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In 2014, a group of inmates at South Carolina’s Kershaw Correctional Institution made a rap video. That video, which has since gone viral, has received millions of views and royally embarrassed South Carolina prison officials.

For the ‘transgressions’ of recording a video, the 7 men received a combined 20 years of solitary confinement in prison – that’s roughly 7,000 days in isolation in total, or 1,000 days each. In addition, all of the inmates involved in the video lost other benefits, such as credit for good behavior, visitation hours, canteen use and the ability to call loved-ones.

Though prison officials claim the inmates received such harsh punishments because some of them ‘flashed a gang sign’, in reality, officials were embarrassed at the incident. Why? Considering that most ‘contraband’ brought into prisons are not done so by civilians, but by corrupt guards who are willing to ‘bend the rules’ in exchange for money.

In February of last year, the same prison punished over 400 inmates with solitary confinement for either accessing social media or asking friends to update their statuses. Why such a harsh punishment? Under their ‘rules’, posting to social media receives the same punishment as: assaulting a guard, causing a riot, or even taking a hostage.

(Granted, I have felt that my Facebook newsfeed has been overwhelming at times, but I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer years in solitary confinement because of a laughing cat video :p )

So what do you think? Should the inmates be punished with years and years of isolation? For the copsuckers, what do you believe punishments should be for guards who help inmates break the ‘rules’?