IN THE AREA of prison reform, perhaps no method of incarceration has been more controversial than solitary confinement. Prisoner rights advocates have long argued that solitary confinement — the segregation of individual prisoners in small cells for up to 23 hours a day — is inhumane. Correctional officers, meanwhile, have seen solitary confinement as an important tool for disciplining unruly or dangerous inmates. [read the full story here]