underground holes, prisoners are now subjected to solitary confinement in well-lit, sterile boxes. The psychological repercussions are similar."
 "Researchers have demonstrated that prolonged solitary confinement causes a persistent and heightened state of anxiety and nervousness, headaches, insomnia, lethargy or chronic tiredness, nightmares, heart palpitations, fear of impending nervous breakdowns and higher rates of hypertension and early morbidity. Other documented effects include obsessive ruminations, confused thought processes, an oversensitivity to stimuli, irrational anger, social withdrawal, hallucinations, violent fantasies, emotional flatness, mood swings, chronic depression, feelings of overall deterioration, as well as suicidal ideation. "

The article suggests the solitary confinement in prison today is a blatant violation of the 8th amendment rights of the individuals imprisoned under these conditions. There are obviously certain circumstances that have improved within prisons i.e., food, sanitary living conditions, access to some medication but the fact that we as a society continue to endorse conditions that  are likely to cause individuals to go insane is somewhat perplexing. We have made incredible technological 

strides in prisons to make them as impenetrable and inescapable as possible and we continue to spend funds to build them but we have done only the bare minimum to make them more tolerable.  There are only two real explanations why prisons are modeled and operated the same way almost two centuries later. Either the individuals with the power to implement change in prisons are not interested in the people within the walls or they believe that prisons in their current state are being run the way that they should be run.