Solitary confinement

While solitary confinement is less commonplace in Europe than in other parts of the world including the United States, it is still widely used in many European countries today.[21]

The European Court of Human Rights distinguishes between complete sensory isolation, total social isolation and relative social isolation[22] and notes that "complete sensory isolation, coupled with total social isolation can destroy the personality and constitutes a form of inhuman treatment which cannot be justified by the requirements of security or any other reason. On the other hand, the prohibition of contacts with other prisoners for security, disciplinary or protective reasons does not in itself amount to inhuman treatment or punishment."[23]

The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, or CPT, defines solitary confinement as "whenever a prisoner is ordered to be held separately from other prisoners, for example, as a result of court decision, as a disciplinary sanction imposed within the prison system, as a preventive administrative measure or for the protection of the prisoner concerned."[24] The CPT "considers that solitary confinement should only be imposed in exceptional circumstances, as a last resort and for the shortest possible time."[25]

Iceland has faced criticism for decades over its extensive use of pre-trial solitary confinement.[26][27][28] A 2023 report by Amnesty International documented that 61 percent of pre-trial detainees had spent time in solitary confinement in 2021; of those detained that year, 57 percent were foreign nationals, a percentage far higher than the percentage of foreign nationals in Iceland (around 14 percent of the population in 2021).[29]

Italian prisoners subject to special surveillance ("41-bis regime") may be in de facto solitary confinement.[30] A person sentenced to multiple life sentences in Italy may be required by the Minister of Justice to serve a period of between 6 months to years in the "41-bis regime" of solitary confinement, subject to extension and review.[30][31]

Solitary confinement cells at High Royds Hospital, Menston, West Yorkshire

In 2015, segregation (solitary confinement) was used 7,889 times.[32] 54 out of 85,509 prisoners held in England and Wales in 2015 were placed in solitary confinement cells in Close Supervision Centres (Shalev & Edgar, 2015:149), England and Wales' version of the US 'Supermax'.[33]

The use of solitary confinement on juveniles and children, as elsewhere, has been a subject of contention. Critics argue that, in the United Kingdom, the state has a duty to "set the highest standards of care" when it limits the liberties of children.[34] Frances Crook is one of many to believe that incarceration and solitary confinement are the harshest forms of possible punishments and "should only be taken as a last resort".[34] Because children are still mentally developing, Crook writes, incarceration also should not encourage them to commit more violent crimes.[34]

The penal system has been cited as failing to protect juveniles in custody.[34] In the United Kingdom, 29 children died in penal custody between 1990 and 2006: "Some 41% of the children in custody were officially designated as being vulnerable".[34] That is attributed to the fact that isolation and physical restraint are used as the first response to punish them for simple rule infractions.[34] Moreover, Frances Crook argues that these punitive policies not only violate their basic rights but also leave the children mentally unstable and left with illnesses that are often ignored.[34] Overall, the solitary confinement of youth is considered to be counterproductive because the "restrictive environment... and intense regulation of children" aggravates them, instead of addressing the issue of rehabilitation.[34]

Solitary confinement is colloquially referred to in British English as "the block", "The Segregation Unit" or "the cooler".[35][36]

Solitary confinement first arose in the United States in the late 1700s among religious groups like the Quakers, who thought isolation would promote repentance and rehabilitation.[37] Though the practice fell out of use in the early 1900s, it experienced a resurgence during the tough on crime era in the 1980s and 1990s.[37] This period also saw the construction of supermax prisons, which typically house individuals in indefinite solitary confinement consisting of upwards of 22 hours a day of isolation.[38]

In the United States penal system today, more than 20 percent of individuals in state and federal prisons and 18 percent of individuals in local jails are placed in solitary confinement or another form of restrictive housing at some point during their incarceration.[39] According to a 2023 report from Solitary Watch and Unlock the Box, it is estimated that more than 122,000 people are held in solitary confinement in state and federal prisons and local jails in the United States on any given day.[40] A report from the Liman Center at Yale Law School found that between 41,000 and 48,000 individuals were held daily in solitary confinement in state and federal prisons for 15 days or more in 2021, with over 6,000 individuals found to have been held in solitary for over a year.[41]

Since 2009, there have been legislative efforts in numerous states to ban the use of solitary confinement for vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant women, and LGBTQ+ people, as well as to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.[42] In 2020, New Jersey passed the Isolated Confinement Restriction Act, which bans the use of solitary beyond 20 consecutive days.[43] As of June 2023, New York,[44] Connecticut,[45] and Nevada[46] have passed legislation banning the use of solitary beyond 15 consecutive days, bringing their use of isolation in line with the United Nations' Mandela Rules.

