Solitary Confinement Is A Torture No One Deserves

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).

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 is occasionally used in most prison systems as a means to maintain prison order. Mainly for disciplinary punishment, or as a place to put inmates that are at escape risk, or a risk to themselves and prison order. Sometimes inmates that are sex offenders voluntarily choose solitary as a means of protection from other prisoners. Sometimes solitary can be used to hold pretrial detainees to prevent them from messing with witness, so they can’t try and force a confession. For 23 hours a day inmates are confined to the barren environment that is their cell with high surveillance (Smith, Peter Scharff, 2006.) Inmates have no social contact. Visits and phone calls are infrequent and highly restricted. Visits sometime only take place via video screens. The physical contact one experiences is limited to the interaction with prison guards, weather it be putting on restraints or taking them off.

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

Solitary confinement in America is becoming a big issue with the way humans are treated such as higher rates of insanity, higher risk for self-harm, inhumane treatment, no outside contact or contact with other beings and also this special unit is becoming over used across America. Solitary confinement or ad seg is the disciplinary unit in most prisons where the inmates are housed when those inmates get in serious trouble or those individuals are being protected from other inmates in the jail. This special unit in the jail is referred to as the ‘hole’, special housing, restricted housing and also administrated segregation to the jail staff. Ad seg is a single man jail cell usually 10 x 10 with one bed, a toilet and sometimes a little

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

At least six inmates said that the shower had been used to punish inmates who misbehaved. And three reported that they themselves had been subjected to punishing showers (Brown, 2017). Even if it was not a typical form of solitary confinement, it shows that putting prisoners who have mental disabilities in solitary confinement will cause more harm than good. Throughout the investigation, it is said that there was a lot of evidence that was tampered with and investigators interviewed specific people to protect the facility from being exposed from the abuse of prisoners. These special populations are being proposed for the better treatment of the prisoners because they should not be treated

‘BOOM!’ The door is slammed shut as a convict is held detained, isolated in a room, including nothing but their physical body and mentality. Entrapped in a dull room is supposed to be a punishment distributed only to deserving prisoners blatantly breaks a rule that would result in violence, escapement, et cetera. Though very controversial, solitary confinement is both beneficial in which it serves as a detention to disobedient captives and protects other inmates against violent and insubordinate prisoners, yet can be negative as it may violate the 4th amendment of the United States Constitution.

How Does Solitary Confinement Effect Inmates? Being locked in an 80-square foot room with only a bed and a toilet, with very limited human contact, will drive you into insanity. Many violent inmates that guards cannot control are usually put in to solitary confinement. Solitary confinement can cause very dangerous effects. Inmates locked in solitary for long periods of time are at risk of losing their mental senses and begin to hallucinate; this often leads becoming suicidal and even become anti-social, which usually happens to those without human contact for long period of time.

Many people believe that solitary confinement is justified given the magnitude of certain crimes. Utilitarianism, an ideology most commonly used by policymakers to defend solitary confinement, rationalizes isolation by suggesting that the purpose of all legislation “is to augment the total happiness of the community; and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far as may be, every thing that tends to subtract from that happiness: in other words, to exclude mischief...”; however, the same principles of utility also suggest that “...if [punishment] ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in so far as it promises to exclude some greater evil” (qtd. in Isdale). Solitary confinement, however, proves to be so unnecessarily

With that said, while we are adamantly against torture, it is arguable that Canada does employ torture techniques. To clarify, currently every day, there are 850 offenders or roughly 6% of the Canadian prison population in solitary confinement (Kelshall, 2014, p.1345). While there are arguments that can be made on whether solitary confinement is torture or not, it is undeniable with the literature available that the form of punishment has the potential to cause permanent or long term psychological damage (Kelshall, 2014, p.1345), a claim reaffirmed by the correctional investigator in 2011. In his report, the investigator found that solitary confinement may cause irreversible psychological harm and elevate the likelihood of anxiety, depress,

Solitary confinement we all know it is the worst kind of psychological torture. It's a nightmare one may face if incarcerated, solitary confinement destroys people as human beings and comes with a long line of lasting effects after release into society, the individuals are left with extensive behavioral problems like anger, irritability, hostility, poor impulse, violence against themselves, others, and objects. This is not only problematic for oneself but also society because these individuals cannot organize their own lives or find their identity or purpose which makes them irritability about Life. We are social beings and isolation breeds and exhibits anger; moreover, there are burdens that one cannot escape after release into society from solitary confinement.

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

Solitary confinement dismantles a persons mental capacity for life situations- “More than half the prisoners reported a progressive inability to tolerate ordinary stimuli”(Grassian). Some of the prisoners said: “You get sensitive to noise, the plumbing system. Someone in the tier above me pushes the button on the faucet . . . It’s too loud, gets on your nerves. I can’t stand it. I start to holler”(Grassian). This specific effect is very similar to Hard Rock’s effects-not only was he not able to handle life anymore, but he also didn’t have the mental energy for life itself. Also, solitary confinement also causes “difficulties with Thinking, Concentration, and Memory: Many reported symptoms of difficulty in concentration and memory. One prisoner described his experience, ‘I can’t concentrate, can’t read . . . Your mind’s narcotized. Sometimes I can’t grasp words in my mind that I know. Get stuck, have to think of another word. Memory’s going. You feel like you are losing something you might not get back’

Solitary confinement is basically when someone is isolated from others and is usually contained in a cell for hours, days, months, and even years. They call the solitary confinement a “shoe” because it stands for Special Housing Unit (SHU), but it is pronounced like “shoe”. Its main focus is to keep people detained if they were to get in a fight, talking back towards a guard and even carrying around a pack of cigarettes. This would be similar to a “time out”. Which leads to a somewhat huge controversial debate of whether or not prisoners should be sent into solitary confinement. There are some effects