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Friday, December 5, 2014

RESEARCH PAPER: Statement of Purpose


This paper will be written with the intentions that the audience has previous basic knowledge of the topic, solitary confinement, and is well educated on national affairs and policy regarding how the U.S. incarceration system works. I am specifically writing to U.S. policy makers and legislatures calling for their attention to the flawed and unethical use of complete isolation in prison, but this may also be relevant to correctional and medical officials/experts since the sources I will use are pulled from those realms of expertise. The purpose of this paper is to use the expert opinions and research findings from published professionals in the various fields of medicine, psychology, justice, and statistics to argue for the need of policy reform concerning the practice of solitary confinement. I will stress the idea of incorporating BOTH sides of the argument (pro solitary confinement and against solitary confinement) and using the reasoning for the two to find a middle ground. The professional journal sources I will use will either support or disagree with the use of solitary confinement. I plan on the middle ground being the idea of policy reform, thus preserving the benefits and getting rid of the negatives of inmate isolation. The conflict of solitary confinement in the U.S. incarceration system deals with alot of conflict concerning its cost efficiency, safety, and psychological affects and those ideas will be explored in this research paper.