Wired Science has a piece up about a form of torture that we as Americans are currently inflicting on over 25,000 of our fellow citizens -- solitary confinement. They interview psychologist Chris Haney:

Haney: First let me note that solitary confinement has historically been a part of torture protocols. It was well-documented in South Africa. It’s been used to torture prisoners of war.

There are a couple reasons why solitary confinement is typically used. One is that it’s a very painful experience. People experience isolation panic. They have a difficult time psychologically coping with the experience of being completely alone.

In addition, solitary confinement imposes conditions of social and perceptual stimulus deprivation. Often it’s the deprivation of activity, the deprivation of cognitive stimulation, that some people find to be painful and frightening.

Some of them lose their grasp of their identity. Who we are, and how we function in the world around us, is very much nested in our relation to other people. Over a long period of time, solitary confinement undermines one’s sense of self. It undermines your ability to register and regulate emotion. The appropriateness of what you’re thinking and feeling is difficult to index, because we’re so dependent on contact with others for that feedback. And for some people, it becomes a struggle to maintain sanity.

And the really kicking part to me is the large number of innocent people we grind up in our prison-industrial complex. Here's a quote from a three part series about a Lubbock, Texas man who was just posthumously exonerated for a rape. Too bad he died in 1999 after serving 13 years of his sentence.

His death was a bitter reminder to Ruby of all the things he had missed in his life. He had no wife or children; death certificates and insurance paperwork came to her. She collected, too, his few possessions, including years of letters from his brothers and sister.

"I think about the Sunday I sent them to Lubbock," Ruby said. Tim's defense attorney wanted Tim and Reggie back a day before trial.

"That particular Sunday, I didn't, we didn't fix dinner," Ruby said. "We ate Kentucky Fried Chicken. And I regret that to this day. My child never sat down at the table and had another meal at this house. So many things, stuff like that."

Our system grinds up lives.