To most desis, the name Atul Gawande would not ring a bell (how would it, you do have to pay for the New Yorker magazine. After all, it’s not free like the Redbox DVDs, NYT online edition or the SearchIndia.com blog).
But Atul Gawande is no stranger to the readers of this fine blog. The bloke is a doctor and currrently Associate Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School and General and Endocrine Surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Dr. Gawande has yet another fine piece in the latest issue of New Yorker (March 30, 2009).
This time, the focus of Atul Gawande’s article is the pernicious practice of solitary confinement of prisoners on a large scale in America.
Dr.Atul Gawande
(Pic: Brigham & Women’s Hospital)
Atul Gawande argues convincingly that extended solitary confinement of human beings in prison is nothing but torture because of the serious damage to the prisoners like brain impairment (as bad as in the case of traumatic head injury), slowing of brave waves, hallucinations, panic attacks, irrational anger, chronic depression and lethargy, difficulty in maintaining social interaction after release et al.
Gawande starts off his lengthy piece stating:
Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people. [P.36, New Yorker, March 30, 2009].
According to Gawande, 25,000 inmates are in isolation in supermax prisons in the U.S. and another 50,000-80,000 in restrictive segregation units, with many of them in isolation (P.42, New Yorker, March 30, 2009). Continue reading »
Recent Comments