Solitary confinement’s psychological effects

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/20/solitary-confinement-psychological-effects-sarah-shourd

by pierre-renaux • 12 years ago

146 69 12 years ago

wtvanhest2• 12 years ago

I donated $500 (and convinced my company to match $500) for FAMM, Families Against Mandatory Minimums last year. Its not perfect, but at least they are trying to make a dent in the number of people in prison, especially those with long sentences which may not make logical sense due to strict mandatory minimum laws.

I'm going to donate some more this year, and hopefully get my company to increase their donation level but I'm always interested in finding the group that will have the maximum positive impact to donate to. If anyone has any other ideas for higher impact groups, I'm interested in knowing about them.

I've ruled out all the legalize drugs groups because I won't be able to get a major corporation to donate to them even though I think they are worthwhile causes.

clamprecht3• 12 years ago

Wow, thank you for donating. I spent 5 years in federal prison, and the FAMM newsletters (FAMM-grams, they were called) were always helpful, and usually contained a glimmer of hope for fixing sentencing disparity. I knew plenty of people (non-violent drug offenders) with insane sentences of 10, 20, 30 years. Anyway, I just want to make sure you know that your donation actually does make a difference to real people.

eruditely• 12 years ago

What crime was it?

ballard• 12 years ago

Or 50 years.

R.I.P.

A.S.

wtvanhest2• 12 years ago

The way I see it, I may have a lot of student debt, but at least I'm not being held in prison for 20+ years because of some arbitrary mandatory minimum law created by a politician I probably elected.

FAMM, NORML and the rest of the groups fighting this have a huge problem. People that are successful have very limited and usually no exposure to anyone that has been in prison. This disconnect is making it extremely difficult for them to raise the money they nee to fight this huge problem we have.

The solution which I am struggling to find would involve creating a message that touches the middle class. Without that message a ridiculous number of people will continue to spend a long time in prison that shouldn't be there.

sharkweek• 12 years ago

For anyone a little less familiar with mandatory minimum sentencing -- I highly recommend the documentary 'The House I Live In'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0atL1HSwi8

Streams instantly on Netflix - one of the most important documentaries I've ever seen

therobot24• 12 years ago

It's hard to draw correlation between someone captured in iran and the many convicts in solitary confinement. Prisoners aren't just put into solitary for any arbitrary reason, many times it's due to a consistent history of violence outside and inside the prison system. While a woman and her husband getting nabbed is a completely different situation.

In any case, it seems obvious that solitary will affect mental health. But what do we do for consistently violent offenders? Clearly they do not function in general population. Do they get a solitary buddy to talk to for a few hours a day?

ekianjo• 12 years ago

Maybe some kind of intranet access to chat with other prisoners locally ? It does not replace human contact, but it can bring some benefits nonetheless to make one feel less lonely.

moxie• 12 years ago

Prisoners in the USA are, in fact, put into solitary for some pretty arbitrary reasons, including the types of books they read. You might find this article by Shane Bauer, one of the hostages held by Iran, interesting:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confine...

zmitri• 12 years ago

I remember seeing that video and balking - even reading Machiavelli's the Prince can get you thrown in solitary under the pretense you are gang affiliated.

If you're interested in the prison industrial complex, the very same Shane Bauer is using my site, Beacon, to crowdfund an entire year of in depth, independent, and ad-free reporting on the prison system in America.

http://www.beaconreader.com/projects/the-prison-problem

You'll directly impact his ability to produce original long form pieces.

SyneRyder• 12 years ago

And there was recently a story of a "good samaritan" in San Francisco who helped an injured person on the street and called 911, and ended up in solitary by the end of the night:

https://medium.com/p/9f53ef6a1c10/

krlee• 12 years ago

If you want to criticize Pennington's placement in Security Housing, fine. But don't pretend that he's just an innocent leftist being persecuted by the Man. He's a gang member. And his gang's black Marxist politics don't make it any less violent.

http://motherjones.com/documents/458735-pennington-return-to...

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

brownbat3• 12 years ago

Agreed. What do we do with violent schizophrenics, the Michael Owen Perrys, the Charles Bronsons?

