Should Solitary Confinement Be Banned

Many researchers have found that long periods of time in solitary confinement can have negative mental effects on inmates. This is due to long-term confinement because it consists of not only prolonged deprivation of social interaction but also sensory deprivation (Haney, 2003). Medical ethics are also in question about the effects of long term confinement. Medical professionals have to handle a particularly difficult situation because they are required to provide medical assistance to these inmates that may be facing psychological issues. This is a problem because medical professionals are aware that solitary confinement has negative effects on the well-being and mental state of these individuals (Shalev, 2011).

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.

This section of the paper consists of three main parts. First, the research questions that will be addressed, the expected hypotheses and an identification of independent and dependent variables. Second, the supporting literature for the hypotheses is discussed. Third, a conceptualization (definition) and operationalization (measurement) of each independent and dependent variable. Research Questions

Solitary confinement is a penitentiary punishment developed in which each inmate is held in isolation from other inmates or any human contact, with the exception of correctional staff. Solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is usually twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day, with a sentence extending from days to years. This form of incarceration is used as a form of punishment for the inmate, commonly for violation of correctional rules. There has been some debate to wheatear solitary confinement should be accepted as an adequate form of punishment. Society views solitary confinement as a form of cruelty, while others see it as a form of safety for other inmate with in the correctional facility. Solitary confinement is an acceptable form of punishment.

According to “Solitary Confinement: Common Misconceptions and Emerging Safe Alternatives” by Alison Shames, Jessa Wilcox, and Ram Subramanian on the Vera Institute of Justice, solitary confinement is often sentenced to “fulfill a prison’s or jail’s top priority: the safety of its staff and the incarcerated people under their care.” (Shames, Wilcox, & Subramanian, 2015). However, most inmates that are placed in solitary confinement are

Over the last couple of decades, prison systems have adopted the use of solitary confinement as a means of punishment and have progressively depended on it to help maintain obedience and discipline inside the prison structure. Solitary confinement is a form of incarceration in which a prisoner is isolated in a cell for multiple hours, days, or weeks with limited to no human contact. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the United States represents only 5% of the world's population yet houses 20% of the world’s prisoners (ACLU). Two of the biggest problems with our modern day criminal justice system is the overwhelming number of people that are incarcerated in the United States and the overwhelming number of convicts who return

While solitary confinement is one of the most effective ways of keeping todays prisoners from conflict and communication, it is also the most detrimental to their health. According to NPR the reason for most solitary confinement units in America “is to control the prison gangs (NPR, 2011).” But that is not always the case. Sometimes putting a gang member in solitary reduces the shock and awe effect that it is supposed to have, when they start losing their minds. The prisoners kept in solitary confinement show more psychotic symptoms than that of a normal prisoner, including a higher suicide rate. Once a prisoner’s mental capacity to understand why he is in prison and why he is being punished is gone, there is no reason to keep said

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Solitary Confinement is the confinement of a prisoner in a cell or other place which he or she is completely isolated from any and everyone. Merriam Webster also states that even some prisoners are held from 22.5 to 24 hours a day. Solitary confinement is sometimes referred to as isolation, segregation, separation, and cellular confinements so that it seems different from solitary confinement or too make it sound like a less harsh punishment. Solitary Confinement is a huge controversy in today’s society, although some might of forgot due to the fact that there’s an orange oompa loompa celebrity as our president, but this has been a problem since it was introduced in 1829. “In 1829, the first experiment in solitary confinement was at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It was based on a Quaker belief that prisoners isolated in stone cells with only a Bible would use the time to repent, pray and find introspection.”(Timeline on NPR.org) A large population of people believe that solitary confinement is a violation against anyone 's human rights. On the other side of this argument, some people believe it is a necessary form of punishment and that it does not violate anyone’s human or constitutional rights. In my personal opinion, Solitary confinement violates both the 8th Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article five of the Declaration of Human Rights. I don’t understand how isolating someone for that

Solitary confinement is isolation from other inmates as a punishment for when you fight or get in trouble in prison. People Say that Solitary confinement is like being in a prison inside a prison, and that the second prison is the prison of your mind. “The worst scars are left in your mind,” they say. The prisoners that already have mental issues are put in solitary confinement more than non mentally challenged inmates. More than them simply because they have the issues and they can’t “act right” but how are they supposed to act right if they don’t know what acting right is.

This paper will include a review of different prison systems that have occurred in America, and how the Pennsylvania and New York or Auburn model have helped facilitate the use of solitary confinement. To establish the negative effects solitary confinement has on humans, this paper will provide reasons it is used, how it is used, and review conditions of solitary confinement. It is widely used for purpose of punishment within prison systems and has developed into large super maximum facilities to hold the more dangerous inmates incarcerated. Through many case studies solitary confinement has resulted in detrimental

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

Since the introduction of solitary confinement and the construction of super-max prison there has an on going debate on whether using these punishment is violating the 8th amendment and also explaining all the health risk caused by solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is when a prisoner is held in a cell alone and they spend between 22.5 and 24 hours a day. Prisoners have no contact with other inmates and guards are also have limited contact with inmates. Solitary confinement was first introduced in the mid-nineteenth century and it was believed that it would help reform prisoners. The ideology behind solitary confinement and super-max prisons was that prisoners would be locked up alone and left with nothing but their Bible and this would allow the prisoner to reflect on his actions and wrong doings and eventually reform into a law-abiding citizen. But soon after solitary confinement was put into place it became clear that solitary confinement did not meet there goal of reforming individuals but evidence proved it caused harmed to the prisoners physical and mental health. Besides being harmful to prisoner’s physical and mental health it was also very expensive to run super-max prisons. Many began to question whether it was morally and ethically correct to keep prisoners in solitary confinement for long periods of time at once. When solitary confinement was first introduced it was used as a short-term punishment for prisoner who committed severe offenses in prison.

Sometimes described as a ‘prison within a prison’, a solitary cell is often no bigger than an averaged sized horse stable and in most cases, it’s only equipped with a toilet and a bed (Breslow, 2014). Furthermore, Breslow (2014) explains that if an individual is confined to a solitary cell, they will not mingle with any prisoner under any circumstances. Instead of eating in the prison cafeteria, their meal is delivered straight to their cell and it’s given through a slot in the door to minimise all contact and instead of getting yard time with their fellow inmates, the individual is usually subjected to only one hour of yard time alone. The effects that this [extreme isolation] has on one’s sanity differs from person to person, but the medical research that’s been done on the issue all ends with the same conclusion: solitary confinement can pose a great threat to one’s mental state and

Imagine your child committed a crime, was tried as an adult and sent to an adult prison. The other inmates pick with and beat on him daily, so to keep him safe he is sent to solitary confinement, a small cell, alone with little to no attention or interaction with other humans. While in the cell he is slowly losing his mind and once released from prison he comes home differently. According to Hinds (2015), "They often aren't able to see their loved ones, are stripped of the very limited amount of control they have in prison, are left without human contact and sensory stimulation, and are often left in a state of limbo, unsure when they will be removed from solitary". Many people don't understand the effects solitary confinement can have on a person. Solitary confinement is supposed to be a punishment for acting up while in jail. However, a former inmate Elton Simpson (2015) states, "I think solitary confinement is mental