The Torture of Solitary

Torture? Not for a day or week, but a year? Ten years. A child? A pregnant woman? Even without other vulnerabilities, solitary confinement stands a good chance of breaking a person. Of that, there is little doubt.

Corrections officials first turned to this strategy in response to growing gang violence inside prisons, Dvoskin says. Though critics contend that administrative segregation has never been proven to make prisons safer, use of this type of confinement has continued to rise. That’s worrisome to most psychologists who study the issue. Deprived of normal human interaction, many segregated prisoners reportedly suffer from mental health problems including anxiety, panic, insomnia, paranoia, aggression and depression, Haney says (Crime and Delinquency, 2003).

The problem in prisons is that there are limits to what can be done with inmates who present a danger to other inmates and staff. After all, they’re already in prison, so solitary further confines and isolates prisoners. But that doesn’t make it less torture, or mean that the determination of who gets tossed in the hole needs to be there. Piss off a guard and in you go. Violate a petty rule and in you go, maybe for a day or maybe for a year, according to whether anybody cares if you come out or somebody just didn’t like you.

It’s torture. It can be arbitrary or retaliatory. Maybe a person is sent to SHU for their own protection. Maybe to protect others. But it’s still torture.

The New York Assembly has passed the HALT (Humane Alternatives to Long-Term) Solitary Confinement Act. It’s anticipated that the state senate will pass it as well, and will be signed by the governor.

Despite evidence that solitary confinement is detrimental to a person’s mental and emotional wellbeing, the current statutes do not limit the amount of time a person may spend in a specialized housing unit (SHU) or segregated confinement. The HALT Solitary Confinement Act would, subject to limited exceptions, prohibit the placement of an incarcerated person in segregated confinement for more than 15 days or 20 out of 60 days unless specific crimes are committed while in confinement. It would also provide for mental health screenings and a heightened level of care for prisoners placed in segregated confinement. The legislation also prohibits the routine placement of individuals needing protective custody in solitary confinement, provides for periodic review of a person’s placement in the separate residential rehabilitation units and prohibits the use of restraints in residential rehabilitation units unless necessary for safety.

As laws go, it’s a remarkably good act. It restricts its worst abuses while providing enough latitude to address the otherwise real prison problem of what to do with violent inmates.

A person can only be placed in segregated confinement for more than 3 days and up to 15 days, or be placed in an RRU, if the person is found to have engaged in more serious acts of physical injury, forced sexual acts, extortion, coercion, inciting serious disturbance, procuring deadly weapons or dangerous contraband, or escape.

RRUs are Residential Rehabilitation Unit, “rehabilitative & therapeutic unit providing programs, therapy, and support to address underlying needs and causes of behavior, with six hours per day of out-of-cell programming plus one hour of out-of-cell recreation.” This may be one of the more aspirational aspects of the law, which also requires special training for its staff.

While prisons have become the mental health warehouse of last resort, the likelihood of prisons doing much to improve the mental health of their inmates might be too great an expectation. But the point here is that prisons may not be much of a solution, but they shouldn’t contribute to the problem. Solitary does that.

The complaint about the law is that one-size-fits-all limits remove the discretion necessary to run a prison. The empathy one feels toward prisoners doesn’t change the reality that guards and prison officials experience inside. There are some bad dudes in there, and without the ability to maintain discipline and control violence, prisons would turn into worse battle zones than they are now.

Part of this reality is reflected in the arguments made by activists in favor of making prisons more humane, that prisoners are presented as victims of society who just need some help and a chance to be rehabilitated. This ignores that some prisoners do harm, will do harm and won’t be rehabilitated no matter how many sweet words one whispers about their inherent humanity. The failure to acknowledge that there are inmates who present a danger and who aren’t just kindly, misunderstood souls creates a false expectation that there is no downside to laws limiting the methods of keeping prisons under control.

But this is also a problem of guards’ making, that the use of solitary has been grossly abused. Trust their discretion? The sort of guys who rape inmates, create fight clubs, let prisoners scald to death and laugh* as their skin peels off? Just as all inmates aren’t gentle people, guards aren’t Officer Friendly. They had discretion and proved they can’t be trusted with it.

