Solitary Confinement and what it does to Your Mind Essay Example for Free

Solitary Confinement and what it does to Your Mind Essay Try picturing this; you are locked in this cell for 23 hours a day. The cell is small about 6 feet by 8 feet. In the cell there is a steel toilet, a sink built in the top. There is also a steel bed with a very thin matress.There is small shelf for some of your personal items, and a desk hanging off the wall without a chair. There is a window that is about 5 inches wide and about 4 feet tall, but you cant see out of it. Its made of fog clouded glass. The window is also covered with steel with little holes. What Im describing is a cell in a section of a prison called solitary confinement. While prisoners are in solitary confinement they are forced to be in this tiny cell for 23 hours a day. They are only allowed to come out for recreation five times a week for one hour. Their rec in a cage. They are allowed to take three showers a week, and it can only be for five minutes. Solitary confinement is the confinement of a prisoner in a cell or other place in which he or she is completely isolated from others. In my opinion Solitary confinement is barbaric, and does more harm than it does justice. These criminals are being released back into their neighborhoods after being locked up with no human contact for years. Solitary confinement has been around since the 19th century and mental instability has been linked to solitary confinement since the 1860s. Prison records from the Denmark institute during 1870-1920 shows that staff noticed inmates were showing signs of mental illness while in isolation, revealing that this persistent problem has been around for decades. Solitary confinement was developed as a humane alternative. In 1970, the Quackers built Walnut Street Jail in Philidelphia with a, â€Å"Revolutionary and too many humane purpose. The jail was meant to punish and reform. Walnut Street is known as the Birthplace of the modern prison system. There are two types of solitary confinement that are commonly used today. One type is called disciplinary segregation. This is when youre in solitary for a week or two for doing something like stealing a cellmate’s radio. Another type of solitary confinement is known as admistrative segregation. This segregation is used when inmates are deemed a risk to the safety of other inmates or even prison staff. When youre in administrative segregation you can be isolated for month’s even years. In my opinion Solitary Confinement can ruin someone’s mental and their life. Solitary confinement used to be when prisoners would get thrown in the whole, and stay there for a couple of days. Now prisoners are in solitary confinement for years. Just imagine yourself locked in a room with just a bed for years. Would you still be sane? I dont think anyone would come out of that the same person they were before they entered into solitary confinement. Solitary confinement has been recognized as difficult to withstand. Psychological stressors such as isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture. But ironically U.S prisons have increasingly embraced solitary confinement to punish and control difficult or dangerous prisoners. The prisoners live with extensive surveillance and security controls, the absence of ordinary social interaction, abnormal environmental stimuli, with sometimes just three to five hours a week of recreation alone in caged enclosure. They only have little, if any educational, vocational, or other activities. Isolation can be psychologically harmful to anybody, and any prisoner. The effects of solitary confinement can have a very strong impact on prisoners that already have a mental disorder. Suicides occur more often in the isolation sections of the jails. Being isolated for a long period of time takes a toll on your mental state. Many prisoners have said they dont know how to interact with other human beings after being in isolation. In 2007, researchers at the University of Washington reported that prisoners released directly from super max prisons into the community have committed new crimes sooner than prisoners who have been released from segregation back into general population for several months before being released. After being locked up in solitary confinement some prisoners find I hard to socialize and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Some have said they can be around people and still feel alone. Some inmates have reported that have emotional breakdowns, and don’t know why. One prisoner I read about named Anthony Graves said, â€Å"That solitary confinement is the worst inhumane treatment to a man.† After someone has been locked away in a tiny cell for 23 hours I don’t know how people can think that wouldn’t have a negative effect on someone. Previously healthy prisoners have developed clinical symptoms usually associated with psychosis or severe affective disorders â€Å"including all types of psychiatric morbidity† Many have committed suicide. Individuals do vary in how well they can deal with living in isolation, however. For prisoners with pre-existing mental or emotional disorders, living without normal human interaction, physical and mental activity and stimulation can aggravate their symptoms to levels equivalent to torture. In one complaint filed against the Connecticut Department of Correction in August 2003, social isolation and sensory deprivation drove some prisoners to lash out by swallowing razors, smashing their heads into