tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/solitary-confinement-45712/articlesSolitary confinement – The Conversation2023-08-01T04:06:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2066652023-08-01T04:06:29Z2023-08-01T04:06:29ZCriminalising and prosecuting torture could deter practices such as solitary confinement in detention<p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are warned this article mentions violence towards and death of First Nations people.</em></p>
<p>According to the most recent statistics from 2020–21, <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2022/community-services/youth-justice">640 children</a> and <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2022/justice/corrective-services">42,090 adults</a> were detained each day across Australia. Of those, 337 children and 12,599 adults were Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people. </p>
<p>Some people in Australian prisons and police stations are being subjected to treatment that could amount to torture. This includes prolonged solitary confinement and the <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/about/news/media-releases/commission-welcomes-banning-spit-hoods-afp">use of spit hoods</a>. Last year, the <a href="https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CAT%2FC%2FAUS%2FCO%2F6&Lang=en">UN Committee Against Torture</a> recommended Australia end the use of spit hoods and prohibit solitary confinement of children. </p>
<p>Torture has been criminalised in <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2023C00123">Commonwealth legislation</a>, but not at the state and territory level (<a href="https://www.legislation.act.gov.au/View/a/1900-40/current/html/1900-40.html">with some exceptions</a>). This is despite a <a href="https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/630806?ln=en">recommendation</a> from the UN Committee Against Torture.</p>
<p>While progress on criminalising torture across states and territories has stagnated, <a href="https://www.ag.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-04/SCAG-Communique.DOCX">attorneys-general</a> around the country have so far only agreed to look into the “feasability” of a national ban on spit hoods.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10345329.2020.1863310">Prohibiting</a> the solitary confinement of children in detention centres is proving to be an even slower process.</p>
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<h2>The harms of solitary confinement</h2>
<p>Torture has a very specific legal meaning <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-or-degrading">under international law</a>. It is defined as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted” for the purposes of obtaining information or a confession, punishment, intimidation or coercion, or based on discrimination. This act is done by someone acting in an official capacity, or with their consent. </p>
<p>Prolonged solitary confinement can fall under this definition. It is specifically defined under the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf">UN Mandela Rules</a> on the treatment of people in prison as “confinement […] for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact” for more than 15 consecutive days.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf">Solitary confinement</a> of detained children and adults with “mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures” is also prohibited under the rules.
Solitary confinement has been <a href="https://www.solitaryconfinement.org/_files/ugd/f33fff_18782e47330740b28985c5fe33c92378.pdf?index=true">proven</a> to cause long-term harm such as anxiety, depression, cognitive disturbances, paranoia and psychosis.</p>
<p>In 2018, Human Rights Watch reported on the use of <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf">prolonged solitary confinement</a> in <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/02/06/i-needed-help-instead-i-was-punished/abuse-and-neglect-prisoners-disabilities">Western Australia</a>, where a woman with a disability was held in solitary confinement for 28 days. Solitary confinement was also used in Australian prisons and youth detention <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10345329.2020.1863310">during the pandemic</a>, ostensibly to prevent the spread of COVID. </p>
<p>Solitary confinement in detention centres continues to be used across Australia. It has been used on children in Western Australia despite a court <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-11/wa-supreme-court-finds-youth-detainees-unlawfully-detained/102587138">finding the use of lockdowns unlawful</a>. It has also been used on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/22/don-dale-the-children-with-profound-disability-held-behind-bars-in-the-nt">children with disabilities</a> in the Northern Territory. </p>
<p>There have also been reports of an Aboriginal boy with a disability being kept in extended isolation in Queensland’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/30/widespread-locking-of-children-in-solitary-lambasted-by-australian-childrens-commissioner">Cleveland Youth Detention Centre</a>,
likely spending 500 days confined to his room for more than 20 hours a day. </p>
<p>He has reportedly received <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/27/case-of-queensland-teenager-who-likely-spent-500-days-in-solitary-most-egregious-on-record">no treatment</a> because the detention service lacks the capacity to treat people with trauma-related mental health issues. </p>
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<h2>Torture is a crime and needs to be properly investigated and punished</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session52/advance-version/A_HRC_52_30_AdvanceEditedVersion_0.docx">Criminalising</a> torture at the state and territory level can increase understanding of what actually constitutes torture among prosecutors, prison authorities and police. This can help <a href="https://www.apt.ch/en/what-we-do/achievements/torture-prevention-works">deter torture</a> and other unlawful practices against people in custody.</p>
<p>But as the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-torture">UN Special Rapporteur on Torture</a> explains in her <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc5230-good-practices-national-criminalization-investigation">recent report</a>, there are challenges in prosecuting, and even reporting torture:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Victims may still be in the custody or under the control of the very authorities against whom they are making allegations. Authorities […] may lack impartiality or be under pressure to cover up allegations or to destroy evidence. The risk of retaliatory violence [is] real in many contexts. </p>
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<p><a href="https://www.apt.ch/sites/default/files/publications/apt-briefing-paper_yes-torture-prevention-works%20%281%29.pdf">An international study</a> on torture prevention found that, even in countries where torture is criminalised, prosecutions are rare. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CAT%2FC%2FAUS%2FCO%2F6&Lang=en">UN Committee Against Torture</a> has recommended Australia implement protections against retaliation for reporting torture. It recommends people have “access to effective, independent, confidential and accessible complaint mechanisms”. </p>
<p>The recently updated <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/publications/policy-and-methodological-publications/istanbul-protocol-manual-effective-0">Istanbul Protocol</a> also provides guidance on documenting and investigating torture, which the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-un-committee-against-torture-has-found-australia-still-has-work-to-do-195420">UN Committee Against Torture</a> recommends Australia follow.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-care-offered-to-women-in-prison-should-match-community-standards-and-their-rights-200656">Health care offered to women in prison should match community standards – and their rights</a>
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<h2>Concrete outcomes for victim-survivors</h2>
<p>Crucially, <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G12/487/18/PDF/G1248718.pdf?OpenElement">victim-survivors must be provided redress</a> for wrong-doing against them.</p>
<p>Under the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-or-degrading">UN Convention Against Torture</a>, the obligation to provide redress should include “restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition”. </p>
<p>If someone dies as a result of being tortured, <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-or-degrading">the obligation to provide redress should then be extended</a> to their families or dependants.</p>
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<p>While coronial inquests into deaths in custody can identify ill-treatment, they can not order compensation for victims’ surviving families. One example is the <a href="https://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-04/COR%202020%200021%20-%20Veronica%20Nelson%20Inquiry%20-%20Form%2037%20-%20Finding%20into%20Death%20with%20Inquest%20-%2030%20January%202023%20-%20Amended%20%281%29.pdf">inquest</a> into the death of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.coronerscourt.vic.gov.au/finding-passing-veronica-nelson">The coroner found</a> Veronica’s treatment “constituted cruel and inhumane treatment”. Compensation in cases like this often need to be pursued in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/09/veronica-nelsons-partner-launches-lawsuit-against-victorian-government-over-death-in-custody">civil court</a>, as Veronica’s partner, Percy Lovett, is currently doing.</p>
<p>There are opportunities to pursue allegations of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in other courts under Australia’s federal criminal law, or <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-07/canberra-woman-sues-act-jail-over-strip-search/102062410">state and territory human rights acts</a>. But whether there will be a prosecution under federal law is at the discretion of the Commonwealth prosecutor. When <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fems%2Fr4241_ems_f3f30a06-22d5-4e35-8a64-199c09a076e3%22">the federal law was amended in 2018</a>, it was inferred that pre-existing state and territory non-torture criminal laws suffice. So allegations of torture could be prosecuted as other offences by state and territory prosecutors. This would not be compliant with Australia’s international obligations.</p>
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<h2>A prohibition on torture is not enough</h2>
<p>Currently the federal government is considering whether Australia will take the step of finally having a <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Human_Rights">national human rights act</a>. But this will not guarantee Australia will honour international obligations to criminalise torture, <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/legal/australias-compliance-convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-and#C">prosecute torture</a> and provide redress for victim-survivors. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/2022-06-29/Istanbul-Protocol_Rev2_EN.pdf">Istanbul Protocol</a> describes torture as “one of the most heinous crimes known to humanity”.</p>
<p>Prosecuting torture and providing redress to victim-survivors should be a priority in Australia, especially given the immense power imbalance between governments and incarcerated people.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206665/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andreea Lachsz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Practices used in detention in Australia such as spithoods and solitary confinement could amount to torture, according to international law.Andreea Lachsz, PhD Candidate, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2075972023-06-13T00:22:44Z2023-06-13T00:22:44ZA watershed report on solitary confinement in NZ prisons must now trigger real reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531489/original/file-20230612-19-zq6sng.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C22%2C7315%2C4770&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is hard to find much joy in the <a href="https://inspectorate.corrections.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/50011/Office_of_the_Inspectorate_Separation_and_Isolation_final_report.pdf">Prison Inspectorate’s report</a> on segregation and cell confinement released today. It finds many prisoners in New Zealand are kept in solitary confinement and suffer negative psychological and physical effects.</p>
<p>The report follows the <a href="https://inspectorate.corrections.govt.nz/reports/thematic_reports/thematic_report_the_lived_experience_of_women_in_prisons">2021 finding</a> that female prisoners were segregated without due process, and the <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/53SCPET_EVI_104223_PET2124/333d26a1dd8baee52d1951ec0ffe4420cd5087bd">Ombudsman’s statement</a> last year that legal reform is needed “to ensure that New Zealand meets its international human rights obligations with respect to solitary confinement and PSC [prolonged solitary confinement]”.</p>
<p>Two things in particular stood out for me in the report: the Inspectorate’s willingness to call segregation “solitary confinement”, and the inadequate record keeping by the Department of Corrections that is highlighted.</p>
<p>“Segregation” can mean different things in the prison context, making it easy to get bogged down in definitional complexities. Unlike cell confinement, segregation is not a punishment. Instead, it is intended to manage a complex group of people, including supporting those with significant mental health needs, difficult behaviour, or even managing gang affiliations.</p>
<p>It can simply involve separating one group of prisoners from another. Or it can be solitary confinement, isolating a prisoner in their cell for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact. </p>
<p>The report finds that for all intents and purposes “segregation” means “solitary confinement” in New Zealand prisons. And some prisoners experience solitary confinement for months or years.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531490/original/file-20230612-28-h52yxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531490/original/file-20230612-28-h52yxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531490/original/file-20230612-28-h52yxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531490/original/file-20230612-28-h52yxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531490/original/file-20230612-28-h52yxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531490/original/file-20230612-28-h52yxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531490/original/file-20230612-28-h52yxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Arohata Prison intervention and support unit yard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dept. of Corrections</span></span>
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<h2>‘A dangerous place’</h2>
<p>So what does this look like in practice? Imagine being alone in a bleak version of your bedroom – without a phone or clock, with concrete walls, a television (only free channels) and an open toilet. </p>
<p>You’ll get an hour in a concrete yard to exercise, and at least five minutes a week on the phone with friends and family. In some prisons, dinner arrives at 3.30pm. As one prisoner quoted in the report says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When things get too hard, I wanted to kill myself. I’ve cut myself so many times [… there’s] no-one to talk to.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/prison-turns-life-upside-down-giving-low-risk-prisoners-longer-to-prepare-for-their-sentences-would-benefit-everyone-189382">Prison turns life upside down – giving low-risk prisoners longer to prepare for their sentences would benefit everyone</a>
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<p>Segregation includes isolating vulnerable prisoners in “intervention and support units” (ISUs). The picture painted here also lacks hope: stark environments, inaccurate record keeping, sensory deprivation and insufficient social interaction. One ISU prisoner described being “quite lonely”, adding:</p>
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<p>Mentally it reminds me of being forced into a cupboard when I was in foster care. I didn’t have any mental health support when I was there – just in my own mind, which can be a dangerous place.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Telling details haunt the report: the removing of cardboard tubes from toilet rolls, coldness due to too few blankets, prohibition of wearing shoes, no books in an ISU dayroom for fear prisoners might eat the pages, and lack of exposure to sunlight requiring prescriptions for vitamin D. </p>
<p>One prisoner describes injuring himself at his first opportunity to run in an open space:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just couldn’t help myself, fresh air, the wind on my face, and the grass under my feet, you can’t imagine what that feels like after so many years of being locked in a concrete box.</p>
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<span class="caption">Auckland South Corrections Facility separation and reintegration unit cell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dept. of Corrections</span></span>
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<h2>Impacts on prison staff</h2>
<p>Research has <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/solitary-confinement-effects">demonstrated</a> the psychological trauma, harm to mental health and problems with physical health that solitary confinement can cause. One prisoner put it this way in the report: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alone in my cell for days, used to often lead me to be frustrated, which led to anger and in turn led to violence. [I] caused a lot of violence in the cells.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/solitary-confinement-by-any-other-name-is-still-torture-149670">Solitary confinement by any other name is still torture</a>
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<p>These conditions undermine normal socialisation. Twinned with the lack of access to rehabilitation that the Inspectorate also identifies, segregation cannot be good preparation for release into the community.</p>
