Confinement And Coping With Wrongful Conviction

Solitary confinement is viewed as one of the best punishments for prisoners’ bad behavior in order to protect the rest of the inmates. Solitary confinement has proven to have the reverse effects in terms of a person’s psychological state. Solitary confinement means that the prisoners do not have normal stimulus and human communication which has its toll on the prisoners. Prisoners who are in solitary confinement only have themselves and the acoustics of their squared prison cell which tends to drive many to hallucinate, act violently, or commit suicide.

In recent years, the use of solitary confinement has become a topic of interest in the mental health field, criminal justice system, and political arena. Despite being deemed Constitutional by the Supreme Court, many mental health professionals are beginning to investigate the negative psychological effects of solitary confinement. Although there is growing concern regarding the humaneness of solitary confinement, a topic of interest that has yet to be explored in much detail is the relationship between theories of criminal behavior regarding aggression and solitary confinement.

Isolation can provoke great psychological harm to any prisoner, however the severity of the impact depends on the inmate’s current mental status, and duration of the isolation, along with the particular conditions while secluded. The absence of social and environmental interaction exacerbate a mentally ill prisoner’s ability to handle the stresses of incarceration which causes dangerous, annoying and bizarre behavior. Prison officials will usually respond to this continued misconduct, often connected to mental illness, by keeping the inmates in isolation indefinitely. It is not uncommon for a mentally ill inmate to significantly regress in isolation, and require crisis care or psychiatric

Many people have many different opinions when it comes to the consequences a given person who commited a crime must face. Some individuals specifically go on to commit crimes within the facilities they are imprisoned within, hence extending their punishment by being placed into, “The Box” as inmates call it, which totally separates the aggressor from the general population. Despite the fact that these are safety precautions, the deplorable conditions in which that given person must endure, regardless of how awful the crime that was committed”, remains in a controversial state in which that it may be making the inmate more unstable mentally.

The United States practices solitary confinement. “It is commonly thought that solitary confinement is reserved for incorrigibly violent, dangerous people—the worst of the worst.” (Cloud, Drucker, Browne, & Parsons, 2015) However, in researching solitary confinement, whether or not the inmate was dangerous has not always been the reason that inmates end up in solitary confinement. In some cases the inmates who are placed in solitary confinement are not at risk of causing harm to guards, prisoners or anyone else. According to the Penal Reform International website states, “Excessive use of solitary confinement in prisons around the world is becoming an increasing concern. (Penal Reform International, 2015)

There are numerous ethical issues regarding solitary confinement ranging from no resources to mental and physical harm. Most of the inmate population eventually goes back to society. Those who were in solitary confinement receive no resources from the correctional facility. A prisoner recently release from prison needs all the help they can get to survive on their own. However, such resources being taken away, increases the chances of recidivism. What seems to be everlasting isolation for such prisoners causes psychotic illnesses. Long-term segregation is often used among correctional facilities causing higher risk of mental illness symptoms (Arrigo and Bullock, 2008). Isolation in such narrow spaces conflicts the mind into being afraid of other human beings. Prisoners prolonged sentences in solitary confinement get used to being by themselves and forget how to react with others. As mental harm wasn’t enough, correctional officers tend to abuse their power. Their abusiveness comes from

The purpose of this article by Clow, Leach and Riocciadelli(2012) was to investigate the consequences incurred by victims of wrongful conviction by reviewing relevant literature on the topic and examining how the research can influence legislation to improve the lives of victims of wrongful conviction following release. This topic is important to the fields of law and psychology because people are getting exonerated and released from prison having missed out on many years of their life as well as having incurred life changing events while in prison and the adjustment of the wrongfully convicted becomes of increasing concern as more people are released.

Solitary confinement commits an individual to small room closed off from the world; a room devoid of light and human interaction for nearly twenty three hours a day. Not only is the morose environment and isolation unhealthy, but it contributes to increased recidivism rates, sometimes referred to as the revolving door phenomenon. Although solitary confinement provides the staff and general prison population with safety, there are alternatives that can be used rather than continuing the revolving door with the cruelty, expensiveness, and ineffectiveness of solitary.

