Solitary confinement
[4] While corrections officials have stated that solitary confinement is a necessary tool for maintaining the safety and security of prisons and jails,[5] numerous medical, mental health, and legal professional organizations have criticized the practice and hold the view that it should be sharply curtailed.
[11] The practice of solitary confinement in the United States traces its origins to the late 18th century, when Quakers in Pennsylvania used the method as a substitution for public punishments.
Charles Dickens, who visited the Philadelphia Penitentiary during his travels to America, described the "slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body.
[13][14] Records from Danish prisons between 1870 and 1920 indicate that individuals in solitary confinement there had also experienced signs of acute mental distress, including anxiety, paranoia, and hallucinations.
[21] In 2002, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America, chaired by John Joseph Gibbons and Nicholas Katzenbach, found that "the increasing use of high-security segregation is counter-productive, often causing violence inside facilities and contributing to recidivism after release.
[24] Solitary confinement is similarly used as retaliation in prisons and jails, including against whistleblowers who raise awareness of inhumane conditions and jailhouse lawyers who assist others in litigating their rights.
[43][44] Solitary confinement first arose in the United States in the late 1700s among religious groups like the Quakers, who thought isolation would promote repentance and rehabilitation.
[45] This period also saw the construction of supermax prisons, which typically house individuals in indefinite solitary confinement consisting of upwards of 22 hours a day of isolation.
[51] As of June 2023, New York,[52] Connecticut,[53] and Nevada[54] have passed legislation banning the use of solitary beyond 15 consecutive days, bringing their use of isolation in line with the United Nations' Mandela Rules.
"[62] The headquarters for the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) in Plaza Venezuela, Caracas, have an underground detention facility that has been dubbed La Tumba (The Tomb).
[68] Research indicates that the psychological effects of solitary confinement may encompass a range of adverse symptoms including "anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis.
"[70] Grassian notes solitary confinement can cause extremely vivid hallucinations in multiple sensory modalities including visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory.
"[69] The lack of human contact and sensory deprivation that characterize solitary confinement have been shown to cause permanent or semi-permanent changes to brain physiology.
The social isolation that incarcerated individuals experience is especially acute in solitary confinement, where they may be denied access to phone calls, mail, and visits from loved ones.
Upon their reentry into society, many individuals who have spent long periods of time in solitary report having difficulty adjusting back to life outside the prison walls.
"Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation," Méndez told the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian, and cultural affairs.
[91] The United Nations' "Mandela Rules", which were adopted in 2015 and establish minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners, prohibit placements in solitary beyond 15 consecutive days.
[93] "Given the full context of dependency, helplessness and social isolation common to conditions of South African security law detention," Foster writes, "there can be little doubt that solitary confinement under these circumstances should in itself be regarded as a form of torture.
"[93] The harsh effects of solitary confinement on the individuals who experience it, particularly those diagnosed with mental illness, have led many to view the practice as cruel and unethical.
[94][95][96] In an article for Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Jeffrey Metzner and Jamie Fellner write that solitary confinement may constitute a violation of medical ethics.
"It is not ethically defensible for health care professionals to acquiesce silently to conditions of confinement that inflict mental harm and violate human rights," they write.
[69] Metzner and Fellner call on physicians not only to provide adequate medical services to individuals in isolation, but to advocate for changes to segregation policies in the facility in which they are employed and to undertake public advocacy to raise awareness of the harms of solitary in society as a whole.
As early as 1838, Quaker prison reformer Elizabeth Fry traveled throughout England and Scotland to speak to policymakers about the dangers of solitary and to call for a reduction in its use.
At New York's Attica Correctional Facility, for example, Black Muslims purposely filled restrictive housing units to prevent them from being used punitively against members of the Nation of Islam.
[100] As a result of the strike and subsequent litigation by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation agreed to end indefinite solitary confinement for all individuals in custody.
[102] In the years following the Pelican Bay strikes, incarcerated individuals across the United States have continued to organize for improved prison conditions, including an end to prolonged solitary confinement.
[103][105] In light of the increasing public scrutiny of solitary confinement and its documented effects, corrections leaders, policymakers, and advocates have begun to look to alternatives.
The New York City Department of Correction announced in 2013 that it would start transferring individuals with severe mental illness who commit disciplinary infractions to a setting similar to a hospital ward, where they would receive medication and therapy.
In 2013, Maine replaced its policy of using solitary as a punishment for every infraction with a system of "informal sanctions" of reductions in privileges, which helped the state cut its then-full supermax population in half.
[113] In 2018, the United Nations Committee against Torture criticised the "high rates of prolonged isolation" of prisoners in Norway, of which it stated, "amounts to solitary confinement".
