Being detained in the Super Max Prison may well be a fate worse than death. The article describes the prison as a fortress with no way of escape, in which the daily routine of the prisoners prevents them from even interacting with their fellow prisoners. It is interesting to think of the motivation for building such a structure. On the one hand, there is emotion. Emotion is a significant "way of knowing" because how people feel about a subject oftentimes effects how they react. For example, this prison offers a good compromise for those who are against the death penalty. Although the Super Max Prison allows the prisoners to live, they still get harsh retribution for committing their horrible crimes. Some may argue that they deserve death, but the high intensity prison seems like a good compromise. Another "way of knowing" that may have effected the construction of the Super Max Prison is reason. For the small town of Florence Colorado, the prison provides a huge number of jobs, helping the inhabitants to thrive there. For them, it was reason that spurred the creation of the prison. They understood that a prison with security of that magnitude would need to staff a large number of people. In effect, they supported the construction because of what they knew it would do for the local economy. These two "ways of knowing" both played a part in the construction of this facility.
-Connor Gray

Brandon Smail- Supermax Prison

          As stated at the beginning of the article, “the purpose of Supermax . . . is to turn the prisoner into a nonentity.”  This is done by limiting the ways of knowing.  Without any of the ways of knowing, a person becomes a nonentity.  In Supermax, the first thing that is eliminated is language, since communication is forbidden.  Also, sensory perception is severely restricted, since the prisoners live in one steel and cement block for 23 out of 24 hours a day.  When the ways of knowing are restricted, one’s mind becomes confused.  It goes insane from the lack of input.  According to the article, “(Supermax) is designed to destroy.”  It destroys the mind and the meaning of freedom.    It is a cruel punishment, but the people who are trapped there certainly deserve it.

Rachel Kuhl- Supermax Prison

I think that in the Supermax prison the prisoners are made nonentities by limiting their ways of knowing. Since the prisoners are confined in a very small room for 23 hours a day and have no contact with the outside world or other people their language and sensory perception are very limited. To clarify, the prisoners are not talking to any other person and the only other people they see are the gaurds. Therefore the prisoners are completely deprived of language way of knowing. The prisoners sensory perception becomes very limited in the supermax because they are not even permitted to see the sky while outside of their rooms. Imagine never being able to see beautiful white clouds again and only seeing the same scenery everyday for the rest of one's life, this would be very difficult and depressing. With nothing in their surroundings changing the prisoners cannot learn anything new about the world and are stuck to dwell within their own minds. Without these two ways of knowing the prisoners become prisoners within their own bodies because at that point death might even be better than living in this prison. At the very end of this article it says "It's designed to destroy", I believe that this statement is very true. The prison destroys all hope for the prisoners of ever escaping. Supermax also destroys the prisoners' ways of knowing and without the ways of knowing one cannot be a knower and therefore is a nonentity.