If you were stuck in a holding cell, by yourself, somewhere far from
home, how long would it take before you considered yourself legally insane?
Millions of prisoners in hundreds of maximum-security prisons have had to face
those situations firsthand over the years. The question of whether or not
solitary confinement causes mental health disorders has also occurred in
various social experiments over the years. Those social experiments varied in
severity, but the one effect they had in common was the inspiration for other
social experiments loosely based upon their more (in)famous counterparts.
No matter whether the experiments explored any psychological aspect, from
solitary confinement, to waterboarding, to separation, or anything else, they
were all inspired by real-life prison conditions at maximum-security prisons
nationwide. The more (in)famous social experiments include the Stanford Prison
Experiment, the Concord Prison Experiment, the Rosenhan Experiment, the Milgram
Experiment, & the Rat Park Experiment, among others. Other social
experiments, such as the Third Wave, have not quite been considered as
repressive or oppressive as the aforementioned prison experiments, but their
effectiveness in exposing overly conformist behavior in people or groups exposed,
willingly or not, to charismatic influences by outside sources, such as other
people or organizations created to influence everybody outside their initial
influence. Despite prison officials’ continued insistence that solitary
confinement is more effective than general imprisonment, data over the
course of many months, years, and decades has shown more
mental impairment from prisoners placed in solitary confinement than prisoners
kept in the general prison population for the entirety of their stay in prison.
The Constitution also makes a strong case against solitary confinement, banning “cruel
& unusual punishment” & leading to many lawsuits by prisoners,
the ACLU, and other groups generally stating that solitary confinement
both leads to lifelong mental impairments in its prisoners, while also
violating the Constitution’s 8th Amendment at the exact same
time.
Despite the overwhelming use of the term “solitary confinement”
in public, one state has used different terminology for the concept, as New
York has differed by calling it “disciplinary segregation” instead of “solitary
confinement”. The term for the actual buildings is also different, as most
states refer to the buildings as “Special Housing Units”, others refer to them
as “Special Management Units”, and California uniquely refers to them as
“Security (instead of “Special”) Housing Units”. No matter what the
buildings have been called, the effects have
almost always been the same. According to psychiatry professor Jeffrey L.
Metzner, MD, & Human Rights Watch executive Jamie Fellner, Esq., the effects of solitary confinement have
been the same for all solitary confinement prisoners, but the severity of the effects have varied:
“Isolation can be psychologically harmful to any prisoner, with the nature and
severity of the impact depending on the individual, the duration, and
particular conditions (e.g., access to natural light, books, or radio).
Psychological effects can include anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive
disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and
psychosis.” (Metzner/Fellner, 2010, paragraph 3) They then go on to claim that
the general public prefers that prisoners get punished instead of treated:
“Despite significant improvements in correctional mental health services, often
related to litigation and development of standards and guidelines by the
National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC), the American
Psychiatric Association (APA), and other professional organizations, in many
prisons the services remain woefully inadequate. Relative to the number of
prisoners needing help, there is an insufficient number of qualified staff, too
few specialized facilities, and few programs. Mindful of budget constraints and
scant public support for investments in the treatment (as opposed to
punishment) of prisoners, elected officials have been reluctant to provide the
funds and leadership needed to ensure that prisons have sufficient mental
health resources. Twenty-two of 40 state correctional systems reported in a
survey that they did not have an adequate mental health staff.” Metzner and Fellner’s
opinions throughout the report state that prisoners should be treated, some
mental health clinicians prefer
seeing prisoners in solitary confinement, and that allowing prisoners to meet
every so often for evaluations could prove to be more effective in the long run
than keeping them locked down for extended lengths of time each day.
Tracy Hresko has been a Pace University law professor for the
past few years. In April 2006, Hresko published a detailed report on not only
the effects of solitary confinement, but what Hresko believes is officials’
law-based justification for sticking prisoners in solitary confinement instead
of rehabilitating them. In the aforementioned report, Hresko stated that there
was a lack of options on prisoners’ part to challenge unfair placement by
prison officials: “Despite the lack of official policy surrounding use of
solitary confinement, common criteria for its imposition in both state and
federal prisons include "gang activity and disruption of the orderly
operation of a prison, both inclusive catchall criteria." Prison
administrators are not required, moreover, to provide even minimal
standards of due process protection to inmates sentenced to solitary
confinement; inmates have no rights to written notice, to present witnesses or
evidence, to be represented by an attorney or to undergo a formal hearing. In
fact, the Supreme Court in Hewitt v. Helms held that prison administrators are
only required to engage in an "informal, non-adversary review" of the
information supporting an inmate's punishment of solitary confinement,
including whatever statement an inmate wishes to submit after the start of
their confinement.” Hresko mentions immediately afterward that it costs $50,000
per year to keep just one prisoner in solitary confinement, “compared
with $20,000 per year for inmates kept in the general population.” (Hresko,
page 14) In examining the conditions of typical prisons, Hresko then mentions
that courts “typically examine only the physical conditions of the solitary
confinement cell – “light, ventilation, bedding, and basic elements of hygiene”
- and the extent to which the inmate’s most basic needs are met.” (Hresko, page
15) The Constitution’s 8th Amendment is mentioned just below that
statement, except in the context that psychological torture of any kind doesn’t
constitute a violation of that amendment to most courts and judges. Another prison-related lawsuit, Newman
v. State of Alabama, found that “the Constitution does not require that
prisoners, as individuals or groups, be provided with any and every amenity
which some person may think is needed to avoid mental, physical, and emotional
destruction.” (Hresko, page 16)
The 8th Amendment to the Constitution states that
“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel
and unusual punishments inflicted.” Despite those rights protections, prisons
everywhere have continually committed human rights violations similar to those
of typical dictatorial regimes. Even the most decorated of
Americans have spoken on the effects of either their solitary confinement, or
that of somebody else, as 2008 presidential nominee and current Arizona-based
Senator John McCain wrote in one of his Vietnam War memoirs: “It’s an awful
thing, solitary; it crushes your spirit and weakens your (mental) resistance
more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” (Gawande, 3/30/09,
paragraph 19) The innate fear of solitary confinement isn’t just limited to
prisoners of war, however; a lawsuit by 12 prisoners at the Florence
Administrative Maximum Facility back in May 2012 alleges brutal Constitutional and human rights violations. Andrew Cohen of The
Atlantic mentions the following: “The lawsuit seeks no money damages, but
instead aims to require federal officials to treat mentally ill inmates in
accordance with existing law. The case demands a measure of accountability from
a sprawling bureaucracy that seems to answer to no one.” (Cohen, 6/20/12,
paragraph 2) The “bureaucracy” mentioned there doesn’t just exist at the
modern-day ADX; it existed at Alcatraz, and it exists at all other
maximum-security prisons nationwide.
