Torture by another name  Our view: Technically, Maryland doesn't
hold prisoners in solitary confinement, but in practice the
techniques it uses to control unruly inmates amount to virtually
the same thing  8:00 AM EDT, July 8, 2012   Officially, the
state of Maryland does not hold any of the 22,000 inmates in its
prison system in what is called "solitary confinement," a cruel
form of extreme punishment that isolates certain prisoners from
any contact with other human beings, sometimes for months, years
or even decades at a time. In fact, the term "solitary
confinement" doesn't even appear in the state regulations
governing prisoner treatment, nor is it anywhere mentioned in
guidelines issued by theU.S. Department of Justicefor the
federal Bureau of Prisons.  That silence is understandable. For
years, civil liberties groups and inmate advocates have argued
the widespread use of solitary confinement in the nation's
prisons is a form of mental and physical torture that should be
outlawed under the Constitution's