Essay: Exploring the Impact of Solitary Confinement on Mental Health and Behavioral Outcomes



 According to Merriam Webster solitary confinement is defined as: the state of being kept alone in a prison cell away from other prisoners. Solitary confinement is the practice and so called “supermax prisons” of holding inmates in a single cell for 22 or 23 hours a day for months or years on end.

The mentality is that the practice makes prison safer and reduces violence. But what people don’t think is that it makes prisoners more at risk for mental health problems. Some estimates say the number of inmates held in what is called “SHU” (special housing units) might be as high as 80,000 across the US (Solitary Watch).  It used to be used as a short-term punishment to crack down on violence, but prisons now routinely use the practice. While stays used to be only a few days, some prisoners have been in solitary for years.

Solitary confinement conditions vary from state to state but some common policies and conditions are: the prisoner is supposed to stay behind a steel door for 22-24 hours a day, theres severely limited contact with other human beings, infrequent phone calls and rare family visits, extremely limited access to rehabilitative or educational programming and prisoners are given restricted reading material. (American Friends Service Committee)

At Pelican Bay, California’s first and most notorious supermax, the 1,500 occupants of the Security Housing Unit (SHU) and Administrative Housing Unit spend 22.5 hours a day alone in windowless cells measuring about 7 x 11 feet. The remaining 90 minutes are spent, also alone, in bare concrete exercise pens. With no phone calls allowed, and only the rare noncontact visit, these prisoners, like those at ADX and Texas’ Allan Polunsky Unit, can only access the world outside their cells via their “feeding slots.” And their only interactions with fellow prisoners consists of shouting through steel mesh—until the guards order them to shut up. (Jean Casella)

As solitary confinement has become more common, so have questions about its psychological impacts. Deprived of normal human interaction, many segregated prisoners can suffer from mental health problems like anxiety, panic, insomnia, paranoia, aggression and even depression.

A study of 100 randomly selected prisoners in one of California’s supermax prisons, Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit, reported a very high prevalence of symptoms of psychological trauma with 91% of the prisoners sampled suffering from anxiety and nervousness, more than 80% suffering from headaches, lethargy and trouble sleeping and 70% fearing impending breakdown. More than half of the prisoners suffered from nightmares, dizziness and heart palpitations and other mental-health problems caused by isolation, which included ruminations, irrational anger and confused thought processes (more than 80% of prisoners sampled), chronic depression (77%), hallucinations (41%) and overall deterioration. (Haney 1993)

Humans are very social creatures. One study says that loneliness and social isolation may represent a greater public health hazard than obesity (American Psychological Association). In Another study scientists found out that it has serious psychological effects as well, like inducing anxiety, aggression and impairment. The researchers think it has to do with an enzyme in the brain. 5 alpha reductase type- 1 is important for the production of the hormone allopregnanolone; which regulates level of stress (National Academy of Scientists).

 In socially isolated mice, the researchers found that the production of that enzyme was reduced by 50% which could be more stressful hormones in the brain. Another study in the journal Nature Neuroscience found changes in the prefrontal cortex of socially isolated mice. The cells in the brain that make white matter made less of it after eight weeks of isolation. This lessening of white matter production in the prefrontal cortex impacted emotional and cognitive behavior. The animals couldn’t socialize as well when they met new mice. The social isolation and sensory deprivation like solitary confinement is really difficult to study.

In the famous rhesus monkey experiment that was held in the 50s, the baby monkeys were taken away from their mothers and were given fake wire moms. The same researchers studied how isolation affects the monkeys; where baby monkeys were separated from their mothers and placed in what’s known as a pit of despair. It was a metal container from which the monkeys couldn’t climb out. After months of the solitary existence they exhibited mental distress and showed signs of full-blown depression. It doesn’t sound like something you’d do to a human being yet that’s what it seems like is going on inside of Americas prisons.

One review of the literature found out that the prisoners experienced a wide range of ill effects from the experience.

There could even be physical damage as a result of psychological stress. Some inmates try to self-harm and lash out in other physically harmful ways. The lack of sunlight and exercise can lead to other kinds of physical distress. All of this puts a lot of strain on a person.

According to the psychiatrist Terrie Coopers, prisoners in isolation account just 5% of the total prison population but nearly half of its suicides.

 A study in Florida found that prisoners who were kept in solitary confinement were more likely to recommit a violent crime. Daniel Mears, a criminology professor at Florida State University who co-authored the study, matched 1,247 prisoners who spent more than 90 days in solitary confinement with inmates in the general population with similar characteristics like age, sex, race and prior record. The study found that 24.2 percent of inmates held in solitary confinement committed a violent crime three years after they were released compared to 20.5 percent of inmates who were not kept isolated.

Albert Woodfox spent over two-thirds of his life in solitary confinement. He spent 43 years and 10 months and became Americas longest-standing solitary confinement prisoner (The Guardian). In 1972 Woodfox was put on “closed cell restriction” (CCR). At that point, him and his comrades made a vow that they will be strong and survive the solitary. Woodfox was one of the very few lucky ones who survived the solitary. Woodfox in his interview with The Guardian described how his fellow inmates in solitary cells acted. He said “some of the guys found the so great that they just laid down in a foetal position and stopped communicating with anybody. I’ve seen other guys who just want to talk and make noise, guys who want to scream. Breaking manifests itself in any number of ways in individuals.” Woodfox spent 23 hours a day in the prison and the remaining 1 hour was spent in the “exercise yard”- a rather attractive way of describing a concrete box lined with barbed wire fencing which he could walk around shackled and entirely on his own. Despite his vow to survive, the years took their toll. He went through bouts of claustrophobia and panic attacks like most of the solitary prisoners. For one three-year period Woodfox suffered such intense claustrophobia that every time he lay down he felt he was being smothered. Woodfox said, “I used to talk to myself to convince myself I was strong enough to survive, just to hold onto my sanity.” Woodfox was released in 2013, but not until he had reached the end stage of terminal liver cancer. He died two days after being set free, having endured 41 years in solitary confinement. Woodfox’s words towards solitary confinement were: “It’s an evil. Solitary confinement is the most torturous experience a human being can be put through in prison.” He also said that his first and second convictions had more to do with racism in the American judicial system than with innocence or guilt.

 More recent research on longtime solitary prisoners has recorded the severe side-effects suffered by many, including hallucinations and perception disorders, panic attacks, loss of memory and paranoia amounting to a form of delirium that can often lead to suicide attempts.

Such medical evidence led the UN to declare lockdown a potential form of torture and to demand that all countries ban it except in very exceptional circumstances.

 Yet despite the clear scientific warnings, the practice continues to be widespread across the US. The most authoritative recent survey found that in 2014 up to 100,000 prisoners were put in “disciplinary segregation” or some other form of solitary.

Prisoners and their families have taken the lead in making the public and policymakers aware of this cruelty taking place in U.S. correctional facilities, forming coalitions and working to ensure their stories are told in the news media. Several faith-based organizations, including AFSC, have accompanied survivors of solitary confinement in calling for an end to the practice.

Politicians and other public figures—such as President Obama, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Pope Francis have denounced long-term solitary confinement, while the U.S. Senate has called for reforms from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

 In recent years, several states have reexamined the use of solitary confinement in state prisons, but we are far from abolishing this shameful practice in the U.S.

Prison isolation must end—for the safety of our communities, to respect our responsibility to follow international human rights law, to take a stand against torture wherever it occurs, and for the sake of our common humanity.