In July 2023, United States Representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.) introduced the End Solitary Confinement Act, which would prohibit solitary confinement except for up to a four-hour maximum in all federal prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers if passed. The bill would also incentivize similar legislation to be enacted at the state and local levels.[47]

The headquarters for the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) in Plaza Venezuela, Caracas, have an underground detention facility that has been dubbed La Tumba (The Tomb). The facility is located at the place that the underground parking for the Metro Caracas was to be located. The cells are two by three meters that have a cement bed, white walls, security cameras, no windows, and barred doors, with cells aligned next to one another so that there is no interaction between prisoners.[48] Such conditions have caused prisoners to become very ill, but they are denied medical treatment.[49] Bright lights in the cells are kept on so that prisoners lose their sense of time, with the only sounds heard being from the nearby Caracas Metro trains.[50][48][51] Those who visit the prisoners are subjected to strip searches by multiple SEBIN personnel.[50]

Allegations of torture in La Tumba, specifically white torture, are also common, with some prisoners attempting to commit suicide.[48][52][51] Those conditions according to the NGO Justice and Process are intended to make prisoners plead guilty to the crimes that they are accused of.[48]

Solitary confinement cell at Fort Christiansværn, United States Virgin Islands

Solitary confinement has been associated with significant negative effects on mental health.[53] Research indicates that the psychological effects of solitary confinement may encompass a range of adverse symptoms including "anxiety, depression, anger, cognitive disturbances, perceptual distortions, obsessive thoughts, paranoia, and psychosis."[54] These symptoms are so widespread among individuals held in solitary that some psychiatrists have labeled them "SHU Syndrome," with SHU standing for Special Housing Unit or Security Housing Unit. In a 1983 journal article, Stuart Grassian described SHU Syndrome as a "major, clinically distinguishable psychiatric syndrome."[55]

For those who enter the prison system already diagnosed with a mental illness, solitary confinement can significantly worsen their condition. Incarcerated individuals with mental health conditions often "decompensate in isolation, requiring crisis care or psychiatric hospitalization."[54] The lack of human contact and sensory deprivation that characterize solitary confinement have been shown to cause permanent or semi-permanent changes to brain physiology,[56] and can lead individuals to commit suicide or self-harm.[57]

Firsthand accounts from individuals who have survived the experience of solitary corroborate the findings described in the scientific literature. As one individual held in solitary confinement in Louisiana said:

[Solitary confinement] has took a toll on me mentally, emotionally, physically... I even hear voices at night it frightens me to the point I sometimes just want to take my life.[58]

As another individual in Louisiana said:

Before I came to [solitary] I was whole and well-grounded. Now I feel as if I kind of forgotten how the 'old me' use to work… I have started forgetting who certain people are and what are certain things. It's like being in a cell this long has started making me lose hope and being back here has [made me feel] like the cell walls are closing in on me.[58]

A major issue within the prison system in general, and solitary confinement in particular, is the high number of incarcerated individuals who turn to self-harm. Self-harm in carceral settings can include, but is not limited to, cutting, head-banging, swallowing razors and other sharp objects, and self-amputations of fingers or testicles.[59]

A 2014 study of New York City jail admissions published in the American Journal of Public Health found that, after controlling for length of jail stay, age, race/ethnicity, and mental illness status, individuals placed in solitary confinement were 6.9 times more likely to commit self-harm and 6.3 times more likely to commit potentially fatal self-harm than the general jail population. While 7.3 percent of jail stays included any time in solitary, 53.3 percent of acts of self-harm and 45 percent of acts of potentially fatal self harm took place among people who had spent time in solitary during their stay.[59]