<p>The harm caused by such treatment may become permanent after 15 days. This is the threshold defined by the United Nations between “solitary confinement” and “prolonged solitary confinement”, as set out in its “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/mandela_rules.shtml">Mandela Rules</a>”.</p>
<p>This is not just a problem for the prisoners. It also has an enormous impact on an already fatigued workforce. As the report states, employees “felt like they had been trained as custodial staff but were being asked to manage prisoners with mental health issues”. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-there-prisons-an-expert-explains-the-history-of-using-correctional-facilities-to-punish-people-198202">Why are there prisons? An expert explains the history of using 'correctional' facilities to punish people</a>
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<h2>A watershed moment</h2>
<p>The report estimates about 29% of prisoners were segregated during the year of the review (October 1 2020 to September 30 2021). This is within a system where only 16% of prisoners have maximum or high-security classifications. Of all those segregated prisoners, 63% were Māori.</p>
<p>But the report gives only a glimpse into solitary confinement, due to what it identifies as unreliable paperwork and inaccurate data. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, it represents a watershed moment. Important recommendations are made to address key areas of concern. The Department of Corrections can <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/53SCPET_EVI_104223_PET1484/75bc04d07fc5425c5cbb85234059ad88ab726934">no longer say</a> solitary confinement is not used in New Zealand. Nor can it deny that, for a significant number of prisoners, this confinement is prolonged. </p>
<p>The fact that the department has accepted the Inspectorate’s recommendations should materially improve prisoner experience of segregation, and mean transparent reporting of demographic data and incidents of self-harm.</p>
<p>This is long overdue. As one prisoner noted, describing solitary confinement’s profound isolation: “There is only so much colouring in you can do.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine McCarthy was formerly the president of the Wellington Howard League for Penal Reform (2018-2020). In 2021 a petition she initiated to ban prolonged solitary confinement in New Zealand was presented to parliament.</span></em></p>The Prison Inspectorate has found ‘segregation’ policy and practice in New Zealand prisons are harmful, and has recommended significant changes.Christine McCarthy, Senior Lecturer in Interior Architecture, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1908672022-10-14T12:21:03Z2022-10-14T12:21:03ZWe talked to 100 people about their experiences in solitary confinement – this is what we learned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489439/original/file-20221012-18-tkslmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5751%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Living conditions in a solitary cell at New York's Rikers Island jail.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Solitary-Confinement-New-York/73d3f8de299e4d2eabdc78d507b7f4b7/photo?Query=solitary%20confinement&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=386&currentItemNo=32">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302205">leads the world</a> in its use of solitary confinement, locking away in isolation more of its population than any other country.</p>
<p>Every day, <a href="https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/arthur-liman-center-public-interest-law/liman-center-publications/time-cell-2021">up to 48,000</a> inmates – or around 4% of the incarcerated population – are locked in some form of solitary confinement in detention centers, jails and prisons across the U.S.</p>
<p>Some spend months – or even years – at a time in isolation, only being allowed out a few times a week for a 10-minute shower or a short exercise period in an outdoor dog run. And it doesn’t only affect prisoners. Up to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333012.htm#nat">20,000 other people</a> are affected as well – working as correctional staff or providing mental health services or other programming.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="The black cover of a book with 'Way Down in the Hole' written on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Interviews with guards and prisoners in solitary are collected in the book ‘Way Down in the Hole’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://smithandhattery.com/books/">Cover image by James D. Fuson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over three summers, we interviewed people who were confined or employed in solitary confinement units to better understand what it is like from both sides of the bars. The interviews form the basis of “<a href="https://smithandhattery.com/">Way Down in the Hole</a>,” a book published on Oct. 14, 2022.</p>
<p>In the course of our research, we spent hundreds of hours in solitary confinement units in facilities in a mid-Atlantic Rust Belt state. We conducted in-depth interviews with 75 prisoners and 25 staff members – including both civilian staff and prison officers.</p>
<p>This is what we learned from the interviews. Names have been changed to protect identities.</p>
<h2>Solitary confinement is dehumanizing</h2>
<p>Everyone we interviewed, both prisoners and officers alike, told us that solitary confinement is like being locked away out of sight, out of mind, and that the consequences on their physical and mental health were significant, and often stripped away their humanity.</p>
<p>Locked in a cell about the size of a mall parking space, prisoners are confined 23 hours a day with virtually no human interaction other than to be subjected to strip searches and have their hands cuffed and their feet shackled. They eat, sleep, meditate, study and exercise just inches away from where they defecate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Blue pained doors with numbers in white paint on them are seen along a barren prison corridor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Numbered doors in a solitary wing at New York’s Rikers Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TransgenderInmateDeath/93adebf09e954202a52a3aa17f9e9032/photo?Query=solitary%20confinement&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=386&currentItemNo=46">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One prisoner, an avid reader we will call Scholar, spoke to us nine months into his stay in solitary confinement. “All human privileges are gone; they treat you like a dog. They bring you food, they throw it to you, you shower in a cage, you exercise in a cage. Just because I’m wearing orange [the color of the jumpsuit for incarcerated people confined in solitary] doesn’t mean I’m not human.”</p>
<p>His experience isn’t an isolated one. Marina, who has been confined in solitary for more than a decade, remarked: “I’m treated like I’m in a zoo … I’m being treated like an animal. I feel lost and forgotten.”</p>
<p>Correctional officer Travis, who has worked in solitary confinement for 12 years, expresses a similar sentiment. “You don’t realize how stressful it is inside the walls,” he said. “You feel like an inmate. Inmates are running institutions and you have to do things to take care of them, and no one is taking care of us.” </p>
<h2>Solitary confinement breeds racial resentment</h2>
<p>Prisons are disproportionately filled with Black and Hispanic people, and solitary confinement is even more intensely racialized. </p>
<p>Black men comprise <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221">around 13% of the male population</a>, yet make up <a href="https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp">nearly 40% of the incarcerated population</a> and <a href="https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/arthur-liman-center-public-interest-law/liman-center-publications/time-cell-2021">45% of those locked in solitary confinement</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in many states, including where we conducted our research, most prisons are <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/racialgeography/incarcerated_in_disproportionately_white_counties.html">built in rural communities that are overwhelmingly white</a>. As a result, many corrections staff members – who tend to be drawn from the local population – are white. In hundreds of hours of observation in seven different prisons, we did not see more than a handful of corrections staff who were nonwhite. Yet the majority of people we saw in solitary confinement and whom we interviewed were Black or Hispanic. </p>
<p>In our conversations, guards certainly spoke to the resentment they felt toward prisoners in general and those in solitary in particular.</p>
<p>From their perspective, prisoners have better living conditions than the victims of their crime or the people who staff prisons.</p>
<p>“Inmates get TVs, tablets, kiosks, email; victims get nothing. They don’t get their family member back,” corrections officer Bunker said. “I lived in a bunker in Iraq for a year, and these guys have a better commode … not made of wood that they don’t have to burn.” </p>
<p>Because prisoners in solitary are <a href="https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/arthur-liman-center-public-interest-law/liman-center-publications/time-cell-2021">locked up 23 hours a day</a>, every daily need must be met by an officer. Officers hand deliver and pick up meal trays three times a day. Toilet paper is dispensed twice a week. Prisoners must be escorted to showers and the yard and even to therapy sessions. And before each and every movement out of cell, they must be strip searched, handcuffed and shackled. We watched officers do this for hundreds of hours, and it’s exhausting for the guards. Under these circumstances – and given the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333012.htm#nat">relatively low pay guards receive</a> – it is easy to see how resentment builds up.</p>
<p>An officer we call Porter said: “I have an elderly family member who had to give up their house to get a medical procedure, and the inmates get the best medical care for US$5. I knew a guy on death row that got chemo. Imagine that … paying to keep a guy alive just to kill him!”</p>
<p>And, because staff members are almost all white and the prisoners are disproportionately Black, this resentment becomes racialized. Scholar told us the prison he is incarcerated in is “one of the most racist prisons. [The guards] have no problem calling us ‘n*****.’”</p>
<h2>And yet, some prisoners choose solitary</h2>
<p>Despite the dehumanizing conditions of solitary confinement and the resentment it breeds, we met many prisoners who actively sought out solitary – and staff members who opted to guard those prisoners.</p>
<p>Many corrections staff preferred to work in solitary confinement units for a variety of reasons. Some preferred the pace of the work; some lived for the adrenaline rush of a cell extraction. Others told us that compared to other jobs available in their community, working in solitary was more interesting.</p>
<p>An officer we call Bezos who worked at an Amazon fulfillment center before starting at the prison summed it up: “I could warehouse boxes or warehouse people; people are more interesting.”</p>
<p>Perhaps more surprising, many prisoners also told us they chose solitary. </p>
<p>Some requested solitary confinement for their own safety, to avoid gang violence or the threat of sexual assault by other prisoners or retaliation for debts they owed on the inside or on the outside. Those placed in “administrative custody” – that is, they are placed in solitary not for punishment but for safety – said they experienced fewer restrictions than those who were sent to solitary confinement as punishment.</p>
<p>But many prisoners we interviewed deliberately committed misconducts, such as refusing a guard’s order, as a way of deliberately getting sent to solitary confinement by way of punishment. It was seen by some as a way to control one aspect of their lives. </p>
<p>Others endured the dehumanization of solitary confinement simply to be moved from one housing unit to another or to another prison all together. They did this to be closer to home – which would allow their families more opportunities to visit – or to a prison that had more programming, such as education classes or treatment.</p>
<p>A prisoner we call Fifty committed a misconduct that he knew would get him sentenced to the supermax facility in the state, despite it being known as one of the most racist prisons in the system and one of the hardest places to do time. </p>
<p>The reason, as Fifty explained, was that it kept him isolated from the man who killed his brother. Fifty worried that if tempted, he might kill the man and spend the rest of his life in prison. </p>
<p>The move was successful. Fifty was paroled just a few months after we met him, directly from solitary confinement to the streets of a major U.S. city. </p>
<h2>A system in which no one wins</h2>
<p>The picture that emerges from the interviews is one of a system that doesn’t serve the prison population or those employed to guard them.</p>
<p>People who spend time in solitary confinement are more likely to die <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2752350">sooner after their release</a> – as are <a href="https://pdf4pro.com/view/florida-mortality-study-florida-state-fop-1ca76b.html">officers</a>, who also have one of the highest <a href="http://policepsychologyblog.com/?p=4245">rates of divorce</a>. There is also no evidence that confinement acts as a deterrent or is in any way rehabilitative. </p>
<p>Any amount of time in solitary confinement can cause declines in mental health. Many people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12241">placed in solitary confinement find they end up back in prison</a> after they are released because they are unable to function or because they haven’t learned tools that help them stay out of trouble. </p>
<p>And, because of the prisoner to staff ratios and individual cells, the cost of holding someone in solitary confinement is <a href="https://scholars.org/brief/root-americas-over-use-solitary-confinements-prison-and-how-reform-can-happen#:%7E:text=Solitary%20confinement%20is%20not%20only,cost%20of%20public%20university%20tuition">around three times that</a> of the general prison population. </p>
<p>From our interviews, the overarching takeaway is it is a system in which no one wins and everyone loses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Every day, tens of thousands of American prisoners are locked up in solitary confinement. This is how that looks for those behind bars, and those guarding them.Angela Hattery, Professor of Women & Gender Studies/Co-Director, Center for the Study & Prevention of Gender-Based Violence, University of DelawareEarl Smith, Professor of Women and Gender Studies, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1812952022-05-05T14:58:01Z2022-05-05T14:58:01ZHow prisons are using COVID-19 containment measures as a guise for torture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461116/original/file-20220503-48736-8flicq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An inmate can be seen inside a segregation cell at the Collins Bay Institution in Kingston, Ont., in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/federal-inmates-solitary-confinement-enquete-1.6410882">Newly reported data</a> shows that torture continues in federal prison segregation units. It’s an ongoing feature of Ontario provincial jails too. </p>
<p>As critical criminology and policy scholars, we publish widely on issues of confinement and are active in community advocacy. We have heard about these practices from prisoners, recently released prisoners and via documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests. Despite changes to policy, lengthy segregation practices in prisons continue and have evolved amid the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>Our analysis shows that the frequency and length of isolation practices have increased during the pandemic and have received little critical oversight because they’re framed as containment measures. </p>
<h2>Long confinement is torture</h2>
<p>Solitary confinement that lasts longer than 15 days and/or without at least four hours out of cells and two hours of meaningful human contact per day, is defined as torture by the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/Nelson_Mandela_Rules-E-ebook.pdf">United Nations</a>. </p>
<p>In 2019, the federal government abolished solitary confinement, and replaced it with a new practice called “<a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/acts-and-regulations/005006-3000-en.shtml">structured intervention units</a>,” or SIUs. Among the changes, SIUs are supposed to limit segregation to 15 days. </p>
<p>That same year, the Ontario government amended <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-segregation-jail-human-rights-1.5325081">its regulations</a> limiting segregation to 15 days and requiring an assistant deputy minister to review segregation placements.</p>
<p>An amendment to the province’s <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/49411/ontario-passes-legislation-to-transform-adult-correctional-system">Correctional Services and Reintegration Act</a> with additional changes was passed by the Liberal government in 2018, but not acclaimed by the current Conservative government. </p>
<h2>Human rights concerns</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/report-conditions-confinement-toronto-south-detention-centre">The Ontario Human Rights Commission</a> raised concerns about segregation in a recent report following a tour of the Toronto South Detention Centre in 2020. </p>
<p>The report found routine use of isolation in ways that “raise serious human rights concerns.” In April 2020, Superior Court Justice Paul Perell awarded $30 million in damages, ruling the province had been “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-segregation-1.5971689">systemically and routinely</a>” negligent in running solitary confinement. </p>