The groups arguing for reform respond that solitary is rarely used for violent criminals, and more often used for other rule infractions: http://www.justicefellowship.org/solitary-confinement https://afsc.org/resource/solitary-confinement-facts

I'm not sure that answers the question though. In absence of solitary, what measures are appropriate to curtail violence, or to enforce prison rules?

Maybe there's a middle solution, where more oversight can be used to prevent its overuse? But it doesn't seem like there are many alternatives to control the behavior of someone who is already confined.

clamprecht3• 12 years ago

You said Charles Bronson, but did you mean Charles Manson?

lhc-• 12 years ago

How about send them to a psychiatric hospital which is equipped to deal with their situation, rather than locking them in a box? If someone is so mentally unstable that they cant handle the human contact of prison gen pop, maybe a psychiatric hospital is where they actually belong.

watwut2• 12 years ago

What other western countries do with them? It is an honest questions, they have neither solitary nor capital punishment.

At minimum, I guess you can keep them separated without turning off every single possible sensory inputs. E.g., let them know what time it is and allow turn on/off freaking light. While you are at it, allow them listen to music, read books, watch movies and give them access to paper and pen. The big problem is not only that they are isolated. It is also almost complete turn off of all sensory inputs.

If they need to be away from others, allow them at least phone with people, either with each others or with outside word.

Another thing to do would be to reserve that treatment only for really dangerous people. Do not send them inmates that only annoyed someone, broke some minor rule or insist on something you do not want to give them. Do not send there non-dangerous inmates for "their own protection" put then somewhere where they can be in touch with non-dangerous inmates instead.

Third, conditions in prison have direct impact on how badly dangerous inmates they generate. Maybe there could be something done about those too?

mynameishere• 12 years ago

I always figured that if I had to go to prison, I would rather solitary. As long as you can get decent books and have a TV, which is typical in the US, it sounds vastly better than having to sleep in a common area with dozens of real criminals (also typical enough).

It doesn't surprise me that men who get solitary for violent infractions hate it. These are hyper-social people, who need continuous interaction with others, whether as a friend or a competitor or a predator. By contrast, I can go weeks without speaking to a person. It just doesn't sound that bad, relatively.

Obviously, I'm speculating. But a real test, taking ordinary people and subjecting them either to solitary or a confined population of thugs, and comparing the results, would be pretty unethical. At the same time, you can neither trust the personal account of a woman in extraordinary circumstances, nor those of the most violent, probably psychopathic, criminals.

acjohnson55• 12 years ago

At the same time, you can neither trust the personal account of a woman in extraordinary circumstances, nor those of the most violent, probably psychopathic, criminals.

Fortunately (or perhaps, unfortunately), there are plenty of other sorts of people who've spent serious time in solitary who can corroborate the horror.

And even assuming everyone in prison is guilty of some offense, just because someone committed a crime doesn't justify inflicting psychological trauma on them.

microjesus2• 12 years ago

Someone down-vote this troll.

microjesus2• 12 years ago

Eeek, I was replying to someone in the thread, whoops.

sillysaurus3• 12 years ago

The jail guards usually won't let you have a nice time in prison. If they see that you're enjoying something, they feel it's their job to take it away from you.

agumonkey6• 12 years ago

I often think the same thing, I'd prefer to avoid the prison crowd as much as possible. I had runs of weeks without leaving my bedroom[0], which is not larger than a cell too.

But some words from the woman in the article are hitting me. I also feel that without knowing it I'm $something deprived by this lifestyle. My brain isn't clicking the way it was when I was having a lot more social interaction, even though it was a big weight on my mind (randomness/fluidity of people and social interaction doesn't fit well with the way my brain is structured[1]). And often I can read things but they don't reach deep in my brain. I thought it was just laziness and lack of motivation on my side, but maybe ... maybe ..

Also, right now I'm somehow(see [1]) isolated by my own will. But if held in jail by an external agent I'm not sure I would "enjoy" it as much.

[0] internet is very keen on providing you things to do all night long, which is very neat, the peace of the night is something I liked a lot at that time, and soon you live in the opposite timezone, sleeping the day etc etc

EGreg4• 12 years ago

The difference is you have internet and a computer in your bedroom.

Inmates may be denied even a paper and pencil.

watwut2• 12 years ago

What did you ate? Your bedroom was stack with food supplies for weeks? Or is it that someone cooked and you had some minimum amount of interaction with him?

Another difference is that you have seen difference between day and night. Once you have computer, you can get music or games or almost any kind of sensory you would need.

Another difference is that you had control over it. You could go out once it you started to be personally uncomfortable and you probably started because you felt a need for some solitude.

Anyway, when I had to work alone for long time, it had similar effects to my brain as it had on yours.

PavlovsCat• 12 years ago

ordinary people

As compared to whom? People who like to tinker alone and read a lot? Those are ordinary, too.

trust the personal account of a woman in extraordinary circumstances

I'd rather do that, than trust my own imagination, or the one of people on HN.

As long as you can get decent books and have a TV

That won't protect you from being unable to focus attention and developing mental fixations.

EGreg4• 12 years ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/us/29jail.html?pagewanted=...

VMG2• 12 years ago

Here it is everybody, this comment is the reason why we still have solitary confinement. People think it's just like having a lot of free time to yourself.

zacinbusiness3• 12 years ago

I think it's that people have a hypothetical difficult choice. In gen-pop you can get stabbed to death or raped or beaten because while there are a few social heroes fighting the system that wind up in prison there are also killers and thugs. So in a hypothetical you can take the risk of losing your mind to the crushing solitude or risk being killed by a gang member iniate. Either way, you're in a bad situation.

Theodores2• 12 years ago

The Florence, Colorado Federal SuperMAX is the one of particular note. There are lots of people in there that are political prisoners locked away for no good reason.

The 21st hijacker - Zacarius Moussaoui - is a case in point. He had nothing to do with 9/11 yet during an early turf war between government departments vying for the money that went with The War Against Terror he got pretty much framed. He had over-stayed his visa and done nothing of harm to anyone, yet someone had to be scape-goated by the State Department.

There are plenty more 'suspected al-qaeda' locked away there, with conditions every bit as bad as Guantanamo, yet locked up purely so that once upon a time a President could have some orange terror alert pushing everything else out of the news headlines for a couple of days.

Sure there are the psychos that tried to kill prison staff elsewhere in the system that get the SuperMAX treatment, however, the Florence facility is too much like the Tower of London dungeons as used in medieval times.

bpodgursky• 12 years ago

Just to save everyone else the time I spent reading wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacarias_Moussaoui), there is no question that Zacarius:

(1) knew about the plans for 9/11, although he wasn't selected to participate in that attack

(2) was planning a separate attack via plane on the white house, but was arrested first

(3) was taking flying classes to prepare for that attack

This is tangental to the quite valid original article, but claiming that Zacarus was "framed" is an enormous distortion of the facts.

Theodores2• 12 years ago

Here is another Wikipedia article for your enjoyment:

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

Given how quickly you responded to my original post and given that you responded with a link to a Wikipedia article to which you bullet-pointed-out your mere opinions, I suggest you think before you post on subjects that you have no knowledge of.

serf• 12 years ago

There are plenty more 'suspected al-qaeda' locked away there, with conditions every bit as bad as Guantanamo

Really?

I've read that they participate in force-feeding, but I have read that the facilities themselves are top-notch, designed to oppress and create mental turmoil perhaps, but top-notch as far as maintenance/security/sterility.

Surely ADX Florence doesn't house minors, or the uncharged, or participate in water-boarding as an additional form of torture atop the solitary confinement?

How about sexual degradation and sleep deprivation?

How about some old-fashioned under-the-sun exposure-interrogation?

If ADX Florence is truly as bad as 'gitmo' and somehow flew under everyones radar for so long, then I now have a new target for my ire towards the treatment of prisoners.

