Hypothesis: Before McMurphy arrives, the Chief lives in a kind of solitary confinement. He is isolated in his machinations of fog, a type of prison.
Let us then read the following article (it's LONG) and consider the effects of solitary confinement within the context of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The article can be found HERE.
Obviously, to compare solitary confinement in a prison to a mental institution is an easy task. There are MANY differences. But what is perhaps more interesting is to search for the similarities. Within this article, please consider the following questions:
-Are the incarcerated men of this article criminals that deserve punishment? Are they mentally ill and require treatment?
-While the patients in One Flew Over are by no means isolated from each other, they are certainly removed from the "Outside" world. How can this isolate be a detriment to one's mental health?
-Does this article present any solutions? How could we improve the penal system or mental health system based upon the conclusions discovered in this piece?
-Should prison be a place of "torture"? Is it possible to use physical/mental torture to promote positive behavior?
-What are the similarities between those who suffer through long terms of isolation confinement and the patients of the mental hospital in our book?
Please be sure to read other's comments before writing as to avoid repetition. You are not required to answer all questions, or ANY questions for that matter. I encourage you to create real-life connections, present outside sources of interest, and whatever tangent your heart desires to chase after. Let's make this a worthy discussion.
The patients in One Flew Over are isolated from the "Outside" world, although they aren't isolated from each other, when they are released after being isolated for so long, they wouldn't be able to associate with the people on the "Outside" or "regular" people, since they were surround only by patients like themselves. Those actions would invite abuse from others. Prison should be both a place of torture and rehabitation since for different people theres a different method to change them from a criminal to a normal citizen. Some criminals might turn into worst criminals due to torture while others aren't able to be "fixed" if they aren't torture. It is possible to use physical/mental torture to promote positive behavior like in 1984 however the "cured" criminals might turn out as nothing but puppets and be unable to think for himself. Those who have suffer long term isolation, their mind begins to break down to the point where they can't even think similarily the patients of the ward in the book have also forgotten how to laugh and many other behaviors that are considered to be normal. They also began to have hallucinations. Similarly, one could also conclude that the Chief Bromden also experienced hallucinations like one where he saw an old patient being killed as well as the fog that come into his vision whenever Nurse Ratchet is around. From this article, one could conclude that the criminals either would be ones who made a mistake in their life, had some sort of childhood which lead to their criminal ways or had mental issues. In all three situations, they would require treatment however, there are those that are far too gone to be treated, but in all those cases, they all deserve punishment.
ReplyDeleteIt is is very difficult to use torture to promote good behavior. Often times it just creates fear and hatred. This may seem prevent negative behavior, but it means that security must be tighter because people who have built up hate are more likely to strike out against their oppressors at any given opportunity. Tighter security means more people caught rule breaking. They will then be tortured. This will premote hatred and more violence. It becomes a vicious cycle.
ReplyDeletePrisons serve to confine criminals so as to prevent the criminals from creating further damage to the public. The mental institution in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"(OFOCN) serves to confine people who cannot properly fit in with the norms of society. If people were physically tortured in prisons, depending on how mentally and physically stable they are, they could relapse into violence as a solution. But for confinement in general, whether as a prisoner or hostage, deteriorates the human mind and would cause the person to be further isolated from the world. When the journalist was kept hostage in Lebanon, the deprivement of social contact causes him to hallucinate and risk his life in an attempt to rid himself of this extreme mental torture. In OFOCN, although the patients are surrounded by other patients just like them and - supposedly- more normal people such as the nurses and doctors that work there, they are still isolated from one another. They are categorized as being Acutes and Chronics (and Vegetables from Chronics) which separates them from "normal" social interaction with one another. The Group Meetings further increase their isolation by pinpointing one person to "discuss their problems" about (or a "pecking party" as McMurphy chooses to describe it). After the meetings, the people who had told everything they knew of the targeted person feel guilt and stay away from the person even further. This makes the targeted person feel constrained and isolated, as would a prisoner in a supermax feel, confined and alone. For example, after the Group Meeting where Harding's problem with his wife is talked about, he is isolated by the other Acutes. According to the society the book is set in, he is categorized as mentally unstable and is placed in this mental institution. Thus, this brief moment of isolation causes Harding to go slightly insane (though he pretends he isn't by seeming calm) because he realizes he is mentally isolated from the rest of the patients. This case is similar to that of Felton who pretends that he is not alone although he knows that he is, in reality. He hallucinates of having conversations with imaginary people, in an unconscious desperate attempt to try to pull himself out of his state of solitude. Isolation has little to no chance of being effective and changing a criminal to something close to normal. It would probably be more effective to set up a system of creating some social contact between the criminal and the outside world, as has been experimented with in Britain.
ReplyDeleteTiffany/ Period 4
I agree with Emlyn because although people are placed into prison because they committed unlawful acts towards other members of society, the prisoners should not be tortured because they need hope in their lives. Many of these people were born into horrible lives. They witnessed things an average human doesn't and these experiences are what shaped them. As human beings, we try to emulate what others do, and these people are only doing what's natural. If you grew up seeing your father beat your mother, you're most likely going to beat your wife because you want to be like your mother who was powerless. Why make these people's lives worse then they already are? Instead, prison should be a place where people are loved so that they could finally copy good behaviors. If you have a chance to make someone's life better or worse, why choose to make it worse? If you have a chance to show someone how to change their life around why not take it?