<p>In August 2020, the Ontario Human Rights Commission <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/segregation-and-mental-health-ontario%E2%80%99s-prisons-jahn-v-ministry-community-safety-and-correctional">filed a motion</a> with the Human Rights Tribunal for an order to hold the province accountable for failing to meet its legal obligations to keep people with mental health disabilities out of segregation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small darkened cell with a small window, a narrow cot and a toilet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461120/original/file-20220503-19206-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461120/original/file-20220503-19206-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461120/original/file-20220503-19206-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461120/original/file-20220503-19206-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461120/original/file-20220503-19206-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461120/original/file-20220503-19206-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461120/original/file-20220503-19206-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A segregation cell at the Toronto South Detention Centre in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Interviews with prisoners</h2>
<p><a href="https://ccla.org/press-release/prison-pandemic-papers-documenting-impact-of-covid-19-in-jails-prisons-penitentiaries-across-canada-launched/">The data we’ve collected through prisoner interviews and via freedom-of-information requests</a> show four forms of forced isolation are being abused in ways that approach or meet the UN definition of torture. </p>
<p>Primary among these are lockdowns (all prisoners isolating to cells), COVID-19 quarantines (14-day intake isolation), droplet precautions (isolating to cells/ranges due to a suspected COVID-19 infection) and structured intervention/segregation (isolation in a specialized unit).</p>
<p>Some interviewees reported spending 28 consecutive days in forced isolation, without daily time outside of their cells. People had their isolation clocks restarted when moved from a provincial to federal institution or if someone new was moved into their cell/unit. </p>
<p>In the words of one interviewee:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Going for 14 days of quarantine in provincial and then immediately 14 days in federal … was pretty rough, you know. I’ve done a lot of hole [solitary] time before, but it seems that this was even harder.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Data shared by Ontario’s solicitor general following our freedom-of-information requests show there were 380 full and partial lockdowns in Ontario jails from January to August 2020. People were confined to cells with next to no time out for phone calls, showers or fresh air. </p>
<p>As of Nov. 30, 2020, there were 132 people in Ontario custody who had spent more than 60 days in segregation over the year. Of those in segregation, 30 had mental health alerts on their files. </p>
<p>Between July 2018 and June 2019, the <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/statement-ohrc-files-motion-address-ontario%E2%80%99s-breach-legal-obligation-keep-prisoners-mental-health">Ontario Human Rights Commission reported</a> more than 12,000 people were placed in segregation in Ontario, and 46 per cent of them had mental health issues.</p>
<h2>Risk management</h2>
<p>Our analysis shows that throughout the pandemic, tortuous segregation has been normalized as “risk management” in the absence of external accountability. </p>
<p>Risk assessment during the pandemic extends pre-existing institutional culture, including the use of 20 <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2017-s015/index-en.aspx">risk assessment tools</a> that establish ratings such as <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-investigation-racial-bias-in-canadian-prison-risk-assessments/">security classifications and reintegration scores</a>, and experiences of <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487521387/also-serving-time/">occupational risk</a> among staff. Prisons are already seen as risky places by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00328855211048166">management, staff and confined people</a>; COVID-19 has added to those perceptions.</p>
<p>Research suggests that solitary confinement is a <a href="https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/ccj_fac/47/">prisoner management strategy</a> used to reduce threats to institutional order and safety. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00223433211062389">COVID-19 crisis</a> has provided an opportunity for further repressive measures. </p>
<p>Risk management has meant continuously restricting prisoners rather than embracing community alternatives and discretionary release. This is despite health experts and scholars exposing the <a href="https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2182&context=dlj">impossibility of physical distancing</a> in prisons. </p>
<p>Risk communication has been heavily restricted, with controlled messages aimed at establishing a crisis narrative.</p>
<p>But the public and stakeholders <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaip.2020.04.012">can inform policy</a> through critique. Prisons are sensitive to criticisms given <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F14624740222228509">the need to legitimize</a> practices of control. </p>
<h2>Dismantled oversight</h2>
<p>In 2021, the Ontario government quietly dismantled all 10 <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/26763/greater-transparency-in-correctional-facilities">Community Advisory Boards</a> established in 2013 to provide independent oversight of the province’s jails. Before that, board members were able to enter local jails at any time to provide immediate community oversight and transparency. </p>
<p>These boards <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/accountability-community-advisory-boards">were responsible</a> for producing annual reports and recommendations on jail conditions.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.torontoprisonersrightsproject.org/updates/nomoredeaths">Community advocates</a> <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/letter-solicitor-general-elimination-community-advisory-boards">and agencies</a>, along with opposition parties, have called for the reinstatement of these advisory boards. As the Ontario provincial election approaches, issues of segregation and torture in the province’s jails should become a campaign issue.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small exercise yard with cinder wall and the sun shining from above through caging." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461118/original/file-20220503-49620-in1z5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461118/original/file-20220503-49620-in1z5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461118/original/file-20220503-49620-in1z5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461118/original/file-20220503-49620-in1z5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461118/original/file-20220503-49620-in1z5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461118/original/file-20220503-49620-in1z5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461118/original/file-20220503-49620-in1z5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An exercise yard for the segregation unit at Collins Bay Institution in Kingston, Ont., in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Change is needed</h2>
<p>The normalization of torturous isolation is likely to continue without adequate external oversight and accountability.</p>
<p>We call for the reinstatement of Ontario community advisory boards and demand the Ontario government acclaim the <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/49411/ontario-passes-legislation-to-transform-adult-correctional-system">Correctional Services and Reintegration Act</a>. The act aligns the definition of segregation with international standards, phasing in time limits and barring segregation for pregnant or mentally ill people.</p>
<p>More than <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/news_centre/ohrc-statement-calling-ontario%E2%80%99s-justice-sector-fight-covid-19-keeping-prison-custody-numbers-low">70 per cent</a> of people in prison have not even been convicted of any crimes. We call for a return to releasing prisoners as occurred in the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-inmate-advocates-warn-jail-populations-rising-again-in-some-provinces/">early days of the pandemic</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-in-prisons-how-and-why-to-release-inmates-in-a-pandemic-136676">Coronavirus in prisons: How and why to release inmates in a pandemic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The use of isolation inside Ontario prisons is either close to torture or amounts to torture and can have long-term effects.</p>
<p>Summing up the link between isolation and suffering, one person we interviewed noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Even if you are only in there for the two weeks and make bail, you’re going to be coming out with some serious issues.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Evans receives funding from SSHRC. She is affiliated with the Toronto Prisoners' Rights Project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Mussell receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>Solitary confinement is still a common feature of prisons across Canada and in its most populous province, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a practice that amounts to torture.Jessica Evans, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLinda Mussell, Postdoctoral fellow, Political Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564552021-03-11T15:14:21Z2021-03-11T15:14:21ZSolitary confinement replaced by new system where 1 in 10 prisoners experience torture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388350/original/file-20210308-21-4vgvcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C6645%2C4406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The latest data shows structured intervention units (SIU) are a failure.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In November 2019, <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/acts-and-regulations/005006-3000-en.shtml">structured intervention units (SIUs)</a> officially replaced solitary confinement in Canada. </p>
<p>Prior to SIUs, solitary confinement operated through administrative segregation and disciplinary <a href="https://www.ccja-acjp.ca/pub/en/briefs-articles/segregation-in-canada-and-other-western-democracies-mark-addo/">segregation</a>. The new system claimed to add safeguards, mental health supports and provide prisoners with four hours outside their cells per day, including two hours of meaningful interaction. Despite being in place for over a year, <a href="https://johnhoward.ca/drs-doob-sprott-report/">recent data</a> shows this system is a failure: one in 10 prisoners in SIUs experience torture.</p>
<p>It is crucial for corrections to respond to this human rights failure. As a socio-legal scholar and a critical policy analyst who studies carceral policy, we believe possible solutions include reducing the number of people confined in SIUs, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/corrections-solitary-confinement-segregation-1.4167555">hard caps</a> on days permitted in SIUs, penalties and <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2019/corrections-bill-lacks-key-provisions-judicial-oversight/">oversight</a>. Our goal is to push for <a href="https://canadaopcatproject.ca/2020/11/28/transparency-accountability-for-incarcerated-indigenous-women-in-canada/">institutional accountability and transparency</a>, which has long evaded corrections.</p>
<h2>The current state of things</h2>
<p>Criminologists Anthony Doob and Jane Sprott published a <a href="https://johnhoward.ca/drs-doob-sprott-report/">report in late February</a> with data from the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) that revealed solitary confinement is still happening and some practices amount to torture.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/solitary-confinement-by-any-other-name-is-still-torture-149670">Solitary confinement by any other name is still torture</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For those confined to SIUs, data revealed that 79 per cent of prisoners did not receive the required four hours outside of their cells per day for over half their stay. Additionally, 56 per cent of prisoners did not receive the required two hours of meaningful interaction outside of their cells per day for over half their stay. There is no evidence these measures have improved.</p>
<p>The data also revealed that 28 per cent of SIU stays constitute solitary confinement, which means prisoners spent 22 or more hours per day in their cell without meaningful interaction. Further, under the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/mandela_rules.shtml">Mandela Rules</a>, 9.9 per cent of SIU stays constitute torture, which means solitary confinement for more than 15 days. While Canada helped develop the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/cat.aspx">United Nations Convention Against Torture</a>, it has <a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/canada-drags-its-feet-on-international-convention-against-torture">not meaningfully complied</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protest sign saying 'solitary is torture' displayed at the New York State Assembly's Great Western Staircase" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388344/original/file-20210308-22-1fx6f8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388344/original/file-20210308-22-1fx6f8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388344/original/file-20210308-22-1fx6f8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388344/original/file-20210308-22-1fx6f8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388344/original/file-20210308-22-1fx6f8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388344/original/file-20210308-22-1fx6f8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388344/original/file-20210308-22-1fx6f8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The latest data shows 28 per cent of structured intervention unit (SIU) stays constitute solitary confinement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Mike Groll/AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This treatment is dire for prisoners. One of us has done research with Indigenous former prisoners and their family members, both <a href="https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/jlsp/vol33/iss1/2/">published</a> and forthcoming. From this research, a former prisoner shares:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I was exposed to solitary confinement for three days straight, and it affected me minimally, but it makes me imagine as someone who is cognitively sound and able, how does this affect everyone else, you know what I mean? How does it affect people who have intergenerational trauma and come from these places of disproportion? To get incarcerated and then to come back, damaged, and there’s no support?”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Trying to find solutions</h2>
<p>In mid-2019, an external <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2019/09/government-appoints-expert-advisory-panel-to-monitor-new-correctional-system.html">Implementation Advisory Panel</a> was assembled to monitor and oversee SIUs. The panel <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/solitary-confinement-panel-blair-trudeau-1.5701134">disbanded in July 2020</a> due to lack of cooperation from CSC.</p>
<p>The most direct solution is to reduce and eventually eliminate the number of stays in SIUs. For now, however, prisons should place a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/corrections-solitary-confinement-segregation-1.4167555">hard cap</a> on 15 days in solitary confinement and to ensure compliance, penalties should be given to managerial staff whose authority allows these practices to continue (e.g., suspensions without pay, disciplinary action). </p>
<p>CSC should be required to regularly release data to ensure rules are followed, and the SIU Implementation Advisory Committee should be reinstated and provided with the resources promised. Community members and organizations should also be permitted to enter prisons to monitor practices, and ensure overall prisoner well-being.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1125374796697604096"}"></div></p>
<h2>Community oversight</h2>
<p>In 1991, in response to Elders’ increasing concerns over the <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-02/research-guide-aboriginal-deaths-in-custody.pdf">high number of deaths in custody</a>, Indigenous people in Queensland, Australia, launched <a href="http://murriwatch.org.au/about/">Murri Watch</a>, an Indigenous-led community organization offering culturally proficient services to individuals in the criminal justice system. In addition to the diversion and support programs offered on the outside, Murri Watch also intervenes and saves lives on the inside. The <a href="http://murriwatch.org.au/services/cell-visitor/">Cell Visitor Service</a> program provides support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people detained in police custody.</p>
<p>Murri Watch members routinely visit prisoners and refer them to support services they can access while in custody. Their approach has helped prevent incidents of death and suicide, and minimized self-inflicted injuries among those in custody. <a href="http://murriwatch.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016-Annual%20Report.pdf">In 2016</a> there were 2,818 cell visits, 1,443 messages relayed to families of prisoners and 388 referrals to other agencies.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5xJWga_bFdI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Murri Watch was set up 25 years ago to keep Indigenous people out of prison and has since become a refuge for Brisbane, Australia’s most vulnerable.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Canada, having community groups like Murri Watch routinely visit prisoners could better ensure transparency and accountability.</p>
<p>Through research on intergenerational criminalization, an Indigenous community member shares:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Prison walls are as much as keeping people in as keeping us who are trying to help our people out. So the system needs to understand and make those relationships with our own people in meaningful ways. There is constant distrust of us as a people. We do have ideas, we do have solutions, we do have ways to help our own people. But barriers are constantly put up in our way to do that.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Current rules are without teeth</h2>
