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Solitary Confinement Essay

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The Psychological Effects of Solitary Confinement on Inmates

Solitary confinement also known as SHU (special housing units) administrative segregation, special need unit, permanent Lockdown, the hole, the box and many more. Its purpose is to isolate an inmate in an 80 square feet cell for 23 hours a day. It includes a bed toilet and sink, food is delivered through a slot, and one-hour exercise in a cage is given. Solitary confinement is a temporary punishment in response to acts of misconduct. Correction facilities may also use isolation as a form of protective segregation for inmates at risk of victimization. Prisons use of solitary confinement is meant to maintain the prison order as an administrative measure for inmates who are considered an escape risk or risk to themselves. One example would be sexual offenders who voluntary choose to isolate themselves to avoid harm from other inmates, another reason for the use of isolation is to prevent pretrial detainees from tampering with witness or to force …show more content…

Grassian (1983), documented adverse psychological consequences of long-term solitary confinement. He conducted psychiatric evaluations of 14 poisoners who were plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit challenging the conditions of their solitary confinement at the Massachusetts Institution at Walpole. They were lept in 18,x2.7 calls with solid steel doors, there was no contact with other prisoners or staff , no personal items or reading books except a bible. This went on for 2 months. Grassian found psychopathological conditions known as SHM syndrome. Which includes perceptual changes; affective disturbances differ he also found some convicts suffered extreme generalized anxiety and symptoms of panic

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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.

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Imagine being trapped in a damp, dark, cage as a form of punishment for something that seems completely out of your grasp. Prisons were understaffed and as barbaric as it gets the people charged with crimes were whipped. The primary cause for their creation was to keep the crooks from harming any people right? Everyone in solitary confinement is treated the same way but not everyone came for the same reason. In fact, mentally ill people were considered to be harsh maniacs which did not receive treatment for a long time.

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TO: Thomas R. Krane, P.h.D., Acting Director of Federal Bureau of Prisons FROM: Roger Rael, Graduate Student University of Colorado-Denver DATE: Tuesday, May 10, 2016 RE: Evaluating the consequences of continued super-max confinement I. Issue The issue is broad and national in scope. Whether the Federal Bureau of Prisons should continue supporting the use of super-max facilities is a matter of extreme societal and legal questions. Solitary confinement, for an extended or indefinite period of time, implicates constitutional rights and questions our morality as a society.

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One fourth of the prisoners suffer from major depression and one fifth suffer psychosis

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Solitary confinement, in my opinion, is cruel and unusual punishment. If there was not a mental-health crisis in America, and there was in fact a rehabilitation-focused prison system, solitary confinement would be greatly reduced and used much more sparingly. What is the point of driving people to madness by putting them in isolation? It would be so much cheaper for tax payers to change the system to a more effective one that actually reduces

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Graves recalled that he remembers hearing loud piercing screams from inmates losing their minds and the feeling of isolation can dehumanize themselves. A person will eventually completely lose their emotions and become a shell of a person they once was. Graves noted, that there should be a reform on how solitary confinement should addressed when there is a need to separate a dangerous prisoner from the general population. He believes that there should be a system of policies and regulations that should be carried out in court before putting an inmate into solitary confinement. He claims that the majority of inmates in solitary confinement observes their lives is hopeless and

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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

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A punishment warns someone or something that to do whatever they did again will end in bad consequences. It, hopefully, prevents them from making the same mistake twice. It should never hurt the person to the point of psychological damage which many people claim solitary confinement does. If it scares some people into doing the right thing, however, then the results outweigh the means. For example, my mother dated a boy her senior year of high school who had spent time in solitary confinement in his freshmen year.

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PEople who are isolated said that they experienced hallucinations, tried hurting themselves and felt a disconnect to reality. Which brings in an interesting question is that even though these guards see that solitary confinement is hurting prisoners and is not working why do they do it? I would suggest that Goffman would say that people are dehumanized when they are

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Inmates should be allowed to fight their stay in solitary confinement. Even throughout the prison system inmates still hold their Rights to be heard. A well-presented case against a stay in solitary confinement should be heard and it should also determine whether the inmate needs to continue being in solitary or not. Solitary confinement is effective but cruel at the same time, this can cause many problems such as lawsuits, possible deaths or mental illnesses from the prisoners who have stayed in solitary. The inmates who have stayed in solitary confinement have a right to appeal, just the same way these individuals have a right to appeal their conviction they can also appeal and fight against their stay in solitary confinement.

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First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That 's institutionalized.’ A prison should aim at retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. I am very well convinced that prison has served its first three purposes by depriving offenders’ freedom, but the

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The prisoners have the right to protect their privacy within the prison cells. Guards are not allowed to enter the prisons cells without following proper protocols to do so. The eighth amendment right is the right of the prisoners living conditions such as Solitary confinement is where a violate prisoner is separated from the general prison population. Physical Abuse is when a guard or other staff uses corporal punishment for a disciplinary act among the prisoners. Deadly force in the prison is not an uncommon punishment among the inmates ( Siegel & Bartollas, 2014).

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In my honest opinion solitary confinement in the U.S. is not justified and only does more harm than good. Not only is it a rash punishment, but it is one of the worst kinds of psychological tortures that could be inflicted upon an inmate. Human beings are undoubtedly social creatures and without the mere contact of another person the mind decays and ultimately leads a person to anger, anxiety, and hopelessness. Psychologists also claim that solitary confinement and isolation in general also cause depression or the loss of ability to have any "feelings", cognitive disturbances, such as confused thought processes and disorientation, perceptual distortions, such as hypersensitivity to noises and smells, distortions of sensations, and hallucinations affecting all five senses, as well as paranoia and psychosis which often times involve schizophrenic type symptoms, and finally, the worst of all symptoms, being self-harm such as self-mutilation, cutting and even suicide attempts.

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