A growing movement of experts and scholars is challenging solitary confinement as unnecessarily costly, undermining public safety and violating human rights, two organizations say in an 18 page report.
“Across the United States, policymakers are recognizing that long-term solitary confinement is inhumane and an unnecessary drain on resources,” according to the report by the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico.
“At the same time, there is rising awareness that the use of solitary confinement can undermine public safety. Maine and Mississippi, in particular, have taken proactive roles in reducing their solitary confinement populations,” the October 2013 report says.
The report focused on the use and abuse of solitary confinement in New Mexico prisons and jails. It noted that $22 million was awarded in 2012 to former prisoner Stephen Slevin after he was confined in a padded cell in Dona Ana County for almost two years without a trial.
The document says during his time in solitary confinement, Slevin developed bedsores and fungus, his toenails grew so long they curled under his toes and he was forced to extract one of his own teeth because he was denied dental care.
Slevin’s solitary confinement significantly worsened his existing mental illness due to his isolation and lack of medical care; his pleas for help were ignored and he never had an opportunity to see a judge, the report states.
The report says countless studies have shown that otherwise mentally stable people can experience severe adverse effects from even short periods of enforced isolation. Symptoms include social withdrawal, panic attacks, irrational anger, loss of impulse control, paranoia, severe depression and hallucinations. The effect on children and those already suffering from mental illnesses can be devastating.
Since the 1980s, corrections have increasingly relied on solitary confinement as a prison management tool. Institutions called “supermax prisons” have been built to house prisoners in extreme isolation, sometimes for years or even decades.
The report says several hundred prisoners are kept in New Mexico’s supermax lockup and several hundred more are held in disciplinary isolation cells.
According to the New Mexico Department of Corrections, about 13 percent of the state’s prison population is housed in some form of solitary confinement. However, according to the U.S. Department of Justice National Institute of Corrections, New Mexico was ranked second-worst (13 percent) behind West Virginia (16 percent) as compared with federal detention of 7 percent in solitary confinement.
Jerry Roark, NMDC director of adult prisons, stated, “We got in the habit of making it too easy to lock down prisoners. Right now, we have too many non-predatory prisoners in segregation. We need to change that, and we’re working on it.”
According to the report, the American Bar Association defines long-term solitary confinement as longer than 30 days. In 2013, the NMDC’s combined average of stay for prisoners confined in New Mexico’s supermax is 1,072 days.
The report states that 95 percent of prisoners are released to the public. How they are treated while detained plays a critical role in determining how they will adjust to public life and whether they re-engage in criminal activity when released. Those prisoners who have experienced extreme solitary confinement and especially those with mental illness, re-enter society ill-equipped to handle the “free world” in a healthy, constructive way.
The states of Maine and Mississippi have diminished use of solitary confinement. Maine’s supermax facility often had its 100 strict-isolation cells filled; it now confines an average 40 of 45 prisoners.
In Mississippi’s supermax Unit 32, programs changed by allowing group dining, additional physical activity, access to work opportunities and rehabilitative services, which resulted in a decrease in violent incidents and a 70 percent drop in numbers of prisoners in solitary confinement.
The amount saved in operational costs for daily housing in solitary ($102) versus general population ($42) was a major benefit of closing Unit 32. The state saved $6 million per year. One major factor for the closing of supermax facilities is their drain on public resources.
The report recommends these changes:
Increased transparency and oversight for confinement practices.
Provide mental, physical and social stimulation for segregated prisoners.
Limit solitary confinement to no more than 30 days.
Ban solitary confinement for children and mentally ill prisoners.
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