Stop Solitary Confinement
Recently, a New York prison eliminated the use of solitary confinement for inmates under the age of 21. This is considered to be wildly innovative in the United States. The fact that the removal of a highly damaging form of psychological punishment is considered to be “innovative” shows that our prison system is in need of a major overhaul, starting with the removal of solitary confinement in prisons nationwide.
Solitary confinement in the United States consists of prisoners being held in concrete, windowless cells for 23 hours a day. The cells have a slot for food in the door, and a toilet and shower for hygiene. Prisoners are rarely in contact with the outside world, and during recreation hours, prisoners are moved to a separate windowless, concrete room while shackled and handcuffed.
Our prison systems strive to improve our communities and to protect our people. To do so, prisoners should emerge healthy and rehabilitated, ready to assume a beneficial role in their communities. They should not leave prison more likely to commit crimes, having withstood horrific abuse or with newfound mental illnesses.
Those who have been subjected to solitary confinement often suffer from hallucinations, hypersensitivity to noise and contact, insomnia, increased risk of suicide, paranoia and PTSD. Studies show that in less than two days of solitary confinement, signs of serious mental illness and delirium begin to show.The United Nation has called on nations to end the use of this form of punishment, yet it persists in the majority of prisons in the United States. Anywhere from 25,000 to 80,000 prisoners are held in solitary confinement in the United States.
The negative psychological results of solitary confinement are clear, yet it is still used due to a misguided belief that the majority of these prisoners “deserve” this form of psychological torture or that it somehow prevents crime. Politicians, not wanting to seem weak, refuse to protect those who are condemned.
Many of the people put in solitary confinement are already mentally ill and thus have trouble adjusting to the prison environment. They emerge from prison with greater psychological difficulties, increasing their chance of becoming repeat offenders. Healthy people can emerge from solitary confinement with debilitating mental illnesses. Although all of the people in solitary confinement are presumably guilty of some sort of crime, they are still owed the same protections that ordinary citizens are. Moreover, no studies indicate that solitary confinement reduces crime in anyway whatsoever. In short, solitary confinement is unnecessary and unreasonably pernicious.
Solitary confinement produces no real benefit for the greater society and only damages the psyche of its citizens. The prison system is important in maintaining the peace in our communities, but permanently injuring the prisoners and depriving them of their civil liberties is unjustifiable. It is imperative to remember that prisoners are humans too, and it is even more imperative to remember that we, as a nation, are responsible for rehabilitating every prisoner.