The crime of solitary confinement

At New York City’s Rikers Island Detention Center, where I worked as a chaplain for 23 years until 2007, the solitary confinement unit was called the “bing.” When I asked a prison captain what the term meant, he explained, “When some prisoners come here, their minds go ‘bing.’ ”

Indeed, when I would make visits, walking cell by cell, I was overwhelmed by the lethargy and depression of the inmates.

The damaging effects of isolation are not unique to Rikers inmates. Decades of studies prove that solitary confinement causes severe and lasting harm.

Dr. Stuart Grassian, a nationally recognized expert, reported perceptual distortions among the common symptoms described by the hundreds of prisoners he evaluated in solitary confinement.

He highlighted this symptom as especially concerning because perceptual distortions, in which objects shrink or appear to “melt,” are more commonly associated with neurological illnesses, especially seizure disorders and brain tumors, than with psychiatric illness alone.

Dr. Craig Haney, professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, found extraordinarily high rates of symptoms of psychological trauma among prisoners held in long-term solitary confinement in his systematic analysis of prisoners held in supermax prison.

More than four out of five of those evaluated suffered from feelings of anxiety and nervousness, headaches and the like, and over half complained of nightmares, heart palpitations and fear of impending nervous breakdowns. Nearly half suffered from hallucinations and a quarter experienced suicidal ideation.

When I worked at Rikers, some prisoners held in solitary experienced this heightened risk of suicide. In fact, responsible inmates were trained to act as Suicide Prevention Aides. Through small glass openings, they monitored the activities of those in isolation cells and reported any self-destructive behavior to the unit officer.

I can imagine the response of some reading confronting these facts: So what? These are convicted criminals. Many are violent offenders. They deserve it.

That’s not how our system is supposed to work. We have prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.

I understand the need to maintain order and safety in prison. But holding people in isolation until they are mentally broken is not acceptable. And it’s actually no safer for guards and other inmates.

Over the past three decades, numerous state and federal prisons have made long-term solitary confinement a default management tool, subjecting prisoners to conditions of extreme isolation not as a response to violent behavior but rather as a routine practice for minor rule infractions, and for “their own protection.”

Some prisons consist of nothing but single-cell isolation units. Nationwide, an estimated 80,000 persons are kept in these inhumane conditions, sometimes for months and years on end.

Recently, the number of inmates held in “punitive segregation” at Rikers has increased dramatically; today, more than 900 inmates there are being held in their cells for 23 hours per day.

should trouble everyone. Prisoners with mental health disorders suffer debilitating trauma, and studies indicate that prisoners released directly from solitary confinement to society have significantly higher rates of recidivism.

If all that weren’t bad enough, the cost per inmate of solitary confinement far exceeds other types of imprisonment. Indeed, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn recently announced a proposal to close a notorious supermax facility in order to save over $20 million annually.

A handful of other states have adopted measures to rein in the practice, and their outcomes demonstrate there are more efficient, effective and humane alternatives to solitary confinement. For example, Maine’s corrections commissioner, Joseph Ponte, who ushered in reforms leading to a 70% reduction in Maine’s solitary confinement population in 2011, says that “the more data we’re pulling is showing that what we’re doing now is safer than what we were doing before.”

Mississippi’s prison system also had an infamous segregation unit, referred to as Unit 32. As a result of litigation,

The number of violent incidents requiring guards to use force to restrain prisoners plummeted. Unit 32 was eventually closed.

Every human being has inherent God-given dignity, a quality that does not disappear behind prison gates. Recognizing that prolonged solitary confinement is a cruel form of punishment, people of faith and conscience must work to abolish this indefensible practice.

One of the guys in the classroom at the Texas state pen I worked in as a sub teacher was a young man with acne. He was a real bad troublemaker and I was to learn later what the wrist band on his arm met - he was a lifer. I am not to ask what their crimes are only if they volunteer to tell me. My guess is that he killed.

One day I explained to the class that I was no different than any of them and that I too have broke the law, but more importantly I had in me the same poisons, junk, perversions, anger, hatred, greed that any of them had. In fact I knew how to shoot, carried a side arm and could probably shoot better than most of them, and could kill too. After getting raised eyebrows and a few chuckles from the guys about my sins and insights, they went back to their school work and this troublemaker kid came up to me and asked me more about shooting as he liked guns.

The next day he was in the classroom very angry and was taking it out on the men, knocking things over, throwing stuff, etc. Rather than call the guards, I called him over to the desk and pulled out a chair and said lets talk. I didn't care about the class anymore but just him....I could tell he was in a crisis. He told me when he came to prison several years ago they put him in solitary confinement for months. In fact when the guards gave him food, he would wait and throw it back in there face.

He was a walking time bomb.

We must have talked close to half an hour and during that time I kept loving him. What else could I do? What do you tell a 19 year old who will be spending the rest of his life in prison. What do you say to this man.......you shouldn't have done it, serves you right, that it would get better, everything would be fine, have a great life?

Finally he asked me about his acne on his face. I explained to him it was actually a good thing as it met he was making a lot of the hormone testosterone and that met he was healthy. It would eventually clear up. He was so concerned that girls would not like his acne. I explained that when a girl loved him she would not see his acne but instead his heart.

You know, for just that brief time as he and I talked, the prison room was suspended and the two of us were not there anymore, we were somewhere else talking and sharing and liking each other with no thoughts of our surroundings or the fact that he was facing a life sentence with no girl ever to be in his life. We were so free in those minutes.....I will never forget it.

He thanked me and went back and settled down. I waited to catch him the next day as he went to another class and I asked him how he was doing and he said fine. He seemed less tense.

I just know that these men who are put in solitary confinement have so much repressed rage. I could see it in this young man, you could cut it with a knife it was so thick. I know it takes skills and knowledge to deal with this rage and how to release it both in these men and/or professionals who help. A good way is called a release technique. I was releasing in me and consequently he released.

Solitary confinement certainly gets their attention but it is not rehabilitative....AND...the REABILITATIVE PROCESS STARTS WITH ME, not the criminal.

There is a building next to the building used as a classroom. The guard told me it is for the worst of the worst criminals. They are let out of their isolation cells for one hour a day and when they take a shower, they are handcuffed. It's pretty bad in there. I look at that bleak building across the yard and ask God to help. Those men and the people they hurt badly, affect all of us. We are all like a comb (an example I read one time) depending on the angle you view the comb- from the tooth perspective we are each individuals, independent, isolated, row after row, but when you turn the comb around we all come from the same source.

Jane

Until then, solitary works fine.

Okay. Solitary worked for overnight. I have a perfectly attainable idea.

For those people who are too much of an animal to be in physical proximity to others, place them in solid metal cages with one side having a plexiglass window, in general population. Load em up in the evening from their existing isolation cells, move em to general for a few hours, they get their social time, and they can't do anything to people outside of the cube. You needn't do this every evening, just a few times a week, to stave off isolation psychosis. Of course, during the day, when other prisoners have their detail (work assignment) they would not be working, they'd be stuck in the cell.

Kinda enough of a compromise to keep them from psychotic reactions, yet at the same time, make it more unpleasant than a normal general-population prisoner has it.

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