Never in my life have I experienced anything as painful and hopeless as solitary confinement. I’ve been homeless, broken bones, had multiple concussions, been beat up, been through heroin withdrawal multiple times, robbed, and much more, none of that comes close to the misery of solitary confinement.
Solitary confinement is one of those things people hear about and say “wow that’s awful, something should be changed“ but then they forget about it and go about their lives. I don’t blame them. Solitary is not on the average person’s mind unless they have a family member incarcerated, or they’ve been there themselves. For me, solitary is always on my mind. I spent 12 months and 25 days in solitary in NY state prison. Solitary caused me permanent psychological and physical damage.
Is Solitary Confinement Torture?
Solitary confinement is considered to be a form of psychological torture. This is especially true when the period of confinement is longer than 15 days. In October 2011, UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez, told the General Assembly’s third committee, that the practice could amount to torture: “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, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental disabilities or juveniles.” In November 2014. the United Nations Committee Against Torture stated that full isolation for 22–23 hours a day in super-maximum security prisons is unacceptable. The United Nations have also banned the use of solitary confinement for longer than 15 days. (Source)
Solitary confinement is torture. I felt it myself. I witnessed many people (myself included), lose all hope and descend into a hopeless level of depression I didn’t think was possible. On any given day I would hear guys going insane. These are some of the daily occurrences in solitary:
- Suicides
- Attempted Suicides
- Biting Wrists In a Suicide Attempt
- People With No History Of Mental Illness Experiencing Total Psychosis
- Extreme Worrisning of Symptoms For People With A Prior History Of Mental Health Disorders
- Scratching Fingernails Off
- Intentionally Breaking Bones To Get A Hospital Visit and Get Out Of The Cell
- Jumping Off The Bed Trying to Break Their Neck On The Concrete Floor
- Screaming At The Walls
- Extreme Paranoia, Anger, and Lack of Impulse Control
- Talking To Imaginary Objects or People
- Forgetting Who You Are, Losing All Sense Of Reality
- PTSD Persisting long after the person is released
Worse Than Physical Torture
When all reality begins to fade death seems like the only possible way to escape the pain. I have been beaten up by the guards and beaten up on the streets and I would take a physical beat down every single day over solitary.
Charles Dickens visited The Eastern State Penitentiary outside of Philadelphia when he toured the US in 1842. He wrote:
I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers; and in guessing at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow creature. I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body.
– Charles Dickens
Internal Torture
I compare the damage caused by solitary confinement to the damage soldiers experience when they have extreme PTSD. Many facets of society don’t take mental injuries as serious as physical injuries because we can’t see them. I believe our society is getting much better at spotting and treating mental injuries but we have a long way to go.
Inmates for the most part are not being physically tortured in solitary confinement, but they sure are being mentally tortured. The hopeless anxiety that persists on a daily basis for people in solitary confinement is akin to a child living in an abusive household. They’re in a constant state of fear and anxiety waiting for that next beating to happen. In solitary that anxiety is ever-present waiting for the next mental breakdown to happen.
What Do Prisoners Do In Solitary Confinement?
There are very limited options for an inmate in solitary confinement. Typically they are allowed between 3-10 books. Certain facilities provide inmates with headphones that can plug into the wall which has 2-3 preprogrammed radio stations. During an average day in solitary confinement, the only things a person can do are: read, sleep, exercise, or yell to inmates in adjacent cells.
Exercising in solitary confinement is not as simple as it may seem. Many people say they would do pushups and exercise all day if they had to do solitary time. There is a big difference between saying it during a conversation and actually being in there and doing it. When your mind and body are experiencing daily breakdowns, paranoia, hallucinations, and extreme depression, exercising is a very hard thing to do.
The food provided to inmates in solitary is the bare minimum. A person who exercises all day or even a few times a week will always be hungry due to the lack of nutrition. I lost 42 lbs during my first trip to solitary which was 4 months. Inmates are only provided 3 showers a week at specified times. If a prisoner exercises at 5 pm on a Tuesday they may not be able to shower until noon on Thursday.
An average day for a prisoner in solitary confinement consists of:
- 7:15 am – breakfast
- 7:30 am – 11:30 am – sleep or read until lunch
- 11:30 am lunch
- 1-3 pm – 1-2 hours a door in the back of your cell open for rec (recreation). This is similar to the cages at the zoo that are part indoor and part outdoor. All that happens is the prisoners 6-10 ft cell become a 6-13 foot cell for 1-2 hours, with the extra 3ft being part outdoors.
- 4:30 pm dinner
- 4:30 pm – 12:00 am – read, do pushups, scream to the people in neighboring cells, watch the walls close in
- 12:00 am – 7:15 am – Attempt to sleep
Looks Can Be Deceiving
I’ve had many people tell me they would be fine in solitary because they’re a loner. After the 15th hour of having time to reflect and think, being alone gets old. A day or two alone is not bad. Being in solitary is not like being stuck at home for a few days when you’re sick. There is no Netflix, iPhone, TV, Family, Choice of books, shower, clean clothes, fresh air, medicine, good food, or a clean comfortable bed.
Being alone gets old very quickly and the total loss of reality begins. That pure insanity starts when you see the walls close in, and you hear the guy in the cell next to you try to kill himself and fail, now he’s paralyzed because he only fractured his neck and didn’t totally break it. Your stomach is growling because you only get 1300-1600 calories a day. Dinner comes at 4 so by midnight your starving. Half the time the food is so bad you only eat a portion of it.
Your hearing and sight begin to dull along with all your senses from a total lack of stimuli. That light in your cell stays on 24/7 making sleep a luxury that comes in 30-minute bouts followed by insane episodes when you wake up. When you do have the ability to fall asleep nightmares and dreams all revolve around solitary because that’s all your brain has seen for weeks or months on end.
Solitary Confinement is pure mental and physical torture. Social deprivation and extreme isolation to the maximum.