Slashdot Mirror
The Science of Solitary Confinement
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Joseph Stromberg writes in Smithsonian Magazine that while the practice of solitary confinement is being discontinued in most countries, it's become increasingly routine within the American prison system. It is estimated that between 80,000 and 81,000 prisoners are in some form of solitary confinement nationwide. Once employed largely as a short-term punishment, it's now regularly used as way of disciplining prisoners indefinitely, isolating them during ongoing investigations, coercing them into cooperating with interrogations and even separating them from perceived threats within the prison population at their request.
Most prisoners in solitary confinement spend at least 23 hours per day restricted to cells of 80 square feet, not much larger than a king-size bed, devoid of stimuli (some are allowed in a yard or indoor area for an hour or less daily), and are denied physical contact on visits from friends and family ... A majority of those surveyed experienced symptoms such as dizziness, heart palpitations, chronic depression, while 41 percent reported hallucinations, and 27 percent had suicidal thoughts...
But the real problem is that solitary confinement is ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained achieving the opposite of the supposed goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society. Rick Raemisch, the new director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, voluntarily spent twenty hours in solitary confinement in one of his prisons and wrote an op-ed about his experience in The New York Times. 'If we can't eliminate solitary confinement, at least we can strive to greatly reduce its use,' wrote Raemisch."
Most prisoners in solitary confinement spend at least 23 hours per day restricted to cells of 80 square feet, not much larger than a king-size bed, devoid of stimuli (some are allowed in a yard or indoor area for an hour or less daily), and are denied physical contact on visits from friends and family ... A majority of those surveyed experienced symptoms such as dizziness, heart palpitations, chronic depression, while 41 percent reported hallucinations, and 27 percent had suicidal thoughts...
But the real problem is that solitary confinement is ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained achieving the opposite of the supposed goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society. Rick Raemisch, the new director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, voluntarily spent twenty hours in solitary confinement in one of his prisons and wrote an op-ed about his experience in The New York Times. 'If we can't eliminate solitary confinement, at least we can strive to greatly reduce its use,' wrote Raemisch."
Yeah, but the moment society closes the doors out of vindictiveness, it's pulled out all the control rods. Unfortunately, the road from being considered law abiding citizen to 'unemployable criminal' grows shorter every day. Once that point is reached, there's no longer any reason to care about anyone else's rules or artificial limitations. There's nothing more to lose.
The summary also says that some prisoners prefer it.
Of course it also says this:
But the real problem is that solitary confinement is ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained achieving the opposite of the supposed goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society.
And that sentence points out the major failure with TFS, and TFA, and your assertions above.
Nobody believes the goal is to rehabilitate any more. A couple hundred years of recidivism statistics has totally washed that nonsense off the slate.
Most of the hard core prisoners will never re-enter society. They are in there precisely to protect society from THEM, not the other way around.
By the time you get a 20 year sentence in this lenient justice system, you have already proven yourself a recidivist.
They are never going to be model citizens. Society has nothing to gain by playing the rehabilitation with these people any more.
If they can't get along in the general population, and require solitary, what makes you think the goal is to re-introduce them to society?
(And never mind quoting what it says in the prison system enabling statutes, and the wishful thinking that goes into calling the
prison systems "department of corrections". Nobody believes that any more)
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.