
Solitary confinement’s psychological effects - pierre-renaux
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/20/solitary-confinement-psychological-effects-sarah-shourd
======
wtvanhest
I donated $500 (and convinced my company to match $500) for FAMM, Families
Against Mandatory Minimums last year. Its not perfect, but at least they are
trying to make a dent in the number of people in prison, especially those with
long sentences which may not make logical sense due to strict mandatory
minimum laws.

I'm going to donate some more this year, and hopefully get my company to
increase their donation level but I'm always interested in finding the group
that will have the maximum positive impact to donate to. If anyone has any
other ideas for higher impact groups, I'm interested in knowing about them.

I've ruled out all the legalize drugs groups because I won't be able to get a
major corporation to donate to them even though I think they are worthwhile
causes.

~~~
clamprecht
Wow, thank you for donating. I spent 5 years in federal prison, and the FAMM
newsletters (FAMM-grams, they were called) were always helpful, and usually
contained a glimmer of hope for fixing sentencing disparity. I knew plenty of
people (non-violent drug offenders) with insane sentences of 10, 20, 30 years.
Anyway, I just want to make sure you know that your donation actually does
make a difference to real people.

~~~
eruditely
What crime was it?

~~~
nicarus1984
First Google search result of his name:
[http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1997/12/8854](http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1997/12/8854)

Interesting read.

~~~
marvin
Fuck. That's a cruel and unusual punishment, although a judge in his 50s
wouldn't see it that way in 1995. It's basically the pre-digital age
equivalent of banning a person from reading for seven years.

------
Osiris
Here in Denver there has been some debate about this issue [1]. The new prison
chief put himself in solitary to try to understand how inmates feel.

 _" Rick Raemisch says he suffered mental anguish after spending only 20 hours
in solitary confinement. The average in Colorado is 23 months."_

[1] [http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/colorado-
pri...](http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/colorado-prison-chief-
rick-raemisch-spends-a-day-in-solitary-confinement)

~~~
ljf
While it seems extreme, I'd love to see more public officals put them selves
up for similar 'stunts': spend time in a prison, live on minimum wage, use a
bicycle for your daily commute, be tazered, experience waterboarding.

When people can speak with knowledge about some of the horrors and dangers
that we put our populations in, then I'd feel a lot more comfortable, and
trust them to be more engaged.

~~~
grkvlt
> spend time in a prison, live on minimum wage, _use a bicycle for your daily
> commute_ , be tazered, experience water boarding

One of these things is not like the others...

~~~
ljf
True, the levels of horror are mixed here, but the crying was something that
hit me this morning. If more of out politicians, public servants and even taxi
and bus drivers cycled a few days each year, I'm sure the roads in Britain
would be a very different place.

Similarly I'd love to see people experience some of the pain and danger they
seem willing to put others in. The cycling comment was flippant (and my
personal bugbear) but I think it is part of a whole spectrum of engagement and
understanding that we should expect from those that want to and chose to run
and operate the mechanics of our countries.

~~~
sedev
In America, there's a very annoyingly direct correlation between "cities with
good public transit" and "cities whose administrators use public transit
routinely." So that argues in favor of your point. I wish it could simply be
taken for granted that people who don't ride on public transit will do a worse
job of overseeing it than people who do.

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mynameishere
I always figured that if I had to go to prison, I would rather solitary. As
long as you can get decent books and have a TV, which is typical in the US, it
sounds vastly better than having to sleep in a common area with dozens of real
criminals (also typical enough).

It doesn't surprise me that men who get solitary for violent infractions hate
it. These are hyper-social people, who need continuous interaction with
others, whether as a friend or a competitor or a predator. By contrast, I can
go weeks without speaking to a person. It just doesn't sound that bad,
relatively.

