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Back in kindergarten, time out lasted five minutes. Forty years later, it lasts a lifetime. Thousands of men and women across our country sit in white padded cells, their brains pruning in captivity like those of caged animals—our nation subjects its own people to a punishment far worse than death. Although some may argue that it is just to subject felons to absolute isolation in turn of their actions, the United States should absolve from the use of solitary confinement in prisons because of both the physiological repercussions and the inevitable deterioration of social aptitude that results.
While solitary confinement’s prevalence in today’s prison system may seem fair, it is crucial to consider its numerous negative effects, such as physiological
consequences as well as a loss of communicative skills—rather than reforming felons and convicts, we destroy them on both a physical and mental plane. Rather than rewiring these people to benefit society, we render them incapable of coming back altogether. In light of this, it is time to acknowledge the growing demand for prison reform. Eradicating the use of total segregation is ultimately the best course of the action to improve both the safety of the public as well as that of inmates. Remember—timeout is for kindergarteners, not grown men.
Solitary Confinement is a type of isolation in prison which a prisoner is segregated from the general population of the prison and any human contact besides the prison employees. These prisons are separated from the general population to protect others and themselves from hurting anyone in the prison. These prisoners are deprived of social interaction, treatments, psychologist, family visits, education, job training, work, religious programming and many other services prisoners might need during the sentence of their imprisonment. There are roughly 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement but 25,000 are in long term and supermax prisons. According to the Constitution, “The Eighth Amendment [...] prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishment”(US Const. amend. VIII). Solitary confinement is suppose to be the last straw for inmates to be in. If they don 't follow it, they can be on death row. Taxpayers pay roughly $75,000 to $85,000 to keep prisoners in solitary confinement. That is 3 times higher than the normal prisons that taxpayers pay for them to be in prison. Solitary confinement was established in 1829 in Philadelphia for experimentation because officials believed it was a way for
A reality where the prisoner is dehumanized and have their rights and mental health abused. “I have endured lockdowns in buildings with little or no heat; lockdowns during which authorities cut off the plumbing completely, so contraband couldn’t be flushed away; and lockdowns where we weren’t allowed out to shower for more than a month” (Hopkins 154). A prisoner currently must survive isolation with improper shelter in the form of heat. Issues compound with a lack of running water and bathing, a proven severe health danger, especially for someone lacking proper nutrients such as a prisoner in lockdown. These abuses of physical well being then manifest into damage of prisoners’ mental well being. “Perhaps I should acknowledge that the lockdown-and, indeed, all these years-have damaged more than I want to believe” (Hopkins 156). Even for the experienced prisoner the wrath of unethically long lockdowns still cause mental damage. Each and every isolation period becomes another psychological beating delivered as the justice system needlessly aims to damage the already harmed inmates. The damage is so profound inmates even recognize the harm done to them by their jailors. An armed and widely used psychological weapon, the elongated lockdown procedures decimate mental health each and every time
Solitary confinement has the ability to shatter even the healthiest mind when subjected to indefinite lockdown, yet the mentally ill, who are disproportionately represented in the overall prison population, make up the majority of inmates who are held in that indefinite lockdown. Within your average supermax prison in which all inmates are subjected to an elevated form of solitary confinement, inmates face a 23-hour lockdown, little to no form of mental or physical stimulation that is topped off with no human interaction beyond the occasional guard to inmate contact. It is no wonder ‘torture’ is often used synonymously to describe solitary confinement. For years, cases arguing against solitary confinement have contested against its inhumane
“US: Look Critically at Widespread Use of Solitary Confinement.” Human Rights Watch, 1 July 2016,
Many people have tried to stop the use of solitary confinement by calling it “Cruel and Unusual Punishment. (Holt vs. Sarver, 1969).” People also say that it is a direct violation of our eighth amendment rights. The definition of cruel and unusual punishment is as follows: “Such punishment as would amount to torture or barbarity, any cruel and degrading punishment not known to the Common Law, or any fine, penalty, confinement, or treatment that is so disproportionate to the offense as to shock the moral sense of the community. (Farflex Inc., 2011).” Studies show that solitary confinement can alter the mental state of a prisoner so far that it is detrimental to his or her health; I see no reason why this cannot be classified as cruel and unusual punishment. In an experiment conducted by the BBC’s Horizon group, they studied the effects ...
Since the early 1800s, the United States has relied on a method of punishment barely known to any other country, solitary confinement (Cole). Despite this method once being thought of as the breakthrough in the prison system, history has proved differently. Solitary confinement was once used in a short period of time to fix a prisoners behavior, but is now used as a long term method that shows to prove absolutely nothing. Spending 22-24 hours a day in a small room containing practically nothing has proved to fix nothing in a person except further insanity. One cannot rid himself of insanity in a room that causes them to go insane. Solitary confinement is a flawed and unnecessary method of punishment that should be prohibited in the prison system.
