Solitary Confinement

Dan Marshall:

Very often. Like everywhere. There are guys in prisons that have been in solitary for years. Obama banned it in the federal system, but it happens in state systems all the time. We actually just had a case in Palm Beach County again, where we litigated here to prevent the sheriff from putting juveniles in solitary confinement in the Palm Beach County jail. We actually settled that one little over a year ago now. The sheriff agreed to change his practices so that didn’t happen, but it happens all over the place in the United States. As it’s being researched more and more, we’re finding out how truly harmful it is to kids and adults, and it just continues on. Many who are running prisons and jails are those who came up through the system. And so, changing their practices is tough to do.

Dan Marshall:

Whole bunch. The main one is punishment—someone commits an infraction while they’re in jail, and they get sent to solitary as punishment. You’ll see that it’s not used just that way. If you have somebody who is not safe in the jail population as a whole, like if it's somebody who the other prisoners think he’s a snitch and they’ll beat him up if he’s in the general population, he’ll go into solitary. If you get someone who tests positive for COVID, solitary is kind of getting overwhelmed, but a lot of those guys are being sent into solitary. They had no other way to keep them apart from the rest of the population. You get guys who are charged with certain offenses—on a child, for example. They are usually targets in jail, so they are put into solitary for their own protection. Former police officer gets charged with a crime—they’ll often be sent into solitary for their own protection. There’s a whole bunch of different reasons for why that could happen.

Dan Marshall:

In some places, there will be protective measures, where they’ll say, like, for disciplinary referral, you can only spend x amount of time, which can range from a few days to 30 days to 60 days to… some places don’t have limits. It’s tougher when you get to different reasons. If you have a prisoner who is in there for his own protection, there’s not really a limit to that. The whole point of him being there is that he can’t be out there with everybody else. So, that’s tougher to do. Our juvenile case in Palm Beach County, it was crazy because they were dealing with kids that weren’t convicted yet. They were just charged with crimes. They were getting stuck in solitary because several of them had cases where there were 3 or 4 co-defendants on one case—they alleged that 3 or 4 kids all did the same crime basically. When they get in court, one of the routine orders is that they can’t have contact with their co-defendants. In the Palm Beach County Jail, they only had 2 different wings for juveniles. If you had a case with more than 2 co-defendants, one co-defendant would go to one wing, the next co-defendant in the next ring, and by luck of the draw, the third co-defendant gets stuck in solitary because they didn’t have anywhere to put him, which was nuts! They actually worked a rotating system there, where rather than just sticking one kid in solitary, for 5 hours, one kid would be in his cell while the other one was out. For the next 5 hours, they’d switch them out, and stuff like that. It’s not ideal, but at least it’s not solitary confinement at that point. The sheriff here, to his credit, was willing to consider alternatives, whereas a lot of places, it’s just the worst eggs end up in solitary, and they don’t have any sympathy for them at all.

Dan Marshall:

Well, here in Palm Beach County, it was the rotating system. Part of the problem here in Palm Beach County too, is that in Florida, they have the Florida constitutional right to an education. That just wasn’t happening for the kids in solitary confinement. They were never getting to go out to classes in the jail or talk to the teachers. So, they were violating that right as well. The rotating took care of that here. Each jail has its own peculiarities. It’s probably not a one-size-fits-all solution.

Rachel Gross:

It varies from facility to facility, but it means only being allowed out of their cell to shower. It means they don’t ever have any human contact. Often, meals are delivered through a slot in the cell door. At the same time, I’ve learned that they developed ways of being in contact with one another, even when they are isolated. There are so many good resources available out there, in books and other things that I’ve read too. Actually, I don’t know that the guys write about that experience other than that they don’t like it. In some places, they’ll be let out into a yard, like maybe 6 people at a time. But in other places, it’s more like they’re in a cage outdoors, and they’re by themselves. All they can do is just walk around in that cage, which might be 10 x 15 or something like that. But they’re in a cage and there’s fences all around. So, you’re outside, but you’re still being very confined.

Raphel Jackson:

So, let’s see… horrible. It depends on how in depth you want me to go. Let’s start at the police station.

So, I have a very specific type of case—I have a murder on a Chicago police officer. So, that was a horrible experience because you think you’re going to die in custody. Most of my time in custody was spent in an area completely by myself in a bullpen, put by myself—ice cold, no other people around—until they came to get me to take me to the county jail for my first court appearance. That was at night. So, I went through my first court appearance, got held over, and I was taken to the audy home—I don’t know why we call it that—which is like a temporary juvenile county jail. There, they put you in solitary confinement. If you have a serious case, like murder, they put you in solitary confinement for the first week until they put you on the regular deck you’re going to be housed on.