Like most laws enacted to ameliorate a very real and serious problem, there will be instances where it fails to be sufficient to address individual situations. This act tries to provide prisons with sufficient room to deal with the more dangerous circumstances, with the provision of due process and review so that it’s not left to the whims of the screws. And yet, no doubt there will arise an instance where somebody who would otherwise have been in SHU ends up raping or killing another inmate, and this act will be blamed.

No law has the capacity to be perfect in the face of the multitude of scenarios that arise in real life. The question isn’t whether the problem is “fixed” with this “one cool trick,” but whether the benefits outweigh the detriments, and whether we value the harm it will eliminate greater than the harm it won’t.

Solitary confinement is torture. Long term solitary confinement should almost never happen. The benefits of this act far outweigh the detriment, and if prison officials believe it too restrictive of their ability to maintain control in prison, then they should have thought of that before they abused this torture when it was left to their discretion. This is a good law. Now, the question is whether prisons will comply with it, since passing laws is nice, but it’s not as if legislators hang around Sing Sing to see whether prisons are complying.

*I’m informed by the attorney (who shall remain nameless) who represented the guards that they didn’t laugh while it happened. I stand corrected.

13 thoughts on “The Torture of Solitary

  1. Turnkey

    “Solitary” is a misnomer, as you know. You’re usually with another person in restrictive housing. In relatively few instances (since the renewed emphasis on limiting the practice since the Liman report), are inmates locked down all day. Most inmates in restrictive housing get regular out of cell time for phone calls, recreation, meals, medical/MH appointments, and limited congregate activities. I would also be surprised in NY doesn’t already involve MH in the initial placement and ongoing maintenance of restrictive housing. Allowing the practice when a new crime is committed is farce – prisons don’t control when charges are brought: busy prosecutors often don’t especially care about new crimes for people with long sentences or for important, but not high profile crimes in prison.Finally, one of the largest categories of people on restrictive housing are inmates who refuse their housing assignment – for whatever reason are afraid of, or manipulating prison procedures to avoid their housing assignment.

    I will agree:
    1. MH should be involved (assuming arguendo that there are sufficient resources available to provide screening and still meet the known needs of other inmates),
    2. Staff who work there need special training,
    3. There should be clear, functioning procedures for getting into, and more importantly getting out of restrictive housing,
    4. Restrictive housing should be applied in limited circumstances (violence, behavior that is disruptive to orderly operation, and as a holding area while serious misconduct is investigated),
    5. People with serious mental health concerns should, as a rule, not be in restrictive housing,
    6. Restrictive housing should be use primarily for inmates and staff safety,
    7. Restrictive housing shouldn’t mean you lose priveleges that can safely remain – like phone and visitiing – and (in a better world) programming/education should continue in a modified form, and
    8. Placement at higher security should be done as quickly as possible, rather than staying at a lower security prison in restrictive housing.

    A bigger problem is the stacked deck that prisoners face when they are accused of misconduct.

    1. SHG Post author

      If you want to play corrections expert, you have to come out from under your rock. As for your experiences, you might be wise to consider that others will differ. And they do. And as for what you agree with, nobody asked.

      1. Turnkey

        I considered that may be your response. Appreciate your writing and I’ll return to being a reader, only.

        1. Miles

          Pretty much all of us were “challenged” when we showed up here, chose to pontificate without establishing our bona fides first. Some turned out to be people with experience and expertise. Others turned out to be nutjobs.

          You could choose to go back under the rock or come out and man up. But nothing was said to you that hasn’t been said to others. And he was right. If we want to rely on our credibility and expertise, we have to establish it first.

    2. Inmate 43-9254878

      Oh no no no, you don’t Mr. official ass licker. Spend a month in the hole for rrefusing to blow a guard and then you get to have an opinion. Until then shut the fuck up.

  2. Hunting Guy

    John McCain.

    “As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it’s only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.”

  3. Ray

    The supermax prisons are cruel and unusual. I know, I know, just my opinion. But go to Charles Dickens’ “American Notes” and read the chapter on the Eastern State penitentiary outside Philadelphia. He said the exact same thing you just said, but 160 years earlier.

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