...Raliat Tijani Solitary Confinement in Prison Essay Is Solitary Confinement the right punishment for inmates in prison? Solitary confinement is the isolation of inmates in a twelve by eight foot cell with no windows for 23 hours or more as a form of punishment. Some people say solitary confinement helps keep the prison safe but medical research say it causes a longer term of mental illness. Even though it's supposed to serve as a form of punishment for violent infractions it is not always used in judicially because as additional punishment they can be denied food, exercise, and showers. Solitary confinement in immoral and does more harm to the inmates than good. First of all, Solitary Confinement is too costly. “The construction of solitary cells alone is more than the average costs of a prison that holds a general inmate population(pg. 100)”. Due to the fact that a regular cell can hold more than two people to a cell and solitary holds only one it become more expensive. When prisoner are taken to solitary the costs grows each time. For the prisons to accommodate the the large amount of prisoners who are taken to solitary they have to make more single cell which cost three times more than the average cell. Secondly, It does more harm than good to the inmates. “A number of prisoners who are placed in isolation have mental illnesses...
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...known as Solitary Confinement. Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which an inmate is isolated from any human contact for 23 hours a day. In certain situations, a prisoner can be held in solitary confinement for several days, weeks, and even months. Solitary confinement is immoral and should be illegal in American prison systems because it causes significant mental distress, physical pain, and it violates the eighth amendment of the United States constitution. Human beings are social creatures. Most parents put their children in a learning environment at a very young age to encourage social interaction with peers. Social interaction is vital to the mental wellness of humans at all ages and stages of development. Solitary confinement violates the very nature of the social interaction that is needed for one’s mental health. Numerous studies have shown that roughly a third of solitary inmates were “actively psychotic and/or acutely suicidal” (Dvorsky 8). This type of punishment does not support mental health, which is critical for rehabilitation. Inmates who experience psychological trauma are less likely to recover, “without human contact, inside a cell that is approximately 80...
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...Solitary Confinement is Cruel and Must Cease Immediately You are in a prison. Isolated from everyone else, in a room, no larger than eighty square feet, with a toilet, sink, a bed, and a small slot for your meals. Do you like it? If not, that is how prisoners feel when placed in solitary confinement; some have been in solitary for a few months, some for a few years. You have never thought about this have you, how convicts feel. Solitary confinement is basically a form of torture but more “humane”; the outcome of this is no joke; the thoughts of suicide, increased, risk of getting viruses, and ultimately, self harm to suicide. The following paragraphs will further inform you about the demonic punishment for prisoners. Solitary confinement is used in prisons as a form of punishment for convicts; evidently, the prisons do not realize that this is harming the inmates’ mind. To start off, the effects that solitary confinement has on the...
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...When speaking about solitary confinement, it is called by many different names such as the hotbox, the hole, lockdown, SC and the SHU. The practice of solitary confinement is used when an inmate is considered dangerous to themselves or others. It is where prisoners spend 23 hours of a day alone in their cell in separation from anyone and have no contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. This is sometimes having been called as a form of punishment which is beyond incarceration for a prisoner and has been named as an additional measure of protection for the inmate. This form of punishment is also given to anyone that violations the prison regulations. It is also used as a form of protective custody and to prevent in...
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...Since the point of prison, and in more specific, solitary confinement, is rehabilitation it becomes very clear that there is a cost involved in keeping inmates incarcerated, and these costs befall the tax payers. It’s costly enough to house one inmate in a regular prison, but even more so when the inmate is in solitary confinement. With reports by the Bureau of Justice, the prison population is already at nearly a staggering two million. Out of those two million, over eighty-thousand are in solitary and the costs quickly add up (Adkins 210). Furthermore, these figures don’t include criminals in jails or juvenile correction facilities, so the cost is even greater (“Key Statistics: Prisoners”). It’s been reported by NPR, in an article titled...