<p>Current rules prohibiting solitary confinement are without teeth and CSC continues to openly disregard the rules without penalty. Instead of centring human rights, CSC centres <a href="https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hojo.12009">risk management</a>, relying on SIUs as a risk management tool. Operating from a “tough on crime” vantage point, there is a <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-need-the-rule-of-law-in-prison/article22004287/">lack of political willingness</a> to transform corrections policy in a meaningful way.</p>
<p>From an interview with a community organization:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We keep people informed of what’s happening in prisons, but we lack any authority. We lack any ability to keep Correctional Services Canada committed to their mandate of rehabilitation and reintegration. That’s the biggest gap.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the same time, community members, researchers and front-line workers want to help prisoners on the inside. Despite allowing torture to continue, <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/canada-is-a-global-human-rights-beacon-but-not-so-much-at-home/">Canada cares about its human rights image</a>. Removing barriers to allow people to fix this problem, provides Canada an opportunity to salvage part of its image.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Mussell receives funding from PETF.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marsha Rampersaud receives funding from SSHRC. She is affiliated with John Howard Society Ontario.</span></em></p>Community oversight, hard caps on days permitted in structured intervention units and penalties could save lives in Canada’s prisons.Linda Mussell, PhD Candidate, Political Studies, Queen's University, OntarioMarsha Rampersaud, PhD Candidate, Sociology, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1496702020-11-18T17:46:27Z2020-11-18T17:46:27ZSolitary confinement by any other name is still torture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369622/original/file-20201116-21-22bt7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C5997%2C3998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Isolating prisoners in cells with no contact and little activity over a sustained period of time amounts to torture.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In October 2020, criminologists Anthony Doob and Jane Sprott released a report on Correctional Services Canada’s (CSC) use of <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/acts-and-regulations/005006-3000-en.shtml">structured intervention units (SIUs)</a>. SIUs were intended to replace the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons but <a href="https://johnhoward.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/UnderstandingCSC_SIUDoobSprott26-10-2020-1.pdf">are a catastrophic failure</a>, especially for imprisoned people with mental illness.</p>
<p>Advocates, including <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/ontario-solitary-confinement-ruling-hardly-counts-as-a-victory/article37387750/">legal scholar Lisa Kerr</a> and <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2019/05/05/senator-says-solitary-confinement-bill-will-make-some-conditions-worse-not-better.html">Sen. Kim Pate</a>, have criticized the introduction of SIUs as a mere rebranding of longstanding and harmful isolation practices in federal prisons. </p>
<p>As researchers and volunteers in prisons, we have directly witnessed what it looks like for people with mental illness behind bars. The complete incapability of prisons to “care” for people with mental illness must be underscored. Prisons make things much worse, and SIUs amount to torture.</p>
<p>Prisoners and their loved ones have been speaking out for years, with no meaningful response. In the words of Farhat Rehman, co-founder of <a href="https://www.momsottawa.com">Mothers Offering Mutual Support</a> and mother of an imprisoned man with mental illness:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/rehman-dehumanizing-counterproductive-unlawful-canadas-correctional-system-resists-all-attempts-at-reform">For families like mine, prisoners are not nameless and faceless: They are our loved ones. We are terrified for them, and devastated by recent news that this won’t change any time soon</a>.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>SIUs are a failure to provide care</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20150528-eng.aspx">administrative segregation units</a> (now rebranded as SIUs), prisoners are placed in solitary confinement where they have <a href="https://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/Corrections/IndependentReviewOntarioCorrections/IndependentReviewOntarioCorrectionsSegregationOntario.html#seguse">little room for movement, a narrow concrete bed and a steel toilet and wash basin</a>. Often, there is no pillow or blanket and <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/why-adam-capay-has-spent-1560-days-in-solitary/">bright fluorescent light remains constant</a>. There is little or no access to counselling, programs or meaningful human contact. Prisoners have been confined to solitary confinement for days, weeks, months and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/advocates-decry-2-year-stint-in-solitary-confinement-1.5758131">sometimes years</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1201576973442670594"}"></div></p>
<p>Prison administrators argue it is sometimes necessary to segregate prisoners to maintain the <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/acts-and-regulations/711-cd-en.shtml#t6">security and order of the prison</a>. While separating a prisoner from the general prison population is rationalized as <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/acts-and-regulations/005006-3000-en.shtml">maintaining safety</a>, this practice has proven destructive and inhumane. Prisoners who have experienced solitary confinement say <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/alone-inside-1.2913564">the experience is torturous</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/pl/charter-charte/c83.html">Bill C-83</a> was enacted in response to the B.C. Supreme Court’s finding that prolonged solitary confinement in prisons <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-bc-court-upholds-ruling-that-struck-down-solitary-confinement-law/">violates Charter rights</a>. Critics of C-83 claim that it actually made it <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5241955/canada-solitary-confinement-bill-inmates-isolation/">easier to place prisoners in solitary confinement</a>.</p>
<h2>Change in language but not action</h2>
<p>The federal government committed <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/senator-says-solitary-confinement-bill-will-make-some-conditions-worse-not-better-1.5124649">$448 million</a> to pay for 950 new staff and building renovations. SIUs were supposed to allow better access to programming and mental health care. Prisoners transferred to the units were supposed to be allowed out of their cells for four hours each day, with two of those hours engaged in “<a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-44.6/fulltext.html">meaningful human contact</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A small prison cell with a cot, sink, toilet and desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/367984/original/file-20201106-17-15vtwma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A solitary isolation cell at Dorchester Penitentiary, New Brunswick.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/photo/atlantic-atlantique/index-eng.aspx">(Office of the Correctional Investigator/Government of Canada)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>CSC has hindered attempts at oversight to ensure these changes have been made. The SIU Implementation Advisory Panel requested administrative data at regular intervals, from the time SIUs began operating in November 2019. These <a href="https://smartjustice.ca/2020/10/27/5116/">requests were ignored</a> by CSC until mid-October 2020. CSC then released nine months worth of administrative data.</p>
<p>The October report prepared by Doob and Sprott says <a href="https://johnhoward.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/UnderstandingCSC_SIUDoobSprott26-10-2020-1.pdf">requirements were seldom met in the first nine months of the SIU system</a>. Only 21 per cent of prisoners spent four hours outside their cells on half or more of their days in the units. Only 46 per cent had two hours of meaningful contact on at least half of the days. Nearly half of stays lasted for more than 15 days, and 16 per cent lasted for more than two months. Multiple stints were common. </p>
<p>Doob and Sprott also identify that prisoners sent to SIUs are disproportionately Indigenous (39 per cent) and Black (13 per cent); Indigenous people make up 30 per cent of the prison population and Black people comprise seven per cent.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/mandeladay/mandela_rules.shtml">United Nation’s Mandela rules</a> prohibit solitary confinement of prisoners for 22 hours or more a day without meaningful human contact, and prolonged solitary confinement of more than 15 consecutive days. Breaking these parameters is defined as torture.</p>
<h2>Mental illnesses produced, exacerbated in prison</h2>
<p>Many people enter prison with <a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/mental-illness-and-the-prison-system">pre-existing mental illness</a>. The conditions of prisons also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94090-8_7">produce mental illness</a>. Imprisonment is not mandated to put life at risk, exacerbating conditions to the point of mental crisis. <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/publications/005007-8606-eng.shtml">CSC is mandated</a> to provide “reasonable, safe, secure and humane control.” </p>
<p>Yet crisis is exactly the <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-mental-health-crisis-in-canadian-prisons/">experience of many prisoners</a>. What’s more, behaviours perceived as defiant or self-harming are often a direct <a href="https://nationalpost.com/opinion/christie-blatchford-ashley-smiths-personality-disorder-chaotic-but-not-permanent-psychiatrist-testifies">effect of confinement</a>, which leads prisoners to be transferred to SIUs.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wwvlkstnesE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CBC News looks at solitary confinement in Canada.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Solitary confinement is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.12733">disproportionately used for people with mental illness</a>. Doob and Sprott found that 35 per cent of people were transferred to SIUs more than once; those tended to be male with identifiable mental health needs. Those placed in SIU because of concern about the prisoner’s own safety ended up staying in the SIU a substantially longer period of time. </p>
<p>Solitary confinement has been found to produce <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/696041">extremely high psychological distress</a>, and greater levels of isolation is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2013.08.016">a higher rate of suicide</a>.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/not-mental-health-funding-thunder-bay-coalition-1.5125185">limited funding</a> for mental health programs and services, prisons and jails have become a catchment for many individuals who experience mental health challenges. But prisons are not the appropriate place to address these challenges. Prisoners with mental health issues are paying for this failing <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/oth-aut/oth-aut20140910-eng.aspx">with their lives</a>.</p>
<p>Jewish-Indigenous prisoner Timothy Nome, speaking from a cell during his 60th day of solitary confinement at the Stony Mountain Institution in Manitoba:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“<a href="https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/yes-its-torture-federal-inmate-on-segregation-and-life-on-the-inside/">These are guys who are trying to kill themselves because they would rather die than remain in segregation. So, if you’re asking me the question, is segregation torture? I think that, in and of itself, is a response… After you’ve spent 30, 60, 90, 120 days in a room where you don’t see nobody, except for a plastic meal tray being handed through your slot twice a day, you understand</a>.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nome ended up spending 20 more days in solitary.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1201310437922525184"}"></div></p>
<h2>Prisons lack accountability</h2>
<p>In September, Kim Beaudin, vice-Chief of the <a href="http://www.abo-peoples.org/en/">Congress of Aboriginal Peoples</a>, spoke about the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/09/13/indigenous-vice-chief-calls-on-correctional-service-commissioner-to-resign.html">toll of SIUs</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We have no oversight. I’ve counted four people who died in prison as a result of suicide alone. I believe two out of federal (prison) and two provincial (prison) in Saskatchewan. … That was just in the last month and a half.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has been used as an <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/correctional-service/news/2020/10/correctional-service-of-canada-on-structured-intervention-units.html">excuse by CSC for why it has failed expectations</a>. On Nov. 15, <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eLwpYQcEJrNNXWriBmeD0kwOlH2PZgc4/view">Sprott and Doob released a response report analyzing the data to counter this claim</a>, removing data of prisons that had COVID-19 cases to see if the findings would differ. The findings were the same and the pandemic cannot be used as an excuse.</p>
<p>Canada’s prison service lacks the ability and willingness to change. Beaudin has called for <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2020/09/13/indigenous-vice-chief-calls-on-correctional-service-commissioner-to-resign.html">defunding the prison system and for the resignation of Anne Kelly, the CSC Commissioner</a>. We should listen to him. </p>
<p>Now is the time to resource community supports and provide people with ample assistance, especially people with mental health challenges where prison and SIUs are used as a crutch to manage them. We also need to hold officials accountable for perpetuating solitary confinement in all but name.</p>
<p>Accountability is needed. Allowing torture to continue is unconscionable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Mussell receives doctoral funding from PETF and SSHRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marsha Rampersaud receives doctoral funding from SSHRC. She is affiliated with John Howard Society Ontario. </span></em></p>While seemingly an alternative to solitary confinement, Structured Intervention Units have been a catastrophic failure, especially for imprisoned people with mental illness.Linda Mussell, PhD Candidate, Political Studies, Queen's University, OntarioMarsha Rampersaud, PhD Candidate, Sociology, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1246792019-10-27T12:05:19Z2019-10-27T12:05:19ZThe end of solitary confinement in Canada? Not exactly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298541/original/file-20191024-170484-149z5wg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C3799%2C2160&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The federal government says it's doing away with solitary confinement. But is it just an exercise in rebranding?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As of Dec. 1, inmates in Canada’s federal prisons can no longer be legally held in solitary confinement. Sort of.</p>
<p>Bill C-83, <a href="https://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/AnnualStatutes/2014_36/">an amendment to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act</a>, received royal assent in June and will be fully enforced by Nov. 30. </p>
<p>The act eliminates administrative and disciplinary segregation, also known as solitary confinement. According to Ralph Goodale, the former minister of public safety who lost his seat in the recent election, this amounts to a “<a href="https://sencanada.ca/en/content/sen/Committee/421/soci/59ev-54763-e">fundamental</a>” change in the way prisons deal with inmates who are considered a risk to others or themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298544/original/file-20191024-170493-cpls1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pate is seen in October 2013, when she was executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Independent Sen. Kim Pate, however, it’s simply an exercise in “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-solitary-by-another-name-is-just-as-cruel/">rebranding</a>.”</p>
<h2>Why rebranding?</h2>
<p>Segregation units are being replaced by “structured intervention units” (SIUs) that even Goodale <a href="https://sencanada.ca/en/content/sen/Committee/421/soci/59ev-54763-e">admitted look essentially the same as segregation cells</a> (10-by-six-foot rooms with concrete walls and solid metal doors). </p>
<p>However, Goodale pointed out that SIUs will offer inmates four hours outside of their cells, opportunities for “meaningful human contact,” more programming and more health-care interventions</p>
<p>Critics question the value of the proposed changes, which the <a href="https://www.pbo-dpb.gc.ca/en/blog/news/Bill_C-83">Parliamentary Budget Office estimates will have an annual operating cost of $58 million</a>. Will the new SIU model go far enough to address the harms associated with solitary confinement? How different will it be if inmates are still isolated for 20 hours a day in much the same environment?</p>
<h2>‘Onerous and depriving’</h2>
<p>The practice of solitary confinement is described by <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2018/02/04/the-return-of-prison-farms-and-tattoos-why-this-new-watchdog-wont-slam-the-door-on-canadas-inmates.html">Ivan Zinger</a>, the Correctional Investigator of Canada, as “<a href="https://sencanada.ca/en/Content/Sen/Committee/421/RIDR/54518-e%5D">the most onerous and depriving experience that the state can legitimately administer in Canada</a>.” </p>
<p>Indeed, segregation has long been criticized by advocates of prisoners’ rights, who insist it causes severe <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july-2018/time-end-solitary-confinement/">mental distress, including paranoia and psychosis</a>. It also increases risks of self-harm and suicide. </p>
<p>In 2010, 24-year-old Edward Snowshoe committed suicide after <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/edward-snowshoe-spent-162-days-in-segregation-before-suicide-1.2703542">spending 162 days in segregation</a>. </p>