Incarcerated individuals who attempt self-harm or suicide are often placed on suicide watch, an intensive form of isolation and monitoring that takes place in a "bare cell" with few if any furnishings. While on suicide watch, individuals are typically denied clothing and bedding (to prevent them from hanging themselves using bedsheets), as well as programming and contact visits. Though these conditions are intended to prevent individuals from committing suicide, they often exacerbate trauma and other pre-existing mental health conditions.[60] Individuals in suicide watch cells have still found numerous ways to harm themselves, including by diving head-first into the floor and biting through veins in their wrists.[61]

Solitary confinement has been reported to cause hypertension, headaches, profuse sweating, dizziness, and heart palpitations.[62] Many individuals in solitary experience extreme weight loss due to digestion complications and abdominal pain. They can also develop neck and back pain and muscle stiffness due to long periods of little to no physical activity. These symptoms have been linked to the intense anxiety and sensory deprivation caused by isolation, and often worsen with repeated visits to solitary.[63]

Studies have shown that solitary confinement also has a marked effect on the human brain. fMRI scans have found that social isolation causes brain activity nearly identical to hunger cravings, and that it activates the same regions of the brain as physical pain.[64] Furthermore, the sensory deprivation of solitary has been found to cause reduced electroencephalography (EEG) frequency on brain scans.[64] One study that placed adult rats in solitary-like conditions found that, after a month in isolation, the rats' neurons had shrunk by 20 percent.[65]

Some sociologists argue that prisons create a unique social environment that do not allow individuals to create strong social ties inside or outside of the facility. The social isolation that incarcerated individuals experience is especially acute in solitary confinement, where they may be denied access to phone calls, mail, and visits from loved ones.[66]

The psychological effects of isolation continue long after individuals are released from solitary, affecting society as a whole. Upon their reentry into society, many individuals who have spent long periods of time in solitary report having difficulty adjusting back to life outside the prison walls.[67] They are often startled easily, and avoid crowds and public spaces. They seek out small, confined spaces because public areas overwhelm their sensory stimulation.[68]

Anthony Graves, who spent more than 18 years in solitary confinement on the Texas death row before being exonerated in 2010, described the lasting effects of solitary in his testimony for the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights:

Solitary confinement does one thing, it breaks a man's will to live and he ends up deteriorating. He's never the same person again… I have been free for almost two years and I still cry at night, because no one out here can relate to what I have gone through. I battle with feelings of loneliness. I've tried therapy but it didn't work. The therapist was crying more than me. She couldn't believe that our system was putting men through this sort of inhumane treatment.[69]

According to numerous studies, any amount of time in solitary confinement can increase the risk of recidivism after release.[70][71] A 2007 matched control study of Washington State prisons found that people in the study cohort who spent time in supermax prisons had a 3-year felony recidivism rate of 53 percent, which was 15 percent higher than that of their counterparts in the general prison population. The recidivism rate was even higher among people who were released directly from supermax into the community, at 69 percent.[72]

Though proponents of solitary have often expressed the belief that solitary confinement promotes safety in correctional facilities, there is substantial evidence that points to the contrary.[73] In 2002, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America, chaired by John Joseph Gibbons and Nicholas Katzenbach, found that "the increasing use of high-security segregation is counter-productive, often causing violence inside facilities and contributing to recidivism after release."[74]

Shira E. Gordon has argued that solitary confinement "has not come close to solving the very problem it was meant to reduce: prison violence." In support of this view, Gordon cites a 2012 study showing that the rate of violence in California prisons is 20 percent higher than it was in 1989, when California's first supermax prison opened. Gordon also cites the Northern District of California court in Toussaint v. McCarthy, which found that solitary confinement "increase[d] rather than decrease[d] antisocial tendencies among inmates" at Folsom and San Quentin State Prisons in California.[75]

