Solitary confinement or SEG  is used as a tool to discipline prisoners.  Wardens argue they need the tool to hold sway over men and women for whom the ordinary rules of society no longer apply.  This is a commentary taken by its critics as a reflection  on the parlous state of our prison system rather than a comment on the needs to maintain control in it.  In an era where the courts, the police and the prisons have taken over the function of the medical community for  those suffering from mental challenges arising both from nurture and nature, control  is perhaps the least of the problems. Certainly the courts should have an opportunity to rule on  the inhumane treatment on any citizen, but  lest, when a verdict adverse to the penal system is returned, we sit back smugly and say  it's the institutions which are at fault and feel better about ourselves, we must remember  how little money we vote  to address the root problem: poverty, neglect, abuse and worse, much worse.