It wasn’t merely the brig, it was solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement for 30 days is torture.
He wasn’t permitted to speak to anybody, we was never let out. He was never offered anything recreational to do. Janeway even went the extra length of ensuring that any food given to him was bland and flavourless. She took steps to make sure he had as little mental stimulation as possible.
Solitary confinement is widely classed as torture.
There is a huge body of research that proves solitary confinement has large negative impacts to physical, psychological, and neurological health.
The United Nations outlaws solitary confinement for more than 15 days (which is still a lot. It would be less if some US states didn’t complain about it) on grounds of it literally being torture. And that’s in the unenlightened 21st century, never mind almost 400 years ahead of us.
Even in the most awful of prisons, people are generally allowed an hour a day outside of their cells. Paris didn’t even get that.
I’m personally not of the view that torturing your crew is light punishment.
