“I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything.”This is a quote from Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in prison and many of those years in solitary confinement. He only got through with intense determination which many criminals don’t have. Solitary confinement should not be allowed and must be banned. Solitary confinement, or SHU(special housing unit), causes severe mental problems as well as brain damage. Solitary confinement violates basic human rights. SHU is not just used for the “worst of the worst”, it is a common punishment for misbehavior in …show more content…
According to the AFSC, “If a person isn’t mentally ill when entering an isolation unit, by the time they are released, their mental health has been severely compromised’’ This shows that if the person isn't mentally ill before he/she enters SHU, he/she will mostly likely become mentally ill. Also, solitary confinement causes severe mental problems that are constant among the victims of solitary confinement. According to Professor Craig Haney, a professor of psychology who has done research on criminals in SHU for decade,“Finally, the deprivations, restrictions, the totality of control, and the prolonged absence of any real opportunity for happiness or joy fills many prisoners with intolerable levels of frustration that, for some, turns to anger, and then even to uncontrollable and sudden outbursts of rage.” Not only that, but they experience hallucinations constantly. This means that most prisoners will experience extreme mood swings because of the restriction/ lack of stimulations. This not the complete list of the results of SHU, more effects include increased risk of suicide, paranoia, panic attacks as well as the inability to focus. These effects can continue to affect the person for the rest of their life. This type of punishment is setting up the criminal up to a life of nothing. Most prisoners go months without contact with humans and their family. …show more content…
Worst of all, people that are bad that are released are unprepared for society and don't have a changed mindset. According to “Solitary Watch”, “In Virginia, a group of Rastafarian men were placed in solitary–some for more than a decade–because they refused to cut their hair on religious grounds. In South Carolina, 400 prisoners have been disciplined for using social networks like Facebook — 40 of whom received at least two years of solitary confinement as punishment, including 16 ordered to serve at least a decade in solitary.” This means that a lot of prisoners were put in SHU because of minor things like using social media. Also, people in Solitary confinement that come out aren't changed. According to Ann Trent, “Solitary confinement can also make it more difficult for inmates to integrate themselves back into society, as solitary confinement can cause inmates to lose the ability to regulate their lives and have normal interactions with people.” Although many people may think that SHU gives time to rethink and reevaluate, this isn't true. People that come from banishment from society to society probably will end up committing crimes and on the streets without a job after losing their friends because of their inability to have normal interactions. These people, even if they leave solitary confinement without
Inmates should be allowed to fight their stay in solitary confinement. Even throughout the prison system inmates still hold their Rights to be heard. A well-presented case against a stay in solitary confinement should be heard and it should also determine whether the inmate needs to continue being in solitary or not. Solitary confinement is effective but cruel at the same time, this can cause many problems such as lawsuits, possible deaths or mental illnesses from the prisoners who have stayed in solitary. The inmates who have stayed in solitary confinement have a right to appeal, just the same way these individuals have a right to appeal their conviction they can also appeal and fight against their stay in solitary confinement.
The documentary solitary nation demonstrates the effects of solitary confinement on the prisoner’s health. There are several problems associated with using segregation as a punishment, however, the main problem is the effects to the mental health of the inmates. The documentary illustrate that some prisoner lost their sanity in solitary confinement. One example is what happened to the prisoner Adam Brulotte, at the beginning of his solitary confinement time he was optimistic and have plans to improve himself by reading books and think about his future, but only after twenty five days he started to lose his mind and become unstable, threaten to cut himself, pushes feces under the door and flooded the unit. This behavior clearly indicates segregation bad affects to the mental health of the inmates.
Graves recalled that he remembers hearing loud piercing screams from inmates losing their minds and the feeling of isolation can dehumanize themselves. A person will eventually completely lose their emotions and become a shell of a person they once was. Graves noted, that there should be a reform on how solitary confinement should addressed when there is a need to separate a dangerous prisoner from the general population. He believes that there should be a system of policies and regulations that should be carried out in court before putting an inmate into solitary confinement. He claims that the majority of inmates in solitary confinement observes their lives is hopeless and
The film “Solitary Nation” by Dan Edge had an impact on me as I was watching the film of the inmates’ lives in solitary while a new warden is trying to make a change for them. Although it was similar to other prison documentaries, it had more of a closer view to solitary than the normal prisons. It provided evidence of how torturing it could be after a certain time, and how the world is constantly full of that nature no matter what measures are taken. It depicted the causes of solitary on the inmates’ behavior, and how contradictory it is to have solitary confinement. Should solitary still be used as a way of punishment?
