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April Lu

Ms. Gardner

English 10H, Per. 6

5 May 2017

Present-Day Torture

The Hole: after an experience here, many would assume it worse than death itself. Solitary

confinement in prison involves trapping an inmate in a small, windowless room with no human contact

for up to 23 hours a day. Lonesome, bored, and claustrophobic, the prisoner remains for an amount of

timewhether it may be a few days or a few decades. While we live our privileged lives, ungrateful for

little things, over 80,000 men, women, and children are given only a bed and a stainless steel toilet, no

windows and no human contact. The American Correctional Association recommends that solitary

confinement for juvenile inmates should remain under five hours (DeMartini). Juvenile isolation may be

regulated, but adults must continue the legal fight. While solitary confinement creates a safer environment

for prisoners, the damage outweighs the treatment in terms of cost, misuse, and dehumanization.

It is often argued that solitary confinement is necessary in maintaining a safer environment for the

entire prison community. According to the state corrections department at Pelican Bay State Prison in

California, long-term confinement is needed to take care of gang violence, attacks on guards and other

inmates, and murders inside the prison (Goode). Such extreme violence in such a dangerous setting is

very difficult to control without a hard hand. In addition, close observations of inmates in and out of

solitary confinement has shown its effectiveness in behavioral improvement: The confinement teaches

youths to change their behavior, reasons Brian Lane, the manager of the 23/1 unit at Marion County

prison, They seldom return to the unit (DeMartini). In many cases, solitary achieves its goal of

confining prisoners with only themselves to reflect and reconstruct. To summarize, supporters place

importance on isolating potentially dangerous inmates in order to protect themselves and those around
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them, and also to give them a chance to correct their ways. While it is true that safety should remain the

top concern for all prisoners and this solution plays a major role in maintaining this protection, solitary

confinement is too often misused and overused, and should be replaced with a more constitutional option.

Admittedly, solitary confinement has proved effective in protecting all sides of the prison

population; still, it is not the obvious solution to fixing prisoners. The cost must be consideredboth

financially for the community and psychologically for the prisoners. To set a price on its use, solitary

typically costs two to three times more per prisoner than regularly confined inmates. By simply reducing

Californias solitary confinement population by a few hundred, state officials estimate that they would

save 28 million dollars this year (Reiter). When prisoners are thrown into these dreaded cells, one after

another, they are not the only ones receiving punishment: taxpayers must pay the price too. Instead of

spending excessive money on the overuse of negative reinforcement, prisons should invest in more ways

of helping the inmates, rather than just punishing them.

Along with the cost on taxpayers, solitary confinement wagers an even greater price for the

prisoners. Often times, long-term isolation endurers suffer from psychological trauma and even brain

damage when first sentenced as mentally healthy (Wiltz). Post-solitary depression has led many towards

suicide. Those who do find their way out alive are left in conditions worse than when they had arrived.

One example reveals how this treatment only made an inmate more violent following his release:

In 2013, Colorado's corrections chief, Tom Clements, a reform advocate, was gunned down by a

former inmate who'd been held in solitary confinement for most of his sentence. His replacement,

Rick Raemisch, wanted to understand the stresses of life in solitary, so he put himself in the hole

for 20 hours. The experience left him committed to drastically reducing, if not abolishing, solitary

confinement. (Wiltz)

The news explained not only how the inmate had killed the prisons corrections chief, but also

that his intentions were understood by Raemisch, the former chiefs replacement. While many prisoners
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endure years, less than one day was enough to convince Raemisch that solitary confinement should not be

utilized like it currently is. The isolation only pushed the inmates rage over the edge and caused him to

act out. In the end, Clements payed the price with his life. While criminals do change, mental scars like

these will never completely heal.

Furthermore, while prisoners deserve punishment for the crimes they committed, in many cases,

solitary confinement is not suitable. Particularly, isolation is misused when protecting certain people from

the prison environment. Those who are mentally ill, pregnant, elderly, gay or transgender, along with

juveniles convicted of adult crimes are often placed in solitary because prison officials want to keep them

safe from the general population (Wiltz). It may be safer to contain these inmates alone, away from the

potentially dangerous ones in the larger crowd; however, they are given treatment similar to the prisons

worst criminals: trapped with only their own company. These inmates are harmed both inside and outside

of solitary, whether it may be physically or mentally. Since they are already segregated, a more effective

solution would consist of confining these potentially endangered inmates together, but away from others.