<p>In 2007, 19-year-old Ashley Smith strangled herself in her segregation cell. <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2019/05/05/trudeau-pate-solitary-confinement-bill_a_23721926/">She had been held in segregation units for more than 1,000 days</a>. </p>
<p>An inquest into her death said prisoners should not be segregated, and those with mental health issues should be in community-based mental-health facilities, not prison. </p>
<p>If solitary confinement is so bad for inmates, why is it used? Correctional Service Canada provides <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/acts-and-regulations/709-1-gl-eng.shtml">three reasons</a> for which inmates can be placed in segregation: if they jeopardize the security of the institution and/or safety of other individuals; if it’s necessary for an investigation that could lead to a criminal or serious disciplinary charge; or, if the inmate’s own safety is at risk. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298545/original/file-20191024-170467-hez661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298545/original/file-20191024-170467-hez661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298545/original/file-20191024-170467-hez661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298545/original/file-20191024-170467-hez661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298545/original/file-20191024-170467-hez661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298545/original/file-20191024-170467-hez661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298545/original/file-20191024-170467-hez661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cell in the segregation unit at the Fraser Valley Institution for Women is seen during a media tour in Abbotsford, B.C., in October 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, given the serious harms associated with segregation, are these reasons sufficient? Are adequate safeguards in place to ensure that the application of rules relating to segregation complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?</p>
<h2>Prisoners have some Charter rights</h2>
<p>Although prisoners lose certain rights when they receive criminal convictions, such as freedom of mobility, they do not lot lose all their rights. </p>
<p><a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-15.html">Section 7 of the Charter</a> requires that an individual is only deprived of their right to life, liberty and security of person according to principles of fundamental justice. In recent legal battles, the courts had to determine if solitary confinement restricts people’s freedoms in a way that complies with such principles. </p>
<p>In December 2017, the Ontario Superior Court <a href="http://ccla.org/cclanewsite/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/C64841.rere_.pdf">ruled that Canada’s segregation laws violate Section 7</a> rights due to the increased risk of self-harm and suicide, and to the associated psychological and physical harms.</p>
<p>In January 2018, the <a href="https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/18/00/2018BCSC0062.htm">B.C. Supreme Court also ruled segregation is unconstitutional</a> because it discriminates against those who experience mental illness and disability and against Indigenous prisoners. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-system-why-is-a-quarter-of-canadas-prison-population-indigenous-91562">Broken system: Why is a quarter of Canada's prison population Indigenous?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It’s important to recognize that in these decisions, the courts did not rule that holding individuals in isolation cells is unconstitutional, but they focused instead on certain aspects of solitary confinement, such as lack of oversight and the use of segregation with specific populations. </p>
<h2>One year to change laws</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, given that aspects of the legislation were deemed unconstitutional, the federal government had one year to change the laws in order to bring them into compliance. </p>
<p>So in June 2018, the Liberal government tabled Bill C-83. Because this legislation ostensibly eliminates segregation, Goodale claimed that the B.C. and Ontario court findings, which were ruling on the “old system” of segregation, are not “<a href="https://sencanada.ca/en/content/sen/Committee/421/soci/59ev-54763-e">equally applicable</a>” to the new SIU system. </p>
<p>In other words, the constitutionality of the SIU model will be the subject of future debates, and possibly future legal challenges. </p>
<p>Practices such as solitary confinement, or the use of “structured intervention units,” raise questions about how to respond to those who have committed criminal offences. </p>
<p>The vast majority of people who are held in prison will eventually be released back to the community. It is in the best interest of public safety to ensure that during their incarceration, they receive adequate and meaningful opportunities to address the factors that led to their offences, such as substance abuse or their own experiences of trauma and violence. </p>
<p>The newly developed SIUs are intended to provide increased intervention and programming in order to address the specific risks and needs of individuals. If Correctional Service Canada is able to deliver this, Bill C-83 could indeed signal a fundamental change in how the most challenging inmates are dealt with. </p>
<p>But if adequate, rehabilitative programming is not put in place to support the new units, this will indeed be nothing more than a multi-million dollar exercise in rebranding a harmful, unconstitutional practice.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Grace is a volunteer member with the Ottawa Parole Office Citizen Advisory Committee.</span></em></p>As of Dec. 1, inmates in Canada’s federal prisons can no longer be legally held in solitary confinement. But is it truly just an exercise in rebranding?Anita Grace, PhD Candidate, Department of Law and Legal Studies, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1203202019-09-03T23:09:59Z2019-09-03T23:09:59ZA prison is no place for a party<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/283892/original/file-20190712-173347-1f6dv1c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=555%2C0%2C1213%2C575&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it ethical to use former prisons, with long histories of death, suffering and wrongful incarcerations, as entertainment venues?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rockin' the Big House</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What does it mean to hold a party in a place with a long history of death and suffering? </p>
<p>On Sept. 14, “2,500 lucky music lovers, history buffs and curiosity seekers will walk through the gates of Kingston Penitentiary in eastern Ontario to experience an outdoor music festival like no other, in support of United Way” called <a href="https://www.unitedwaykfla.ca/rockin-the-big-house/">Rockin’ the Big House</a>. </p>
<p>But is a prison the right venue for a public rock concert? The morality of using prisons for entertainment and philanthropy is something we have yet to fully grapple with in Kingston and beyond. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BxMztfygzs4","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>I research incarceration policy in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and also volunteer inside and outside institutions in Kingston, Ont. I hear the perspectives of those who work inside, and advocates and former prisoners outside in the community. I <a href="https://uottawa.scholarsportal.info/ottawa/index.php/jpp/article/view/4354">recently published</a> an article on the unacknowledged history and future development of the Prison for Women. I stressed the importance of healing, memory and awareness around the use of shuttered prisons. </p>
<p>The use of Kingston Penitentiary is another important piece in the mosaic of a growing industry in Kingston. </p>
<h2>Dark tourism</h2>
<p>There are guided tours inside the penitentiary, it’s on the Kingston trolley tours route and the Correctional Service of Canada runs a museum in the former warden’s residence across the street. </p>
<p>Shows and movies are filmed there, including <em>Alias Grace</em> in 2017, and <em>Titans</em> in 2019. Even the downtown Holiday Inn has a selfie station with a backdrop of prison bars. </p>
<p>Since Kingston Penitentiary was shuttered in 2013, Correctional Service of Canada has been working with the City of Kingston and St. Lawrence Park Commission to offer public tours of the facility. Almost 230,000 people have been through the doors of <a href="https://www.kingstonpentour.com">the prison for tours</a>. The concert is the latest use for the penitentiary. </p>
<p>This is known as “dark tourism,” a term coined by British academics <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13527259608722175">Malcolm Foley and John Lennon</a> in 1996 to describe the practice of generating tourism dollars from places that are identified with death and suffering.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1159474056623730693"}"></div></p>
<p>Prison tourism in Kingston does not acknowledge the full history of the site, including the death and suffering experienced there. Instead, <a href="https://www.unitedwaykfla.ca/rockin-the-big-house/">the prison is described</a> by United Way as a place to take in sought-after entertainment. United Way also describes the prison as being known “for housing some of Canada’s most notorious criminals.” </p>
<p>The tours are further described by United Way as “highlighting the public’s thirst and curiosity for what went on behind the giant stonewalls.” Recent research by Canadian academics <a href="http://uottawacrm.ca/news-and-events/2019/4/1/carceral-cultures-publishes-new-article-on-tourism-at-kingston-pen">Justin Piché, Matthew Ferguson and Kevin Walby</a> indicates the tours are curated to commemorate the contributions of staff, while portraying prisoners as purely dangerous and cunning through sensational stories. There is no indication that the upcoming concert will offer a different narrative.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1126080554309341185"}"></div></p>
<h2>Dark history</h2>
<p>The tourism marketing leaves out mention of the suffering and death that occurred within Kingston Penitentiary’s walls. The prison confined wrongfully convicted individuals, including <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-s-wrongful-convictions-1.783998">Steven Truscott, Romeo Phillion and Guy-Paul Morin</a>. There were also children confined within the penitentiary.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/lbrr/archives/hv%209510.k5%20b3%201965-eng.pdf">prison report from 1965</a> notes historical commission data that boys and girls as young as eight were incarcerated and subjected to corporal punishment. For example, eight-year-old Antoine Beauche was imprisoned in 1845 for three years. He was lashed within a week of his arrival and a further 47 times over the next nine months. </p>
<p>The punishment was for behaviour that included talking to others, looking at others, winking, nodding or laughing. Another child, Alex LaFleur, age 11, was lashed on Christmas Eve 1844 for speaking French. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290548/original/file-20190902-175682-1fogw2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/290548/original/file-20190902-175682-1fogw2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290548/original/file-20190902-175682-1fogw2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290548/original/file-20190902-175682-1fogw2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290548/original/file-20190902-175682-1fogw2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290548/original/file-20190902-175682-1fogw2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/290548/original/file-20190902-175682-1fogw2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inmates at Kingston Penitentiary look through the bars of the dome at the highest point of the comple after a prison uprising in April 1971.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Peter Bregg</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Suffering was not confined to children, nor to the distant past. Corporal punishment <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/pblct/rht-drt/05-eng.shtml">continued at Kingston Penitentiary until 1972</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/robber-and-novelist-roger-caron-dead-at-73-1.1184445">Prisoner Roger Caron’s</a> 1978 autobiography <em>Go-Boy!</em> provides graphic detail about how prisoners were subjected to corporal punishment in Kingston Penitentiary by being whipped with leather paddles designed to inflict physical pain. </p>
<p>Caron was paddled on two occasions when he was 17 years old while restrained with shackles and straps. Describing this experience, he wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“White searing pain exploded throughout my being and blood gushed from my lips as I struggled to stifle a scream. It was brutal and it was horrible. My whole body vibrated like a band of tempered steel and my mind filled with nightmares as I awaited the next blow.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such experiences are not commonly heard or acknowledged in Kingston.</p>
<h2>A not-so-distant history</h2>
<p>Kingston and the surrounding area has the highest concentration of active prisons in Canada: Bath, Collins Bay, Frontenac, Millhaven, Joyceville, Pittsburgh, Quinte, two Regional Treatment Centres and Henry Trail Community Correctional. </p>
<p>An unknown number of prisoners died at Kington Penitentiary over the years, including while in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is a harsh punishment that research shows results in increased rates of <a href="http://www.cmaj.ca/content/186/18/1345.short">self-harm and suicide</a> among prisoners. This has been illustrated vividly in the news coverage of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/solitary-confinement-canada-required-reading/article35391601/">prisoners who have died while in solitary.</a></p>
<p>Solitary confinement was a practice throughout Kingston Penitentiary’s history, as prisoners were isolated for days, weeks, months and even years at a time. In March 2019, Ontario’s top court ruled that placing prisoners in solitary confinement for more than 15 days constitutes <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-solitary-confinement-for-more-than-15-days-constitutes-cruel-and/">“cruel and unusual punishment.”</a> Former prisoners in Kingston have been <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-beyond-the-bars-former-inmates-at-the-kingston-prison-for-women/">trying to raise awareness</a> of deaths in custody, specifically in the Prison for Women. These efforts are not acknowledged in Kingston’s prison tourism. </p>
<p>In the late 1990s, former prisoners came forward to claim that they had been involved as subjects in unethical scientific experiments while imprisoned in the 1960s and early 1970s. </p>
<p>Experiments included sensory deprivation, behavioural modification, electroshock and experimental pharmacology. In a 2006 study, the University of Alberta’s <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2311.2006.00422.x">Geraint B. Osborne</a> noted that in one sensory deprivation study, 10 penitentiary prisoners spent seven days in dark isolation cells as researchers studied the effects on desire for visual and auditory stimulation. </p>
<p>One prisoner began to panic after four days. Another hallucinated during the final two days, seeing spiders and the face of his dead brother. </p>
<p>Former prisoners in the Kingston community have been <a href="https://www.thewhig.com/2017/08/10/former-inmates-claim-unethical-treatment/wcm/2798d164-bded-7c9d-29be-0f46e6d388ca">trying to bring public attention </a> to their involvement in such experiments. None of this is acknowledged in Kingston’s prison industry.</p>
<p>Kingston Penitentiary was also a site of mass incarceration of Indigenous prisoners, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/correctional-investigator-annual-report-indigenous-incarceration-1.4884377">an ongoing issue</a> in prisons that is the subject of some of the calls to action of the <a href="http://nctr.ca/reports.php">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>. This year’s report by the <a href="https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/">National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women</a> also delved into the issue in the context of women and girls. This injustice is another that’s not acknowledged in Kingston’s prison tourism industry. </p>
<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>
<p>A party is coming to Kingston Penitentiary, but there’s been no conversation about whether it’s ethical to hold one. </p>
<p>There’s been no discussion about what it means to derive entertainment from a shuttered prison. </p>
<p>Similarly, there has been no discussion of what it means to raise money for the City of Kingston and a well-known charity from a prison.</p>
<p>We need to bring more healing, memory and awareness to tourism development in Kingston — healing for those who were harmed by prisons, memory in order to accurately commemorate the institution and awareness about how some of those painful legacies continue in prisons today.</p>
<p><em>This is a corrected version of a story originally published Sept. 3, 2019. The earlier story incorrectly included Adam Capay in a list of people who had died while in solitary confinement. Adam Capay spent four years in solitary confinement, but is now in a mental-health facility.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Mussell receives funding as a 2019 Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholar and 2017 Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholar. </span></em></p>What does it mean to hold a party in a place with a long history of death and suffering?Linda Mussell, PhD Candidate, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1090912019-01-04T13:08:06Z2019-01-04T13:08:06ZWhat are the effects of total isolation? An expert explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252424/original/file-20190103-32136-1bg0wx3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Being isolated in total darkness has many physical and psychological consequences. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-floating-inside-sensory-deprivation-isolation-168932372">Vlue/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine being confined to a small, dark room, with no social interaction whatsoever for 30 days. Not many people would jump at this opportunity. But, in November 2018, a professional US poker player Rich Alati bet US$100,000 that he could <a href="https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-life/poker-player-locked-in-solitary-confinement-as-part-of-weird-wager-decides-to-bail/news-story/aed092036e7249b75d75f911bbbd329e">survive 30 days alone</a> and in total darkness. He was kept in a small, completely dark room with nothing but a bed, fridge and bathroom. Even with all the resources he needed to survive, Alati couldn’t last the month. After 20 days he negotiated his release, taking a payout of US$62,400. </p>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140514-how-extreme-isolation-warps-minds">countless negative effects</a> that social isolation and extreme isolation can have on our minds and bodies. Alati was no exception, reporting that he experienced a range of side effects, including <a href="https://www.actionnetwork.com/poker/rich-alati-poker-player-solitary-confinement-bet-exclusive-interview-darren-rovell">changes to his sleep cycle, and hallucinations</a>. But why is isolation so difficult for humans to withstand?</p>
