Importance Of Solitary Confinement

The Use of Solitary Confinement: The Ethics, Costs, and Mental Effects on Prison Inmates There is no objection that should someone commit a crime, they must also pay the subsequent consequences, whether it be a fine, a prison sentence or even both. At times, especially in the prisons, even these punishments are not enough and thus an extra step is taken to ensure the misbehaved party does not repeat their error again. Inmates may be placed in solitary confinement for extended periods of times, ranging from weeks to even decades. With absolutely no human interaction, a holding cell smaller than a horse’s stable, and deprivation of basic human rights and senses, solitary confinement is the wrong way to rehabilitate prisoners since it is ethically

According to Jason Breslow, in his article What Does Solitary Confinement Do To Your Mind?, in the last century “a typical stay in solitary amounted to just a few days, or several weeks in more extreme cases” but in this century it isn’t uncommon for this time period to be extended to years. It was believed that a few days of isolation would make the inmates reflect on their actions and try to change them for the better. In theory it should work; after all, we have a similar practice for our kids when they misbehave. We place our kids in short time-outs to make them reflect about what they did, so in theory, the more severe the crime, the longer the inmate’s “time-out” should be, as that is the intended purpose of solitary confinement. Contrary to this, in From Crib to Cage: The Theological Calculus of Solitary Confinement, Amey Victoria Adkins says “inmates may be subjectively detained for anything from their religious or political affiliation to the possession of too many postage stamps” which hardly qualify as severe crimes. While the theory behind this is sound and fair, the reality is just the

Rehabilitation requires human interaction, and isolation is best used if the inmate needs short-term protection of some kind, and solitary confinement does neither of those (“13 Pros and Cons”). The inmates are therefore not rehabilitated and have just wasted a lot of time and actually leave the cell with more negative effects than they had before they entered. Inmates spend more than twenty hours locked up with no access to anything except a sink and toilet. Most holding cells do not even have windows, and a prolonged containment of these inmates alters their state of being. Usually after the solitary sentence is over, the inmates are “either released back into the larger prison community… or into the larger society” (Breslow). Without the interaction with others, these newly “freed” inmates are a potential threat to everyone, and the purpose of holding them in solitary confinement for the safety of others is now