So, at that time, solitary confinement was horrible. You have no human contact other than them bringing you [food]. Other than that, that’s the only… it’s confusing. It’s confusing, and there’s nobody to talk to. Nobody’s explaining anything that’s going on. You’re just in this room for seven days. They let you out to take a shower, and when they let you out to take a shower, nobody else can be around. So, everything seems very extreme when you’re that age.

Paul Wright:

I think that part of the problem is that prisons are uniquely poorly situated to provide mental health care to the prisoners that are caught up in it. Incarceration is one of those things that makes mental illness worse. I don't think anyone really seriously disagrees with that. I think a lot of the practices—from solitary confinement to… lots and lots of these practices—are all things that guarantee that the mentally ill get worse. Depending on the statistics and what you’re reading, I think anywhere from 40%-60% of the prison population have serious mental health issues. There’s not even a pretense that people with serious mental illness are undergoing any type of programs or treatment that’s designed to make them better or help them.

David Stephens:

Well that’s a great question with not a clear-cut answer. You would assume that solitary confinement is always destructive, and that’s not the case. Now, the new term is “restrictive housing.” People have gone away from “solitary confinement” or “segregation.” and the new term is “restrictive housing.” I’m right now working on a project with a mid-sized state department of corrections, and we’re reviewing all of their—what used to be called solitary confinement, now called—restrictive housing for ways to make it less destructive and less harmful, and actually to be used less, and less, and less.

The guy that was executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections until, may have been 2 years ago now—he came shortly after I left that position. He’s really a national leader in reducing the use of segregation or restrictive housing. His name is Rick Raemisch. In Colorado, he got to where nobody would be in solitary confinement or restrictive housing for longer than 15 days. That may sound like a very long time, but there are people who are in segregation or restrictive housing for years—5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Some people are released from restrictive housing—which has meant lockdown, 23 hours a day, 7 days a week—onto the street, which is a very difficult adjustment, but now, we’re recognizing that how you do restrictive housing has a significant effect on people’s mental health. It used to be—I don’t know if you’ve seen movies, but movies mirrored reality—that people would be put in kind of like a cave. No light, no stimulation, no human contact. They may be in that for days, or weeks, or months. Now, sometimes because of the danger of being in the prison, or because they have enemies, or because they don’t want to interact with anybody, people do things to make sure they get into restrictive housing. They get to have their own cell, which is perceived to be a benefit. Typically, people get less of their own property in a segregation or restrictive housing unit, so that’s a negative, but they still get some property. They communicate back and forth—it’s called fishing. They get dental floss, and they will tie it on something. They can share messages, they can share food items, they can share a lot of things with their fishing line or their dental floss; they slide it across the floor to somebody in a different cell. So, there is some opportunity for communication.

When people are cut off from all human contact, they can become more depressed. They can become more anxious. They can become more paranoid. They can become more psychotic. But, it isn’t just—anybody in segregation or restrictive housing is going to decompensate. Some people actually do better there.

There’s a mental illness called social anxiety disorder, where people are embarrassed or humiliated by interacting with others. Those people actually do better in restrictive housing. And there’s a personality disorder called schizotypal personality, where those people really don’t want to develop a relationship with anybody. So, they also do better in restrictive housing.

David Stephens:

I think it’s kind of what I already said, but reducing the amount of time that people are in that unit. What’s happening now in this state that I’m talking about and working with, is they’ve changed restrictive housing from being a place to being a status. So, you could be in the general population unit, and yet, restricted to your cell 20 hours a day. You still are interacting with other people. You’re in a general housing unit. It often is quieter in general housing units than it is in restrictive housing, where restrictive housing is a place. So, that’s another big part of it—turning it from a place into a status.

What I predict—this hasn’t happened yet—in the next 5 years, we’re going to recognize that the people who have found their way into segregation or restrictive housing, which is often referred to as the jail within the jail—when you break a rule, that’s when you end up in restrictive housing—are the ones that are most injured. They’re the ones that have had the worst histories of concussion or traumatic brain injury or even brain illness. They’re the ones that have had the worst physical and sexual and emotional abuse. So, I think it’s actually going to turn more into an intensive treatment unit than anything else. I think that’s what needs to happen.