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...Solitary Confinement is Brutal Solitary Confinement is cruel, but not just cruel it's feeble. Imagine being in a room that is five times smaller than a room. No one to talk to. Yelling and screaming. Hallucination dreams. Imagine being in a room with nothing just a bed, sink, and toilet. Just laying on their bed with a rock they found and throwing it up in the air. Solitary Confinement is the isolation of a prisoner in a separate cell as punishment. There should not be Solitary Confinement allowed in the prison system because people develop personality disorders, prisoners spend up to twenty- two to twenty- four hours in a cell, and it is not needed for the prisoners in the prison system. The first reason solitary confinement should not be allowed in prison system is because prisoners develop personality disorders. The minute prisoners are left alone for a long period of time some visual and auditory hallucinations, insomnia and paranoia, uncontrollable fear and range, increased risk of suicide, and...
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...thousand human beings confined in prison cells with limited access to their freedom and gaining illnesses. Should we still continue the basic torture named solitary confinement within our prisons? Many believe it is necessary for solitary confinement to be practiced in prisons; to keep inmates and facility members safe. Solitary confinement should be removed from all American prisons so it won’t cause for issues with inmates. Solitary confinement can be described as legal torture, according to Amendment eight it can fall into a cruel and unusual punishments of civilians. It causes negative effects of the prison community and the outside community that we live in. Those inmates that lived in solitary confinement have become more dangerous to their lives and others. Adding on to being dangerous they also gain...
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...Abstract This paper discussed the topic of the effects of solitary confinement mainly in regards to Supermax prisons, but prisons of different levels as well. Also, the articles used to complete this paper converse about the legal issues with solitary confinement pertaining to the effects it has on inmates, isolated in units that are used to keep someone from interacting with anything or anyone outside of the walls, otherwise known as Communication Management Units (CMUs) or Secure housing Units (SHUs). CMUs contain a high degree of surveillance of the inmates. The articles also include the introduction and reintroduction of solitary confinement within a century’s time, and cases that were brought to trial challenging violations to the...
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...On Solitary Confinement An Exploration Of An Age-Old Method of Punishment Solitary confinement is defined as the isolation of inmates and limiting their human contact in prison. From its birth in the late 1700s to its more widespread usage in recent history, solitary confinement has grown to be a considerable tool in the arsenal of the United States prison system’s methods of controlling its enormous prison population, shown by an increase in the construction of “Supermax” prisons, maximum-security prisons with units specifically designated to isolate inmates. With solitary confinement’s recent uptick in usage throughout the United States on both the federal and state level, questions have arisen about its implementation, its effects on the prison population, and its ethical implications. With it becoming apparent that solitary confinement will continue to play a large role in the United States correction system in the future, it is important to explore the answers to these questions. In this essay, we will explore these questions in order to understand solitary confinement more fully. History Defined fully as, “…confinement of a prisoner alone in a cell for all or nearly all of the day, with minimal environmental stimulation and minimal opportunity for social interaction,” (trauma of psychological torture 113) solitary confinement strives to eliminate the stimulus of senses such as sight, touch, and hearing, with the elimination of stimulus and social interaction...
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...Cosper English 102 October 3, 2013 Solitary Confinement: Undefined Torture Although solitary confinement was put in place to discipline prisoners, isolation of prisoners caused more dysfunction than rehabilitation. Inmates who never experienced mental illness usually developed that problem while in solitary confinement and thus could not rejoin the general population of prison or had the ability to fully function in society. Solitary confinement would sometimes be in the best interest of the actual prisoner because of the crime that have committed might also get them killed in prison. Inmates were sometimes forced to choose, solitary confinement or fighting for their life because they did not want to get raped. Sometimes non-violent prisoners were placed in administrative segregation because they were waiting to be deported back to their country (Solitary Is Cruel). Solitary confinement emerged from religious reform instituted by the Quakers. The Quakers built the first prison in Philadelphia around 1790 and called it a penitentiary which meant to them to repent for their sins. Quakers believed that solitary confinement was better than the overcrowded and nastily kept prisons in those days. A census taken in 2009 showed there were an estimated 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement in at least 25,000 were in U.S. super max prisons alone (Solitary Confinement). It has been shown in studies that prisoners who have been in solitary confinement for years develop mental dysfunctions...
