Why Do We Place Our Most Vulnerable Prisoners in Solitary?

February 12, 2015 10:19:47 am

By Joseph Galanek

Last month, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections announced that placing inmates with mental illness in solitary confinement will no longer be part of their management practices.  It was a response, in part, to a civil rights investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ)  that found Pennsylvania inmates with mental illness were “in solitary confinement for months and sometimes years, with devastating consequences to their mental health.”

The 2014 DOJ  report  also indicated that inmates were “routinely confined to their cells for 23 hours a day; denied adequate mental health care; and subjected to punitive behavior modification plans, forced idleness and loneliness, unsettling noise and stench, harassment by correctional officers, and excessive use of full body restraints”.

An unforeseen consequence of the increasing use of solitary confinement is that large numbers of inmates with mental illness are placed in these units due to behavior stemming from psychiatric symptoms. Read the whole article here at The Crime Report