Juvenile solitary confinement is a way to punish poor behavior in the United States juvenile prison system. However, after long-term negative side effects that isolation can cause in teens, the general public has been in support of isolation alternatives. In this paper, I will be discussing the state by state solitary confinement rules and regulations, how rehabilitation and therapeutic services can be a healthy option as an alternative to confinement, and how our nation’s youth don’t always have to feel that segregation is the only form of discipline. A lot of modern alternatives to juvenile solitary confinement would be preferable, if not more acceptable, to the general public. This idea of solitary confinement started back in the 1800’s where men were put in a small, quiet place to repent and find God.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has deemed solitary confinement as an unconstitutional form of punishment. It expresses that solitary confinement should be classified as torture because it inflicts potential physical and mental damage on inmates. Being confined to a cell for over 22 hours a day with absolutely no human contact is an inhumane practice and cannot be beneficial enough to overcome the consequences that an inmate must face upon release. Solitary confinement clearly violates the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.” Solitary confinement is the epitome of torture. Inmates often recall not being able to distinguish the time they spend in confinement; hours feel like days, and days feel like months. Certain prisons use solitary confinement differently than others. The Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) is known as the “most restrictive prison in California.” It is one of the harshest “super-maximum” prisons in the country, meaning that inmates may be subjected to solitary confinement for a set amount of time or an indefinite duration. This is known as the ‘supe...
The United States is a nation with the largest prison population and crime rates in the world. When the governmental controlled facilities were in a deficit where they lacked funds and space could not house the inmates, private prisons were developed. Along with the solution of private of prisons, the controversy concerning the funding of health care, recovery and other expenses have been one of the fundamental concerns for the American Justice System. Both the private and public facilities came together and join a partnership where the government facility agreed to bear the expenses of healthcare and other medical exams, and the private facility would find spaces and funds to house inmates. However, to continuously gain profit, the sentencing
If a person convicted of a crime shows no signs of being mentally ill when entering a prison which enforces the long-term use solitary confinement, by the time they completed their sentence and are released, their mental health will have been severely compromised. Studies have shown that the long-term use of segregation in prisons can cause a wide variety of phycological effects such as anxiety, psychosis, depression, perceptual distortions, and paranoia, often leading to a desire to self-harm or in more severe cases suicide. Not only is it wrong to hold a criminal in solitary confinement for any longer then fifteen days, it is unconstitutional. Although many believe the use of solitary
Metzner, J. L., & Fellner, J. (2010). Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics. The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38(1), 104-108.
The effects of prolonged isolation for inmates in confinement cells are obsessive-compulsive tendencies, paranoia, anger-management issues, and severe anxiety (Sifferlin, Alexandra). Along with the basic concepts such as food, water, and shelter, there are two other basics that Dr. Terry Kupers states are required for human wellbeing: “social interaction and meaningful activity. By doing things we learn who we are and we learn our worth as a person. The two things solitary confinement does are make people solitary and idle” (Sifferlin, Alexandra). Isolation and confinement remove prisoners’ ability to perform significant tasks and act as a part of society. This dehumanizes the inmates because they are no longer able to understand their role as a human being. One inmate, Jeanne DiMola, spent a year in solitary confinement and expressed her thoughts while in the cell: “I felt sorry I was born … Most of all I felt sorry that there wasn 't a road to kill myself because every day was worse than the last" (Rodhan, Maya). In DiMola’s opinion, a death penalty more than likely would have felt more humane than the isolation she experienced. Another prisoner, Damon Thibodeaux, stated, “Life in solitary is made all the worse because it 's a hopeless existence … It is torture
Today’s correctional institutions, policy makers, and supreme courts still continue to ignore the studies displaying the psychological effects of prisons. For example, in recent case challenges against the eighth amendment over solitary confinement have rarely succeeded. This is due to the regulation that conditions must deprive prisoners of at least one identifiable human physical need to be declared unconstitutional. Studies have shown that depriving proper mental stimulus results in extreme mental harm, but because it’s not physical damage courts rarely recognize the extreme mental harm in conditions retaining to confinement. Many court cases related to the psychological damages were inspired by the famous Stanford Prison Experiment that
The past two decades have engendered a very serious and historic shift in the utilization of confinement within the United States. In 1980, there were less than five hundred thousand people confined in the nation’s prisons and jails. Today we have approximately two million and the numbers are still elevating. We are spending over thirty five billion annually on corrections while many other regime accommodations for education, health
Thousands of people statewide are in prisons, all for different reasons. However, the amount of mental illness within prisons seems to go unaddressed and ignored throughout the country. This is a serious problem, and the therapy/rehabilitation that prison systems have do not always help those who are mentally ill. Prison involvement itself can contribute to increased suicide (Hills, Holly). One ‘therapy’ that has increased throughout the years has been the use of solitary confinement, which has many negative effects on the inmates.