Paul Burke,

I wasn't advocating sensory deprivation, any more than I was advocating hard labour or the death penalty - It is a penalty I'd heard touted around as punishment for certain classes of killers (particulary for terrorists)*.
I could have included the 'breaking' lifers for spares mentoned by someone else earlier, or the old military sentence of 'rigorous imprisonment', where everything is done at the double, to rigid rules, zero tolerence and harsh punishment (think 'The Hill').

W


*The variant I'd heard advocated was not true sensory deprivation but a 'refinement' on the Victorian "silent" system, wherein prisoners were allowed communication of any sort, only with the wardens.