At New York City's Rikers Island Detention Center, where I worked as a chaplain for 23 years until 2007, the solitary confinement unit was called the "bing." When I asked a prison captain what the term meant, he explained, "When some prisoners come here, their minds go 'bing.' "
Indeed, when I would make visits, walking cell by cell, I was overwhelmed by the lethargy and depression of the inmates.
The damaging effects of isolation are not unique to Rikers inmates. Decades of studies prove that solitary confinement causes severe and lasting harm.
Dr. Stuart Grassian, a nationally recognized expert, reported perceptual distortions among the common symptoms described by the hundreds of prisoners he evaluated in solitary confinement.
He highlighted this symptom as especially concerning because perceptual distortions, in which objects shrink or appear to "melt," are more commonly associated with neurological illnesses, especially seizure disorders and brain tumors, than with psychiatric illness alone.
Dr. Craig Haney, professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, found extraordinarily high rates of symptoms of psychological trauma among prisoners held in long-term solitary confinement in his systematic analysis of prisoners held in supermax prison.
More than four out of five of those evaluated suffered from feelings of anxiety and nervousness, headaches and the like, and over half complained of nightmares, heart palpitations and fear of impending nervous breakdowns. Nearly half suffered from hallucinations and a quarter experienced suicidal ideation.
When I worked at Rikers, some prisoners held in solitary experienced this heightened risk of suicide. In fact, responsible inmates were trained to act as Suicide Prevention Aides. Through small glass openings, they monitored the activities of those in isolation cells and reported any self-destructive behavior to the unit officer.
I can imagine the response of some reading confronting these facts: So what? These are convicted criminals. Many are violent offenders. They deserve it.
That's not how our system is supposed to work. We have prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment.
We value our shared decency and humanity.
I understand the need to maintain order and safety in prison. But holding people in isolation until they are mentally broken is not acceptable. And it's actually no safer for guards and other inmates.
Over the past three decades, numerous state and federal prisons have made long-term solitary confinement a default management tool, subjecting prisoners to conditions of extreme isolation not as a response to violent behavior but rather as a routine practice for minor rule infractions, and for "their own protection."
Some prisons consist of nothing but single-cell isolation units. Nationwide, an estimated 80,000 persons are kept in these inhumane conditions, sometimes for months and years on end.
Recently, the number of inmates held in "punitive segregation" at Rikers has increased dramatically; today, more than 900 inmates there are being held in their cells for 23 hours per day.
The widespread imposition of solitary confinement
should trouble everyone. Prisoners with mental health disorders suffer debilitating trauma, and studies indicate that prisoners released directly from solitary confinement to society have significantly higher rates of recidivism.
If all that weren't bad enough, the cost per inmate of solitary confinement far exceeds other types of imprisonment. Indeed, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn recently announced a proposal to close a notorious supermax facility in order to save over $20 million annually.
A handful of other states have adopted measures to rein in the practice, and their outcomes demonstrate there are more efficient, effective and humane alternatives to solitary confinement. For example, Maine's corrections commissioner, Joseph Ponte, who ushered in reforms leading to a 70% reduction in Maine's solitary confinement population in 2011, says that "the more data we're pulling is showing that what we're doing now is safer than what we were doing before."
Mississippi's prison system also had an infamous segregation unit, referred to as Unit 32. As a result of litigation,
the state transferred many of those inmates to the general prison population.
The number of violent incidents requiring guards to use force to restrain prisoners plummeted. Unit 32 was eventually closed.
Every human being has inherent God-given dignity, a quality that does not disappear behind prison gates. Recognizing that prolonged solitary confinement is a cruel form of punishment, people of faith and conscience must work to abolish this indefensible practice.
Defeis, who was a chaplain for 23 years at the prison on Rikers Island, is now the supervisor for Providence House, a nonprofit founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph.