Confinement In Prisons

It was also found by O’Keefe et al. (2013) that the Colorado Department of Corrections has a total of 19,279 inmates for state and private prisons including solitary confinement. They also found that Colorado State Penitentiary (CSP) has 756 beds available for inmates who are sent to this confinement facility. The rise in the use of solitary confinement raises major questions about the prisoner’s mental health as well as how ethical solitary confinement really is.

million annually to keep prisoners in solitary confinement.” Taxpayers should not be wasting their money on solitary confinement. Solitary is counterproductive because prisoners are proven to be more violent (Johnson). Funding should go towards a more important causes, like

There have been various studies conducted over the past few decades that show the devastating consequences of the use of solitary confinement in prisons. Studies show that the method of solitary confinement has the potential to lead to severe psychological effects on prison inmates. To address the consequences of solitary confinement in the U.S. federal prison system, President Obama directed Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch as well as the Justice Department to review and analyze the overuse of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. Six months later, on January 25th, 2016, President Obama officially announced that he is adapting the recommendations proposed by the Attorney General and the Justice Department to reform the federal prison system.

Four concrete walls, a steel bed, and a sink to soak the unclean clothes in as well as an insignificantly compact restroom. Welcome to solitary confinement where the lights always stay on and there’s always room for just one, you. When we think about solitary confinement we probably think of a killer or rapist getting what they deserve. What we don’t see is another human life being psychologically destroyed. Some of these prisoners have been in solitary confinement from a couple of years to decades. It is true that these are not honorable or peace keeping men, but a human life being tortured by solitude is a torture no one deserves.

Solitary confinement has had a long history in the American prison system. America is the first country to adapt solitary confinement into the prison regiment. Pennsylvania had the first special housing units for inmates or “SHU”. When Europeans came to America to look at the new model for prisons in Pennsylvania they wrote reports describing to the European parliament on how prisoners were treated like caged animals. Many of them quickly realized that this was not what prisons were set out to accomplish. The purpose of a prison is to rehabilitate criminals and bring them back into society as an individual that has the best mental tools and skills to make their respective communities better. Putting inmates in solitary confinement for more than 48 hours can only lead to awful emotional pain and mental problems which can result in self-destructive behavior to regain the self-control that is being deprived through this process of isolation and expulsion.

Solitary confinement can cause mental distress to inmates. Solitary confinement causes problems with people’s heads, lives, and in some occasions makes the world more dangerous. The barbaric conditions of solitary confinement may cause or worsen depression, paranoia and anger. Scientist say if you ever go in solitary you will be damaged by it. If you survive it, it has impact on you. Solitary confinement is a big discussion all around the world, because of all these mental health issues. Inmates have nothing to do but just sit there. The barbaric condition only worsens men and women, they are lonely and drenched with depression in their heads. If there wasn’t solitary there would be less angry inmates walking out of the cells and going into the real world. Nikki Jenkins went straight out of solitary to be a free man, within a few weeks

What if something that is supposed to be keeping society safe is actually doing more harm than good? As it turns out, that might be the case with the solitary confinement of prisoners. For multiple days at a time prisoners are locked into a lonely cell as small as a bathroom stall, going days without any human contact or communication. While solitary confinement is expensive to taxpayers, it is costing even more in social terms, as it can debilitate inmates and cause serious mental harm in forms of anxiety, paranoia, and even hallucinations beyond their life behind bars. The argument ‘On the Edge of Humane’ by Keramet Reiter argues that the inhumane conditions of solitary confinement

Solitary Confinement has been used as a punishment, to keep the prisons secure. However, with the changing of opinions from a few decades ago, to present time, more people want less solitary confinement used. With also corrections policies changing over time has also changed the dynamic of how a younger person could be charged and sentenced, compared to an older person who is not a juvenile could be put into solitary confinement. More facts about the use of Solitary Confinement, the policy is up for debate. Starting with do I agree with the New York Times, The Living Death of Solitary Confinement?

The Pennsylvania system constructed in the early 1800s used extreme isolation to deter future crime inspired solitary confinement. In the twentieth century, inmates in solitary confinement would stay for short periods. According to Craig, people would stay in secure housing units for a couple of days or weeks (Weir, 54). Nowadays solitary confinement has become very popular. Inmates are being sent to solitary confinement for indefinite periods of time ranging from weeks to years. An Urban Institute survey of self-identified supermax wardens reported 44 states with at least one facility relatively housing 25,000 prisoners (Arrigo and Bullock, 2008). Additionally, it is believed that as prisons are being overpopulated, the numbers are increasing throughout the years.

Insomnia, paranoia, uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear are just some of the effects that a prisoner can experience after being placed in solitary confinement. I think the government should ban solitary confinement because it causes mental pain and suffering.

The United States of America began experimenting with solitary confinement more than 200 years ago. It is said that the pioneers of solitary confinement were activist reformers who believed that silence and solitude would induce repentance and motivate prisoners to live a devout socially responsible life. With 2.3 million people in prisons and jails, the United States incarcerates people more than any other nation. From 1995

Solitary Confinement has become an issue in the United States Prisons. Inmates can be placed in solitary confinement not only for violent acts, but also for acts such as possessing contraband, using drugs, ignoring orders or using profanity. Most inmates in solitary confinement are placed in isolated cells for 23 hours per day. Many of these cells are illuminated only be artificial light and offer no exposure to natural daylight.

There is not much data today on supermax prisons even though these facilities are steadily growing across the nation (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). Many experts that have conducted some studies have determined that long-term solitary confinement can cause acute sensory deprivation, paranoid delusion belief systems, irrational fears of violence, resentment, little ability to control rage, and mental breakdowns (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). An interesting statistical fact is that 45% of inmates in Washington’s supermax prisons have been deemed seriously mentally ill (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). Most inmates in long-term solitary confinement are anxious, angry, depressed, insecure, and confused (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2015). Many of these prisoners

Solitary confinement can worsen both short and long term psychological and physical problems or make it more likely that such problems will develop. The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch created a report that incorporated the testimony of some juvenile inmates. Many interviews described how their placement in solitary confinement exacerbated the stresses of being in jail or prison. Many spoke of harming themselves with staples or razors, having hallucinations, losing touch with reality, and having thoughts of or attempting suicide all this while having very limited access to health care.

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