Like, to the end of the driveway:
Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph laments in a series of letters to a newspaper that the maximum-security federal prison where he is spending the rest of his life is designed to drive him insane.
"It is a closed-off world designed to isolate inmates from social and environmental stimuli, with the ultimate purpose of causing mental illness and chronic physical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and arthritis," he wrote in one letter to The Gazette of Colorado Springs.
Rudolph wrote that he spends 23 hours a day in his 7-by-12-foot cell, his only exercise confined to an enclosed area he described as a "large empty swimming pool" divided into "dog-kennel style cages."
"Using solitary confinement, Supermax is designed to inflict as much misery and pain as is constitutionally permissible," he wrote in a letter.
Between this and the news about Pinochet's death, I don't think my tear ducts have ever been drier.
Give him (and maybe all the SuperMax inmates) a PC and a copy of World of Warcraft. We won’t hear another complaint ever again.
Eric can even be a paladin if he wants.
Dudes may be terrorists, but that does not give us the right to drive them insane.
Rudolph thought the Baby Jesus wanted him to blow up doctors and lesbians. He was already insane.
I’m no fan of Eric Rudolph, by any means, but yeah, he’s got a point. Supermaxes may be over the line. Humans are obligatorily social creatures, and social deprivation can send us right around the bend right quick. Cf. Jose Padilla, who was confined under Supermax-plus conditions, and who is reported to be suffering from PTSD so severe that he’s mentally incapable of participating in his defense.
Dudes may be terrorists, but that does not give us the right to drive them insane.