The film “Solitary Nation” by Dan Edge had an impact on me as I was watching the film of the inmates’ lives in solitary while a new warden is trying to make a change for them. Although it was similar to other prison documentaries, it had more of a closer view to solitary than the normal prisons. It provided evidence of how torturing it could be after a certain time, and how the world is constantly full of that nature no matter what measures are taken. It depicted the causes of solitary on the inmates’ behavior, and how contradictory it is to have solitary confinement. Should solitary still be used as a way of punishment? There are three ways to be sent to solitary confinement: the inmate is too dangerous to be around others, for their own …show more content…
There needs to be changes because there is a risk of an inmate not being able to recover from solitary and not be able to be normal. “They are stuck here with nothing to do. You don’t have a strong mind this place can break you quick. A lot of guys don’t even have descents why they just snap out. This is what this place does it makes you mean; it makes you violent.” It alters a person to a much different person than they were before. The film creates sympathy towards the people who have created murder because they are not capable of handling this punishment. The warden stated, “You can have them do their whole time in segregation, but I don’t want them living next to me when you release them.” They can’t control their actions after losing their sense. They don’t have the same opportunity as others to reach assistance for their mental health issues once their sentence is done. It’s rare for someone who was charged for murder and assault to live a normal life once let out to the real world after their experience. It was interesting to see how they act up by flooding their cells, throwing food, and spreading urine and feces on the floor is the inmate’s way to pass time. It had a great success on how their behaviors change. According to the warden, “If you punish them you can make them better, but the reality is the exact opposite happens.” Highlighting the drawbacks of solitary confinement, and how there needs to be something to change these prisoners and actually make them better. One day they will be let out, but they need to be somehow stable from the
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Show MoreThe documentary, “Kids Locked in Solitary Confinement” depicts the toll that solitary confinement can have on the juvenile population. Approximately, 27% of adolescents in Riskers Island are in solitary confinement. The majority of which have not yet been convicted of a crime. However, these juveniles are in jail because they cannot afford to post bail. Supporters of solitary confinement believe that the segregation juveniles experience is not equivalent to the segregation in the federal system.
The Rolling Stone article “Slow Motion Torture,” written by Jeff Teitz, is a perplexing article that dives into the various psychological affects that solitary confinement can have on an individual’s mind. The arrangement of the article itself was hard to follow at times. It was all over the place, talking about multiple things at once that did not correlate with the topic of the paragraph. But, for the most part, I was able to understand it.
In 2014, a prisoner that had been released from the solitary confinement stabbed a fellow inmate eighty-seven times and killed him. The prison wardens, however, feel that the isolation ensures that the most dangerous prisoners do not harm others which open a Pandora box on the same
I think one of the main goals of incarceration should be rehabilitation. This is why I am against solitary confinement because seg is not rehabilitating these inmates and even worsens them in some cases. Rehabilitation is supposed to be helping restore health and goodness into a life and essentially teaching an individual how to act properly in society. Solitary confinement is doing the opposite by isolating individuals so they lose social skills, develop mental health issues, and even make some individuals more angry, violent, or harmful because they are deprived of needs. Deterrence is also something I think solitary confinement doesn’t necessarily help with.
There are also many reasons why people are in solitary confinement. Reasons such as violence, fighting, and contraband. There are many effects that solitary confinement has on a person. For example, Adam. Adam has just arrived at solitary confinement and is confident he can last.
Inmates should be allowed to fight their stay in solitary confinement. Even throughout the prison system inmates still hold their Rights to be heard. A well-presented case against a stay in solitary confinement should be heard and it should also determine whether the inmate needs to continue being in solitary or not. Solitary confinement is effective but cruel at the same time, this can cause many problems such as lawsuits, possible deaths or mental illnesses from the prisoners who have stayed in solitary. The inmates who have stayed in solitary confinement have a right to appeal, just the same way these individuals have a right to appeal their conviction they can also appeal and fight against their stay in solitary confinement.
Major Ethical Issues of Solitary Confinement Solitary confinement can affect a person’s physical and mental health simply because it deprives an individual of their need to interact with others on a daily basis. Solitary confinement, which is used to restrain violent and volatile inmates from the general prison population, is done in increments ranging from several months to years. In an article retrieved from the American Psychological Association, ‘Alone, in ‘the Hole’’, the author states that, “for most of the 20th century, prisoners' stays in solitary confinement were relatively short.” This was the standing rule, in which inmates visited what is known as ‘the hole’, for several weeks to months. As time went by, the average length of stay
Solitary confinement is the act of housing a convict for 22-23 hours a day in an isolated cell, completely free from any human contact for an extended period of time. Going from days to possibly decades while sitting in these cells. There are more than 80,000 men, women, and children in solitary confinement in prisons across the United States according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Not including thousands more in jails, juvenile facilities, immigration detention centers and military prisons. After experiencing confinement some inmates suffer from negative mental health effects that can possibly lead to suicide.
“I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There is no end and no beginning; there is only one's mind, which can begin to play tricks. Was that a dream or did it really happen? One begins to question everything. ”This is a quote from Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in prison and many of those years in solitary confinement.
In New York approximately 2000 individuals were released directly from solitary confinements to the public every year. During Solitary confinement, prisoners do not get any educational or rehabilitative courses and are therefore unprepared to reunite with society with success. Prisoners also bring the effects of solitary confinement with them to communities, which include violent outbursts of anger, self-harm, and emotional breakdowns. In previous studies it was discovered that solitary confinement increases the rate of suicides in jails, causes negative psychological and psychopathological effects, and raises the levels of violence in prisons and the society that they are situated in.
Some might argue that solitary confinement is actually effective and has its benefits, however this is not the case since this punishment only seems to make criminals much more dangerous when they leave prison than they were before and research shows that inmates who left solitary confinement experience increased anger and end up committing the kind of criminality that society is looking to prevent by using this method of punishment. Thus, solitary confinement ultimately fails as a rehabilitative measure, and as a way to "settle down" problematic
I agree with the International New York Times editorial staff “Editorial: Solitary Confinement Is Cruel and All Too Common” because the authors states statistics and facts about the outcome of inmates held in solitary for too long. While I understand that this measure is set to punish those who commit cries in society, incarceration should not be longer than a few year I agree with The editorial boards opinion, " Prisoners who have been held for 10 or more years will be moved to a special restricted unit with other inmates, where they can take educational courses and have normal human contact as they prepare to return to the general population." Therefore Incarcerating someone for years isolated in cell with a small window with no human
The past 25 years the numbers of prisoners who are held in solitary confinement has sky rocketed. State and federal prisons all have solitary confinement. Therefore, when an inmate acts out and tries to attack other inmates, and officers then they are put into an individual cell and are isolated from other individuals. One senator had said that the expansion of the use of solitary confinement is an issue. Supermax prisons hold inmates that are considered “the worst of the worst”.
In Atul Gawande “ HellHole” essay they talked about the experiences and effects of people who were previously in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement can be best explained as the process of removing an individual and isolating them from their environment and socialization. Atul Gawande is specifically talking about prisoners of war and incarcerated people and how their experience was and that process. The essay talked about how people are put in isolation which caused them to act out of their character. Goffman would argue that effects of solitary confinement are exactly what total institutions can do to a person's.
After all the years behind bars, they have gradually become more dependent on the walls around them and rather stay in prison because they know the world and their lives are not the same as the ones the time they were jailed. In other words, they are hopeless to re-enter our society. Where else can they be, if not the prison? What else can they do, if not