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...Solitary confinement is an incarceration norm in the United States and around the world, as prisoners are locked away and left to their own devices for days on end. Though this practice has mostly been commonplace and a part of the American criminal justice ethic for the better part of three centuries, some have questioned whether this is the future of criminal justice in America. Solitary confinement, it seems, has psychological effects that have previously been unknown and given this information, some argue that the practice is inhumane or in violation of the sixth amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Solitary confinement breaks down the mind’s ability to function and in the process, it does long-term, often irreparable damage to prisoners. Those prisoners, many of whom are later released at the end of their sentence, are afflicted with a new mental disability as a result of their time in solitary confinement. This can have dangerous effects on communities and it can lead to higher rates of recidivism among these prisoners. Given the accumulated knowledge that the scientific community now has on the long-term effects of solitary confinement, it is clear that this practice raises ethical and practical questions. It will, in the next ten to twenty years, force various states and the federal government to choose whether they want to continue with an inhumane practice that could leave communities with a new danger that has been wholly caused by incarceration...
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...offenders entering the prison system with a mental disorder grew 71% in men and 61% in women (Canadian Mental Health Association, 2012). The problem at hand is that correctional institutes and their staff are not widely trained to deal with inmates who suffer from mental disorders. The result then, is that use-of-force interventions, and placement in solitary confinement, often for extended periods of time, are used as methods of dealing with unruly behaviours exhibited by these mentally ill offenders. While there are various issues surrounding mental health in the Canadian judicial system, for the purpose of this report, the discussion will be focused around inadequate methods for dealing with behaviours presented by these inmates, namely by use-of-force and solitary confinement 1.1 Use-Of-Force Techniques In Sapers 2014 report, it is reported that “28% of all use of force interventions involved an offender with a mental health concern as identified by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC)” (Ministry of Public Safety, 2014). This is likely due to the fact that mentally ill inmates are more likely to self-harm, have unpredictable behaviour, and have more trouble complying with rules. Further to this, “The use of pepper spray in nearly 60.4% of all use of force incidents reviewed suggests an increasing reliance on security-driven responses to behaviours that are often associated with mental illness” (Ministry of Public Safety, 2014). 1.2 Solitary Confinement Earlier this...
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...The prison systems in the US are filled with issues which have created a lot of debates. The amount of money spent the violence and crimes inside the prison, the safety of inmates and guards.One major issue that has brought a lot of attention is solitary confinement. This punishment is when the inmate is placed in a cell by themselves for 23 hours a day for a period of time even years sometimes. Although experts believe that solitary confinement is good for the prison system, because it causes mentally, physical damage and it's too costly, this punishment should be abolished in all states. In the entire world, there are only three developed nations that still use solitary confinement and the United States are one of them. In the USA this is usually used for a type of punishment for violent infractions, this is not always used judiciously (Lee 100). They say that this punishment does more harm than good. For example, experts say a number of prisoners that have illness before they are placed in confinement only finds that their illness seems to exacerbate (Lee 100). People who are held in there for years usually have a hard time reintegrating into the prison population (Lee 100). Adjusting back to the outside world also is hard because they...
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...The use of solitary confinement is widely used in American is knownove internationally as a form torturement. This form of punishment is increasely common in the United States since it was introduced in the “supermax” prison system which begin in the mid-1980’s. (ICCPR Treaty Summary 2012). Prisoners are kept in a small, windowless cell for 22 to 24 hours a day, with minimal contact with family, guards, even lawyers. The number of prisoners currently in solitary confinement is estimated to be around 80,000 through the number is continuing to grow faster than the overall prison population, meaning that this is coming a normal thing for prisons. Many people will say that the first experiment of solitary confinement in the United States began...
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...Solitary confinement has been around for centuries, which may have started in the early 1800s. The purpose of solitary confinement is to segregate individuals who have committed horrendous crimes, put other inmates lives in danger, and possibly breaking a rule while being incarcerated. Solitary confinement isolates inmates in small units, inmates are usually isolated for 23 hours a day, ranging from weeks, months, and years. Inmates serving time in solitary confinement for long periods of time either change and better themselves others become mentally break down. Solitary confinement is cruel and ineffective, because harming individuals mentally is inhumane, there needs to be reforms, not to mention these isolated units increase the taxpayers...
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