Another example of unsuitable use includes the prisoners on death row. After a convict is

sentenced to the death penalty, they remain on death row in solitary through the appeals processes, which

can take years. According to the lawyers of three death row inmates at the Angola state penitentiary in

Louisiana, 56 out of 71 current death row inmates have been held in solitary confinement for over 10

years, 45 inmates have remained for over 15 years, and 20 inmates have endured for over 20 years

(Stack). Prisons use solitary confinement for punishment and treatment, but for death row inmates, it is

their holding cell. These prisoners do not have the ability to simply change their behavior to be released:

there is nothing they can do to escape the isolation. Since death is already their punishment, death row

inmates should not be punished further while in holding.

Ultimately, solitary confinement dehumanizes inmates by deriving them of their basic human

rights. The lawyer of Arthur Johnson, an intellectually disabled inmate who has been in solitary for 36
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years, claims that Johnson continues to be held in an artificially-lit, seven by twelve foot cell, with no

physical contact with another human in decades. He has been stripped of mental health and

environmental stimulation; social interaction; sleep; a reasonable opportunity to exercise; and dignity

(Cohen). These isolated prisoners are deprived of their basic needs and rights. By throwing them into

these confinement units, inmates become like caged animals, and soon enough, the extreme isolation

strips them down to make them feel as if they are less than human in this society.

If prisoners do manage to complete their sentence and remain mentally stable, they are faced with

a new challengethe challenge of living a normal human life again. While freedom from prison may

sound satisfying, it is often difficult for long-term isolation inmates to return home. After interviewing

hundreds of solitary confinement prisoners in Texas, Florida, and California, Craig Haney, a psychology

professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, reports that the environments require people to

develop survival strategies to get them through the days, weeks and years in isolation. They are utterly

dysfunctional when they get out (Johnson). When these prisoners have completed their sentences, they

have evolved themselves to endure the long-term punishment. They are like birds that have been

cramped in a tiny cage for so long that they have lost the ability to fly: these people have lost the ability to

live a normal human life. All of a sudden, the door opens and they are shoved out, only to fall to the

ground. This fall often includes mental illnesses, depression, violence, drugs, alcohol, and in very serious

cases, killing themselves or others around them.

Because of the cost, misuse, and dehumanization of solitary confinement, it should be abolished

as a form of punishment and treatment from our prisons. This is not the middle ages anymore, yet there is

still torture evident in our society. If solitary confinement is meant to keep prisoners safe, why does it

drive inmates to mental illness, and often times even suicide? It is time to help prisoners through guidance

rather than through punishment. It is time for a new solution.

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Works Cited

Cohen, Andrew. Is a Life in Solitary Cruel and Unusual? The Marshall Project, 22 Sept. 2015, https://

www.themarshallproject.org/2016/06/06/is-a-life-in-solitary-cruel-and-unusual#.n5fc0N2N6.

DeMartini, Alayna. "Long Terms in Solitary can Warp Minds, Critics Say." Columbus Dispatch

(Columbus, OH), 09 Sep, 2007, SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

Goode, Erica. Solitary Confinement: Punished for Life. The New York Times, 3 Aug. 2015, https://

www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/health/solitary-confinement-mental-illness.html?_r=0.

Johnson, Kevin. "After Years in Solitary, Freedom Hard to Grasp." USA TODAY, 09 Jun, 2005, SIRS

Issues Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

Reiter, Keramet. "On the Edge of Humane." Los Angeles Times, 17 Oct, 2016, pp. A.11, SIRS Issues

Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

Stack, Liam. "Death-Row Inmates Sue Over Solitary Confinement." New York Times, 31 Mar, 2017, pp.

A.17, SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.

Wiltz, Teresa. "Is Solitary Confinement on the Way Out?" stateline.org, 22 Nov, 2016, SIRS Issues

Researcher, https://sks.sirs.com.