Summary
Charles Dickens would urge Maine legislators to pass LD 1611 limiting solitary confinement in Maine prisons. He visited Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia, the world's first solitary confinement prison and said: "In intention, I am well convinced that it is kind, humane, and meant for reformation; but I am persuaded that those who devised this system of prison discipline, and those benevolent gentlemen who carry it into execution, do not know what it is that they are doing.
"I believe few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I am more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow-creature.See the full content of this document
Extract
What Dickens Said
"I hold this slow and da...
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