Obviously, I'm speculating. But a real test, taking ordinary people and
subjecting them either to solitary or a confined population of thugs, and
comparing the results, would be pretty unethical. At the same time, you can
neither trust the personal account of a woman in extraordinary circumstances,
nor those of the most violent, probably psychopathic, criminals.

~~~
agumonkey
I often think the same thing, I'd prefer to avoid the prison crowd as much as
possible. I had runs of weeks without leaving my bedroom[0], which is not
larger than a cell too.

But some words from the woman in the article are hitting me. I also feel that
without knowing it I'm $something deprived by this lifestyle. My brain isn't
clicking the way it was when I was having a lot more social interaction, even
though it was a big weight on my mind (randomness/fluidity of people and
social interaction doesn't fit well with the way my brain is structured[1]).
And often I can read things but they don't reach deep in my brain. I thought
it was just laziness and lack of motivation on my side, but maybe ... maybe ..

Also, right now I'm somehow(see [1]) isolated by my own will. But if held in
jail by an external agent I'm not sure I would "enjoy" it as much.

[0] internet is very keen on providing you things to do all night long, which
is very neat, the peace of the night is something I liked a lot at that time,
and soon you live in the opposite timezone, sleeping the day etc etc

~~~
EGreg
The difference is you have internet and a computer in your bedroom.

Inmates may be denied even a paper and pencil.

~~~
agumonkey
My computer is to read and listen music. She said she had books. No music
though. And in the end it didn't matter because the lack of human interaction
made her enable to enjoy or even understand anything. I agree that the
automatic solitary => no object was unexpected to me. I read many times people
could read and learn in prison. Too bad you can't blend both slight isolation
and learning.

~~~
EGreg
Do you use your computer to interact online?

~~~
agumonkey
Meta question detected, I must agree. But it's also very crude and shallow
compared to physical interaction.

~~~
EGreg
The point is that the inmates don't have even this. It may make a huge
difference.

~~~
agumonkey
That's what I'm realizing slowly

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therobot24
It's hard to draw correlation between someone captured in iran and the many
convicts in solitary confinement. Prisoners aren't just put into solitary for
any arbitrary reason, many times it's due to a consistent history of violence
outside and inside the prison system. While a woman and her husband getting
nabbed is a completely different situation.

In any case, it seems obvious that solitary will affect mental health. But
what do we do for consistently violent offenders? Clearly they do not function
in general population. Do they get a solitary buddy to talk to for a few hours
a day?

~~~
moxie
Prisoners in the USA are, in fact, put into solitary for some pretty arbitrary
reasons, including the types of books they read. You might find this article
by Shane Bauer, one of the hostages held by Iran, interesting:

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-
confine...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/solitary-confinement-
shane-bauer)

~~~
zmitri
I remember seeing that video and balking - even reading Machiavelli's the
Prince can get you thrown in solitary under the pretense you are gang
affiliated.

If you're interested in the prison industrial complex, the very same Shane
Bauer is using my site, Beacon, to crowdfund an entire year of in depth,
independent, and ad-free reporting on the prison system in America.

[http://www.beaconreader.com/projects/the-prison-
problem](http://www.beaconreader.com/projects/the-prison-problem)

You'll directly impact his ability to produce original long form pieces.

------
Theodores
The Florence, Colorado Federal SuperMAX is the one of particular note. There
are lots of people in there that are political prisoners locked away for no
good reason.

The 21st hijacker - Zacarius Moussaoui - is a case in point. He had nothing to
do with 9/11 yet during an early turf war between government departments vying
for the money that went with The War Against Terror he got pretty much framed.
He had over-stayed his visa and done nothing of harm to anyone, yet someone
had to be scape-goated by the State Department.

There are plenty more 'suspected al-qaeda' locked away there, with conditions
every bit as bad as Guantanamo, yet locked up purely so that once upon a time
a President could have some orange terror alert pushing everything else out of
the news headlines for a couple of days.

Sure there are the psychos that tried to kill prison staff elsewhere in the
system that get the SuperMAX treatment, however, the Florence facility is too
much like the Tower of London dungeons as used in medieval times.