<p>One of the reasons that living in isolation is difficult is because <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/pascal-vrticka/human-social-development_b_3921942.html">humans are social creatures</a>. Many people that have lived in isolated environments – such as <a href="https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-24/edition-1/psychology-end-world">researchers stationed in Antarctica</a> – report that loneliness can be the most difficult part of the job. <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/lost-starving-close-to-death-yossi-ghinsberg-and-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-20170802-gxnzuy.html">Yossi Ghinsberg</a>, an Israeli adventurer and author who survived weeks alone in the Amazon, said that loneliness was what he suffered from most and that he had created imaginary friends to keep himself company. </p>
<p>Loneliness can be damaging to both <a href="https://www.aginglifecarejournal.org/health-effects-of-social-isolation-and-loneliness/">our mental and physical health</a>. Socially isolated people are less able to <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/social-support/art-20044445">deal with stressful situations</a>. They’re also <a href="https://www.theravive.com/today/post/the-psychology-of-loneliness-0001558.aspx">more likely to feel depressed</a> and may have problems <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2752489/">processing information</a>. This in turn can lead to difficulties with decision-making and memory storage and recall. </p>
<p>People who are lonely are also more <a href="https://www.livescience.com/18800-loneliness-health-problems.html">susceptible to illness</a>. Researchers found that a lonely person’s immune system responds differently to fighting viruses, making them more likely to develop an illness.</p>
<p>The impacts of social isolation become worse when people are placed in physically isolating environments. For example, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/prisons-and-prisms/201707/the-harm-solitary-confinement">solitary confinement</a> can have negative psychological effects on prisoners – including significant increases in anxiety and panic attacks, increased levels of paranoia, and being less able to think clearly. Many prisoners also report <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/modern-minds/201806/what-really-happens-inside-prisoner-isolation-cells">long-term mental health problems</a> after being held in isolation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/26/3096-days-natascha-kampusch-review">Natascha Kampusch</a> – an Australian woman who was kidnapped at the age of ten and held captive in a cellar for eight years – noted in her biography that the lack of light and human contact mentally weakened her. She also reported that endless hours and days spent completely isolated made her susceptible to her captor’s orders and manipulations. </p>
<h2>Alone in the dark</h2>
<p>The effects of isolation can become even more pronounced if you experience it in total darkness, causing both physical and psychological consequences. One impact of being in complete darkness is that it can wreck your sleep cycle. Two of the <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00360-016-1000-6.pdf">key mechanisms for sleep cycle regulation</a>, the <a href="https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/melatonin-and-sleep">hormone melatonin</a> and the brain’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprachiasmatic_nucleus">suprachiasmatic nucleus</a>, both rely on light to function. </p>
<p>Daylight reduces our levels of melatonin, helping us feel awake. Daylight also helps the suprachiastmatic nucleus to reset our waking time if our sleep cycles start to drift. Without daylight, our <a href="https://www.howsleepworks.com/how_circadian.html">24-hour circadian rhythm</a> can change. This explains why people exploring cave systems, for example, may find that their <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/the-caves-of-forgotten-time/414894/">sleep-wake cycle becomes disrupted</a>. This means that the time they feel like going to sleep doesn’t stay in a regular pattern and can shift each day. </p>
<p>Disruptions to our circadian rhythm can also make us feel depressed and fatigued. This has also been linked to increased cancer risk, insulin resistance and heart disease, as well as <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11910-012-0252-0">other physical problems</a> such as obesity and premature ageing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252425/original/file-20190103-32139-1yxh2my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/252425/original/file-20190103-32139-1yxh2my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252425/original/file-20190103-32139-1yxh2my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252425/original/file-20190103-32139-1yxh2my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252425/original/file-20190103-32139-1yxh2my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252425/original/file-20190103-32139-1yxh2my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/252425/original/file-20190103-32139-1yxh2my.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A lack of stimulus causes hallucinations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-girl-addicted-drugs-hallucinations-against-786232000?src=L2h2K40HHdZ5-uA1GmqFcA-1-0">Photographee.eu</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People placed in isolation may also <a href="https://www.psypost.org/2016/11/social-isolation-brain-begins-act-strange-ways-preserve-sanity-45946">experience hallucinations</a>. The lack of stimuli causes people to misattribute internal thoughts and feelings as occurring in the outer environment. Essentially, hallucinations happen because of a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702442/">lack of brain stimulation</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, Alati revealed he <a href="https://www.actionnetwork.com/poker/rich-alati-poker-player-solitary-confinement-bet-exclusive-interview-darren-rovell">began experiencing hallucinations</a> by his third day in isolation, ranging from seeing the room fill up with bubbles, to imagining that the ceiling had opened up to show him a starry sky. People in total isolation may also feel that there is a ghostly presence or <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-ooze/201611/the-perils-social-isolation">someone watching them</a>. </p>
<p>While the impact of total isolation can be severe, the good news is that these effects are reversible. Exposure to daylight can normally correct sleep-wake patterns – though this might take weeks, or even months in some cases, <a href="https://www.everydayhealth.com/sleep/insomnia/resetting-your-clock.aspx">before it’s fully adjusted</a>. Reconnecting with other humans can reduce loneliness and help restore us to good mental and physical health. However, some people who have been held in social isolation against their will may develop long-term mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). </p>
<p>But some people who have faced the challenge of being alone for an extended period of time may show <a href="http://positivepsychology.org.uk/post-traumatic-growth/">personal growth</a> – including emotional growth, feeling closer to family and friends, and having a better perspective on life – as a result of their experience. After 20 days willingly spent in total isolation, even Alati said he’s changed – reporting that the experience gave him a greater appreciation for people and life, better attention and focus, and overall feeling happier than before. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Find out more about the effects of isolation and the effect that solitary confinement has on prisoners in our podcast <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-28-on-nothing-101622">“On nothing”</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarita Robinson owns shares in Nick Robinson Computing Limited. She is affiliated with the University of Central Lancashire.</span></em></p>Depression, an altered sleep cycle, and hallucinations are some of the effects of living alone in total darkness.Sarita Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1039672018-10-02T22:40:51Z2018-10-02T22:40:51ZWhat a widely attacked experiment got right on the harmful effects of prisons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238466/original/file-20180928-48631-11k1uah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even the most humanely designed prisons have negative effects on the people living and working inside.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the few scientific studies to enter the public consciousness through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/08/archives/a-pirandellian-prison-the-mind-is-a-formidable-jailer.html">mainstream news</a>, <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/quiet-rage/">documentaries</a>, <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/book/">popular books</a>, <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil#t-841723">a TED talk</a> and <a href="http://www.stanfordprisonexperimentfilm.com">a major motion picture</a>. </p>
<p>Recently, it has been making headlines in a very bad way. </p>
<p>In 1971, Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo <a href="http://pdf.prisonexp.org/ijcp1973.pdf">sought to evaluate the prison’s impact on human behavior</a>. He randomly assigned normal, healthy, emotionally stable male college students (without criminal records) to be “prisoners” or “guards” in a fake prison. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Newspaper advertisement for participants for the Stanford Prison Experiment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(PrisonExp.org)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Within six days, Zimbardo ended the experiment. The “guards” were torturing the “prisoners,” and the “prisoners” were rebelling or experiencing psychological breakdown. </p>
<p>In news articles, the Stanford experiment has been <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication">“debunked” and “exposed as a fraud.” Its findings have been declared “very wrong”</a> and “<a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4273976/stanford-prison-experiment-lies-acting-good-evil/">fake</a>.” It has been <a href="https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-lifespan-of-a-lie-d869212b1f62">further criticized</a> for experimenter interference, faked behaviour from participants and for research design problems, among other things. </p>
<p>These serious critiques have generated <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/links/#responses">much discussion</a> in academic circles and in news articles about what, if anything, we can learn from the experiment. </p>
<p>And yet, as someone who studies prisons, I’m struck by how much the Stanford Prison Experiment got right. A wealth of other research suggests prisons have serious detrimental effects on prisoners and prison workers alike.</p>
<h2>What the research says</h2>
<p>Living and working in prison is <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023%2FA%3A1009514731657.pdf">extremely stressful and demoralizing</a>. </p>
<p>Some people are better at repelling these effects than others. Even so, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215036616301420#!">prisoners</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/modern-prison-paradox/social-effects-of-prison-work/80EECCDD9ED05BE17408B9989A758C56">prison workers</a> suffer from high rates of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673602077401">depression,</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/j.1440-1614.2005.01589.x">anxiety,</a> <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/449299">suicide,</a> <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cbm.653">PTSD</a> and other devastating conditions. For many prisoners, these conditions continue after prison and can be <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/681301">worsened by the transition into the free world</a>. </p>
<p>We have long known that prisons are damaging places for both prisoners and prison workers. In his 1956 book, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8390.html"><em>Society of Captives</em></a>, Princeton sociology professor Gresham Sykes explained that incarceration deeply injured prisoners’ dignity and self-concept. He also described how prison officers became “corrupted” by the prison environment with its contradictory imperatives, impossible-to-enforce rules and necessary compromises. </p>
<p>In the 60 years since Sykes’ book, research in diverse prison settings <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474511422172">has confirmed</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2012.01307.x">expanded upon</a> many of his findings.</p>
<h2>The role of prison design</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Storstrøm Prison, which opened in Denmark in 2017, is said to be the world’s most humane prison.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(C.F. Møller/Torbin Eskerod)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These insights extend beyond contemporary prisons in the United States. Prisons in <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474513504799">Norway</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362480612468935">Sweden</a> and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474517737273">Denmark</a>, known for their humaneness, also cause harm. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://prisonspaces.wordpress.com">smart designs can lessen</a>, but not destroy, the prison’s negative impacts. But <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814717196/">since the 1970s</a>, in many Western countries, the main goal when designing prisons has been containment and security, not prisoners’ physical and mental health.</p>
<p>Popping up in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, supermaximum security prisons (Supermaxes), which contain prisoners in solitary confinement in small concrete cells for <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300211467/237">23 hours a day</a>, are a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128702239239">particularly harmful</a> design. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-system-why-is-a-quarter-of-canadas-prison-population-indigenous-91562">Broken system: Why is a quarter of Canada's prison population Indigenous?</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Prisoners <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisoners-solitude-and-time-9780199684489?cc=ca&lang=en&">react differently</a> to these Supermax prison regimes. Some are able to withstand the conditions, others break down within hours of their arrival. We do not yet fully understand why people react differently, but we do know that Supermax prisons have an array of <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-criminol-032317-092326">negative impacts on prisoners’ mental health</a> including <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128702239239?casa_token=dhS6f9U28G8AAAAA:fMHmV9kgKpUlFgW20LHXjr-kYVUk44hkiIIJ1dPtJTfVlRoZiaH-ZkTeopbYrcYrNrLO-yqnCxQG">hallucinations, self-harm and permanent psychological damage</a>. </p>
<h2>Not just prisoners</h2>
<p>Prison staff are also affected. The history of American imprisonment is also filled with examples of people with good intentions becoming “corrupted” by the prison. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this April 12, 2016 photo, a visitor makes a photograph of a cellblock at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The nearly two-century-old penitentiary is now a historic site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Pennsylvania’s <a href="https://www.easternstate.org/">Eastern State Penitentiary</a> opened in 1829. Progressive Philadelphia penal reformers designed Eastern to be more humane than other prisons, with prisoners’ physical and mental health in mind. They implemented a routine — combining work, education, mentorship and outdoor exercise — to benefit both prisoners and society. Finally, they sought to protect prisoners’ identities so they could reenter society without stigma.</p>
<p>Within five years of the prison’s opening, however, the penal reformers, now prison administrators, had betrayed their humanitarian goals. </p>
<p>They <a href="https://ashleytrubin.com/current-projects/the-deviant-prison-book-project/">bent the rules</a>, out of necessity or convenience, so the prison functioned smoothly. In the process, they sacrificed the regime’s humanitarian and prisoner-focused elements.</p>
<p>Eastern’s administrators <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807856314/laboratories-of-virtue/">authorized torture</a>, including what we now call waterboarding, held misbehaving prisoners after their sentences had expired <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lsi.12158">until they apologized</a> and justified these actions as beneficial to prisoners. </p>
<p>These gaps between theory and practice, including the use of torture punishments, were common at <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/crisis-of-imprisonment/6D7012F71C47B46BF7BCAAD05534FBCB">other American prisons</a> in the 19th century and into the 20th. <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814766385/">Other penal reformers–turned-administrators</a> engaged in similar malfeasance despite their apparently genuine commitment to humanitarian values. </p>
