![](\"\/sites\/default\/files\/imagecache\/Image_Right\/pnl\/images\/prisoners-tortured-daily-graphic2.jpg\" "\\"24")
<\/p>\n\n\u201crecreation\u201d in an outdoor cage. Image: NYCLU & Amelia
\nRamsey-Lefevre<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Inmates in solitary confinement spend 23 hours a day in a small cell alone or in close quarters with one other person (a condition given the conflicted name \u201cdouble solitary\u201d). One hour per day is allowed for \u201coutdoor recreation.\u201d Prisoners may go in handcuffs to a caged area smaller even than their cell, where other inmates can be heard but not seen. Some inmates reported to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) that they declined recreation to avoid hearing the screams of other solitary inmates in the recreation cell.<\/p>\n
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Prisoners receive no training, work, or rehabilitation services and report insufficient access to medical and psychological care while in solitary confinement. No transitional services are available for those in solitary, even when inmates will be directly released from isolation. Despite the lack of services, SHUs and super-maxes are expensive to staff. NYS spends about $76 million each year to staff segregation units.<\/p>\n
How does an inmate get to solitary?<\/b><\/p>\n
Roughly 90% of placements in isolation are for disciplinary reasons, though solitary confinement can also be imposed if the inmate is perceived to be vulnerable or a threat to prison safety. The punitive system in NYS prisons allows each class of violation to be rated at varying levels of severity, granting corrections officials (COs) wide discretion as to the severity of the punishment. In fact every single rule violation in NYS prisons has the potential to be met with a solitary confinement sentence.<\/p>\n
There is no limit to the amount of time an inmate can spend in solitary confinement. Once in isolation, an inmate\u2019s sentence in the SHU can be extended to punish subsequent rule infractions. If the solitary sentence exceeds the remainder of the entire sentence, COs are authorized to enforce further punishment through deprivation of haircuts, clothing, recreation, and even nutritional food.<\/p>\n
It is well documented that prolonged solitary confinement often leads to mental illness in previously healthy individuals and almost always exacerbates mental illness where it already exists. Inmates in isolation have higher rates of suicide and self-harm. COs also report adverse effects from working in such tension including depression, alcoholism and family problems.<\/p>\n
Why solitary?<\/b><\/p>\n
The question remains why solitary confinement is so heavily relied upon in the US despite its costliness compared to conventional prisons, its negative effects on inmates and COs, and its ineffectiveness in reforming criminals. How did we get to where we are today?<\/p>\n
In 1890, the US Supreme Court concluded that \u201csolitary confinement left prisoners in a semi-fatuous condition.\u201d The practice was virtually abandoned in the US for nearly 90 years. Then, in 1983 a riot in a federal prison in Marion, IL prompted a state of emergency and permanent solitary lockdown for all inmates that lasted 23 years. By 1991, over 35 states had built or repurposed facilities to emulate the conditions at Marion. Between 1995 and 2000, the total US prison population grew by 28%; the population in isolation grew 40%. By 2000, the Justice Department estimated there were 80,000 prisoners being held in solitary at any one time in the US. The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America\u2019s Prisons claims the real number is much higher.<\/p>\n
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![](\"\/sites\/default\/files\/pnl\/images\/prisoners-tortured-daily-graphic1.jpg\" "\\"Racial")
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There is a clear connection between the invented Drug War and the resurgence of solitary confinement as an acceptable form of punishment. The NYCLU reports that the 346% increase in the prison population between 1973 and 1993 (correlated with vastly increased prosecution of nonviolent drug offenders) stressed the prison system with overcrowding that led to unprecedented management and control problems. Prisons responded to this stress by putting inmates in isolation.<\/p>\n
Insubstantial Myths<\/b><\/p>\n
Increased dependence on solitary confinement also mirrored a larger trend in the penal system toward punishment as opposed to rehabilitation. Just as policymakers waxed poetic about how they were \u201ccracking down\u201d on \u201chardened criminals\u201d\u2014language intended to make racist laws palatable to the public, as Michelle Alexander argues in her 2010 book The New Jim Crow<\/i>\u2014prison officials welcomed the construction of isolation units as proof of how \u201ctough\u201d their institutions were.<\/p>\n
We are told that isolation is reserved for the \u201cworst of the worst\u201d\u2014the most dangerous individuals in the prison population. Even the name of the solitary confinement prison\u2014\u201csuper-max\u201d\u2014supports the notion that an extreme level of security is required to handle an extreme level of danger. But how can that be true if any violation can be punished with isolation? The NYCLU found that five out of six punitive isolation sentences are handed down for nonviolent rule infractions. The \u201cworst of the worst\u201d myth is simply not true.<\/p>\n
Profit is the bottom line<\/b><\/p>\n
The need for solitary confinement is a myth that supports a profit-driven prison system. Research shows that people released directly from solitary confinement are more likely to reoffend (and end up back in prison) than comparable general population prisoners. These crimes are also more likely to be violent and therefore garner a longer prison sentence.<\/p>\n
This state of affairs is tragic, but it\u2019s not surprising. The US prison system locks people up with no human contact and no meaningful work, denies them access to mental health care, and then releases them with no transitional programming whatsoever. The only beneficiary in this warped system is a prison system that profits from holding more inmates.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers, our task is clear. We must stop torturing our fellow New Yorkers. We must reject the punitive, profit-driven imprisonment culture, and we must end the racist Drug War.<\/p>\n
——<\/p>\n
References<\/b><\/p>\n
-National Religious Campaign Against Torture \u2013 www.nrcat.org<\/a>; also powerpoint presentation in Columbus, GA in November 2012; also their film, \u201cSolitary Confinement: Torture in Your Backyard.\u201d SPC owns a DVD copy of this film. Contact Amelia<\/a> to watch or organize a viewing.<\/p>\n -\u201cBoxed In,\u201d published by NYCLU, 2012, http:\/\/www.boxedinny.org\/report\/<\/a><\/p>\n – NYT Mar 10 2012 \u201cPrisons Rethink Isolation, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity\u201d http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/03\/11\/us\/rethinking-solitary-confinement.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0<\/a><\/p>\n -\u201cInvisible in Isolation: The Use of Segregation and Solitary Confinement in Immigrant Detention,\u201d published by the Heartland Alliance\u2019s National Immigration Justice Center & Physicians for Human Rights, 2012, http:\/\/www.immigrantjustice.org\/publications\/report-invisible-isolation-use-segregation-and-solitary-confinement-immigration-detenti#.UPHRXPLDkm8<\/a><\/p>\n -The Passion of Bradley Manning, Chase Madar, 2012.<\/p>\n -The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander, 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In March 2012 the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture called for a near-total ban on solitary confinement. Juan Mendez stated that \u201csolitary confinement itself can amount to \u2026 torture as defined in Article 1 of the Convention against Torture.\u201d The cited article defines torture as \u201c… any act by which…<\/p>\n