~~~
bpodgursky
Just to save everyone else the time I spent reading wikipedia
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacarias_Moussaoui](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacarias_Moussaoui)),
there is no question that Zacarius:

(1) knew about the plans for 9/11, although he wasn't selected to participate
in that attack

(2) was planning a separate attack via plane on the white house, but was
arrested first

(3) was taking flying classes to prepare for that attack

This is tangental to the quite valid original article, but claiming that
Zacarus was "framed" is an enormous distortion of the facts.

~~~
Theodores
Here is another Wikipedia article for your enjoyment:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hubert](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hubert)

Given how quickly you responded to my original post and given that you
responded with a link to a Wikipedia article to which you bullet-pointed-out
your mere opinions, I suggest you think before you post on subjects that you
have no knowledge of.

~~~
hueving
>mere opinions, I suggest you think before you post on subjects that you have
no knowledge of.

Personal attack based on no evidence. Until you fix it, I'm going to assume
your response was an emotional outburst based on a failure to construct a
strong counter-point. I feel it's appropriate, given that it's about the same
level of intellectual engagement you afforded the response to your post.

------
zacinbusiness
I have very mixed feelings about this kind of thing. There are thousands of
people that are basically in jail simply because they aren't white. Or who
have ridiculous sentences because the judge wanted to make an example of them.
But then there are people who would beat you within an inch of your life, or
flat out kill you, just because you "disrespect" them. A good friend of mine
was a prison psychologist for 20 years and he has some truly chilling stories.
So, while I hate the idea of exiling someone for life or even for a few
weeks...it feels like there are precious few alternatives in some cases.

~~~
aragot
> flat out kill you

This is just speculation. You don't know what they would do if you gave them a
chance, a second chance, a third chance, lots of love and a few material
means. As a proof, incarceration rate is lower in my country [1] and we have
less violence on the street.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcerat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate)

------
BadassFractal
Are there any studies on whether advanced meditation skills can somehow reduce
the effects of solitary?

~~~
prestadige
Ironic, isn't it, that solitary is a severe punishment in one context but is
also part of the traditional means (going off to a lonely cave for a few
years) of obtaining enlightenment?

~~~
wyager
I imagine that psychologically, the difference between solitary meditation and
solitary confinement is like the difference between sex and rape, or taking
drugs and being drugged. They're procedurally similar acts, but the element of
choice changes everything.

------
nitrogen
Do the effects of solitary confinement differ for self-described introverts?
Obviously unwanted, involuntary confinement will be unpleasant no matter what,
but I wonder if those at the extreme who would voluntarily isolate themselves
from the world for days at a time would experience the same effects as those
who thrive on human contact.

------
dimitar
The point of jails should be to isolate dangerous people from potential
victims, not punish anyone. I can imagine no reason to isolate a person to the
point of literally locking him or her in a cage. At least provide TV or radio,
there is literally no place on earth where this is prohibitively expensive.

~~~
noonespecial
These things are generally available through special companies that have
special contracts and and of course get to sell them to inmates at "special"
prices. The ultimate "captive" market.

[http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-i...](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-
ipod-of-prison-sony-radio.html)

------
refurb
I guess the question is, if you get rid of solitary confinement, what do you
do with the prisoners who are threats to other prisoners?

~~~
DonGateley
Secure confinement to eliminate the danger a prisoner might present to another
need not require social and sensory isolation. That is purely punitive and
futile at best, contributory at worst.

~~~
refurb
I don't disagree on the sensory isolation, but I think one of the reasons for
social isolation is problem inmates who antagonize and provoke other inmates.

Sure you could physically isolate inmates, but allow them to communicate, but
that would be like keeping two roosters together separated by chicken wire;
they'd be at each other constantly with verbal threats, etc. Doesn't sound
that much better.

