Solitary Confinement In Prison

Introduction
The population of the mentally ill in prison is growing in result of the individuals not being treated properly in the community and while in prison. Officials believe that if you confine dangerous criminals it will decrease their sense of violence; however, Segregation is not an effective form of punishment for these individuals. Fitter treatment needs to be provided in prison for prisoners with mental illness as well as after their release. If the prison system does nothing, then mental illness associated with criminal behavior will be a never ending cycle in our society. Solitary confinement is detrimental to mental health; the conditions of solitary confinement increase the prisoner’s symptoms and mental illnesses and provoke
For 23 hours a day, inmates are kept alone inside of a cell that is approximately 80 square feet. The lack of physical contact can cause individual to lose touch with reality. Extended solitary Confinement induces psychosis in individual who were free of it prior. Solitary confinement may cause anger, continuous screaming, hopelessness, pain, hatred, and frustration. There is no therapeutic value in segregation; the United Nations reported on 2011 that psychological damage can become irreversible after just 7 days in solitary confinement. Those in Solitary confinement develop psychosis at least double the rate of the general population in prison. The prison system is ill-equipped to treat people with mental illness. Prison guards resort to violence and abuse; and medical care including vital medication and therapy are more often than not neglected. This lack of care leads to horrific encounters which defy our very own sense of human decency. In one study from the 1950’s, university of Wisconsin psychologist Harry Harlow placed rhesus monkeys inside a custom-designed solitary chamber nicknamed” the pit of despair”. Shaped like an inverted pyramid, the chamber had slippery sides that made climbing out all but impossible. After a day or two, Harlow Wrote, “most subjects typically assume a hunched position in a corner of the bottom of the apparatus. One might presume at this point that they find their
In the United States there have been several legal challenges to the use of solitary confinement, based on allegations that it may have serious psychiatric consequences. Physicians who work in U.S. prison facilities face ethically difficult challenges arising from substandard working conditions, dual loyalties to patients and employers, and the tension between reasonable medical practices and the prison rules and culture. In recent years, physicians have increasingly confronted a new challenge: the prolonged solitary confinement of prisoners with serious mental illness, a corrections practice that has become prevalent despite the psychological harm it can