The prisons we build: the company we keep In a famous experiment on sensory deprivation conducted years ago, a researcher sewed shut a newborn kitten's eye. Weeks later, when the scientist exposed the same eye, it was found to be useless. The profound lack of visual stimulation had permanently turned off that portion of the feline's brain. Humans conduct such cruel experiments on one another all the time. Most of the horror stories we hear involve parents who abuse their children systematically over years, leaving them socially and mentally retarded in the worst way. Such torture of innocents is easy to condemn, but when states engage in egregious acts in the name of security, rationalizations are a whole lot easier to come by.