About Solitary Confinement
Solitary confinement of prisoners exists under a range of names; isolation, control units, supermax prisons, the hole, SHUs, administrative segregation, maximum security or permanent lockdown. Prisoners can be placed in these units for many reasons; as punishment, while they are under investigation, as a mechanism for behavior modification, when suspected of gang involvement, as retribution for political activism or to fill expensive, empty beds, to name but a few.
Although conditions vary from state to state and in different institutions, systematic policies and conditions of control and oppression used in isolation and segregation include:
- confinement behind a solid steel door for 23 hours a day
- limited contact with other human beings
- infrequent phone calls and rare non-contact family visits
- extremely limited access to rehabilitative or educational programming
- grossly inadequate medical and mental health treatment
- restricted reading material and personal property
- physical torture such as hog-tying, restraint chairs, and forced cell extraction
- mental torture such as sensory deprivation, permanent bright lighting, extreme temperatures, and forced insomnia
- sexual intimidation and violence
Recent History of
Isolation
Beginning in the early 1970s, prison and jail
administrators at the
federal, state, and local level have relied
increasingly on isolation
and segregation to control men, women and youth
in their custody.
In
1985 there were a handful of control units
across the county. Today an
estimated 44 states have supermax facilities
confining more than 30,000
people. Prisoners are often confined for months
or even years, with
some spending more than 25 years in segregated
prison settings. As with
the overall prison population, people of color
are disproportionately
represented in isolation units.
(AFSC's Justice Visions Briefing Paper, Prison
Inside the Prison provides a more
complete history.)
Mental Health Effects of
Isolation
Increasingly
isolation units house the mentally ill who
struggle to conform to
prison rules. An independent investigation from
2006 reported that as
many as 64% of prisoners in SHUs were mentally
ill, a much higher
percentage than is reported
by states for
their general prison populations. Contrary to
the perception that
control units house "the worst of the worst',
it is often the most
vulnerable prisoners, not the most violent who
end up in extended
isolation. The AFSC Healing Justice staff
worked with 60 Minutes on the
production of The
Death of Timothy Souders, a
riveting testimony. Numerous studies
have documented the effects of solitary
confinement on prisoners giving
them the name; Special Housing Unit Syndrome or
SHU Syndrome. Some of
the many SHU Syndrome symptoms include:
- visual and auditory hallucinations
- hypersensitivity to noise and touch
- insomnia and paranoia
- uncontrollable feelings of rage and fear
- distortions of time and perception
- increased risk of suicide
- PTSD
If one is not mentally ill when entering an isolation unit, by the time they are released their mental health has been severely compromised. Many prisoners are released directly to the streets after spending years in isolation. Because of this, long-term solitary confinement goes beyond a problem of prison conditions, to pose a formidable public safety and community health problem.
Solitary Confinement
Violates Basic Human Rights
Prison isolation fits the definition of torture
as stated in several
international human rights treaties, and thus
constitutes a violation
of human rights law. For example, the U.N.
Convention Against Torture
defines torture as any state-sanctioned act “by
which severe pain or
suffering, whether physical or mental, is
intentionally inflicted on a
person” for information, punishment,
intimidation, or for a reason
based on discrimination.
For all these reasons – for the safety of our communities, to respect our responsibility to follow international human rights law, to take a stand against torture wherever it occurs, and for the sake of our common humanity – prison isolation and segregation must end.