Solitary Confinement
Solitary confinement, also known as “special housing units”, “disciplinary segregation”, and “restrictive housing” is a form of segregation and punishment where certain incarcerated individuals are separated from the general population for 22- 24 hours a day for multiple days up to decades. This prisoner is locked in a windowless concrete 8x10 foot cell with a bed and toilet, possibly getting to shower 2-3 times a week, and an hour to exercise in a cage barely larger than their own. Meals are eaten in the cell and they lack access to job training, work, rehabilitative and drug programing. They are denied mental health and medical care and phone calls/visits are only in case of emergency. It is also often used as a response to all offenses, including low level and non violent misbehaviours. It disproportionately affects marginalized communities including the mentally ill and people of color. Due to this, the US is the world leader in the use of long-term solitary confinement, as around 80,000 prisoners are being held in solitary confinement, many for months or years.
However, despite its wide use in America, research indicates that solitary confinement is not effective at reducing crime or helping inmates but instead is a means of torture.
Solitary confinement causes illness and worsening health that is extremely harmful and long-lasting. Prolonged isolation negative effects include loss of memory, social pain (feelings of hurt, distress, social deprivation, and loss). More effects include severe panic attacks, difficulty thinking and concentrating, hallucinations and illusions, problems with impulse control, and the inability to tolerate ordinary sounds. This devastating research is shown as while solitary confinement comprise of only six to eight percent of prison population but account for fifty percent of suicides. Even if an individual does not enter with a mental health condition, it is likely they will develop a psychiatric syndrome by the time of release.
The idea of solitary confinement was first introduced in 1829, by a pacifist spiritual community called the quakers. It was not intended to be a punishment, but was part of an experiment to improve prison conditions and rehabilitate prisoners. The thought was that if an inmate was in their own cell with only a Bible, then they would become a monk and closer to God. It became apparent that the practice was extremely harmful, and did not fulfill its original goal. Then in 1934, the government opened Alcatraz, where a few dozen inmates are kept in D Block, the prison's solitary confinement hallway. A movie was created in 1962 concerning certain prisoners on D Block, introducing the use of solitary confinement into the minds of Americans. In 1983, two correctional officers at a prison in Indiana were murdered by prisoners on the same day. The warden then put the prison on permanent lockdown, a 23-hour-a-day cell isolation. The idea of a permanent lockdown began to spread to other state prisons. California, for example, built Pelican Bay, a prison designed solely to house inmates in isolation in 1989. This has now grown as a report by the Department of Justice finds that a large majority of states are operating a facility with all day lockdowns and long-term isolation.
However, around 30 US states have begun to initiate reforms at reducing the use of solitary confinement. In New York, a bill that would ban the practice of solitary confinement in New York City Jails has a veto-proof supermajority of support among city lawmakers. More than two-thirds of New York City’s 51-seat legislative body co-sponsored the bill, calling the practice traumatic and inhumane with mental health and safety detriments. The legislation prevents inmates from being held in isolation for more than two hours during a 24-hour period and staff and mental health professionals must conduct interactions and medical checks once an hour. The DC council also introduced a bill to end solitary confinement, and if passed would place DC at the top of prison reform, and hopefully inspire more states to follow. The bill is known as the ERASE (Eliminating Restrictive and Segregated Enclosures) Solitary Confinement Act of 2022.