Solitary Confinement In Prison

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice Jester III Unit houses approximately 900 male offenders. The male offender’s ages could range from 18-70 years which will be utilized from this facility for the research. Routinely, approximately 8-10 inmates may at any time be sent to solitary confinement for various violations that consist of threats to staff, fighting with other inmates and or possession of contraband (drugs cell phone etc.). The offender who is sent to solitary confinement is house there for 15 days (per policy). The above information was retrieved from calling the unit over the phone and asking for general information.

Materials

The offenders will be given both the Becks Depression Inventory, a multiple choice self-report assessment

Another request for records will need to be completed. The records will be utilized to determine which offenders have been to solitary confinement, how many times they have been sent to solitary and for what reasons. Additional information will need to be gathered on inmates who have not been sent to solitary confinement to be able to evaluate the difference and see the psychological damage that solitary confinement imposes. It needs to be taken into consideration that not every inmate will be willing to participate and a record for both general population and solitary confinement populations should be kept on how many refused out of the 900

The extent of the mental damage will be revealed from the result of the two populations from the instruments utilized, Beck Depression Inventory and the Hamilton Anxiety Scale. It is anticipated that the result will be significant in showing sever negative damage to offenders who have been in solitary confinement preventing them receiving any benefit to their punishment and rehabilitation. It further predicted that severity will be increased in the results of repeated visits to solitary confinement. The Becks Depression Inventory consists of 21 items, each being scored on a scale where the highest score is 63 the suggested cut off low score for minimal depression is 13, a score of 14–19 indicates mild depression and 20–28 moderate and 29–63 serious depression (Hesse, 2004). The total score indicates whether the individual presents a mild, moderate or major depression. The Hamilton Anxiety Scale is a 14 items inventory that is rated on a 5-point scale, each item contributing 0–4 points which would lead to a possible maximum score56 (Vaccarino