Adding to the aforementioned “bureaucracy” are various harsh laws
designed in their very nature to
restrict prisoners from the moment they step into the courtroom to the moment
they either leave prison or die. The most draconian
of those laws is the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, which Congress and
President Clinton had the absurdity
to pass and sign into law. The act states that the law “…shall not grant or
approve any prospective relief unless the court finds that such relief is
narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of
the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the
violation of the Federal right.” On the other hand, however, it also states “No
action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of
this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail,
prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as
are available are exhausted.” (Phillips, 6/1/13, paragraph 2) That provision
effectively forces prisoners through every
level of the legal system before they can file a lawsuit against their
correctional facility.
Despite prison officials’ continued
insistence that solitary confinement is key to successfully deterring prisoners
from committing future crimes, data from inside reports suggests that prisoners
actually end up more dangerous upon exiting prison than upon committing
their initial crime(s). Some prison officials have been absolute believers in the “solitary confinement is beneficial”
mindset, only to change their minds completely
upon either getting information from “insiders” or actually visiting prisons to
see the harsh conditions for themselves. One of the most notable opinion
changes by a local, state, or federal correction official is Mississippi’s
corrections commissioner, who fought a September 2007 ACLU lawsuit (unrelated
to the aforementioned Florence ADX lawsuit) a few years ago that hoped to force
a few solitary confinement-based prisoners completely
out of their prisons. Early on in the litigation process, Epps stated that
“(Solitary confinement) was the culture, and I was part of it.” (Goode,
paragraph 14) After the lawsuit against Mississippi by the ACLU was settled,
Epps’ opinion had been changed so
completely that he was suddenly against solitary confinement, after
being for it just days earlier: “If you treat people like
animals, that’s exactly the way they’ll behave,” Epps proclaimed upon the
lawsuit’s conclusion. (Goode, paragraph 16)
In the midst of that lawsuit, both sides made their cases for and
against solitary confinement. James F. Austin was a prison consultant tasked
with questioning Mississippi Department of Corrections officials. A court had
ordered the state to improve conditions in its notorious “Unit 32”, and the
state hoped to improve conditions to the point where prisoners didn’t feel trapped,
but also to the point where they didn’t feel comfortable, either. Emmitt
L. Sparkman, state deputy corrections commissioner, claimed that Dr. Austin
told the state officials who hired him to suggest changes to their
highest-security prison that “‘You tell me what kind of person needs to be
locked up,’” and “There was an incredible explosion in the prison population
coupled with a big infusion of gangs, riots were occurring. Prison officials
were literally losing control.” (Goode, paragraph 19/21) The year before the ACLU
v. State of Mississippi lawsuit, Florida State University criminology
professor Dr. Dan Mears surveyed hundreds of prison officials in dozens of
prisons nationwide, and upon the conclusion of his surveys, stated that the
main reasons why officials were placing more
and more prisoners in solitary confinement were “increasing safety, order
and control throughout prison systems and incapacitating violent or disruptive
inmates.” (Goode, paragraph 25) Asked to “dig deeper” into his findings, Dr.
Mears proclaimed maximum-security prisons in general “a big, very costly
experiment,” and he also asked the rhetorical question “Who were the worst of
the worst?” (Goode, paragraph 25/26)
Over the course of many decades, solitary confinement has proven to be
one of the most truly “cruel and unusual punishments” inflicted upon humans by
other humans. Its Constitution-violating principles have led to numerous lawsuits, as well as an equal number of laws
attempting to stop such suits. The number of federal prisons has dropped drastically over the years, but the ones
that remain, such as Leavenworth, the ADX, Tamms, and others keep classic
maximum-security prison tactics going to the present day, which if allowed to
continue, could set a disturbing precedent for many future maximum security
prisons if the prison population remains anywhere near its levels from recent
decades.
WORKS CITED:
Solitary
Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S. Prisons:
A Challenge for Medical Ethics
Jeffrey L.
Metzner/Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch; The Journal of the American
Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, vol. 38, #1, 2010
In the Cellars
of the Hollow Men: Use of
Solitary Confinement in U.S. Prisons & its
Implications Under International Laws against Torture Tracy Hresko, Pace
University International Law Review, 4/1/06
“Is Long-Term
Solitary Confinement Torture?” Atul Gawande, The New Yorker, 3/30/09
“Supermax: The
Constitution and Mentally Ill Prisoners” Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic,
6/20/12
“Prisons
Rethink Isolation, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity” Erica Goode, The New York
Times, 3/10/12
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