walls or cutting their flesh. I read an article about Mississippi prison. In this article it talked about how at one point in time the inmates kept in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours each day, allowed out only in shackles and escorted by guards, they were restless and angry made more so by the excrement-smeared walls, the insects, the dirty food trays and the mentally ill inmates who screamed in the night, conditions that a judge had already ruled unacceptable. So it was not really surprising when violence increased in 2007: an inmate stabbed to death with a homemade spear that May; in June, a suicide; in July, another stabbing; in August, a prisoner killed by a member of a rival gang. After all of this happened instead of the prison tightening stricter restrictions the y loosened them. They allowed the prisoners out longer. They built a basketball court, and a group dining area. They set up rehabilitation programs, and allowed the prisoners to work towards greater privileges. In response to these changes the Mississippi prison atmosphere changed. The prisoners were better behaved, and the violence went down. I read an article about a man named Daud Tulam, who spent 18 years in isolation at the New Jersey State prison. He spent 23 hours a day alone in in a cell no bigger than a bathroom, and he had one hour in a concrete exercise yard. Tulman was sent to isolation because prison officers caught him trying to attack another prison officer. After being in isolation for 18 years Tulman has trouble making small talk. Tulman doesn’t engage in conversation even after being out of jail. Tulman is taking a welding class, and he often hides in the back of the class. When the teacher looks at his work, he doesn’t even make eye contact, but just looks at the floor. Tulman has lost all his social skills. I read another article about a correctional officer named Gary Harkins, who worked in a prisons isolation unit for 25 years. Before reading this article I never even considered the effect isolation could have on the workers. Gary worked for Oregon State Penitentiary. In the article he states that he didnt really understand how much stress he was under. At night Harkins would dream about his work, he felt like he couldnt get away from his job. He worked in giant, windowless, gray prisons, and it would be months until he would get to see the sun. He was in the isolation unit for 12 hours a day. The prisoners and officers didn’t interact like they interact if they were in general population. Harkins began to feel trapped as if he were one of the prisoners. I watched documentary called Lockup, and it featured an inmate named Bobby Ray Gilbert known as snake who spent 19 years in admistrative segregation. Gilbert was convicted of robbery, assault, escape and two counts of murder. Gilbert expressed in the documentary that being in isolation changes the way you think. He said he day dreams about blowing the prison up and killing everybody in it. During the documentary Gilbert attempted to starve himself to death after he found out he was going to be transferred to a prison close to home. I watched another documentary about Solitary Confinement. In this documentary it featured an Inmate by the name of Jusue Gonzales. In this documentary you can see how all Gonzales does is walk back and forth. He said that he can actually see imprints in the floor, where another inmate was doing the same things he’s doing. In this documentary Gonzales expresses that it hurts being locked up in that cell. He said sometimes he just cries. In this documentary the prison guards say that the prisoners are so desperate for human contact that they will do something negative just to get a reaction. These inmates will go to extremes just to get some human contact. Humans depend on other humans for survival. So when there is no type of human contact, these prisoners feel all alone. They start to feel helpless. As I stated before I think that solitary confinement is UN lawful and doesnt do any good. I think that solitary confinement should be banned, or at least be used for up to 2 days. When I hear of inmates being in solitary confinement for years just sound crazy. I know I couldnt last being locked in my room for an hour. When someone is locked away in a tiny cell for 23 hours out of the day, it’s really rare they come out sane. I think as a society we need to find other alternatives to really rehabilitate these individuals. Solitary Confinement is no longer working. The conditions are way too inhumane. In my opinion solitary confinement is just creating animals. You are leaving these angry men and woman in a tiny cell with little to no human contact for 23 hours out of a day. Do you really expect someone to come out rehabilitated and ready to do well? No, they are just going to come out of jail angry and bitter, and most likely end back up in Solitary Confinement. Work Cited Ball, B. (2012, Oct 31).What life is like in solitary confinement at north carolina’s central prison. McClatchy-Tribune Business News. 1-10 21 Oct 2012. Website. Solitary Confinement. Wikipedia 1-6. 10 Oct 2012. Website Sullivan, Laura. (2006). In U.S Prisons Thousands Spend Years in Isolation. 1-3. 21 Oct 2012. Website. Sullivan, Laura. (2006). Making it on the outside after decades in solitary. 1-6. 21 Oct 2012. Website. Sullivan, Laura. (2006). Hear Harkins Tell his story. 1-3. 21 Oct 2012 Website. Weir, Kirsten. (2012). Alone in the hole, Vol 43, No.5, page 54. 21 Oct 2012. Website.