ReplyDeleteThe people in this article deserve punishment of some sort, but I believe that after this study made by psychologists, isolation will not help any prisoner in any way. Isolation only seems to make prisoners worse. Even though isolation may actually lead to brooding about the problems of the past, there should be another way to do it, because isolation not only makes you brood, but it destroys your mind.
ReplyDeleteThe people in One Flew Over don't seem to be isolated, but they actually are in a way. They cannot express their feelings to each other, because they're scared they might rat each other out by writing in the book and then they will be the center of talk in the next meeting that they have. Although talking about problems can actually help, some people want to think over it by themselves, and some other may have pride so they don't want to even accept help, and others only want to talk about it to a real psychologist or friend that they have, because the patients are certainly not real friends to each other.
This article doesn't present any solutions, but it gets you thinking about them. Like maybe you could have prisoners have more social time and less time in their solitary confinements. Another change could be no solitary confinements at all. I mean, solitary confinements were probably used to make people brood over their past mistakes, but there are also other effects of staying alone too long, such as a deterioration of the mind.
I don't have any opinion on whether prisons should be a torture place or not. The prisoners did break the law in some way, but torture does not necessarily invoke good behavior. Sometimes, it makes prisoners just not want to change and just be more confined to himself and not express any opinions or do any actions at all. That most certainly is not a wanted result, it's actually the opposite of what prisons were probably made for.
The article talks about solitary confinement being bad, and personally, after reading the article, I think it is bad. Prisons are made to make the bad become good, but it has the opposite result. Especially prisons that use solitary confinement, they have the worst effect after a long period of isolation. Just like mental institutions, people in prisons try to 'fix' the 'problems' that the prisoners have, but they just do what the rules say, and really don't satisfy the individual needs of every prisoner. It sounds hard to satisfy EVERY prisoner's need, but that's what you would have to do to make prisons actually work, you would need to pay attention to every single person and find out their flaws to try to put them back to society. When the mental institutions and prisons try to conform the patients and prisoners and try to make them fit back into society, they might actually just be making it worse than it already is.
-Victor W./PD4
I agree with Victor that prisons should not use isolation in supermax prisons to punish the inmates. The process is not helping the person and can spur the development of psychosis. Although Felton says even he does not wish solitary confinement on anyone, many prisoners in isolation become consumed with fantasies of revenge. This reminded me of "The Count of Monte Cristo." Although I haven't read the book, I watched half of the movie and the main character is isolated for a time as well. He later escapes from his island prison and exacts revenge on the person who wrongfully sent him there. This story demonstrates how a prisoner may be filled with vengeance during and after his/her release. The article also mentions that Dellelo imagined cutting the head of one of the correctional guards and rolling it down a tier. This shows the type of anger that may often be fostered during solitary confinement. Another piece of writing I am reminded of is "My Side of the Mountain," which is about a boy who runs away from home and lives in a tree in the wilderness. Although he is initially very excited about his independence and has animals for companions, he is later overcome by loneliness and ventures into town to look for companion. This shows that humans need to be able to socialize and interact with others. Isolation will not do much good over an extended period of time, especially for criminals who need help and attention. The system used overseas in Britain has had better outcomes but has yet to be used here in America. Prison should definitely not be a place of torture but a place to help criminals correct their behaviors and obtain the skills needed to thrive in the outside world. Although it may prove difficult to work at a high-paying job after a prison track record, a released prisoner may be able to get a job with modest pay.
ReplyDeleteI believe that prison was first created as a place to punish and isolate wrong doers from society. So yes, I do believe that the incarcerated criminals of this article deserve punishment. I think in society there's consequences for everything you do. The criminals chose to commit crimes and as a consequence, they deserve to be punished. In regards to the use of isolation as a punishment,I disagree with my peers. The prisoners who gets isolated are the ones who continuously misbehave. I think that if they chose not to follow the rules imposed upon them and prove to be a danger to others, they have to be isolated. Although you may say this isn't fair, I ask you what is? Do you think it's fair that everyday good citizens are killed by these criminals? How is it "fair" to them and their families that these criminals do not receive punishments? Despite my believe that isolation should be used, I firmly do not believe that prison should be a place of torture. Torturing goes against all of our humans rights and morals. Americans firmly believe in justice and torture is not the way to go. Even though some of these criminals deserve torture, we should be the better men and not stoop to their level. Even though torture may promote good behavior, it can easily be misused and lead to unfair treatment. The article refers to isolation as torture but I don't believe that. The criminals chose to be in isolation by misbehaving. However, torture is being imposed by others despite the fact that the criminals might not have done anything wrong.
