Solitary confinement has been around for centuries but when it was first started, prisons were shut down. Currently, most of the individuals who have mental illness are in prison rather than in hospitals and they’re also the ones getting sent to solitary or isolation when most of the time their symptoms are because of their illness that is not getting treated. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be in prison, but they should at least be getting the proper mental health care that they need. Solitary or isolation also highly negatively affects mentally healthy individuals. The real question here is: why are we still using this old and barbaric form of “rehabilitation” when those in solitary or isolation don’t even get access to mental health care?
Probably not nearly as “barbaric” as the acts that got them sentenced to prison. The idea of “rehabilitation” in adult prisons is a sham. Prisons should be about punishment . . . and justice. We have some of the weakest prison systems in the world, and their failure to represent a deterrent to criminal activity is part of the reason our crime rates are so high.
OP: so what exactly do you propose to do about criminals who commit crimes against other prisoners?
Right, justice. What approach do you think serves society better, making prisoners into worse people when they get out than when they went in? Or trying to make them into the kind of people who can re-enter society without being drawn back into crime or who don’t now have a stronger propensity to crime? What about all those who are in prison for non-violent crimes, including drug possession, do you have anything to say about them?
Do you have any information as to the percentage of prisoners in solitary who are there for the safety of other prisoners, prisoners who are in solitary for their own safety, and those who are in solitary for some other reason? I’ll bet you don’t. because I’ll bet prisons don’t make those statistics available.
Regarding prisoners who are mentally ill: this is difficult. We as a society determined that most of the time people cannot be institutionalized in a mental hospital without their own consent, which your average mentally ill person probably would not give. So then we let them out in society and some of them react badly and commit crimes, whereon they are sent to prison. Prisons are not equipped to deal with them, and I guess this is where the reform might come in. I’ll also bet that privately-owned, for-profit prisons are worse in this respect than state-run prisons. Solutions that cost money are not going to be popular with that section of the general public who thinks of their pocketbook first, and the rest of us probably don’t care enough.
There was a big article in the Times Magazine recently about those found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to institutions for treatment, which those who worry about mentally ill prisoners should find a good thing.
It isn’t. These people often stay locked up far longer than their sentences would have been, and they don’t get parole. They can get out when “cured” but there are many places where a release can get vetoed. It is not clear how effective the treatments given are.
So this isn’t that easy of an issue.
Interestingly solitary confinement was at one point thought of as the best way to rehabilitate prisoners. I don’t really go for the ghost stuff in this video but it goes pretty in depth into the history of such prisons that were designed to limit as much as possible human interaction with both other prisoners as well as guards. The Captive Spirits Of Eastern State Penitentiary - YouTube
I don’t agree with any of those points, but the biggest disagreement I have is with the idea that America has some of the weakest prison systems in the world. The places where prison systems are “stronger” (meaning, more strict punishment) are not places you would want to live.
Our crime rates are so high because our recidivism rates are so high - 76.6% of all prisoners are arrested again within 5 years. The lack of rehabilitation and the idea of prison as simply a form of punishment is the problem, not the solution.
Compare this to, for instance, Norway, which has an exceptionally lenient prison system with a high focus on rehabilitation, and a recidivism rate of only 20%:
To the OP, yes, we do keep figures on how many prisoners are in solitary, and how many days they have done, and in how many episodes.
This particular data is a very important performance management target in prisons.
The rules on solitary confinement are very strict indeed, on how many hours this can be maintained, the reasons for imposing such conditions.
You also need to define solitary confinement too, because we have other forms of isolation - from self exclusion due to fears for personal safety, through to physical isolation but not necassarily isolation by sight and association - so that isolated prisoners may get to have visual and auditory contact, they will almost certainly have access to approved phone contacts.
As for the scale of mental illness, do you have any idea of the statistics? Reality is that the vast overwhelming majority of mental illness is not related to criminal behaviour and such folk frequently are able to function in society but in a reduced capacity - in other words the total number of people who have mental illness is much much larger than the number of the total number of prisoners.
Also, what are you defining as mental illness? Depression, anxiety?, suicidal tendencies? anorexia? dyspraxia? autism?
To the OP, are you a mental health professional? have you had personal experience of prisons? are you closely associated with someone who is?
In other words, I accuse you of generalising, you do not have facts and you are making assumptions.