<p>The situation was even more dire at prisons that were explicitly <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17521">designed to be punitive</a> and <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312680473">lacked Eastern’s humanitarian motivations</a>. </p>
<h2>Beyond the Stanford experiment</h2>
<p>Even including these past failures, modern prisons rarely devolve as quickly and decidedly into a den of overt torture and serious mental breakdown as seen in the “Stanford Prison.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this Sept. 10, 1971 file photo, inmates wearing cloaks and football helmets stand behind bars in a corridor leading to D block as they begin negotiatiations with New York State officials after a prison uprising at Attica State Prison, in Attica, N.Y.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bob Schutz, File)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It does happen — <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib">the Abu Ghraib torture scandal</a> and the retaking of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/178182/blood-in-the-water-by-heather-ann-thompson/9781400078240/">Attica Prison following the 1971 riot</a> are graphic illustrations of how prison can unleash the worst of human nature with terrible consequences — but such extreme cases remain rare. Prisons’ negative effects are typically less dramatic and do less to capture the public imagination. </p>
<p>There is something about prisons that is damaging. But what is it? </p>
<p>Even the most humanely designed prisons have negative effects on the people living and working inside. And that is the deep truth we are still seeking to understand and the Stanford Prison Experiment effectively illustrates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashley Rubin receives funding from the American Philosophical Society and the University of Toronto. </span></em></p>A wealth of research suggests prisons have serious detrimental effects on prisoners and prison workers.Ashley T. Rubin, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1024712018-09-12T10:39:18Z2018-09-12T10:39:18ZThe national prison strike is over. Now is the time prisoners are most in danger<p>Over the last few weeks men and women across the United States – and even as far away as Nova Scotia, Canada – have <a href="https://incarceratedworkers.org/news/strike-statement-press-august-28-2018">protested</a> to demand humane treatment for the incarcerated. </p>
<p>In 2016, when prisoners engaged in similar hunger strikes, sit-ins, and work stoppages, their actions barely registered with the national media. As someone who regularly <a href="https://www.heatherannthompson.com/">writes about the history of prisoner protests and prison conditions today</a>, this lack of interest was striking. </p>
<p>This time around, though, prisoner demands to improve the conditions of confinement have captured the attention of reporters everywhere. Coverage can be found in such major newspapers as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/08/21/inmates-across-us-are-staging-prison-strike-over-modern-day-slavery/">The Washington Post</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/us/national-prison-strike-2018.html">The New York Times</a>. Popular magazines such as <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/prison-strike-interview-2018">GQ</a> and <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/how-the-national-prison-strike-is-working-to-help-incarcerated-people-in-the-united-states">Teen Vogue</a> have also published pieces. </p>
<p>All seem to sense that American prisons may well be descending into crisis, so perhaps it is time to start paying attention.</p>
<p>That our institutions of confinement are in a state of emergency is, in fact, not new. When prisoners tried to tell us this when they erupted in 2016, it was perhaps still possible to imagine that the abuses they suffered might soon be addressed by a seemingly robust <a href="https://www.cut50.org/summit1">bipartisan criminal justice reform</a> effort in Washington, D.C. </p>
<p>Today, however, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/opinion/sunday/donald-trump-and-the-undoing-of-justice-reform.html">Donald Trump in the White House</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/jeff-sessions-slowly-surely-undoing-america-s-criminal-justice-progress-ncna823126">Jeff Sessions heading the Department of Justice</a>,
it is much harder to conjure up such optimism. News of seven horrific prisoner deaths at <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/opinion/how-a-south-carolina-prison-riot-really-went-down.html">Lee Correctional Facility in South Carolina</a> last April made it quite clear that corrections officials are still failing to ensure prisoner safety and haven’t made the conditions inside their institutions any less brutal. This time, with politicians so noticeably less vocal about this vital issue, prisoners alone are calling the public to action.</p>
<p>That their determination to be heard is finally striking a chord, is good news for our nation.</p>
<h2>Our responsibility</h2>
<p>Prisons and detention centers exist and operate in the name of the public good. Americans want to believe these institutions make our society safer by upholding the rule of law. </p>
<p>Yet, as those locked up keep telling us in the most painful and graphic detail, these places are barbaric. They do far more harm to society than good. These are places where <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/buried-alive-solitary-confinement">men</a>, <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/report-solitary-confinement-used-pregnant-women-and-victims-sexual-assault/">women</a> and <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/juveniles-kids-solitary-confinement-ohio-new-york/">children</a> are placed in <a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/dangerous-overuse-solitary-confinement-united-states">solitary confinement</a> for periods considered torture by <a href="https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-statement-on-solitary-confinement/">medical experts</a>. </p>
<p>These are places where human beings are <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/03/03/prison-food/">fed too little</a>, are denied access to basic <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661478/">medical care</a>, and are <a href="https://eji.org/children-prison/children-adult-prisons">raped</a>, <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/records/50-prison-abuse">abused</a> and even <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2018/jan/8/36-million-california-prisoner-killed-guards/">killed</a>. </p>
<p>These are places where children behind bars are increasingly isolated from their parents, and where parents behind bars find it almost impossible to connect with their kids, thanks to companies who charge usurious rates for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/making-profits-on-the-captive-prison-market">calls</a>, and push states to allow only <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/visitation/report.html">“video visitations</a>.” These myriad abuses take place in taxpayer-funded institutions, and can only happen because the public is utterly <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-hidden-behind-the-walls-of-americas-prisons-77282">shut out</a>.</p>
<p>And so, it is indeed positive that the media is finally shining light on <a href="http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/nationwide_prisoner_strike_makes_demands_for_better_treatment_justice_refor">what prisoners need</a> in order to survive their time. They need “immediate improvements to conditions of prisons and prison policies that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women,” and also an end to prison slavery as well as real rehabilitation programs. </p>
<p>Prisoners also want to end to severe racial discrimination evident in our nation’s policing practices, laws and sentencing guidelines. And they are calling for the rescinding of 1996’s <a href="https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/images/asset_upload_file79_25805.pdf">Prison Litigation Reform Act</a>, which has made it <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2016/05/05/20years_plra/">difficult for prisoners to seek legal help</a>.</p>
<p>But what happens next is also critical. </p>
<p>It is when the headlines fade, and prisons once again slip from the public’s consciousness that prisoners are in the most jeopardy.</p>
<p>Consider the brutal aftermath of the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/178182/blood-in-the-water-by-heather-ann-thompson/9781400078240/">Attica Prison Uprising in 1971</a>, when nearly 1,300 men took over that facility in upstate New York to call the nation’s attention to the inhumane conditions inside. As the state moved in to retake the facility, state troopers shot 128 men and killed 39 –prisoners and hostages alike. Countless other men were then <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/books/review/blood-in-the-water-attica-heather-ann-thompson.html">tortured</a>. </p>
<p>Or consider the reprisals experienced by prisoners in facilities such as Michigan’s <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2017/02/michigan-prisoners-speak-out-against-epic-abuse-and-retaliation/">Kinross prison</a> in 2016. </p>
<p>And, of course, there is what the men in South Carolina’s Lee Correctional are enduring even now as you read these words – <a href="https://wpde.com/news/local/inmates-families-question-why-some-state-prisons-still-on-lockdown-following-deadly-riot">lockdowns</a> 24/7 in 6x8 cells, insufficient food, and <a href="http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/38187699/lee-correctional-inmate-files-lawsuit-after-surviving-deadly-prison-riot">lack of basic and desperately needed medical care</a>. </p>
<p>The fact is that men and women behind bars are in most in danger in the days, weeks and months after they have dared to protest. </p>
<p>It is the responsibility of anyone who has voted for prison construction in their communities to know what happens in those institutions, particularly since this country has <a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/">locked up more people in the last 40 years</a> than ever before in its history – more than in <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/us/mass-incarceration-five-key-facts/index.html">any other country</a>. We must pay attention to <a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/thousands-of-privately-owned-companies-are-profiting-from-the-us-prison-system">which companies benefit</a> from such a harsh criminal justice system, and recognize the <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1582&context=faculty_scholarship">devastatingly high price</a> that certain communities have paid for that same system to exist. And, because it ensnares so many of our most vulnerable citizens, we must insist that those inside be treated lawfully and humanely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Ann Thompson has received grant funding from the Art for Justice fund, and the Open Society, and has consulted with the Prison Policy Initiatve.</span></em></p>A historian reminds us that protests in prisons are often followed by retaliation.Heather Ann Thompson, Professor of History and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1015882018-08-31T10:41:08Z2018-08-31T10:41:08ZThrough his art, a former prisoner diagnoses the systemic sickness of Florida’s penitentiaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234350/original/file-20180830-195304-178gj7b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C133%2C756%2C539&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Moliere Dimanche would use anything he could scrounge up – pieces of folders, the back of commissary forms, old letters – as canvases.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2007, Haitian-American artist Moliere Dimanche was sentenced to 10 years in Florida state prisons, where he ended up serving eight-and-a-half years.</p>
<p>While imprisoned, he made art – a series of pencil drawings on the back of stray sheets of paper – to document the brutality of his time spent behind bars, much of it in isolation.</p>
<p>In 2017, I was introduced to Dimanche, one of the dozens of currently and formerly incarcerated people I have interviewed over the past several years for my forthcoming book on visual art in the era of mass incarceration.</p>
<p>Often using state-issued material or contraband, imprisoned artists <a href="https://aperture.org/aperture-magazine-230/">use a myriad of genres and styles</a> to create political collages, portraits of other imprisoned people and mixed-media works that comment on abuse, racism and the exploitation of prison labor. </p>
<p>In Dimanche’s story, I see the stories of thousands of others in U.S. prisons who are using art and creativity to shine a light on their experiences and advocate for systemic change. </p>
<h2>A malignant system</h2>
<p>Florida prisons, in particular, have become notorious for their pervasive culture of neglect and abuse. </p>
<p>In 2016, investigative reporter Eyal Press <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-torturing-of-mentally-ill-prisoners">wrote about</a> the torture and routine abuse that took place in the mental health units of Florida’s prisons.</p>
<p>Central to Press’ account was the case of Darren Rainey, an incarcerated man with a history of schizophrenia who was scalded to death when prison officers forced him into a shower of boiling hot water.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article209789104.html">According to The Miami Herald</a>, at least 145 people have died in state penal facilities so in 2018, making Florida’s prisons among the deadliest in the country. </p>
<p>In response, many inside have resisted or continue to resist the inhumane treatment and prison conditions. Earlier in 2018, prison laborers in Florida <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/floridas-prison-laborers-are-going-on-strike/">organized a strike</a> to protest unpaid labor and brutal working conditions. (Many of the participants were punished with solitary confinement.) </p>
<p>In August, incarcerated people in Florida <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/20/prison-labor-protest-america-jailhouse-lawyers-speak">joined others across the country in a nationwide prison strike</a>. <a href="https://incarceratedworkers.org/campaigns/prison-strike-2018">Their demands</a> include being paid prevailing state wages for their labor, reforms that would allow prisoners to file grievances when their rights are violated, and a reinstatement of Pell grants in all U.S. states and territories.</p>
<p>While these strikes can certainly bring attention to dire prison conditions, the stories of incarcerated people can also emerge in creative and clandestine ways – in drawings, photographs, paintings, letters and <a href="http://www.wlrn.org/post/florida-inmates-write-poems-their-mothers">poetry</a>. </p>
<p>Incarcerated activists like Kevin “Rashid” Johnson – whose <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/23/prisoner-speak-out-american-slave-labor-strike?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">Guardian essay</a> denouncing prison labor as “modern slavery” went viral in August – also <a href="http://rashidmod.com/">use art</a> to communicate with the public.</p>
<p>Because prisons are institutions of constant surveillance and censorship, art can serve as a crucial conduit for self-expression and as a tool for survival – a way to earn money, document prison conditions and stay connected with the outside world.</p>
<h2>Drawing to survive</h2>
<p>After Moliere Dimanche was sentenced, his family was unable to financially support him. From the costs of phone calls to commissary items to the expenses of visits to see imprisoned relatives, prisons can be a financial drain for families already struggling to get by.</p>
<p>Dimanche soon realized that he could use art as currency for toiletries, clothing, cigarettes, writing utensils and coffee. Other incarcerated men – and even some prison staff – commissioned him to make portraits, drawings and greeting cards that they would then give to their loved ones. He also designed tattoos and fashioned a tattoo gun and ink from prison supplies.</p>
<p>Dimanche ultimately created a series of fantastical, highly symbolic, allegorical drawings during his time in solitary confinement. They are bold, cartoonish representations. Filled with dark humor, they provide a sustained lens into the abuses inside Florida’s prison system.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=796&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234319/original/file-20180830-195313-1iizrno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moliere Dimanche realized that his drawings could accomplish much good: He could take care of basic needs, document his experience in prison and relay messages to the outside world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While art gave him a way to provide for his basic needs and acted as an outlet for creative expression, Dimanche also became an expert of the state’s penal system and how it stifles the rights of the imprisoned. Early into his sentencing, he began to study law and to advocate for himself and others.</p>
<p>He became a writ writer – a jailhouse lawyer – filing grievances and writing briefs on behalf of fellow prisoners and himself. </p>
<p>But he believes his legal advocacy only subjected him to more punishment and surveillance. He was held in solitary confinement for much of his sentence. </p>
<p>Even in isolation, he continued his writ writing and making art.</p>
<p>In a piece called “Pills and Potions,” Dimanche depicts himself as the Monopoly Man, and converted the Monopoly board into the Florida Department of Corrections, with each property representing a different prison.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=819&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234308/original/file-20180830-195331-1inenot.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1029&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Pills and Potions’ is an allegorical drawing that depicts Moliere Dimanche as the Monopoly Man ‘bouncing around from prison to prison.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I had been bounced around so much for writing grievances,” he explained,
“I just depicted myself as the Monopoly man running around the board, bouncing around from prison to prison.” </p>
<p>“I had to find a way to laugh about some of this stuff.” </p>
