Advancing Human Rights in Incarceration: Solitary Confinement in the US

As we celebrate Black liberation in the wake of Juneteenth, we continue the fight against modern-day injustices. In the criminal justice system, which continues to disproportionately incarcerate People of Color (POC). America is in an age of mass incarceration. The criminal justice system, as it stands, allows private prisons and corporations to profit off of the suffering and labor of people experiencing incarceration, which raises an array of ethical issues. One that is often overlooked is the tortuous practice of solitary confinement in prisons and jails. 

Solitary confinement – or administrative segregation, supermax, involuntary/voluntary protective custody, and other pseudonyms for the same carceral strategy – is a practice regularly utilized within American prisons that deserves examination. It began in the 1700s, but was largely abandoned by the early 1900s, due to clear ethical violations and cost ineffectiveness. 

However, solitary confinement has made a reemergence. In the early 80s and 90s, in the midst of the “tough on crime” rhetoric that was sweeping the nation, the practice came back in full force. Now, many incarcerated individuals will spend some time within a solitary confinement cell, and at least 61,000 people who are incarcerated could be found there on any given day. 

Solitary confinement becomes even more relevant once we acknowledge that POC are one of the groups that are targeted by this incredibly harmful practice. Read on to learn about the repercussions of solitary confinement, arguments for and against it, and what we can do to support the fight to end this toxic practice.

UN Guidelines in Contradiction to American Solitary Confinement

A United Nations special rapporteur on torture has done extensive research on solitary confinement, despite roadblocks put in place from the U.S. government, and found that it indeed can amount to torture. The rapporteur, in fact, deemed it should be banned as a punishment technique. 

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

Juan Méndez

The rapporteur specified that it should never be used on juveniles or people with mental disabilities. This correlates with the UN’s Nelson Mandela Rules, which add that solitary confinement should never be used on any individual for more than 15 days. He said that the rare circumstance in which brief solitary confinement may be appropriate would be in the case of protecting queer incarcerated people or incarcerated people threatened by gangs. 

All this lies in contradiction to the practices of the United States, in which solitary confinement is often used as a punishment mechanism, or pre-conviction as a part of coercive interrogation. There is also no federal guideline limiting the amount of time an person may spend in segregation. Incarcerated individuals are known to spend months, years, or decades without meaningful human contact. 

According to the UN and experts, the way the US uses solitary confinement is a violation of the human right to be free of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment”. 

What’s the Harm? 

Solitary confinement typically occurs in a tiny cell, about the size of a large elevator. Individuals are held in these cells for 22.5 to 24 hours a day, and when they do receive some reprieve, it is to a small, solitary, outdoor cage. They are not permitted to participate in activities or engage in any group interaction, and their severely limited visitor privileges contain no physical contact. Often, there are no windows within their cells. 

There is plenty of evidence to support that solitary confinement has profound, often irreversible negative consequences on the human psyche. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist who served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School for 25 years produced a report that said, “even a few days of solitary confinement will predictably shift the electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern toward an abnormal pattern characteristic of stupor and delirium.” This kind of “mental fog” can cause any kind of stimulation to become intensely unpleasant and disturbing, leading to hyperfixation on any inconvenience, which can become “maddening”. 

Further, individuals with subtle neurological vulnerabilities may face severe disturbances, including hallucinations, disorientation, and incoherence. Even incredibly stable people who are incarcerated in solitary confinement may experience “difficulties with thinking and concentration, obsessional thinking, agitation, irritability, and difficulty tolerating external stimuli”. Although some of these symptoms may subside, many individuals will face permanent damage to their ability to interact socially, which can significantly impact reentry to society. 

In a US Department of Justice Report on restrictive housing, which is another pseudonym for solitary confinement, about 29 percent of individuals who had experienced restrictive housing reported severe psychological distress, while 23 percent reported mood or anxiety disorders. In another study on a supermax prison in California, virtually all interviewees “reported heightened anxiety, irrational anger and irritability, confused thought processes, and being extremely sensitive to external stimuli”. 

What excuse is there for continuing the practice of solitary confinement? The lasting psychological scars it leaves certainly leads to increased recidivism. Of course, the aim is not on rehabilitation, like the carceral system is supposed to facilitate, but behavior management. However, even at this, solitary confinement fails: a study in Ohio found that solitary confinement had no impact on reducing violent misbehavior. 

Marginalized Groups Are Disproportionately Impacted by Solitary Confinement

The issue of solitary confinement is even more concerning in the light of the groups it impacts. Within prisons, which already disproportionately house POC, solitary confinement is used more frequently on Black and Latinx people experiencing incarceration. Andrea Armstrong, a professor at Loyola University said that this may be because minorities are more likely to be seen as a disciplinary threat by correctional staff.

However, race is not the only factor that skews the demographic of individuals incarcerated in solitary confinement. Queer individuals, meaning anyone in the LGBTQ community, are often placed in solitary confinement during their incarceration. In an investigation by Black and Pink, 85 percent of queer respondents reported being held in solitary confinement for some period of time. Half of the respondents spent two years or longer there, and they altogether spent a total of 5,110 years in solitary confinement. Prison officials claimed that this practice is to prevent victimization and rape. However, the problem of sexual assault in prisons is not solved by the further victimization of solitary confinement, and especially not by ignoring frequent violence and assualt by staff members themselves. 

Finally, there is one other group that deserves attention when it comes to solitary confinement or “protective custody”. Individuals convicted or on trial for sex crimes are a severely stigmatized group, and one not many care about protecting. However, incarceration is meant to rehabilitate, and currently, that’s not happening. Sex offenders are also disproportionately targetted for solitary confinement, due to the social hierarchy present in carceral spaces, which often puts sex offenders at risk for violence or sexual assault. For this group, solitary confinement is considered a means of protection. However, the incredible psychological debilitation that can come from solitary confinement does nothing to therapize these individuals, and in fact, makes them more likely to commit further violence or assault once released. The justice system fails to rehabilitate these individuals. 

How Can We Move Forward?

The issues that lead to disproportionate use of solitary confinement as a punishment tactic are deeply entrenched in the carceral system. A solution will not be easy. Abolishing solitary confinement is a place to start. But true justice necessitates more: prison abolition, with a move towards transformative and restorative justice. With that being said, here are some resources and things you can get involved in to start making positive change. 

• Educate, Legislate, Organize, or Join a Meeting with the New Jersey Prison Watch, which aims to end prisoner isolation and torture.
• Join the #FreeThemAll campaign from the American Friends Service Committee.
• Read survivor’s stories at “Voices from Solitary” at Solitary Watch and support the nonprofit as they investigate and document the use of solitary confinement in the US.
• Get Involved with the Sentencing Project, which has many different goals to positively reform the criminal justice system and end mass incarceration.