The institution of Solitary Confinement was enacted to keep the violent inmates separate from not only guards but other inmates as well. These violent criminals inhabit supermax prisons. These prisons have some of the highest level of security among in the world. The expansion of supermax prisons began in the early 1990’s as a way to show that the inmates would be properly secured and never escape. However, as the years have gone by the environments of supermax prisons have become volatile and few question the actions taken do to the individuals who inhabit the cells. These institutions have grown extremely violent over the years and are now being brought into question their legality although the United States government refuses to reform the systems. Solitary Confinement is an institution that completely disregards the purpose of the penial system and violates the eighth amendment and needs to be eliminated.

Many argue that solitary confinement is a necessary evil that is in place because of the violent nature of the criminals within the prisons. Due to their violent history many look the other way and allow the actions taken by to officers to be seen as necessary. One of the more prominent proponents of solitary confinement is William Daly who is a 25 year corrections veteran which gives him the authority to comment on supermax prisons. He now is the Director of Corrections in Scottsdale, Arizona. While he recognizes the backlash toward the institutions he much like others who approve of the system states that there is no other option. Daly discusses the fact that there is a huge difference between the theory and application of the system. He harps on the fact that the individuals who are imprisoned in supermax prisons are very dangerous and having a system of segregation keeps the facility safe. Daly does mention one source from the National Institute of Justice that stated most inmates do not experience a decline in mental health after a year (Daly 1). The NIJ report is the backbone of his argument and uses it to say that the cases of decline in mental health should not be cherry picked and for people to look at the overall system. He sums up his argument by going back to the fact that the practitioners are faced with a tight budget and an overwhelming population of violent and mentally unstable individuals which forces their hands into implementing the segregation policies that are now becoming the norm. 

Prisons were once meant to be used to rehabilitate the inmates and prepare them to become functioning members of society. However, recent developments in the penial system show clear shift away from that basic principle. Not only does prolonged isolation completely destroy any hope for the individual to become reincorporated back into society the institution is illegal under US law. The eighth amendment states that “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Individuals such as Gertrude Strassburger and Elizabeth Bennion have gone into great lengths to expose solitary confinement. Gertrude Strassburger is a criminal defense attorney during which time he has seen the effects of solitary confinement as well as his knowledge of the constitution. Meanwhile Elizabeth Bennion is a professor of Political Science at Indiana University which also gives her a solid knowledge of the constitution which only adds to her research about solitary confinement. While their journals were purchased nearly a decade a part their findings have been nearly the exact same. Bennion states that isolation creates an environment that strips the inmate from the most minimal of social interactions which are necessities of human life Since those who are imprisoned in solitary confinement are severely hindered in their social abilities (Bennion 1). The inmates are stripped of basic human needs and are locked in the darkest most hidden parts of the complex. Back in 2000 Strassburger released his findings of the Wisconsin's Boscobel super-maximum prison. The hostile conditions of the institution could not be labled as anything but hostile and horrific. He emphasized that the institution of solitary confinement was nothing more than an inhumane form of torture that needs reform (Strassburger 1).

The statements of Bennion and Strassburger are corroborated by individuals who have served time in the hole. Thomas Silvertein who is the “most isolated man” served 29 years in solitary confinement. In a statement in front of a grand jury Silverstein testified:

“I was confined to a special part of the prison known as the “side picket.”… I was deep underground, and there were no windows in the side pocket. The side pocket cells measured approximately six feet by seven feet, almost exactly the size of a standard queen mattress… I could lie down, I could sit on my bed, or I could stand… I was permitted to wear underwear, but I was given no other clothing. Shortly after I arrived, the Prison staff began construction on the side pocket, adding more bars and other security measures to the cell while I was within it. In order no to be burned by sparks and embers while they welded more iron bars across the cell, I had to lie on my bed and cover myself with a sheet. It is hard to describe the horror I experienced during this construction process. As they built new walls around me it felt like I was being buried alive. It was terrifying.”

The life that Silverstein lived can be labeled as nothing but cruel and unusual. The horrific part is he is not alone and thousands of inmates live his hell every day.

The instability of the inmates makes it easy to forget how brutal isolation is for the victims. Most of these individuals have no idea how long they will be locked away and the mental toll is continuous. To put into perspective of how quickly isolation gets to an individual, ABC released an investigatory video on a human’s reaction to isolation. The ABC investigation of solitary confinement followed an individual’s first 48 hours within the cell. This individual was the Secretary of corrections for New Mexico. However, the video only gives a minor view of the institution due to the circumstances that surround the individual. The individual began to hallucinate and become stir crazy as his brain become unstimulated (ABC). However, the full effect of isolation never took in because he knew that he was going to be released within 48 hours and was not subject to the violence that the real inmates deal with on a constant basis.

The living conditions within solitary confinement can only be considered torturous. The individuals who are put into solitary confinement are exposed to such extreme stress and violence that the individuals break. An ‘extreme’ environment can be considered one in which the environmental stimuli are of such an intensity that they have a dysfunctional impact on an individual’s personality or psychological integrity (Leach 1). The cells that the inmates are locked in are nothing more than a coffin for them to live in. To start off the small cells cause sleep to be nearly impossible. The same tactics that are used in the super max prisons can be seen in non-other than Guantanamo Bay whose policies have been approved by the US Secretary of Defense (Leach 1). Not only are the actions taken in Guantanamo Bay extremely illegal but they are nothing more than torture. GITMO has caused extreme back lash for the actions taken upon the prisoners who were water boarded and exposed to intense conditions to break and give the United States information about terrorist organizations. However, to rarely anyone’s knowledge the same practices are occurring on US soil. It has been found that the inmates of supermax prisons have been forced to strip on occasion and be exposed to violent outburst by the officers in charge of watching over them (Leach 1). The reason for this is to create a definitive barrier between prisoner and officer so that any form of uprising would be crushed (Leach 1).  One former inmate named Marvin Smith who spent seven years in solitary confinement considered the environment to be "a psychological warfare environment." Marvin also attested that while in segregation the officers, “[knew] which inmates are weak. They know which inmates they can prey upon” (Lueders 1). The officers no longer view the inmates as humans instead they only see them as their prisoner. They have full intent to torture the inmates and do whatever is necessary to break their will to live. 

