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Jalie Gonzalez
Professor Pallo
UNIV 111
1 December 2014
Criminals and Solitary Confinement
Beginning with the creation of the first prison, people have debated over the living conditions and treatment of criminals. There have been differences in many different aspects, including what privileges they can access, food, medication, and punishments. One major area of debate is the placement of criminals in solitary confinement. In this essay, two pieces of work focusing on the issue of solitary confinement will be analyzed. Stephanie Elizondo Griest focuses on a man and his individualized journey and experience in solitude in her essay entitled “The Torture of solitary: solitary confinement, once regarded as a humane method of rehabilitation, unravels the mind. Yet today, more than 25,000 U.S. prisoners languish in isolated cells.”
On the other hand, “Solitary Confinement: The Law Today and the Way Forward,” by
John F. Cockrell, discuses solitary confinement in the law, the effects, and the ways that people have tried and should try to change it.
Solitary confinement is a form of retribution, or punishment used against criminals in prison. There is much debate that retribution is a positive form of punishment, when looking at the victim’s point of view. But the results of such punishments, like solitary confinement, are unparalleled. They are put in isolated cells for a certain amount of time, which has certain effects on the human being. These consequences include “sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression, phobias, impaired

Gonzalez 2 memory, and problems with social interaction” (Solitary Confinement has Mental,
Physical Consequences). Inmates are kept in these cells for long period of time, even years. When people are kept alone, especially under such retched circumstances, the consequences can be unbearable. These pieces of literature are focusing on informing the public about the negative results of using these types of cruel punishments on the human being.
“The Torture of solitary: solitary confinement, once regarded as a humane method of rehabilitation, unravels the mind. Yet today, more than 25,000 U.S. prisoners languish in isolated cells” by Stephanie Elizondo Griest, was originally published in The Wilson
Quarterly . Griest argues that criminals being put in solitude is not humane and causes terrible short-term and long-term effects. This essay is filled with ethical appeals, beginning with her pathological approach of focusing the entire format based upon the experience of a real people, Joe Loya and Robert Hillary King.
She captures your attention in the opening paragraph, with its descriptions and use of catchy adjectives, like “…his low and smoky voice” (Griest), in a way that gets you to feel something. She begins with a description of the criminal in a way that you would hear on the news, about his crimes and unfortunate history. She does not sugarcoat anything; instead she simply states the facts when saying, “…he stole a quarter-million dollars from 30 Southern California banks…demanding all their money” (Griest). As she continues through the paper, she begins to twist your perspective of the criminal and gets you to feel sympathy towards him. She wants you to look at him as a normal person rather than a harsh and conniving felon. Griest also tries to appeal to you emotionally by adding pictures. The use of pictures enables the reader to get a sense of the harsh realities

Gonzalez 3 of living in isolation and see these harmless looking people who have suffered. She uses logical appeals when stating the facts about the history of solitary cells by using numbers and giving specific dates, making her seem more knowledgeable and giving the work validity. She describes the history of Pennsylvania prisons with this approach when saying, “Philadelphia…sank a record $800,000 into building a prison on an elevated piece of farmland…known today as the Fairmount District” (Griest). By using the stories of real people, she is providing a credible source. She is describing first hand experience from multiple people, and showing how this horrible treatment to mankind affected their lives.
The structure of the essay as a whole is very effective. She opens up with an interesting beginning and then keeps us interested throughout the entire thing, while still incorporating facts and being persuasive. She does this by her use of vocabulary, with a lot of descriptive adjectives and dramatic sentences. Griest says “…he started careening
77 miles per hour down a Northern Californian freeway, slicing in and out of traffic. This captures you and activates your imagination as you see the car moving in your mind. She keeps the paragraphs short and does not drag anything on. This allows the reader to keep full focus while reading and not get uninterested. Griest draws us in and guides us to her side of the argument with her strategic use of showing evidence. The description of the effects faced, including the hallucinations and sounds with a sympathetic tone. The use of actual quotes from the criminals allows you to picture them in your head and see what they are like as people. Griest also uses analogies to create dramatic tensions. For example, she relates a cell to a dungeon and light to God, “The guards retaliated by covering the skylights, eclipsing the prisoners even from God” (Griest).

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Although there are many positive characteristics of Griest’s essay, there are still some weaknesses. She tends to use an overwhelming amount of quotes at some points in the paper. The quotes are from people who actually experienced going through solitary confinement, which is a strong addition, but when you add so many, they begin to loose their value. Griest also lacks citations and sources. At many different areas of the essay, she attempts to name certain side effects, and facts about solitary confinement. By lacking sources, she is minimizing her sense of credibility. How do we know if her information is valid? Furthermore, the essay is in need of a more developed conclusion.
A paragraph, or even a sentence, giving the summary of the main idea, is required to wrap up the paper and remind readers that this is not just about two men and their experiences, but to show the cruelty of solitary confinement.
John F. Cockrell wrote “Solitary Confinement: The Law Today and the Way
Forward.” This article was originally published in the
Law and Psychology Review in
2013. Cockrell talks about the use of solitary confinement in prisons, and how we, as people of the country, should attempt to change it. He analyzes the ways that it can legally be changed because it is too cruel of a punishment now. Although this has the same position as Griest’s essay, he has taken a different approach by putting it in a more formal and academic setting.
This article has an incredible amount of credibility. The author establishes ethos by including his background in law, by stating that he graduated from the University of
Alabama School of Law and his awards and degrees from there. This establishes his credibility as a writer, specifically involving law, which is what this article is about. He is knowledgeable on the topic, which makes you trust that what he is writing is true,