Solitary confinement is considered by many to be a form of psychological torture with measurable physiological effects, particularly when the period of confinement is longer than a few weeks or is continued indefinitely.[76][77][78][56]

In October 2011, Juan E. Méndez, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, called on all countries to eliminate the practice except in "very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible," with a complete ban for juveniles and individuals with mental disabilities. "Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation," Méndez told the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social, humanitarian, and cultural affairs. He continued: "Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles."[10]

The United Nations Committee Against Torture cited the excessive use of solitary confinement in the United States as a violation of the Convention Against Torture in 2014.[79] The United Nations' Mandela Rules, which were adopted in 2015 and establish minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners, prohibit placements in solitary beyond 15 consecutive days.[80]

In Detention and Torture in South Africa: Psychological, Legal, and Historical Studies, psychologist Don Foster lists solitary confinement as one of the most common forms of torture used on South African detainees.[81] "Given the full context of dependency, helplessness and social isolation common to conditions of South African security law detention," Foster writes, "there can be little doubt that solitary confinement under these circumstances should in itself be regarded as a form of torture."[81]

Solitary confinement has been used to punish and suppress organizing, activism, and other political activities in carceral facilities, a practice that has drawn criticism from human rights watchdogs and other concerned groups.[82] In immigration detention centers, reports have surfaced that immigrant detainees are being placed in solitary to keep those knowledgeable about their rights away from other detainees.[83] Individuals who go on hunger strike to protest poor conditions in immigration facilities are also frequently placed in solitary. Although immigration officials have claimed that their policy of isolating hunger strikers is for the protection of the detained person, medical and legal experts have pointed out that there is no medical basis behind the policy, and that, in the United States, it constitutes a violation of the detainee's First Amendment rights.[82]

Solitary confinement is similarly used as retaliation in prisons and jails, including against whistleblowers who raise awareness of inhumane conditions and jailhouse lawyers who assist others in litigating their rights.[84][85] There have been further reports of people being placed in solitary based on their race, religion, or sexual orientation.[86]

Statistics indicate that members of marginalized groups are disproportionately likely to end up in solitary confinement. A 2019 Correctional Leaders Association/Yale Law School study found that Black women make up 21.5 percent of the United States female prison population, but 42.1 percent of the U.S. female prison population held in solitary.[87] Another study found that 11 percent of all Black men born in Pennsylvania between 1986 and 1989 had been held in solitary by the age of 32.[88] Disparities in the use of solitary have also been found to exist for LGBTQ+ people, Latinos, and Native Americans.[89][90]

The disproportionate use of solitary on marginalized groups has been attributed to racism and other forms of discrimination which are exacerbated by the correctional environment. People of color may be more likely to be perceived as threatening and consequently receive more disciplinary tickets that land them in solitary;[90] LGBTQ+ individuals may be placed in solitary as protective custody (either voluntarily or involuntarily) to prevent them from being assaulted or otherwise victimized.[91] Notably, some transgender individuals have stated that they would rather risk their safety in the general prison population than being held in the isolation of protective custody.[92]

As Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith have written, "Solitary confinement is a place where [the] racial history [of the United States] is on full display... Not only are the majority of the staff white and the majority of the prisoners Black and brown, but the very premise of solitary confinement relies on the foundation of white supremacy on which this country was built."[93]

The harsh effects of solitary confinement on the individuals who experience it, particularly those diagnosed with mental illness, have led many to view the practice as cruel and unethical.[94][95][96]

In an article for Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Jeffrey Metzner and Jamie Fellner write that solitary confinement may constitute a violation of medical ethics. As the authors note, healthcare professionals are "ethically obligated to refrain from countenancing, condoning, participating in, or facilitating torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment," yet human rights experts have stated that solitary confinement may amount to such treatment. "It is not ethically defensible for health care professionals to acquiesce silently to conditions of confinement that inflict mental harm and violate human rights," they write.[54]

Metzner and Fellner call on physicians not only to provide adequate medical services to individuals in isolation, but to advocate for changes to segregation policies in the facility in which they are employed and to undertake public advocacy to raise awareness of the harms of solitary in society as a whole.[54]