BadassFractal• 12 years ago

Are there any studies on whether advanced meditation skills can somehow reduce the effects of solitary?

prestadige• 12 years ago

Ironic, isn't it, that solitary is a severe punishment in one context but is also part of the traditional means (going off to a lonely cave for a few years) of obtaining enlightenment?

agumonkey6• 12 years ago

I mentioned that in another comment. Being you're own decision might be the whole difference between meditation and torture. My 2cts question.

wyager• 12 years ago

I imagine that psychologically, the difference between solitary meditation and solitary confinement is like the difference between sex and rape, or taking drugs and being drugged. They're procedurally similar acts, but the element of choice changes everything.

ljf3• 12 years ago

Being a cave to meditate is a very different thing. There you are free to leave at any time, but you are trying to aquire mastery and control of your body and mind, in the face of your desire to do otherwise.

I think solitary is rather different.

dimitar• 12 years ago

The point of jails should be to isolate dangerous people from potential victims, not punish anyone. I can imagine no reason to isolate a person to the point of literally locking him or her in a cage. At least provide TV or radio, there is literally no place on earth where this is prohibitively expensive.

noonespecial• 12 years ago

These things are generally available through special companies that have special contracts and and of course get to sell them to inmates at "special" prices. The ultimate "captive" market.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-i...

refurb2• 12 years ago

I guess the question is, if you get rid of solitary confinement, what do you do with the prisoners who are threats to other prisoners?

thret• 12 years ago

Capital punishment?

DonGateley• 12 years ago

Secure confinement to eliminate the danger a prisoner might present to another need not require social and sensory isolation. That is purely punitive and futile at best, contributory at worst.

refurb2• 12 years ago

I don't disagree on the sensory isolation, but I think one of the reasons for social isolation is problem inmates who antagonize and provoke other inmates.

Sure you could physically isolate inmates, but allow them to communicate, but that would be like keeping two roosters together separated by chicken wire; they'd be at each other constantly with verbal threats, etc. Doesn't sound that much better.

Osiris• 12 years ago

Here in Denver there has been some debate about this issue [1]. The new prison chief put himself in solitary to try to understand how inmates feel.

"Rick Raemisch says he suffered mental anguish after spending only 20 hours in solitary confinement. The average in Colorado is 23 months."

[1] http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/colorado-pri...

e12e2• 12 years ago

I think that was on hn a little while back, while looking for the (hn) link I came across this old story:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confine...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5796790

[edit: which is basically the same story as the main article here, but much more detailed (I guess less of a sales pitch for the book)]

ljf3• 12 years ago

While it seems extreme, I'd love to see more public officals put them selves up for similar 'stunts': spend time in a prison, live on minimum wage, use a bicycle for your daily commute, be tazered, experience waterboarding.

When people can speak with knowledge about some of the horrors and dangers that we put our populations in, then I'd feel a lot more comfortable, and trust them to be more engaged.

grkvlt• 12 years ago

spend time in a prison, live on minimum wage, use a bicycle for your daily commute, be tazered, experience water boarding

One of these things is not like the others...

nitrogen• 12 years ago

Do the effects of solitary confinement differ for self-described introverts? Obviously unwanted, involuntary confinement will be unpleasant no matter what, but I wonder if those at the extreme who would voluntarily isolate themselves from the world for days at a time would experience the same effects as those who thrive on human contact.

zacinbusiness3• 12 years ago

I have very mixed feelings about this kind of thing. There are thousands of people that are basically in jail simply because they aren't white. Or who have ridiculous sentences because the judge wanted to make an example of them. But then there are people who would beat you within an inch of your life, or flat out kill you, just because you "disrespect" them. A good friend of mine was a prison psychologist for 20 years and he has some truly chilling stories. So, while I hate the idea of exiling someone for life or even for a few weeks...it feels like there are precious few alternatives in some cases.

aragot• 12 years ago

flat out kill you

This is just speculation. You don't know what they would do if you gave them a chance, a second chance, a third chance, lots of love and a few material means. As a proof, incarceration rate is lower in my country [1] and we have less violence on the street.

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

Solitary confinement’s psychological effects

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