I came across this on the internet. How often are “strip cells” used in prisons? Do they really make mental problems worse? If he’s being monitored contantly why isn’t he allowed to wear any clothing? Couldn’t they make clothes out of the same material as the blankets? And why would he need to meet with councelors naked?
My wife works for the county public mental health center and frequently calls on clients who are in the county lockup. There are strict protocols for suicide watch and other disciplinary measures. Our county uses the paper gown approach, but I think that if you tear your gown up, you’re left with paper shreds. You are placed in the “suicide room” for a pre-determined amount of time, regardless of whether or not your situation improves. The same goes for “the chair”. No, it’s not that “chair.” This is a chair where they strap your arms and legs down. Inmates get to sit in the chair if they have demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to control their behavior voluntarily. They are stripped naked and placed in this chair. Again, there is a strict protocol for doing this. Certain infractions must have taken place and certain other corrective measures must be taken first. The chair is the last resort. Once you qualify for the chair, there is no negotiating out of it. You will be placed in it for a pre-determined amount of time (four hours, I think). If you continue to misbehave, you get another four hours, and so on until you demonstrate some degree of self-control. If you urinate, defecate, or vomit in the chair, you will get to clean it up when your time is up. I believe the suicide watch is similar.
My wife (not a counselor, but close) has never, to my knowledge, visited with a naked inmate. I do believe, however, that some inmates have had to be dressed before meeting with her.
Incidentally, the person described in your link isn’t in prison. He is being held in detention awaiting trial. Prison is for longer term stays once convicted of a crime. The mental health options and methods in prisons are somewhat different since the offender has to stay there for a much longer (sometimes infinitely longer) time. Keeping a person locked up with no clothes, etc., for years and years and years and years isn’t going to happen, I don’t believe. Such a person will be handled differently. The municipal or county jail, on the other hand, uses more short-term methods.
What’s the point of stripping them naked? The linked article says that paper gowns are flamable, but surely someone in “the chair” won’t be able to light anything. It seems needlessly punative and humiliating, and likely to agravate both psychiatiric and behavioral problems. Making someone sit for four hours without access to toilet facilities and causing them to remain in their own waste seems to me to border on torture. Not everyone is capable of controlling elimination for four hours at a time.
In the prison I work in, suicide watchs are very common (we put two guys on them just today). Prisoners generally get put on a suicide watch for threatening to commit sucide or for taking any suicidal actions.
The watchs usually last for a day or two - long enough for a mental health professional to observe and interview the prisoner and determine if he needs to be sent to a prison with more intensive mental illness programs. Often times, being on a sucide watch for a day or two seems to help the prisoner without further action being needed - my guess is that in many cases, the suicidal plans were a call for attention and the watch answered that need. The prisoner feels better because we took him seriously.
We put the prisoner in a single cell which has a metal toilet and metal bedframe attached to the walls. He has a mattress, a blanket, underwear, paper slippers, and a robe made out of a blanket like material that can’t be twisted up into a rope.
The prisoner isn’t on camera. But he has an officer outside the door watching him twenty four hours a day with the lights on.
I’ve never heard of a prisoner being made to go to an interview naked. I have however sometimes had a prisoner who refused to wear clothes who would end up being seen by people while he was naked. But trust me when I say nobody except the prisoner wanted him to be naked.
I cannot promise that I am describing “the chair” 100% accurately. I am relating a story told to me quite some time ago. I agree that this dances close to torture. I think the idea is to convince the inmate that the consequence for misbehavior is unavoidable and unpleasant. Therefore, the inmate is well-motivated to behave. This chair time isn’t a consequence for the crime which landed them in the poky. It’s a consequence for failing to control one’s behavior once there.