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Crescat Sententia and Blog or not? are discussing whether a Libertarian Presidential candidate's proposal to keep prisoners confined to bed for long periods of time is unconstitutional. The proposition is an interesting one but I think not a practical one. The only way I can think of to keep them in bed for that time is chains and I'm pretty sure that would be unconstitutional. Anyway, how do they use the restroom (don't tell me bed pans because I'm sure we can all visualize what numerous prisoners who want to get out of bed will do instead of using one)?

As to the constitutionality, while I haven't heard of anyone enforcing bedtime like this, I know that a lot of prisons do the functional equivilent by feeding unruly prisoners "prison loaf." It's a particularly bland mix (one recipe here) which when fed to a prisoner over a period of time takes all the energy out of them (or so I've been told by guards). And, to my knowledge, no one has suggested it is unconstitutional.