Get your essays here, 10,000 to choose from!

Limited Time Offer at MyTermPapers!!!

Prisoner Isolation and Solitary Confinement

14 Pages 3464 Words September 2016

Solitary Confinement or better known as “The Shu” (Solitary Housing Units) by inmates is the practice of isolating people in closed cells for 22-24 hours a day, virtually free of human contact, for periods of time ranging from days to decades (Solitary Watch, Garrett Zehr). Today, the United States incarcerates 2.3 million people which is more than any other country in the world, and of those 2.3 million about 80,000 are in Solitary Confinement or some type of segregated housing. Solitary Confinement was introduced to be an isolating cell in prisons where inmates who committed wrongful acts while inside the prison or were too dangerous to be in the general population were sentenced to serve their time there, whether it was for days, months, or years. Solitary Confinement was never meant to inflict long-term pain on the inmates but instead rehabilitate and them but it seems to have done just the opposite and lead to problems in areas that cause mental and physical issues, high costs to maintain, and life after prison issues, that all affect not only the inmates but society as a whole. There are many resolutions to these issues as well as dilemmas that have and will be faced in the process of doing so.
So what exactly is solitary confinement, a question many would ask and although the answer may be quite simple there is much more behind it. Solitary confinement is a holding cell where inmates spend 22 to 24 hours of the day locked inside with one hour of “outdoor time” and no human contact and not much daylight if any. Prisoners are usually placed in solitary confinement for many reasons; some from serious infractions, such as fighting with an inmate or correction officer, to minor ones like talking back to an officer or getting caught with a pack of cigarettes. There has even been times where inmates are placed into solitary confinement based off of gang related issued it all depends on the prison and rules according to asfc.org...

Page 1 of 14 Next >

Essays related to Prisoner Isolation and Solitary Confinement

Loading...