SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN JAILS AND SUPERMAX FACILITIES

Solitary confinement in jails and supermax facilities

Solitary confinement in jails and supermax facilities

Introduction

A supermax prison can mention to a prison that offers maximum-security measures or imposes the harshest standards of imprisonment on prisoners who are exceedingly brutal offenders or potential or verified terrorists. A prison that has a section with maximum security also may be called a supermax prison or supermax unit, a shortening of the period super maximum. Such facilities, if existing alone or inside a prison, usually minimize contact between prisoners with as much as 23-hour solitary confinement per day, and a number of systems (like cell doors and locks) automated to restrict contact with guards too.

 

The Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prison Inmates

In most state prisons in the United States, inmates reside in overcrowded, often unsanitary conditions with no privacy. These situation exacerbate symptoms of mental sickness and post-traumatic stress disorder. In Prison Madness, Terry Kupers points out that "crowding constitutes an intolerable trauma in itself. "He cites study investigations that have attached congesting with increased aggression in communities. In greeting centers where prisoners are sent to await classification, mentally sick inmates are housed in close proximity to brutal and predatory convicts. The chaotic, congested natural environment of greeting centers can result in the victimization of vulnerable inmates by brutal convicts throughout the waiting period. While the process of assessment and classification of prisoners drags on due to inadequate staffing and overcrowding in greeting centers, inmates with mental illness find that their safety is repeatedly compromised.(SpearIt, 2009)

 

The psychological consequences of solitary confinement

Only a small number of severely disturbed inmates are sent to an inpatient hospital unit for treatment, and after their release, they obtain drastically inadequate follow-up care. Like sane inmates who have problem managing their anger, mentally sick inmates have precarious command over their behavior and are often punished with solitary confinement for getting into fights or creating disturbances.Prison inmates are sent to solitary confinement units or "supermax" facilities for disciplinary purposes when their behavior in the general prison population has been assessed as dangerous, brutal or disruptive.

While some inmates manage act in ways that make them a serious threat to the safety of the general population, others are sent to solitary confinement for secondary offenses such as taking too long in the shower.

Most states (about two-thirds) have segregation flats or "supermax" facilities where jail inmates are confined in units for 23 out of 24 hours each day. They are allowed one hour out of their cells for exercise in a small comprised area.

Some inmates use aggressive or disruptive behavior to contend with the traumatic stress of being in prison. These inmates are repeatedly sent to segregation units as punishment.Each time, they appear with increasingly more severe aggressive and brutal behaviors, encompassing criminal victimization of vulnerable inmates.They arrive out looking for a target for their intense rage, and often that target is a mentally sick inmate who is too disoriented, depressed, or distracted by hallucinations to be able to fight back ...