Research Paper on Effects of Solitary Confinement

Introduction

Solitary confinement has existed for decades. It is typically set up inmates who commit serious offenses, endanger the life of other people or protection for oneself. The practice entails isolating prisoners for an extended period as a form of punishment while they are being investigated, as means of deterring undesirable behaviors, when alleged to have committed a serious crime or as retribution for political activism (Smith, 2009). Reportedly, the concept of solitary confinement has elicited heated debates with critics arguing that it causes undue psychological distress to prisoners and increases propensity towards criminal behavior. The opponents further posit that it entails unusual and cruel punishment and breaches the minimum standards of decency. On the contrary, the proponents of solitary confinement have asserted that it ensures effective management of prisons, security, and safety of these facilities and society at large (Sullivan, 2006). Moreover, solitary confinement helps prison staff to deal with unruly inmates. Nonetheless, despite its widespread use across the globe, solitary confinement should be abolished because it causes undue psychological distress to prisoners, increases propensity towards criminal behavior, and violates human dignity and rights.

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The History and Current Practices of Solitary Confinement

The 18th and 19th centuries witnessed a significant shift in the approach to criminal punishment and the introduction of the presently known solitary confinement. The practice of solitary confinement was fueled by developments that led to the law reforms and the formulation of new legal principles (Smith, 2006). However, the principles of rehabilitating offenders through isolation remained unsuccessful until the early 1820s where it became the leading ideology following the construction of Pennsylvania and Auburn prison models (Smith, 2009). Principally, under the Auburn system, offenders would work together during the day but would not communicate at all with one another. However, under the Pennsylvania system, offenders spent their entire time in their cells where they also performed some tasks. The Auburn model became the widely used approach in the US while the Pennsylvania model spread to other countries across Europe where it became the most preferred method of rehabilitating offenders. Although the specific regime, construction, and routines of prisons constructed under Pennsylvania differed from country to country or one prison to the other, they all had similar traits to a higher percentage. Generally, the model comprised of about 23 hours in a prison where offenders worked, ate, slept, and washed with the remaining one hour dedicated for either weekly visit or prison school or prison church (Smith, 2009).

Due to the adverse effects associated with the extended use of solitary confinement, the Pennsylvania model was abandoned in different countries across Europe. However, following the Second World War, new use of solitary confinement arose in light of the stories related to Chinese brainwashing of prisoners of war during the Korean War. During this period, various techniques that involved social isolation were used in a bid to achieve thought reform. Later studies revealed that some Communist nations used solitary confinement as a coercive measure, and this caught the attention of psychiatrists and psychologists who conducted experiments to explain the dramatic effects of solitary confinement on individuals (Smith, 2006). Most prison systems across the world have continued to use the solitary confinement with many still adopting the rules established under the Pennsylvania model.

Currently, many countries across the world have adopted various forms of solitary confinement practices. In various prisons across the world, isolation practices are used as a pre-trial measure, a disciplinary punishment, a system on death row, as an investigative and detention tool to either train offenders or obtain information from them, and as purely punitive measure endorsed to enact additional punishment (Smith, 2009).

Arguments Against the Use of Solitary Confinement

While solitary confinement has certain benefits, it hinders the system more than how it benefits it. The critics claim that it is costly, partially due to the number of staff required to maintain the system. A recent study by Raemisch (2018) revealed that each prison accommodating a prisoner in a supermax prison requires at least $78, 000 as opposed to $25,000 for a prisoner in a general cell. Figures gathered by the ACLU of Colorado revealed that in the year 2010, it cost about $21, 485 more per prisoner annually to hold a person in administrative segregation in the state's supermax prisons as compared to holding them in a regular maximum security cell (Raemisch, 2018). Clearly, these figures show that the additional costs to keep solitary confinement prisoners in Colorado are more than $21 million. Besides the higher management expenses, the cost of constructing solitary confinement cells is almost four times higher than that of building the normal ones. Solitary confinement takes money away that would otherwise benefit the entire society such as education or dealing with drug abuse.

The critics of solitary confinement have opposed the practice because of its profound psychological and social effects on prisoners. They contend the inmates in solitary confinement commonly known as administrative segregation usually spend about 23 hours daily in a small, featureless prison (Morris, 2016). Interacting with other humans is almost impossible. Given that solitary confinement often happens at the discretion of prison administration, many prisoners spend years or even decades deprived of practical social interaction (Morris, 2016). Some people may believe that every prisoner sent to solitary are feared criminals including murderers or rapists who carry on with their violent behaviors even while in prison. However, the fact of the matter is that most are put in solitary cells for nonviolent crimes, and some are not even offenders, having been detained on immigration charges (Editors, 2013). Others are put into isolation for their protection because they are either transgendered, homosexual or have been raped by other prisoners.

