The Toronto Review of Books has issued a “Tasting Menu” which includes Brett Story on “Occupying Prisons” in which I was struck by this well-constructed sentence about Quaker reform gone awry.
But something strange quickly became evident: solitary confinement, rather than offering criminals the requisite conditions of self-reflection to rehabilitate them into law-abiding citizens, instead drove prisoners mad.
The whole sentence meanders until its last clause which drives to the inevitable conclusion of madness. A small single syllable word that encompasses the outcome of solitary. One word.
You can’t miss the equation. Not if you care.
And so for day 1096
13.12.2009