Solitary Confinement: A Sentence Within a Sentence
The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has denounced the use of solitary confinement beyond fifteen days as a form of cruel and degrading treatment that rises to the level of torture, yet it is not uncommon for individuals to endure long-term isolation with no relief (Casella et al., 2018, p. 1). In 2016, William Blake entered into his twenty-ninth year of solitary confinement at the Special Housing Unit (SHU) at New York’s Great Meadow Correctional Facility (Casella et al., 2018, p. 26). Narrowly escaping the death penalty, despite the sentencing judge wanting to “pump six bucks’ worth of electricity into [Blake’s] body,” Blake reflected, “When the prison gate slammed behind me, on that very day I would begin suffering a punishment I am convinced beyond all doubt is far worse than any death sentence could possibly have been […] I cannot fathom how dying any death could be harder or more terrible than living through all that I have been forced to endure for the past quarter century” (Casella et al., 2018, p. 26-27). Similarly, Jesse Wilson, serving a life sentence at ADX Florence, described his experience in the government’s only remaining supermax as a “clean version of hell” (Casella et al., 2018, p. 81). Imploring that his humanity remain intact, Wilson wrote of himself: “Past these tattoos and this penitentiary pain, I remain, a son, a brother, a friend, and a human being. It sometimes feels that is forgotten” (Casella et al., 2018, p. 81). In addressing the inhumanity of solitary confinement, Wilson continued:
I refuse to embrace the solitude. This is not normal. I’m not a monster and do not deserve to live in a concrete box. I am a man who has made mistakes, true. But I do not deserve to spend the rest of my life locked in a cage– what purpose does that serve? Why even waste the money to feed me? If I’m a monster who must live alone in a cage, why not just kill me (Casella et al., 2018, p. 82)?
The adverse effects of solitary confinement appear to be related primarily to the length and conditions of imprisonment. Although it has not been conclusively established that short periods of isolation produce negative outcomes for the emotional well-being of inmates, long-term solitary confinement does, especially in relation to the psychological adjustment of prisoners (Arrigo & Bullock, 2008, p. 627). Serving as an expert witness for the plaintiff convicts in a class-action suit challenging the conditions of confinement in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison in California (Madrid v. Gomez, 1995), psychologist Craig Haney (2006) noted that the rigid conditions of solitary confinement and the absence of socialization encourages inmates to become “highly malleable, unnaturally sensitive, and vulnerable to the influence of those who control the environment around them” (p. 5). Ironically, long-term social isolation often leads to social withdrawal– individuals move from craving social contact to fearing it (628). Furthermore, prisoners housed under conditions of confinement grow to rely on the prison structure to limit and control their behavior. Consequentially, convicts are no longer able to manage their conduct when returned to the general prison population or when released back into the community (628).
It has been well documented that prisoners in long-term solitary confinement are at increased risk for developing symptoms of mental illness (Grassian, 1983; Haney, 2006). Specifically, social isolation is correlated with clinical depression and long-term impulse-control disorders (Arrigo & Bullock, 2008, p. 628). It has been amply demonstrated that the conditions of solitary confinement can produce symptoms of mental illness even in healthy prisoners. Convicts with preexisting mental illness are, however, especially susceptible to suffering damaging consequences from long periods of isolation, such as the development of psychiatric symptoms (632). In 1997, the Human Rights Watch estimated that five percent of the general prison population experienced some form of psychiatric illness, whereas more than half of the prisoners in segregation units suffered from psychiatric illnesses (Human Rights Watch, 1997). Psychosis, suicidal behavior, and self-mutilation are commonly seen among prisoners in long-term solitary confinement (Haney, 2006; 628). Considering this, it must be noted that suicide continues to be a leading cause of death in correctional facilities across the United States (Hayes, 2011, p. 1). In 2006, the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives (NCIA) entered into a cooperative agreement with the United States’ Justice Department’s National Institute of Corrections to conduct a national study on penitentiary suicides that would determine the extent of inmate suicides (Hayes, 2011, p. 1). The data indicated that the suicide rate in detention facilities during 2006 was thirty-eight deaths per one-hundred-thousand inmates, a rate approximately three times greater than that of the general population (Hayes, 2011, p. 3). One 2004 Austrian case control study, in an attempt to identify characteristics that distinguish prisoners who commit suicide from other prisoners, found five specific factors: (1) a history of attempted suicide or suicidal communications; (2) psychiatric diagnosis; (3) psychotropic medication prescribed during imprisonment; (4) a highly violent index offense; and (5) single-cell accommodation (Fruehwald et al., 2004) (note: it is unclear if these same factors are cross-culturally transferable).
With the complete isolation and austere conditions of solitary confinement having been shown to induce psychiatric symptoms in its recipients, solitary has proven to be a sentence within a sentence. “People,” begins Jean Casella, co-author of Hell Is a Very Small Place: Voices from Solitary Confinement, “are supposed to be sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment” (Casella et al., 2018, p. 10). According to the law, deprivation of freedom alone is supposed to be the price society demands for crimes committed. Additional suffering endured within prison at the hands of officers and administrators can then be seen as extrajudicial, and cruel and unusual. Former president Barack Obama, on the topic of long-term solitary confinement, said, “Do we really think it makes sense to lock so many people alone in tiny cells for twenty-three hours a day for months, sometimes for years at a time? That is not going to make us safer. It’s not going to make us stronger” (Obama, 2016). Therefore, solitary confinement as a punishment must be re-thought.
Works Cited
Arrigo, B., & Bullock, J. (2008). The Psychological Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners in Supermax Units. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 52 (6).
Casella, J., Ridgeway, J., & Shourd, S. (2018). Hell is a very small place: Voices from solitary confinement. New York: New Press.
Fruehwald S, Matschnig T, Koenig F, Bauer P, Frottier P. (2004) Suicide in custody: a case-control study. British Journal of Psychiatry, 185: 494-498.
Grassian, S. (1983). Psychopathological effects of solitary confinement. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140(11), 1450-1454.
Haney, C. (2006). Reforming punishment: Psychological limitations to the pains of
imprisonment. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Hayes, L. 2011. National Study of Jail Suicide: 20 Years Later. National Jail Exchange.
Human Rights Watch. (2000). Out of sight: Super-maximum security confinement in the United States.
Madrid v. Gomez. (1995).
Obama, B. (2016). Why we must rethink solitary confinement. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-why-we-must-rethink-solitary-confinement/2016/01/25/29a361f2-c384-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html?utm_term=.49f6ef5c16b6