Imagine being trapped in a damp, dark, cage as a form of punishment for something that seems completely out of your grasp. Prisons were understaffed and as barbaric as it gets the people charged with crimes were whipped. The primary cause for their creation was to keep the crooks from harming any people right? Everyone in solitary confinement is treated the same way but not everyone came for the same reason. In fact, mentally ill people were considered to be harsh maniacs which did not receive treatment for a long time.
There are also many reasons why people are in solitary confinement. Reasons such as violence, fighting, and contraband. There are many effects that solitary confinement has on a person. For example, Adam. Adam has just arrived at solitary confinement and is confident he can last.
Major Ethical Issues of Solitary Confinement Solitary confinement can affect a person’s physical and mental health simply because it deprives an individual of their need to interact with others on a daily basis. Solitary confinement, which is used to restrain violent and volatile inmates from the general prison population, is done in increments ranging from several months to years. In an article retrieved from the American Psychological Association, ‘Alone, in ‘the Hole’’, the author states that, “for most of the 20th century, prisoners' stays in solitary confinement were relatively short.” This was the standing rule, in which inmates visited what is known as ‘the hole’, for several weeks to months. As time went by, the average length of stay
In 2014, a prisoner that had been released from the solitary confinement stabbed a fellow inmate eighty-seven times and killed him. The prison wardens, however, feel that the isolation ensures that the most dangerous prisoners do not harm others which open a Pandora box on the same
Prisoners, when given the opportunity, can learn so much while in confinement. It can better both their personal and social responses to any situation. Statistics from an article called "Beyond the Prison Bubble" shows, "If we could implement effective programs, we could expect to reduce recidivism by 15 to 20 percent. "(Petersilia 2011)
Solitary confinement should be abolished all across the United States because of the severe negative effects it has on prisoners. A negative effect of solitary confinement that can occur is that a prisoner can become depressed and suicidal. In a popular case in New York, a sixteen year old boy named Kalief Browder, spent over three years on Rikers Island without being convicted of a crime. After he was arrested in 2010, he spent more than 1,000 days in Rikers waiting for a trial that was never given to him.
First you hate them, then you get used to them. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That 's institutionalized.’ A prison should aim at retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation. I am very well convinced that prison has served its first three purposes by depriving offenders’ freedom, but the
In my honest opinion solitary confinement in the U.S. is not justified and only does more harm than good. Not only is it a rash punishment, but it is one of the worst kinds of psychological tortures that could be inflicted upon an inmate. Human beings are undoubtedly social creatures and without the mere contact of another person the mind decays and ultimately leads a person to anger, anxiety, and hopelessness. Psychologists also claim that solitary confinement and isolation in general also cause depression or the loss of ability to have any "feelings", cognitive disturbances, such as confused thought processes and disorientation, perceptual distortions, such as hypersensitivity to noises and smells, distortions of sensations, and hallucinations affecting all five senses, as well as paranoia and psychosis which often times involve schizophrenic type symptoms, and finally, the worst of all symptoms, being self-harm such as self-mutilation, cutting and even suicide attempts.
There are many instances, even today, where people are put in a controlled environment, and when they are released they are unaware of how to function normally in society. For example, many prisoners who are released after an extended period of time will commit the same crimes again to be sentenced again, because they know and understand the prison environment now more than they do societies. One Flew Over the Cuckoo 's Nest shows just how difficult being thrown into a new environment can be not only on a person 's mental health, but also physical
The first being I view solitary confinement as psychologically harmful. As the documentary highlighted, there are a lot of psychological issues that arise when offenders are incarcerated in solitary confinement for a long period. Mental health is such a big issue in our society and is often overlooked in the prison system. I believe inmates still deserve the same access to good mental health services and solitary confinement is the opposite of that. Solitude is proven to cause mental health issues and social issues, such as depression, anxiety, antisocial behavior, etc.
In Atul Gawande “ HellHole” essay they talked about the experiences and effects of people who were previously in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement can be best explained as the process of removing an individual and isolating them from their environment and socialization. Atul Gawande is specifically talking about prisoners of war and incarcerated people and how their experience was and that process. The essay talked about how people are put in isolation which caused them to act out of their character. Goffman would argue that effects of solitary confinement are exactly what total institutions can do to a person's.