Out of interest, think about this person
What you may not know is that of the 3 other prisoners he murdered in prison, he tried to eat 2 of them, this person is pretty much the living personification of Hannibal Lector - how do you think we need to manage him then?
Media reports were sensationalist at the time, and subsequent inquiry findings have tried to minimise the cannibalism aspect - all I can say is that I know more - the newspapers actually do not reveal the full extent of his activity with the corpses - we leave it at that, but note that in his cell there was found a hit list of other prisoners that he intended to kill.
We have a couple of other prisoners who tried to eat one of their fellow prisoners
I wonder how you think we should manage them? I expect that if they were ever to be put into the general prison population they would probably be killed in self defence.
I am not aware of any long-term, large-scale rehabilitation programs that actually “work”, at least in the United States. So yes, it would certainly be better if we could make criminals into non-criminals. If.
People don’t typically get put into solitary confinement because they are charged with drug possession.
Cite.
Regards,
Shodan
Remove their ability to casually interact with other prisoners. But solitary confinement, as I understand it, is basically you, a bunk, a toilet and four walls. Even guard interaction is limited to a small shuttered window and a slot for your food tray.
I don’t have a strong informed opinion on solitary confinement, but it seems obvious that there’s options between “free access to other prisoners” and “live in a box”. Even if it’s just being confined to a more traditional cell.
I agree with everything you said but you left out part of the conversation. The reason they’re in solitary is because they are out of control.
I watched a program on this and the people in solitary were most certainly mentally ill. But if you don’t separate them from others then it’s barbaric for those subjected to their actions. It puts the prisoners in the position of having to deal with them and that’s not going to end well for anyone. To answer your question, I don’t think it’s a form of rehabilitation or meant to be. It’s designed to keep them from harming others.
Keep in mind solitary confinement is not like what you see in the movies or TV. We don’t a guy naked in “the hole”.
For one thing, we actually call it “the box”. But prisoners wear the regular uniform, are allowed to have books and magazines, can listen to the radio, have an hour of rec outside their cell every day, eat the same meals as everyone else, and see people all the time. Including medical personnel. Every prisoner in solitary confinement is seen by a nurse every day. A doctor and a mental health worker make weekly rounds and see every prisoner. A guard checks them every half hour and two higher level supervisors check them every eight hours.
I assume by a more traditional cell you mean one with a barred door rather than a solid door with slots in it.
Yes, that is a possibility but it causes potential problems. Some prisoners are what we call “throwers”. They like to throw things at employees or other prisoners. So disciplinary units are generally designed with solid doors which prevent this. They’re designed so you can still talk through them but they won’t allow anything physical to pass through. There’s a hatch in the middle that can be opened and closed from the outside to pass in things like meals, mail, medications, etc. If prisoners have been behaving themselves, the guards will usually leave the hatches open.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
And keep your eye on the sparrow.
Or (in case no-one else asked) need protected from other prisoners? And that could rum the table from former law enforcement to high-profile criminals. Personally I don’t see solitary as all that barbaric and too many instances run through my brain where it can be the best option for all concerned.
That seems like a self-solving issue given enough time 
In more seriousness, I find prison-related threads especially interesting here because of the Dopers with first hand knowledge.
Speak for yourself. Solitary is peace. Inmates torture each other and the staff doesn’t give a fuck. I begged the warden for solitary, he straight up told me no because I was in there to be punished, which apparently solitary doesn’t count as, being a refuge from non-stop mental and physical abuse. Criminal are MEAN. Maybe they’re both fucked, but I’d take isolation over Stockholm Syndrome any day.
Here’s another prison term: a cell gangster. That’s a prisoner who does things when he’s locked up in a cell. He knows the fact that he’s locked up prevents any retaliation. These guys behave when they’re outside of their cell.
Can you provide a link? In the jurisdiction I work in this is absolutely not true. A person found not guilty by reason of insanity can only be held for treatment for the maximum amount of time for the crime they would have been committed. In many cases the person is found restored prior to that time and released early. If they are truly restored to competency, the hospital needs the space.
If the person is still not competent at the end of the maximum time for which the can be held, then a civil commitment can be pursued through the probate court. Nevertheless, a sweeping generalization that there are many places where a release can get vetoed is misleading to the point of being untrue. You can argue about the effectiveness of treatments, but the alternative is to put the mentally ill in to prisons.