Is Solitary Confinement Torture?

View the above video and read this disturbing piece by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker two years ago which unequivocally answers the question whether this is torture. Make no mistake about it. Solitary confinement is a despicable form of torture because it appears so benign.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande?printable=true

Supporters have asked what "the hole" is. It's segregation; solitary confinement. No contact with anyone other than the guards. Leonard is currently in a tiny hot cell with a window high above... no air, no view, hot and miserable. He gets one hour of "recreation" time a day. At that time, he is removed from the tiny cell and taken to another cell. No equiment, no track... nothing.. Just another cell that he walks around in.