The Science of Solitary Confinement: isolation is an ineffective rehabilitation strategy and leaves

[morningfog]

The Science of Solitary Confinement
Research tells us that isolation is an ineffective rehabilitation strategy and leaves lasting psychological damage

Picture MetLife Stadium, the New Jersey venue that hosted the Super Bowl earlier this month. It seats 82,556 people in total, making it the largest stadium in the NFL.

Imagine the crowd it takes to fill that enormous stadium. That, give or take a thousand, is the number of men and women held in solitary confinement in prisons across the U.S.

Although the practice has been largely discontinued in most countries, it's become increasingly routine over the past few decades within the American prison system. 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.

As the number of prisoners in solitary has exploded, psychologists and neuroscientists have attempted to understand the ways in which a complete lack of human contact changes us over the long term. According to a panel of scientists that recently spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Chicago, research tells us that solitary is both ineffective as a rehabilitation technique and indelibly harmful to the mental health of those detained.

"The United States, in many ways, is an outlier in the world," said Craig Haney, a psychologist at UC Santa Cruz who's spent the last few decades studying the mental effects of the prison system, especially solitary confinement. "We really are the only country that resorts regularly, and on a long-term basis, to this form of punitive confinement. Ironically, we spend very little time analyzing the effects of it."

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-solitary-confinement-180949793/#ixzz2uAlr6nqX

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. We are a sadistic, punishing culture.

"The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."--Fyodor Dostoevsky

[woo me with science]

30. +1

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Next they'll be saying torture is a bad thing. Damned bleeding heart lib'ruls. nt

[Iggo]

3. It ain't about rehab. It's about punishment.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

9. the article even says so

which makes the headline suck even worse...

sP

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. Longterm solitary confinement is torture.

Not merely "punishment".

[Iggo]

19. Midterm and short term, too.

[Scootaloo]

27. Maybe that should change

[Iggo]

28. Yer goddam right it should.

No maybe about it.

[JJChambers]

4. Solitary confinement question ..

While I agree that solitary confinement is overused, I think it doesn't need to be eliminated. There is a segment of the prison population that is so violent and dangerous that they cannot be integrated with other inmates, ever. What are we supposed to do with them?

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Solitary makes sure they are that way

yup, and some are released straight from the SHU to the streets. Now that might give you pause, but I doubt it.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R!

[woo me with science]

6. K&R

[Warren Stupidity]

7. It is torture.

We run the world's largest gulag and we steer our minority urban youths straight into it.

Thanks Ronald Reagan!

And thank you, all you timid Democrats who collaborated to create the New Jim Crow!

[bvar22]

8. AFIC,

...Solitary Confinement IS Cruel and Unusual punishment.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

10. Problem is, what do you do with serial killers, pedophiles, and others like that? nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

11. You put them in prison.

Solitary used to be a limited punishment for misbehavior in prison, not a way of life.

The only reason to put pedophiles in solitary is to protect them from other prisoners. Maybe they should have their own cell block instead of being effectively punished for their own protection.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

14. I honestly don't know. Maybe you're right - they should be divided into separate groups -

The drug manufacturers (meth) should be together to fight out who sold the most meth, the pedophiles together to molest one another, the rapists together (we know what they'll do), the serial killers together to snuff one another out.

I personally would like the post sales-folk to be thrown into those country club prisons with the rich. On the other hand, the rich would LOVE that. lol

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Pedophiles shoudl be sent to State Hosptials

NOT PRISON for the rest of their natural lives.

[Comrade Grumpy]

21. Fair enough. There are also a lot of mentally ill people in prison.

Mainly because we, as a society, don't care enough to find any other way to deal with them.

As I said in my first reply, we are a sadistic and punishing society.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Yeah, we live in a vindictive society

The reason why I am all for life in hospital as wards of the state, is that when we free them on limited release, recidivism is there. I don't know if this can be ever be cured. If it can, then I will change my mind.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

24. Somewhere, just not out in the world. nt

[delta17]

15. What about people like Tommy Silverstein, though?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Silverstein

He has killed at least two inmates and a guard. He is already serving multiple life sentences. How do we protect other inmates from people like him?

I agree that solitary confinement is pretty horrible. That said, some people leave prison officials with no choice. Someone who is serving a short sentence shouldn't have to worry about being murdered by another inmate.

[Comrade Grumpy]

20. We have 82,000 in solitary. The vast majority are not Tommy Silverstein.

[delta17]

22. I agree, 82,000 is ridiculous.

That said, it is still necessary for the worst of the worst.

[morningfog]

25. He seems like he is, at least in part, a product of the inhumane conditions.

It is a negative feedback loop.

[FarCenter]

12. Depends on your point of view

Luckily, the cell offers a kind of sanctuary for a person to be able to be natural and authentic; one is able to temporarily let go of the need to present oneself to others, and allow one's mind and body to flow in whatever way seems natural for the moment. In my experience, this possibility offered by the cell ‒ indeed, any space where one can be certain one's not observed by others ‒ can result in a sense of tremendous freedom.

[morningfog]

26. Key word in that passage is "temporarily."

Beyond 15 days is torture.

[G_j]

13. New York State in Deal to Limit Solitary Confinement

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/nyregion/new-york-state-agrees-to-big-changes-in-how-prisons-discipline-inmates.html?referrer=

By BENJAMIN WEISER
February 19, 2014

New York State has agreed to sweeping reforms intended to curtail the widespread use of solitary confinement, including prohibiting its use in disciplining prisoners under 18.

In doing so, New York becomes the largest prison system in the United States to prohibit the use of disciplinary confinement for minors, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represented the three prisoners who se lawsuit led to the agreement cited in court papers filed on Wednesday.

State correction officials will also be prohibited from imposing solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure for inmates who are pregnant, and the punishment will be limited to 30 days for those who are developmentally disabled, the court filing says.

The agreement imposes “sentencing guidelines” for all prisoners, specifying the length of punishment allowed for different infractions and, for the first time in all cases, a maximum length that such sentences may run, the civil liberties group said. No such guidelines exist, except in cases involving certain violent and drug-related offenses.
..more..

[joelz]

29. I think

Torture,someone told me they do this to younger prisoners too.

[Ohio Joe]

31. There has been a bit of talk about this here in Colorado recently...

I posted an article about it the other day... It sank.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024540293