Regardless of the reason, such dangerous isolation and sensory deprivation can result in permanent damage to the mental or emotional health of inmates. Williams (2016) reported that inmates in solitary rapidly become withdrawn, over-sensitive to sounds and sights, paranoid, and more prone to hallucinations and violence. Besides, these prisoners become unable to maintain a state of awareness of their surroundings sufficiently. Scholars have also revealed that even short duration in solitary confinement causes wave arrangement in the brain to shift to the usual pattern (Kaba et. al.2014). They contend that as time progresses, prisoners go into a mental numbness where their attentiveness becomes damaged or impaired. With time, they become unable to process any external stimulation, a situation commonly known as hyperreponsive. The critics of solitary confinement have argued that prisoners who become mentally ill during their imprisonment will suffer permanent damage because of the solitary confinement, and this makes it further difficult for the offenders to reintegrate themselves into communities (Guenther, 2013).

Opponents of solitary confinement have further stressed their points by arguing that the practice strips prisoners contact with the outside world as much as possible. They contend that human being by nature are social species and removing that element of intrinsic status can have significant adverse effects. That American Psychiatric Association claims that isolation can worsen a person's mental illness and also cause new mental illness to appear without any warning (Williams, 2016). They also reported that solitary confinement has a series of well-documented effects such as "insomnia, anxiety, panic, disturbances in appetite, paranoia, hallucinations, and self-mutilation." They also reported a series or rarer effects yet more serious such as "negative attitudes, withdrawal, hypersensitivity, emotional breakdowns, depression and also suicide," (Opinion, 2018). In addition to all of these symptoms, researchers have been able to link solitary confinement to a series of mentally degraded attitude.

In specific, Craig Haney, an expert on mental health with relationship to solitary confinement have observed that extended stays within solitary confinement can have a severe loss of the ability to organize basic tasks within their lives. These prisoners would tend to above focusing on methods to focus their lives over their future goals and meaning and would somewhat recede into being in further isolation (Ahalt et al. 2017). Further examination of prisoners in solitary confinement reveals that they start to exhibit signs of "social death" which is a term used to express the loss of genuine connection with the outside social world without the hope of re-establishing it again (Ahalt et al. 2017). Further, (Ahalt et al. (2017) reported all sorts of horrific acts conducted by prisoners as a result of their solitary confinement. In particular, it stated that prisoners suffer from acute mental illness, and as a result of their solitary confinement, their mental status has significantly worsened. Moreover, some prisoners "cut them and spread their blood on the cell wall" while being in solitary confinement. He also reported that it is a cruel cycle where it causes them to self-destruct making them unstable.

Arguments Supporting the Use of Solitary Confinement

The supporters of solitary confinement argue that it is the most severe form of imprisonment available across the world that produces declines in criminal behaviors such as post-release recidivism and institutional misconducts (Sullivan, 2006). The standard argument among the supporters and prison authorities is that solitary confinement not only enhances safety in prisons but also deters criminal behaviors once the offender is released (Sullivan, 2006). They posit that because solitary confinement entails limited privileges and more restrictions, offenders release from such environments into the general offender population will desist from disruptive behaviors because they fear that they will be returned when they commit another crime. Their reasoning is based on the fact that solitary confinement isolates the most dangerous and vulnerable prisoners to safeguard the members of the prison staff and inmate population. However, these arguments have been challenged by numerous studies. As already stated, most prisoners exposed to solitary confinement will experience unnecessary psychological stress that within a short period can lead to lasting emotional damage besides functional disability and full-blown psychosis (Williams, 2016). Further, the practice not only causes severe health challenges but also results in antisocial thinking, as well as, involvement in criminal activities. The harsh conditions together with the idleness of solitary confinement make prisoners more hardened, disturbed, and disruptive, making them more difficult to manage when released from the incarceration facilities (Williams, 2016).

The central purpose of solitary confinement as claimed by the supports is that it increases the system more comprehensive order, control, and safety. These supporters have also identified numerous other goals to justify their support for this practice that includes reducing riots, improving inmate behaviors, minimizing the influence of gangs, averting prison escapes, reducing recidivism, punishing prisoners, rehabilitating inmates, and lowering crime in the society (Morris, 2015). However, no evidence...