Confinement In Prisons

Solitary confinement in the United States was first experimented with in 1829 in Philadelphia, where Quakers would lock prisoners in an empty cell with a bible, hoping to morally reform those individuals. The Quakers soon realized the method created mental problems and even suicidal tendencies among the inmates. With this realization, the people in charge slowly let the institution fade out of the prison. Solitary confinement in prisons faded away from U.S. prisons in the years following the first experiment. Yet, by the mid-20th century, the method revived. Prisons as big and prestigious as supermax prisons are devoted only to putting prisoners in solitary confinement (Sullivan). While there are some benefits to having limited solitary confinement

That is important because, without regular socialization, mental health could severely decline and inmates could lose that skill which is needed to be a part of normal society. Without this skill in the real world, released inmates may feel excluded from society, which could lead to future violent behaviors. The average cell size is ten feet by seven feet, as stated by Mr. Charles Samuels Jr. who is the director of the federal bureau of prisons. There’s not much room in solitary cells for them to do anything but lay down or sit down or walk four feet back and fourth across the room. While inmates do get about an hour a day of exercise time, the other 23 hours (Sullivan) of sitting around could lead to physical degeneration of the muscles. Samuels talks about restrictive housing when referring to solitary confinement. William Lutz, in his article, “The World of Doublespeak,” he describes euphemism as “an inoffensive or positive word or phrase designed to avoid a harsh, unpleasant, or distasteful reality (278). Calling solitary confinement by the term “restrictive housing” is a euphemism, an understatement, because the rooms where inmates are housed in solitary confinement are quite small, and when one hears the word “housing,” one usually pictures a house, which may make them feel like the “housing” is bigger than it is. The executive director of the Colorado department of corrections, Rick Raemisch, calls solitary confinement “administrative segregation,” in the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights. However, Raemisch believes that solitary confinement is “overused, misused, and abused,” and that there are too many people in “administrative segregation,” as he calls it. While Raemish doesn’t agree with the overuse of solitary confinement, the terminology both he and Samuels used softens the