Amie Acton clarifies March 3 OP-ED
Dear Editor,
After reading Mr. Whitney’s well-written and informative response I realized I needed to clarify something in my original letter. Please recall that in my second paragraph I specifically mentioned “HALT Solitary Confinement Act limits the length of time”, length of time being the key concept here. HALT focuses on the use of long term solitary confinement in prisons: “15 consecutive days or 20 out of 60 days”* as stated in Section 5 of the law. It is this long term placement in solitary confinement that the United Nations, as written in the Nelson Mandela Rules, deems “psychological torture”*. There seems to be a general misconception that torture can only occur in a “dark dungeon” or in the extreme and well-documented case of Mandela. Psychological torture through long term isolation is, indeed, an internationally recognized form of abuse of a human being. A act that no one should endorse.
Mr. Whitney, thank you for taking the time to respond to my letter, doing so in a way that demeans neither mine nor your humanity and in a format that has been part of the democratic tradition of this nation since its very beginning. You and I will most likely never agree. And that’s ok. We both care about our wonderful county and the well-being of our nation’s people and it is only through interactions that respect each other’s dignity and humanity that we have any chance of moving forward.
Amie Acton
Allegany County Democratic Committee
Committeeperson, Town of Alfred
https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf
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Read the original OP-ED published on March 3, made possible by Fassett Lane Lumber:
