Effects Of Isolation In Prisons

Imagine you were going about your day when suddenly you are grabbed by officers and put in a dark room. The room is bare with only concrete walls to keep you company. There are no windows, no phones, no contact with the outside world. You are not allowed to step a foot outside this gloomy windowless crammed box that seems to pass off as a room. You don’t know whether you will be released in a few days, a week, a month, a year, or decades. You could do nothing but slowly go insane. This small room is very much real. As a law abiding citizen if you never break the law, you will never have to experience the subtle horrors of this torture chamber. Isolation in prison or jail is wrong, and it has more negative than positive effects. Isolation--

The 2010 One Year Longitudinal Study of the Psychological Effects of Administrative Segregation conducted by a group of scientists concluded, “Although there were statistically significant findings, the results did not support the hypotheses of the study. We expected that there would be a worsening over time in reported behavior/sensations and that this change would be worse for inmates with mental illness in AS. However, we found that when significant changes over time occurred, they tended to be in the direction of improvement and this improvement tended to occur more frequently for inmates with mental illness,” (. O’Keefe, page 150). This study was conducted in Colorado. Although Colorado is known for having a few supermax prisons, their prisons are not as inforcing about contact with the outside during confinement as our very own Washington. An article from the New York Times informs, “Gary Ridgway, the notorious Green River killer who confessed to murdering 49 women, will have more freedom and social contacts at a federal prison in Colorado where he has been sent by Washington’s Department of Corrections officials. Since his conviction in 2004, Ridgway, now 66, has lived in virtual isolation at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, serving life without parole after confessing to a string of sex slayings that spanned nearly 20 years… He pleaded guilty in 2011 to a 49th murder. By Ridgway’s own count, the number of victims is closer to 70. The intent of the move to a maximum-security federal penitentiary in Florence, Colo., was to provide Ridgway with an opportunity to live in a prison’s general population… In Colorado, where Ridgway is less well known, he was to be placed in the general population, where presumably he could mingle with other inmates and have access to a job and other privileges,” (Carter, Green River Killer). If an