Prolonged exposure to solitary confinement is a form of torture that harms the inmates psyche and leads them to become shells of what they once were. While it is true that the inmates are violent and dangerous criminals the system causes the individuals to become less stable individuals than they currently are. Studies have found a direct correlation between solitary confinement and acts of self-harm amongst inmates. The degree of acts the inmates took ranged from minimal to fatal. The study that was conducted from 2010 to 2013 found that inmates who were subject to solitary confinement were 6.9% more likely to harm themselves (Koba 1). The increase in attempts to commit suicide are unquestionable the same study found that “For the 103 acts of potentially fatal self-harm, common methods included ligature (29%), swallowing a foreign body (23%), laceration (19%), over- dose (16%), other (21%), and multiple (8%)” (Koba 1). These findings point to the fact that absolute isolation causes individuals to break. Many of the inmates have mental health issues prior to being locked away in the cells. The extreme levels of stress that they are exposed to cause the inmates to go completely insane. This is because with no form of stimulation, the brain begins to go insane and cause an extreme fear to overcome the individual (BIOMED 1). As time progresses in the cells the acts that the brain can occupy one with quickly runs out of things to stimulate an individual. Which causes the individual to be overwhelmed with fear. The only exposure of stimuli the inmates get are the single hour that they are allowed to leave the cell a day. Even then they are shackled and intimidated the entire time. To give a reference of time within cells and their correlation to these actions. Every 100 acts of self-harm conservatively represent approximately 3760 hours of additional time by correction officers (for hospital transport and suicide watch) and approximately 450 excess clinical encounters in the jail system. (Koba 1). The correlation is undeniable individuals break while in solitary confinement and the fear that it leads them with destroys them as a human being. With not a single moment of relief in their, time it is clear to see that the institution leads to the inmates wishing to escape their living hell.

Along with increased chances of self-harm inmates that are finally released from solitary confinement are left with a depleted social skill set. Post sentence the inmates have poor social skills, become very irrational, as well as the fact that these inmates often have previous mental illnesses that are only increased with the isolation. California’s Pelican Bay State Prison, psychologist Craig Haney found that prisoners “lose the ability to initiate or to control their own behavior, or to organize their own lives.”(PBS). The prisoners stress levels are so high that they can never overcome the trauma that occurs while in solitary. Their brains are no longer functioning on a high level and cannot focus on a single thing. Craig Haney also states that “They don’t come out of their cell … And obviously this social atrophy, the anxiety which surrounds social interaction can be extremely disabling and problematic for people who are released from solitary confinement, either released back into the larger prison community, or even more poignantly, released from solitary confinement into the larger society.” They no longer capable of leaving their cell. The system destroys the inmates will to live. The already unstable individuals essentially zombies. They no longer are able to function and withdraw themselves into the catacomb that is their cell.

Two of the most notorious supermax prisons to ever be investigated are the US Penitentiary in Marion and Pelican Bay. The discoveries made by the journalists who entered the prisons are horrific. The individual who led the investigation was Stephen Richards who himself had been sentenced to nine years in a federal prison. He was also named critical criminologist of the year in 2012. To describe the solitary confinement conditions in the Marion prison system Richards states, “In essence the Unit is a Death Row for the living” (Richards,17). The conditions in Marion isolation was so extended and hostile that individuals would slowly go insane and essentially die. At the Pelican Bay SHU the mental screening process the court determined that “convicts who were psychiatrically disordered…were not screened out of the SHU” (Richards,179). Unfortunately, it became obvious that the conditions at both Marion and Pelican Bay are far from rare. Richards speculates that the volatile and failed prison systems are caused by the increased sentences that individuals are given. Ironically, the increased stakes and ever growing supermax prisons make the prisons more of a grave rather than a way to rehabilitate individuals into functioning members of society. The findings from the Marion Experiment have changed nothing. In fact, the Marion penial system has become the model for supermax prisons and have created conditions that clearly violate the Eighth Amendment which protects citizens from “cruel and unusual punishment.” The actions taken in the Marion and Pelican Bay cells can be considered nothing but torture. “The trauma of severe humiliation can become internalized producing psychiatric conditions such as severe depression and anxiety with flashbacks, nightmares, sleeplessness, apathy, depression and symptoms comparable to PTSD with suicidal ideation” (Leach,87). With these prisons being used as models for future supermax prisons, the fear becomes that prisons in the United States have become places to destroy the inmates rather than rehabilitate them. 

While it is easy to dismiss the actions taken by officers on these violent criminal’s individuals cannot forget or put aside the fact that solitary confinement is an act of cruel and unusual punishment. The UN has requested that the United States must ban any form of isolation that extends past 15 days (Bennion 1).The recent calls of reform have not been accepted and the breaking of international law continues to this day (Bassett 1). The United States can no longer sit back and watch as these atrocities continue on US soil and break our own constitution. No matter the individual or what they have done with their life torturing them to the point of physical and psychological breaks is appalling. The path to prisons becoming like this has been created by society’s need for revenge. While it is hard to care about an individual who has harmed, someone the world must not forget that they are people too and deserve the basic rights of every individual who lives. For if the United States allow this to continue, they will become farther and farther away from the morals that the government and people claim to stand for.
