Solitary Confinement - Social Work and the Community

Name

Social Work and the Community

SWGS 6322

4/9/17

Introduction

A violation of human rights is prisoners in solitary confinement. I attended an event that was presented by the Amnesty International Organization on solitary confinement, I was shocked and taken back of how much I did not know about solitary confinement and how its abuse been drastically affecting prisoners for decades. In the event there was a panel discussion with Daniel Dromm, New York City Council Member, District 25, Gianni Pirelli, Ph.D., Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, Graduate Fordham School Professor and Social Worker Tina Maschi, Johnny Perez, Safe Reentry Advocate, previously incarcerated and was in solitary confinement for years, Alex Reinert, Professor of Law, and Aviva Stahl, author on trans genders and local and national anti prison organizing.

All the panelists disclosed knowledge information and experiences about solitary confinement. Before this event I embarrassedly admit I had stereotypes and bias of what solitary confinement was and had many misconceptions about it. I was glad to have been revealed from all the speakers at the panel of how wrong I was. I had thought that solitary confinement was mainly used for violent prisoners or prisoners that “broke the rules” but it was revealed to me that there is so much more to it with its prejudice, abuse, and misuse of this form of punishment to prisoners.

The scope of the issue of solitary confinement is that it is torture. Every person possesses a basic human dignity right. Torture clearly violates the dignity of a human being. Exposure to these life-shattering conditions clearly constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, which is a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Prisoners in solitary are subjected to inhuman treatment known to cause devastating psychological damage. Prisoners are expose to this torture regularly spending months and years in isolated confinement, and sometimes decades. For the past decade there has been a growth in the movement to end or limit the use of solitary confinement in the United States. There are organizations such as ACLU, National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Amnesty International, Solitary Watch, ACLU, and much more state based campaigns to help draw the attention to the public and policymakers about this human rights violation.

History

Solitary confinement has been going on since the late 18th century. Dr. Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin and several Quaker leaders first instituted solitary confinement in Philadelphia. Inspired by the Quaker philosophy believing that total isolation and silence would lead to penitence, which is where the word penitentiary came from. It led to creating the building of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Penitentiary in 1829, which only had solitary confinement cells. Southeastern Pennsylvania Penitentiary was the largest, most expensive, and technologically advance penitentiary in the world. It was well known that its design was modeled around the world. It started with the notion of good intentions.

The penitentiary was attended to reform the prisoners, to naturally reform them in solitude, and isolate and separate them from the “evil influences” from the outside and from each other but instead they went mad. Far from being reformed many inmates were psychologically ravaged. The prisoners developed serious mental health problems. Some became totally withdrawn, unresponsive, or more violent. The results were disastrous; psychiatric disturbances were suicide and death and they were so high that it became of great concern. In 1913, the penitentiary fell into disfavor; solitary confinement was widely viewed as ineffective and cruel. It was abandoned at Eastern State and much of the world.  Unfortunately, the United States has not changed or evolved since then and sadly, we let history repeat itself.

 In 1890, the United States Supreme Court first attempted to declare solitary confinement unconstitutional. Over a century later, our nation’s correctional facilities are still using solitary confinement, which involves restricting inmates to small cells without windows and cutting them off from human contact for weeks, months or even years at a time, more than ever before. In 1983, Marion prison in Illinois would have a permanent ‘lock down’ of their entire facility, in which inmates were confined alone in their cells for 23 hours per day. Since then the use of solitary confinement has increased dramatically. In 1989, in California Pelican Bay State Prison was created to house prisoners exclusively in isolation, which was the first supermax prison (Solitary Watch, 2012). Supermax prisons are designed for maximum security.