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Solitary Confinement

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Why the Issue is Important

Solitary confinement, or in other words isolation, is the confinement of an inmate in a 80 foot cell or a special housing unit where he or she is completely secluded from everyone. In most cases, when an inmate is held in solitary confinement, they spend up to 23 hours of the day in a cell, and given an hour of free time in another small cell. The first experiment of solitary confinement started in 1834, and has been proceeding since then. When one is held in solitary confinement, they have very limited interaction with other individuals; they are denied phone calls, limited family visits, they have no personal property, and can suffer from insomnia and forms of brutality.
A frequently asked question is, “Why do …show more content…

Solitary confinement is often described as one of the worst type of psychological torture. Humans yearn for social contact to keep them stable; without the advantage of having others to reckon on, the human brain starts to slow down and decay. Humans need to have a sense of control and stableness; solitary confinement contradicts that theory. Isolation and absence of control creates anxiety, depression and hopelessness. Cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, paranoia and psychosis are all factors that can be caused from solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement has devastating psychological, physical, and developmental effects on juveniles. Knowing how damaging solitary confinement can be for youths, detention centers across the country use this method for as a disciplinary measure. There are recent efforts of reform in solitary confinement. Juvenile justice facilities currently hold about 70,000 children in confinement throughout the …show more content…

Humans need some type of social life in order to be stable, solitary confinement prevents them from those rights. To take away that social nature from humans deprives them of basic human needs, causing little to no privacy. It causes significant mental and physical pain and suffering especially to those already suffering from a mental disorder. Solitary confinement can cause prolonged depression that can stick to an individual for a very long time if not permanently. Aside from getting depressed, the absence of physical activity, social interaction, or natural sunlight in confinement solely will harm a person. In some cases, it's just unnecessary; some inmates end up in solitary confinement for giving a guard an attitude, or even simply for a tattoo that is thought to be connected to a gang affiliation. Solitary confinement should be used as the last method of any punishment, and a destination for the worst of inmates. The months and years that many prisoners stay in isolation are too long and unthoughtful. Days resided in solitary confinement must be reviewed due to all the effects of one's mental and physical health. Prisoners vulnerable to mental-health injury should not be confined unless if urgent. When inmates with mental disorders are sent to solitary confinement, the results can include long term damage. When placed in solitary, many of the mentally ill deteriorate dramatically and engage

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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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In his essay, “Hell Hole” Atul Gawande informs his audience how damaging solitary confinement can be to the human body and character. To make his argument he uses examples of prisoner’s solitary confinement stories and people who have been similar situations. Gawande explains to his readers the difference phases and problems the human body goes through considering the lack of human interaction. The writer makes a compelling argument that solitary confinement is detrimental to the human’s mental state and physical well-being. His argument includes impressive diction, vivid emotional appeals, and logos appeal to guide his readers through his essay.

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I think one of the main goals of incarceration should be rehabilitation. This is why I am against solitary confinement because seg is not rehabilitating these inmates and even worsens them in some cases. Rehabilitation is supposed to be helping restore health and goodness into a life and essentially teaching an individual how to act properly in society. Solitary confinement is doing the opposite by isolating individuals so they lose social skills, develop mental health issues, and even make some individuals more angry, violent, or harmful because they are deprived of needs. Deterrence is also something I think solitary confinement doesn’t necessarily help with.

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Fathi, Director of ACLU National Prison Project talks about how it’s proven that solitary confinement leaves long lasting psychological and emotional harm. Someone with no prior history of mental illness will develop psychological symptoms if left in solitary confinement for too long. Whether someone does or does not suffer from mental illness, solitary confinement ultimately harms the person and is not a good way to take care of them. Another solution is drug courts which provides a sentencing alternative of treatment and supervision for people who have a substance abuse problem or if they have a mental disorder. Expert, John Roman, who is a research associate, suggests that having more drug courts is a good idea and will help bring the crime rate down.

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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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Criminals on death row will be placed in solitary confinement. This usually consists of twenty-three hours a day, alone in a small cell, with the only human interaction being with the jailer letting the criminal out for their one hour of exercise. Since the average time spent on death row is approximately ten years, the daily solitary confinement can have detrimental psychological effects on the prisoners. These effects, called Death Row Syndrome, include symptoms such as, depression, paranoia, hallucinations, self mutilation, thoughts of suicide, and stress (Harrison, 6-7). Prisoners also experience psychological stress and mental suffering from not knowing when their execution date will be.

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Staveill started to develop destructive habits in solitary confinement. I believe Mead would also add to Goffman and the idea of total institutions while being in solitary confinement is that it disrupts the process of “I” and “me”. Mead argues that we gain our sense of self through our interaction with others. This is very important to look at because in Solitary confinement people are isolated and what we can assume based on mead's theory of how we come to know who we are is that solitary confinement is doing more harm to the individual rather than helping them because they lose their sense of self. In the essay, it is evident that this occurs.

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Thought most people already know isolation is a dangerous to mental health it also can shorten a person 's life. Isolation can cause all sorts of problems for a patient from hallucinations,Dementia, Heart Disease, Liver Failure, and even induce a coma. In correlation to brain development, Elders who are lonely have a significantly higher chance to be diagnosed with dementia. The individuals who have experienced the effects of low spirits have a more serious danger of getting dementia, but the makers have over exaggerated this. The Hazardous results from having the emotions of being alone and not just the way that somebody lives by themselves or is socially isolated.

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Solitary confinement is, “Living in a concrete box the size of a walk-in closet. You get tour meals through a slot, you do not see other inmates, and you never touch or get near another human being”(Stevenson 129). Solitary confinement is a punishment not fit for humans. Humans need social interaction to live. We have established how messed up solitary confinement is, but how do we fix it?

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It is quite telling that the most severe punishment in our society other than the death penalty or torture is solitary confinement. Although, isolation is in itself a form of torture, it can drive someone to the brink of insanity. Although published nearly 200 years ago, Mary Shelley clearly understood the potential detrimental effects of isolation, as demonstrated in her famous novel, Frankenstein, where both main characters, Victor Frankenstein and his creation, suffer from and cause isolation for the other. Mary Shelley directs the reader to believe that isolation is the true evil, not the monster, Victor or any emotion inside of them. At the beginning of the novel, Victor is isolated from other people, causing to forget his scientific

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If we ever hope to come together and promote equality as a society, how must we do so if we suppress the needs of those with suppressed rights? To amend the issues that we have created, there must be stricter regulations around solitary confinement as it is a cause of unnecessary suicides, robs citizens of their basic rights, and brings down our intersectionality as a collective society here in Canada. Lately, the number of solitary confinement prompted suicides have skyrocketed, and have been on a steep incline for nine years, with no plans for amendment. A study at Cambridge University has determined that 63% of suicides in federal prisons take place while the inmate is in solitary confinement. "Shalev, Sharon, A Sourcebook on Solitary Confinement (2008)."

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The past 25 years the numbers of prisoners who are held in solitary confinement has sky rocketed. State and federal prisons all have solitary confinement. Therefore, when an inmate acts out and tries to attack other inmates, and officers then they are put into an individual cell and are isolated from other individuals. One senator had said that the expansion of the use of solitary confinement is an issue. Supermax prisons hold inmates that are considered “the worst of the worst”.

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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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