Gonzalez 5 persuading you to think his arguments are more logical than the counter. Throughout the articles, Cockrell also includes citations and sources from multiple sources. He also gives explanations or clarifications on the footnotes, which helps the reader understand exactly what he is talking about, or trying to say. The organization of the paper makes sense logically and works well with the reader. As opposed to Griest’s shorter and straight-tothe-point essay, Cockrell’s article is longer and guided towards a more educated and mature audience. This narrows the audience quite a bit, because anyone could read
Griest’s. Also, the advanced vocabulary and formal tone add for a more committed reader, as opposed to Griest’s essay which automatically captures your attention.
Cockrell’s article is also filled with appeals to logos. He uses logical evidence from multiple sources, uses an abundant amount of statistics and facts and uses many historical events and cases, for example he says, “In Madrid v. Gomez , the isolation of mentally ill prisoners in Pelican Bay Prison’s SHU was held to violate the Eighth Amendment”
(Cockrell). By using these facts, the author is convincing the audience that it proves his argument, and makes sense and that he is not just writing a bunch of nonsense. The author also adds points of a counter argument, in a way, by saying when an attempt might fail to succeed in changing solitary confinement. There is a clear conclusion, that sums together all of the major points from the article and the main idea that, “By bringing
ADA claims against the practices of supermax prisons, mentally ill inmates can continue to chip away at the excessively punitive practice of solitary confinement” (Cockrell). He also adds a strong closing sentence, that can just barely appeal to pathos, when he says
“Perhaps the inmates in solitary confinement can more effectively get along within the

Gonzalez 6 general prison population Maybe, just maybe, they can eventually get along in the greater society” (Cockrell).
Cockrell’s article is very logical and has plenty of statistics and credibility, but it is lacking emotion. The audience cannot emotionally connect to this piece throughout the entirety of the text. There is no personal stories, intense imagery, emotional language or tone. This may lead some readers to describe the piece as ‘boring’ or make it hard to keep focus. The articles main purpose is to inform, but to inform, you need to be able to grab the audience. Another weakness is that it has an overwhelming amount of sources, which can be good, but it also lacks some descriptions of the quotes used.
From reading either one of the two works of literature, one will definitely grasp the concept that solitary confinement is an unreasonable and incredibly cruel punishment that is used way too often in prisons across the country. It leads to traumatizing effects on the human body, which can last for a lifetime. Prisoners placed in solitude develop qualities that will not diminish after being taken out. These effects, like hallucinations, can cause some people to go crazy and mentally unstable. Although both of these articles get you to this same conclusion, they do it in different ways. One on hand, Cockrell describes the ways to solve the problems that solitude brings, by amending it in law. He is not as persuasive as Griest, but he manages to explain the logical reasoning behind the argument. On the contrary, Griest takes you through an emotional journey with the experiences of two men that went through the tortures of solitary confinement. She captures your attention and persuades you to feel bad for these people and disapprove of this method of retribution.

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Works Cited
Cockrell, John F. “Solitary Confinement: The Law Today And The Way Forward.” Law
& Psychology Review 37 (2013: 211-227. Academic Search Complete . Web 7
Dec. 2014.
Griest, Stephanie Elizondo. “The Torture of Solitary: Solitary Confinement, Once
Regarded as a Humane Method of Rehabilitation, Unravels the Mind. Yet
Today, More Than 25,000 U.S. Prisoners Languish in Isolated Cells.”
The
Wilson Quarterly 36.2 (2012): 22+. Literature Resource Center . Web. 7 Dec.
2014.
“Solitary Confinement has Mental, Physical Consequences.”
Loyola University of
Chicago: School of Law . Loyola University of Chicago. Web. 7 Dec. 2014.

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Writer’s Memo
The most difficult aspect of doing research for this essay was trying to find two articles that had opposing views. I spent a lot of time trying to find these articles, until I met with you for a conference, and was clarified that they didn’t need to be exactly opposite of each other. Other than that, it was pretty simple finding articles that addressed my needs. I used the VCU library website to search for the articles. I’m pretty confident in the type and quality of my sources because you checked over them. At first, I was unsure of the essay format one that I used, but after researching where it came from, it seemed credible. I began the writing process of this essay by analyzing the sources and comparing them to one another.
In this essay I am most confident about my rhetorical analysis of the two essays because I think I did it well and thoroughly. I tried to add as many as I could, that I could explain well enough to the reader. I think the thing that needs most work is my transitions of the sentences and ways I compare the two sources. The biggest takeaway from the assignment is the fact that I have never written, or even heard of this type of essay before. It was difficult trying to understand the way to write this essay or the goal, but after looking at examples, it was clearer.