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The positive impact of solitary confinement
Thesis on solitary confinement
Solitary confinement case studies and critical review
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The Rolling Stone article “Slow Motion Torture,” written by Jeff Teitz, is a perplexing article that dives into the various psychological affects that solitary confinement can have on an individual’s mind. The arrangement of the article itself was hard to follow at times. It was all over the place, talking about multiple things at once that did not correlate with the topic of the paragraph. But, for the most part, I was able to understand it.
According to Bassett, 50% of suicides occur inside solitary confinmenet (419). Not to mention, inmates are sometimes physically abused by the guards in power. Through the Solitary Nation documentary, it is seen that guards sometimes have to use bigger forces like a toxic gas to get an inmate out of their cell. While it makes sense that guards have to do it for their own protection, there needs to be thought about why inmates do the things they do. When inmates suffer from their mental illnesses, they begin to lose their sense of reality as well as sense of right and wrong.
The documentary, “Kids Locked in Solitary Confinement” depicts the toll that solitary confinement can have on the juvenile population. Approximately, 27% of adolescents in Riskers Island are in solitary confinement. The majority of which have not yet been convicted of a crime. However, these juveniles are in jail because they cannot afford to post bail. Supporters of solitary confinement believe that the segregation juveniles experience is not equivalent to the segregation in the federal system.
Craig Haney’s article Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and “Supermax” Confinement illustrates the complications faced in solitary confinement emphasizing the rise in mental health challenges imposed. Particular attention is paid to the escalation in the nature of mental health-related issues, including the negative psychological effects of imprisonment. Haney discusses these increasingly widespread and specialized units that bring forward the issues presented taking into account the notion of isolation and the association of the high percentage of prisoners suffering from mental illnesses. The article briefly assesses the recent case law concerning the difficulty of mentally ill prisoners, suggesting that the majority of broader psychological problems have been overlooked by the courts.
As the influx of mentally ill prisoners increase in federal penitentiaries, and prison’s staffing level remaining the same, inhumane treatment and dehumanizing practices of prisons are becoming more common and inescapable. In his article, “One of the Darkest Periods in the History of American Prisons,” Andrew Cohen elucidates how federal prisons are negatively developing over the years. By primary referencing to investigations in California and Florida, and allegations in Mississippi and Louisiana, Cohen is able demonstrate how ill-equipped, and reckless prisons have become in response to the needs of prisoners with mental illness. He even goes so far to compare today’s jails to “medieval places of unspeakable cruelty” ( ). In “One of the Darkest Periods in the History of American Prisons,” Cohen appeals heavily on pathos to the convince the audience of the fundamental corruption and carelessness that beholds today’s prisons towards inmates, especially mentally ill inmates.
From 1896 up until 1995 the Holmesburg Prison in Pennsylvania was in constant use. Much of the history at Holmesburg’s contains instances of rioting, murder, rape and even medical experimentation. Most prisons claim some violence in their past but Holmesburg’s borders on barbaric. Maybe this strong negative energy is what keeps the ghosts of Holmesburg Prison so active.
The hunger strike by Texas prisoners represents their courageous pursuit of justice and freedom. By sacrificing their basic needs, they draw attention to the harsh conditions endured in solitary confinement, demanding recognition of their humanity. They confront the issue of solitary confinement – “a form of incarceration in the US that human rights groups have denounced
Major Ethical Issues of Solitary Confinement Solitary confinement can affect a person’s physical and mental health simply because it deprives an individual of their need to interact with others on a daily basis. Solitary confinement, which is used to restrain violent and volatile inmates from the general prison population, is done in increments ranging from several months to years. In an article retrieved from the American Psychological Association, ‘Alone, in ‘the Hole’’, the author states that, “for most of the 20th century, prisoners' stays in solitary confinement were relatively short.” This was the standing rule, in which inmates visited what is known as ‘the hole’, for several weeks to months. As time went by, the average length of stay
In Atul Gawande “ HellHole” essay they talked about the experiences and effects of people who were previously in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement can be best explained as the process of removing an individual and isolating them from their environment and socialization. Atul Gawande is specifically talking about prisoners of war and incarcerated people and how their experience was and that process. The essay talked about how people are put in isolation which caused them to act out of their character. Goffman would argue that effects of solitary confinement are exactly what total institutions can do to a person's.
On November 11th 2015, Duke University’s Prison Network Series brought Lisa Gunther to discuss the 2013 California Prison Hunger Strikes. The event titled ‘A Critical Phenomenology of Solidarity & Resistance in the 2013 California Prison Hunger Strikes’ focused on the theory and structure of solitary confinement, how it affected the inmates confined and the hunger strikes that resulted. This essay will include a brief description of Lisa Gunther ’s talk and a particular focus on the areas that I found most stimulating and relevant to my AAAS course. Gunther commenced her talk with the background of solitary confinement in the Pelican Bay State Prison.
I agree with the International New York Times editorial staff “Editorial: Solitary Confinement Is Cruel and All Too Common” because the authors states statistics and facts about the outcome of inmates held in solitary for too long. While I understand that this measure is set to punish those who commit cries in society, incarceration should not be longer than a few year I agree with The editorial boards opinion, " Prisoners who have been held for 10 or more years will be moved to a special restricted unit with other inmates, where they can take educational courses and have normal human contact as they prepare to return to the general population." Therefore Incarcerating someone for years isolated in cell with a small window with no human
It is well documented that keeping an inmate in solitary confinement for long periods of times exacerbates mental illness, increases the risk of suicide, and creates a sense of hopelessness. In performing my research on this issue, I came across a program that was developed and implemented in Michigan by Warden Catharine Bauman and her staff at Algers Prison. The “Incentives in Segregation” program, contains six stages that prisoners need to complete to work their way out of high security to a lower-security status. Advancement through each stage is contingent upon prisoners’ behavior. Prisoners could not act or speak threateningly or use inappropriate language or gestures towards staff or other prisoners and must keep their cells and themselves
The prison system of California has agreed to change the way in which it is decided that an inmate is kept in solitary confinement. This change could decrease the number of solitary confined inmates by more than half. Solitary confinement involves inmates having little to no human interaction for twenty-two hours or more. These hours are spent locked in a cell. In California, the state with the second largest prison population in the nation, the number of inmates currently in solitary confinement is 3,000.
Some might argue that solitary confinement is actually effective and has its benefits, however this is not the case since this punishment only seems to make criminals much more dangerous when they leave prison than they were before and research shows that inmates who left solitary confinement experience increased anger and end up committing the kind of criminality that society is looking to prevent by using this method of punishment. Thus, solitary confinement ultimately fails as a rehabilitative measure, and as a way to "settle down" problematic
The Stanford Prison Experiment was an interesting movie. The way the experiment turned out versus the expectations was different and changed completely. The independent variable was the roles that the participants were assigned, which was determined by a coin flip. The dependent variable was the participants’ behaviors throughout the experiment. Some of the guards’ behaviors were cruel and immoral.
