Solitary Confinement, Human Dignity, and the Eighth Amendment

From the introduction:

“This Article proffers human dignity as a novel conceptual vehicle for capturing and articulating solitary confinement’s harm to personhood. Starting from the Supreme Court’s edict that “the basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man,” this Article employs a construct of dignity-as-integrity—or wholeness—of personhood. Using dignity-as-integrity as a conceptual vehicle to encompass the physical, psychological, and social harms of solitary confinement, this Article offers a doctrinally and theoretically coherent construct for understanding solitary confinement’s multiple deprivations and the harm those deprivations inflict on personhood. By utilizing the dignity-as-integrity construct, this Article not only provides a more coherent frame for understanding the harms of solitary confinement, it also illuminates how conceptions of dignity shape Eighth Amendment doctrine. For if the touchstone of the Eighth Amendment is truly “nothing less than the dignity of man,” an understanding of dignity that encompasses integrity of personhood is critical to providing meaningful parameters on the State’s power to punish.”