The Evil of Solitary Confinement

At this moment, there are as many as 100,000 people in solitary confinement in the United States. Approximately a quarter of these people are spending months or sometimes even years with little to no human contact. Solitary confinement has been linked to a host of mental illnesses, as well as impaired social skills and an increased risk of violent behavior. The purpose of prisons is not to simply punish criminals into submission to the law. It should also be to rehabilitate people into contributing members of our society. For this reason, I applaud President Obama’s decision to ban solitary confinement for juveniles in the federal prison system.Under our current system, a prisoner can be placed into a year of solitary confinement for a single offense: 365 days, 22 hours a day, locked in a tiny cell without human contact. With Obama’s new rules for restrictive housing, the maximum period for a first time infraction is 60 days. Two months of solitary is still harsh but certainly a punishment more fitting to the crime. Now, I believe that solitary confinement as a punishment is a cruel and unusual punishment that is even borderline torture. However, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and the Justice Department stated in their review of solitary confinement that there are circumstances when solitary is necessary, even for juveniles. This includes situations where inmates are dangers to themselves or to others. In these cases, solitary is being used as an instrument of protection, not as punishment.Obama’s new reforms to the prison system also include banning solitary as a punishment for low-level infractions and expanding treatment for the mentally ill. These measures alone will affect 10,000 prisoners—that’s 10,000 people locked up in isolation who either committed small offenses or are severely mentally ill.Opponents of this reform should examine states that have already adopted similar policies. Colorado changed their policies to reduce the number of inmates in solitary, and assaults on staff are the lowest they have been in a decade. New Mexico has seen many more prisoners engaging in rehabilitation programs since they have reduced their use of solitary confinement.If you’re not convinced that solitary is inhumane, there are numerous studies documenting its harmful psychological effects. A 1995 study of the federal prison system found that 63 percent of suicides occurred among inmates locked in “special housing status.” Inmates in solitary engage in self-mutilation at rates that are higher than those of the normal prison population. One fifth to two thirds of inmates in solitary are mentally ill. Psychologist Craig Haney conducted a study of California’s Pelican Bay State Prison. He found that prisoners in solitary “begin to lose the ability to initiate behavior of any kind—to organize their own lives around activity and purpose.” This results in chronic apathy, lethargy, depression and despair. Roughly a third of inmates in solitary are actively psychotic or suicidal. There needs to be a larger effort to rehabilitate inmates and not just to punish people. Making people socially incapable, mentally ill and suicidal is not justice. It is torture.Obama is leading an important cause with this effort: American prison reform. While this is an ethical victory, there’s still much progress to be made. Tens of billions of dollars are spent each year to keep millions of Americans incarcerated. There are indeed criminals who need to be locked up to preserve the safety of the American people. However, there are many others who are serving absurdly long sentences for nonviolent (often drug-related) crimes. Our prison system needs to become more fair, efficient and cost-effective. More focus needs to be put on rehabilitation of criminals. Again, jail should serve two purposes: punishment and rehabilitation. Solitary confinement places far too much emphasis on the former, while disregarding the latter. Once you have served a fair sentence for your crimes, you should be able to integrate back into society. I wholeheartedly agree with Obama’s decision to make this process easier for inmates by restricting the  use of this torturous practice.