<p>There’s nothing funny about some of the brutal forms of punishment depicted in many of his pieces. </p>
<p>There’s what Dimanche calls “<a href="https://incarceratedworkers.org/news/time-ice-florida-officials-torture-prisoners-freezing-strip-cells">the strip</a>” – a punishment in which guards “take your linen, they take your mattress, and they take your clothing, and they put you in a cell for 72 hour restriction and you don’t have anything in there … and it’s absolutely freezing in that cell and you have stay in it without clothing or anything the whole time.” </p>
<p>According to Dimanche, “saving a life” involves a corrections officers shackling a prisoner to supposedly take him to a medical appointment. But once he’s out of the cell and out of sight, they slam the prisoner’s head against a wall.</p>
<p>Dimanche also documents a common abuse practice in Florida where officers gas people confined to their cells. These practices <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/special-reports/florida-prisons/article188085574.html">have led to reported deaths</a>. Dimanche calls one form of gassing “Black Jesus”: Guards lock someone an isolation cell <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/prisons-are-using-military-grade-tear-gas-to-punish-inmates/">and gas them through the porthole</a>. The gas, he explains, “comes in a big black can and it’s known to make people scream for Jesus.”</p>
<p>Dimanche titled one of his pieces after this punishment by gassing, and depicts a guard gleefully spraying a hanging Dimanche. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=778&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234310/original/file-20180830-195310-s41cik.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=978&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Black Jesus’ is a searing critique of the ingrained racism of Florida’s prison system.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Black Jesus” also highlights the racism of Florida’s prisons, where an ACLU study found <a href="https://www.aclufl.org/sites/default/files/6440miamidadedisparities20180715spreads.pdf">black people are subjected to more abuse</a>. In 2017, two former Florida prison guards who were Klan members were convicted <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/16/ex-prison-guards-in-ku-klux-klan-plotted-to-kill-a-black-inmate-an-fbi-informant-caught-them/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e70748341829">of plotting to murder an imprisoned black man</a>.</p>
<p>Dimanche witnessed this racism firsthand. “I was in a couple of institutions where it was revealed where a lot of the correctional officers were Klansmen,” he said. </p>
<p>In “Black Jesus,” he portrays a man who is half dressed as an officer and half dressed in a Klan robe to symbolize, according to Dimanche, how each group uses force to “reinforce old Jim Crow ideas.”</p>
<h2>A connection is made – and a bond forms</h2>
<p>Eventually, another prisoner in solitary confinement put him in touch with Wendy Tatter, an artist living in St. Augustine, Florida. Tatter’s son had also spent time in Florida prisons, and Dimanche wrote to her asking if she’d be interested in seeing his art. </p>
<p>Tatter recalled to me Dimanche’s first letter – sent in September 2013 and written in a tiny font, so he could cram as much information as he could on the few sheets of paper available to him. </p>
<p>She agreed to see his work, and he started mailing her “these gorgeous original pencil drawings.” </p>
<p>She told me that each was made with a broken pencil and no eraser. They arrived “on just random pieces of paper that he managed to find” – on the backs of order sheets, Manila folders and old letters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234311/original/file-20180830-195328-upf5j0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of Dimanche’s drawings was made on the back of a canteen order form.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The two wrote back and forth for three years until his release in 2016. Since then, he and Tatter have worked together to exhibit his work.</p>
<p>On Sept. 9 – the day that the national prison strike ends – Moliere and Tatter will host a program on mass incarceration and prison reform at the Corazon Cinema and Café in St. Augustine, Florida. </p>
<p>“Even though there’s a lot of talk about prison reform now, it’s bigger than sentencing guidelines,” Dimanche told me. “We have to address the physical abuse in prisons.” </p>
<p>Lack of transparency and access to prisons and detention centers makes this work extremely difficult. </p>
<p>Dimanche hopes that his art will open some eyes, and eventually end the American tradition of locking up, neglecting, exploiting and abusing millions in prisons across the country.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234355/original/file-20180830-195319-fc56n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moliere Dimanche wears a T-shirt he designed using his prison art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moliere Dimanche</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101588/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole R. Fleetwood has received funding from the American Council for Learned Societies, the Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Fellowship, and the NYPL Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. </span></em></p>From solitary confinement, Moliere Dimanche started drawing on anything he could find. The result was a series of fantastical, allegorical images that depict abuse, racism and profound isolation.Nicole R. Fleetwood, Associate Professor of American Studies, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/839302017-11-02T02:55:11Z2017-11-02T02:55:11ZBrain science should be making prisons better, not trying to prove innocence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192826/original/file-20171101-19858-1aguezj.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Neuroscience can help incarcerated brains.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/silhouette-of-a-man-in-window-143580/">Donald Tong</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every week, I wait for the cold steel bars to close behind me, for count to be called, and for men who have years – maybe the rest of their lives – to spend in this prison to come talk with me. I am a clinical psychologist who studies chronic antisocial behavior. My staff and I converted an office in a Connecticut state prison into research space that allows us to measure neural and behavioral responses.</p>
<p>Recently, Joe, a man serving a life sentence, came into our prison lab. Before I could even review our research consent form, he said, “You know it is all about the brain.” Joe asked if we could provide evidence that “something” in his brain was responsible for his crime. If not, could we just “zap” his brain to remove bad “stuff,” like on TV? </p>
<p>In that moment, I realized that he, like many other inmates and people in the general public, holds unfounded expectations about the wonders of neuroscience. They believe that researchers like me now can so clearly trace connections between brain and behavior that we can use our knowledge to determine guilt or innocence, decide criminal sentences or definitively assess risk and needs.</p>
<p>These expectations place a great burden on a science still in its infancy. There are many concerns about the appropriate use of neuroscience in a criminal justice setting. But there are plenty of well-supported neuroscientific findings that could make a real difference in our correctional system right now – both for those who are incarcerated and everyone else.</p>
<h2>What’s still neuroscience fiction</h2>
<p>Despite what Hollywood portrays in TV shows like “<a href="https://www.nbc.com/law-order?nbc=1">Law & Order</a>” or in movies like “<a href="http://sideeffectsmayvary.com">Side Effects</a>” and “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/">Minority Report</a>,” much of the science that makes for good entertainment doesn’t actually exist.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192836/original/file-20171101-19889-1of5lxd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Is it or is it not true that your brain made you do it?’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://allthingslawandorder.blogspot.com/2011/12/law-order-svu-spiraling-down-recap.html">NBC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, despite Joe’s request, we can’t just peek into a brain and see clear evidence of innocence or guilt. A brain scan can’t show beyond a reasonable doubt that certain structures or abnormalities affected the mental state of a particular individual at the time of a crime. Electrical activity in the brain as measured by an EEG can’t distinguish between criminal conduct and common forms of antisocial behavior such as lying or cheating – qualitatively different behaviors. </p>
<p>As of yet, there’s no neuroscience measure that can predict whether an individual will engage in criminal conduct in the future. And neuroscience is no better at providing mitigating evidence during sentencing than other more reliable and less expensive tools, like a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-008-9343-2">history</a> of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0954579498001539">exposure</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1541204013506920">violence</a>. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, when neuroscientific assessments are presented to the court, they <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/27977480">can sway juries, regardless of their relevance</a>. Using these techniques to produce expert evidence doesn’t bring the court any closer to truth or justice. And with a single brain scan costing thousands of dollars, plus expert interpretation and testimony, it’s an expensive tool out of reach for many defendants. Rather than helping untangle legal responsibility, neuroscience here causes an even deeper divide between the rich and the poor, based on pseudoscience.</p>
<p>While I remain skeptical about the use of neuroscience in the judicial process, there are a number of places where its findings could help corrections systems develop policies and practices based on evidence.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A prisoner poses inside his solitary confinement cell at the Washington Corrections Center, where he spends 23 hours a day alone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Solitary-Confinement-Nature/fb8738ef11674a6ea9c7855046a62f0e/1/0">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Solitary confinement harms more than helps</h2>
<p>Take, for instance, the use within prisons of solitary confinement as a punishment for disciplinary infractions. In 2015, the Bureau of Justice reported that nearly 20 percent of federal and state prisoners and 18 percent of local jail inmates <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=5433">spent time in solitary</a>. </p>
<p>Research consistently demonstrates that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.140.11.1450">time spent in solitary</a> increases the chances of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128702239239">persistent emotional trauma and distress</a>. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/dag/file/815551/download">Solitary can lead to</a> hallucinations, fantasies and paranoia; it can increase anxiety, depression and apathy as well as difficulties in thinking, concentrating, remembering, paying attention and controlling impulses. People placed in solitary are more likely to engage in self-mutilation as well as exhibit chronic rage, anger and irritability. The term “isolation syndrome” has even been coined to capture the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/barack-obama-why-we-must-rethink-solitary-confinement/2016/01/25/29a361f2-c384-11e5-8965-0607e0e265ce_story.html">severe and long-lasting effects</a> of solitary.</p>
<p>At first glance, replacing solitary confinement with other forms of disciplinary action may appear only to improve the lives of inmates, always a hard sell for the public and for some politicians. But keeping prisoners isolated for 23 hours a day also poses grave dangers for correctional personnel who need to manage and interact with someone who is now even more likely to act out, be less able to follow direction and who perceives the environment in a distorted way.</p>
<p>The use of solitary actually exacerbates the problems it tries to address. And when inmates are released to the community, they bring all the negative consequences of this treatment with them.</p>
<h2>Living within a prison environment</h2>
<p>A neuroscience-informed approach would also suggest a number of improvements to today’s overburdened American prisons.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://nationinside.org/campaign/prison-ecology/">Prison Ecology Project</a> maps the intersection of mass incarceration and environmental degradation. It reports that at least 25 percent of California state prisons have been cited for major water pollution problems. In Colorado, 13 prisons are located in contaminated areas that violate standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. And in several other states there are known ecological violations in overpopulated prisons.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10190">Overcrowding contributes to deficits</a> in the neural mechanisms needed for managing stress. <a href="http://www.noiseandhealth.org/text.asp?2002/5/17/35/31836">Noise pollution increases stress hormones and cardiovascular risks</a>. Ecological toxins, such as inadequate sewage and waste disposal, poor water quality, and the presence of asbestos and lead produce deficits and dysfunctions in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031912-114413">brain</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1280407/">behavior</a>. These factors negatively affect brain regions responsible for emotion, cognition and behavioral control and worsen already problematic behavioral tendencies.</p>
<p>Importantly, the effects are felt not only by the inmates. Prison personnel work long hours in the same environment. <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/208756NCJRS.pdf">Correctional officers</a> have higher rates of mortality, stress disorders, divorce, substance abuse <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13811119708258270">and suicide</a> than workers in many other occupations. They, along with inmates, are being poisoned by an environment that is toxic on a number of levels. Their families and communities feel the effects, too, when these workers return home suffering the physical and mental health consequences of such dangerous conditions.</p>
<h2>Neuroscience approaches to mental health</h2>
<p>On any given day, <a href="http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/storage/documents/treatment-behind-bars/treatment-behind-bars.pdf">up to a fifth</a> of incarcerated American adults <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18086741">suffer from serious mental illness</a>. Personality, mood, trauma and psychotic disorders are prevalent; substance use disorders are widespread. <a href="https://www.appi.org/American_Psychiatric_Association_Publishing_Textbook_of_Forensic_Psychiatry_Third_Edition">These disorders</a> often are linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.180.6.490">impulsivity and violence</a>. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some prison counseling programs try to help mentally ill inmates learn more about their conditions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Prisons-Mental-Health/2335976428be4dbc9b0bd649a2dd4265/7/0">AP Photo/Mike Groll</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Neuroscience can help replace the current “one size fits all” approach to treating the sorts of personality and substance use disorders that affect so many incarcerated individuals. These disorders have various subtypes, each with different underlying mechanisms that have different appropriate treatments. Whether through the use of psychotherapy or psychopharmacology, treating them all the same can actually worsen symptoms and contribute to recidivism.</p>
<p>My own research provides one successful example of how neuroscience can help practitioners target treatment to specific skills deficits particular to various offenders. We found that six weeks of computerized cognitive training aimed at helping inmates with specific cognitive-affective dysfunctions – such as paying attention to different pieces of information in their environment or acting without overreacting to emotion – resulted in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702614560744">significant neural and behavioral changes</a>. By matching the treatment to the underlying cognitive-affective dysfunctions, we were able to change the neural and behavioral problems of some of the most hard-to-treat offenders.</p>
<p>Similarly, there is evidence that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2012.04.033">strategies targeting empathy</a> in specific types of offenders lead to lasting behavior change, even in populations considered to be the most recalcitrant.</p>
<p>A more personalized treatment approach is very cost-effective, both in terms of resource utilization and its effect on recidivism. Unfortunately, it’s not currently the norm in most prison mental health programs or, for that matter, in treatment outside the prison system. </p>
<h2>Using the solid neuroscience we do have</h2>
<p>So, for now, Joe, I’m sorry we cannot help “prove” your lack of criminal intent and I don’t think that we are going to be “zapping” your brain any time soon. </p>
<p>But neuroscience can improve the current criminal justice landscape, which is plagued by racial, ethnic and economic disparities. Strategies based on robust, empirical neuroscientific evidence can provide win-win outcomes for correctional personnel, inmates and society at large. Improving conditions for all those who work and live on the inside will also improve public safety when inmates are released.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83930/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arielle Baskin-Sommers receives funding from National Institutes of Health and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. </span></em></p>Hollywood pushes a fantasy version of what neuroscience can do in the courtroom. But the field does have real benefits to offer, right now: solid evidence on what would improve prisons.Arielle Baskin-Sommers, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Yale UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.