Within juvenile detention facilities, staff place children in isolation for varying periods of time, ranging from hours to months. The reasons staff place children in solitary confinement cells vary widely from one facility to the next, and even from one staff to another at the same facility. Employees often place a youth in isolation because it is the easiest and fastest way to ensure facility security. Some rationales for the practice are: safety, security, disciplinary, administrative, protective and medical. Using this method to control a youth’s behavior or for a disciplinary reason is very common. Experts conclude this practice is both widespread and underreported. Staff use solitary confinement as a security management tool; until more effective solutions are available and implemented, youth will continue to experience substantial negative repercussions of being confined in a solitary cell. Facility staff need effective and easily-implementable alternatives they can use. Some of the psychological distress from spending time in confinement can lead to instances of self-harm, suicide, …show more content…
President Barack Obama, in 2016, banning the use of solitary confinement for youth housed in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In his op-end, President Obama wrote, “How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people? It doesn’t make us safer. It’s an affront to our common humanity…[and has] devastating, lasting psychological consequences.” He points to the most tragic repercussion of solitary confinement: the correlation between time spent in isolation and suicide. Lindsay Hayes has studied youth suicide in confinement settings extensively. He confirms