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That's why forced isolation violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Torture Convention, and the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In 1995, the UN Human Rights Committee called long-term prison isolation incompatible with international standards, and in 1996, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment agreed.
Kupers on "How to Create Madness in Prisons"
Isolating inmates in windowless cells 23 hours a day makes it easy. Even the strongest-willed can break. Try it in a windowless room for 24 hours with enough food and water for one day. Imagine the desperation to get out. Then imagine it for many years or life.
Mental asylum can have the same effect, Kuper using this example as evidence:
-- family members confine their son in one;
-- he loudly protests his sanity and his parents for wanting him confined;
-- the psychiatric evaluation misinterprets his anger as illness;
-- after being involuntarily confined, his protests become louder and more desperate;
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