ReplyDelete-Erik Liu Period 4
I disagree with one of Erik's points (that the prisoners are put into solitary confinement are those who misbehave), because I saw that, in the article, people are put into solitary confinement for "violent infractions but also violation of prison rules or association with gang members", but also are "put in solitary confinement for petty annoyances like refusing to get out of the shower quickly enough", in one case. It's really up to the head of the prison, like the article states, who decides who is put into solitary confinement.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me of Ms. Ratched, because she decides who goes into the Electro-Shock Chair, whether it is for questioning what is in the drinks, or for planning to undermine her authority.
-Tiffani Ren, pd 9
I'd also like to add that prison shouldn't be a place of torture. Torture, or the use of solitary confinement, doesn't help prisoners better their behavior and erodes their brains and mental health, as proved by the statics in the article: the " 2003 analysis examining the experience in three states—Arizona, Illinois, and Minnesota—following the opening of their supermax prisons. The study found that levels of inmate-on-inmate violence were unchanged, and that levels of inmate-on-staff violence changed unpredictably, rising in Arizona, falling in Illinois, and holding steady in Minnesota." Furthermore, the article stated "Work and education programs have been cancelled, out of a belief that the pursuit of rehabilitation is pointless". I was somewhat shocked at this statement, because, contrary to the idea that prisons are to better the morals of prisoners for when they come into society again, this says that the people heading prisons don't even believe that prisoners will get better, so why waste rehabilitation programs on them? America is supposedly world-known for being a place of justice, as Erik stated, but this is "the dark side of American exceptionalism", according to the article. The article expressed my sediments and furthered my dismay, when it stated "With little concern or demurral, we have consigned tens of thousands of our own citizens to conditions that horrified our highest court a century ago. Our willingness to discard these standards for American prisoners made it easy to discard the Geneva Conventions prohibiting similar treatment of foreign prisoners of war, to the detriment of America’s moral stature in the world. In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture."
ReplyDeleteThis paragraph was very interesting to me, because it made me think why: why doesn't anyone, like John McCain, who said “It’s an awful thing, solitary”, stop the wide-spread use of isolation throughout the entire country? This was answered by, "Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain, however, addressed the question of whether prolonged solitary confinement is torture. For a Presidential candidate, no less than for the prison commissioner, this would have been political suicide. The simple truth is that public sentiment in America is the reason that solitary confinement has exploded in this country, even as other Western nations have taken steps to reduce it". I found it somewhat difficult to take in, that it is us, the American public, that is in the way of this kind of torture weapon: solitary confinement. But I now conclude that there is a possible solution, an alternative to solitary confinement, as shown by the British, and like Tiffany said. However, before we have any major political reforms, we have to have a social one. We, the American populace, have to learn to accept and hear the cries of the thousands in solitary confinement, not just reject the idea of prisoners being anything other than hardcore mass-murders. It's like Mr. Ferencz says in class, people look at you differently if you have a criminal record, even if it is just for petty offenses or you came out of jail a better person. It's just like a quote that caught my eye from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, "If somebody'd come in and took a look, men watching a blank TV, a fifty-year-old woman hollering and squealing at the back of their heads about discipline and order and recriminations, they'd of thought the whole bunch was crazy as loons."(Kesey 128).
If we didn't know their stories, then we would all think of prisoners and mental patients all the same: people who are cold-hearted murderers, people who are mentally-ill, people who just lose control randomly at times, people who are a danger to others. People who just don't fit into our society.
-Tiffani Ren, pd. 9
I think that in general, torture should be avoided at all costs. It simply amplifies the psychological and mental issues found in the subject, or creates new ones. This can be seen in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Perhaps some of these crazy theories that characters like Bromden come up with are in response to the torture that has been inflicted upon them. Nurse Ratched has the ability to influence the amount of torture or pain he experiences, so he begins to see her as somewhat of a deity who is able to control how fast time goes for him (the clock) in order for it to be as unfavorable as possible. This goes for the rest of the staff - he thinks that they control the fog machine, and explains how they use it and control it in the book. Also, we should keep in mind that torture isn't just the infliction of pain upon people. There can be different types - social torture, for example, would involve isolation. This is a kind of torture referenced by the article. As it says in the article, as Dellelo was kept in isolation from other prisoners, he "started to lose his mind. He talked to himself. He paced back and forth compulsively, shuffling along the same six-foot path for hours on end." Then, he "he was having panic attacks, screaming for help." This is reminiscent of Bromden during his own psychological "rape scene". Dellelo then experiences other symptoms of schizophrenia - "He hallucinated that the colors on the walls were changing. He became enraged by routine noises—the sound of doors opening as the guards made their hourly checks, the sounds of inmates in nearby cells. After a year or so, he was hearing voices on the television talking directly to him. He put the television under his bed, and rarely took it out again." So, regardless of what form of torture you receive, whether it is through pain or isolation from others, you will usually end up with some sort of mental disorder. Torture should be eliminated altogether, and the United Nations agrees - under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, they are aiming to fight torture around the world.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at Article 1.1 of the Convention Against Torture, you'll see that torture is defined as "Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for ... [various reasons]." This agrees with what I said earlier - although physical pain is obviously more brutal, social isolation also qualifies as a form of torture and will cause similar mental issues to arise in the people on which it is inflicted.
- Elvin Shoyfer / Pd. 4