In order to tackle the issue of sentencing inmates to prolonged solitary confinement, certain measures must be taken. Cyrus Ahalt, Craig Haney, Sarah Rios, Matthew P. Fox, David Farabee, and Brie Williams, the authors of “Reducing the Use and Impact of Solitary Confinement in Corrections” discussed six actions that can be taken by correctional facilities in order to reduce the use of solitary confinement and possibly eliminate its negative impact. The six actions are the following: “1) Eliminate all solitary confinement not related to violent misconduct, 2) Limit the terms of isolation, 3) Prohibit the use of solitary confinement with especially vulnerable populations, 4) Require regular review of individuals in solitary confinement, 5) Provide specialized transitional services who are being prepared for transfer out of solitary confinement,

A comprehensive understanding of solitary confinement, the kingpin of extreme treatment of prisoners, can be obtained through a brief overview of solitary confinement, including its definition, why it is used, and who it is applied to. In simple terms, solitary confinement entails the separating of one particular inmate from the rest of prison population. On a more technical note, “Solitary confinement is the practice of isolating people in closed cells for 22-24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades”(SolitaryWatch). There two types of segregation: “The first, known as disciplinary segregation, is leveled as punishment when inmates break the rules” and “administrative segregation, which

Rehabilitation could be reached by attempting to a psychologist or social worker, or by taking educational courses in prison. However, this purpose is obviously forgotten with the implementation of solitary confinement. The goal of a convict that is under solitary confinement is oftento let time pass by as quickly as possible; not to change his

Solitary confinement has been used for decades by prisons across the United States. “Although the U.S. only holds 5% of the world’s population, it holds approximately 25% of the world’s prisoners” (Devereaux, 2012, pg. 7). According to our text, “an estimate of at least 80,000 inmates in 38 states and federal prisons are held in solitary confinement. These inmates are being held for various reasons, including breaking rules, posing a security risk, or being a gang member” (Bohm & Haley, 2014, p. 388).

As a result of being kept in polity confinement for extensive amounts of time, prisoners begin to feel like they have “nothing left to lose”, thus, participating in self destructive behaviours. According to The Canadian Medical Association Journal, “14 of 30 prison suicide in the

Robert G. Morris in his study on exposure to short-term solitary confinement for violent individuals concluded that there is “no positive or negative relationship to subsequent violent acts,” which suggests that solitary confinement should be longer in order to prevent or deter future behavior. In order to extinguish certain deviant behaviors in prisons such as fights and rule violations, longer durations of solitary confinement could be useful. At the heart of it, solitary confinement is used to deter undesirable behavior and, in some cases, to protect the greater prison population from a dangerous inmate. So, in some circumstances, solitary confinement is beneficial to the greater population. However, just as in 2013, solitary confinement can have an exacerbating effect if it is used in an arbitrary manner due to unclear reasons of why someone is placed in solitary confinement. The arbitrariness of the punishment can cause uprisings due to perceived abuse of power and authority. However, if there is clear reason for the punishment, then solitary confinement is a useful tool in decreasing unwanted behavior and a time for inmates to reflect on their

There are three common reasons for the mentally ill to be prevalent to isolation in our prisons systems (Torrey, 1997). First, those prisoners with preexisting mental illness may find it difficult to conform to prison regulations. They are therefore are often placed in solitary confinement for disciplinary purposes or administrative reasons. Second, many prisoners who are placed in solitary confinement develop severe mental illness as a result of the extreme isolation. Dr. Terry Kupers, one of the foremost psychologists on the impact of solitary confinement on mental health, explained: Being asked whether prisoners with serious mental illness are selectively sent to punitive segregation, or whether the harsh conditions of isolation and idleness cause psychiatric DE compensation in a vulnerable sub-population of prisoners. Of course, both mechanisms of isolation and segregation are in play and is of deep concern to all (Knowles, 2015). Third and lastly, mentally ill prisoners in isolation are more likely to violate prison rules and fail the requirements of so-called "step-down" programs, thus prolonging their solitary sentences. The confluence of these three factors has led to high rates of mentally ill inmates being confined in isolation. Empirical studies show that solitary confinement is linked to suicidal thoughts, impaired concentration, confusion, depression, anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations making it a clear factor in the increase numbers of mentally ill inmates