On James A Bacon & The Virginia Department of Corrections Practice of Solitary Confinement & Transparency By William Thorpe

On 3/12/19; James A. Bacon expressed a continuum of that typical intellectual-liberalism that for reasons unbeknownst to its propagators has come to define conservatism and it's purported thought in a, quite frankly idealistic post titled: "Are Conclusions Preordained for Solitary Confinement Study?" Mr. Bacon's work is idealistic because it does nothing to advance society's knowledge and understanding of the practice and its critique.

Disparagingly referencing the ACLU, Amnesty International and other groups who at least have the social courage to question practices of Virginia's Department of Corrections as Mr. Bacon does is contextually irrelevant.

What Mr. Bacon ignores is requiring the Department of Corrections to statutorily collect data of its solitary confinement practices is specifically for the purpose of transparency. Meaning the public will now begin to grasp what is being done by prison officials in its name.

The department in its perpetual effort at concealing its practice,  which in any other context would have Mr. Bacon and his reactionary ilk bellowing about unelected officials being opaque       would rather the Virginia taxpayer remain ignorant of its malfeasant practices as it relates to complying with U.S. Virginia Constitutions, laws and it's very own Operating Procedures. In other words, if society is to hold it's prison officials accountable then it has to know what exactly is being done it its name and why       And nothing requires transparency as the practice of Solitary Confinement or Administrative Segregation which embodies that maxim, that adage and I paraphrase, absolute authority corrupts. which is exactly what it's use by the Virginia Department of Corrections and its absolute authority does with sadistic crass gravity.

I quote Mr. Bacon's "I normally embrace the philosophy that more data is better. But I worry that this study might be cruising to pre-ordained conclusions." And I remind Mr. Bacon that despite the revisionist narrative now vouge of alternative facts      we can and will debate conclusions but not facts and with the transparency of data on Solitary Confinement which now will be in the public domain Mr. Bacon with his retrograde world view will have access to the same facts his demonized "crusaders of the left" will.

In closing, Mr. Bacon is wrong, there is nothing "organized" or rather disorganized of "victims of criminal violence" as he opines. Victims of criminal violence have the organized fiat of the state and it's organized violence which Solitary Confinement is as total this side of execution the state practices.

By William Thorpe who is in Solitary Confinement at Virginia's Red Onion State Prison since 1998

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More on Solitary Confinement    Bacon's Rebellion

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