Brain science should be making prisons better, not trying to prove innocence

Arielle Baskin-Sommers
theconversaton.com
Originally posted November 1, 2017

Here is an excerpt:

Unfortunately, when neuroscientific assessments are presented to the court, they can sway juries, regardless of their relevance. Using these techniques to produce expert evidence doesn’t bring the court any closer to truth or justice. And with a single brain scan costing thousands of dollars, plus expert interpretation and testimony, it’s an expensive tool out of reach for many defendants. Rather than helping untangle legal responsibility, neuroscience here causes an even deeper divide between the rich and the poor, based on pseudoscience.

While I remain skeptical about the use of neuroscience in the judicial process, there are a number of places where its findings could help corrections systems develop policies and practices based on evidence.

Solitary confinement harms more than helps

Take, for instance, the use within prisons of solitary confinement as a punishment for disciplinary infractions. In 2015, the Bureau of Justice reported that nearly 20 percent of federal and state prisoners and 18 percent of local jail inmates spent time in solitary.

Research consistently demonstrates that time spent in solitary increases the chances of persistent emotional trauma and distress. Solitary can lead to hallucinations, fantasies and paranoia; it can increase anxiety, depression and apathy as well as difficulties in thinking, concentrating, remembering, paying attention and controlling impulses. People placed in solitary are more likely to engage in self-mutilation as well as exhibit chronic rage, anger and irritability. The term “isolation syndrome” has even been coined to capture the severe and long-lasting effects of solitary.

The info is here.

Board Votes to End Solitary Confinement for Rikers Inmates Under 21 By 2016

By Jillian Jorgensen
The New York Observer
Originally published January 13, 2014

The Board of Correction today approved a plan for an enhanced supervision unit touted by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte—but also voted to end solitary confinement for all inmates on Rikers Island under 21 by 2016, a sweeping change that will set the department apart from jail systems nationwide.

The board voted unanimously today to create the new Enhanced Supervision Housing Unit touted by Mr. Ponte and Mr. de Blasio at a visit to Rikers Island last month, as well as a previously discussed plan to limit the use of punitive segregation—in which inmates who commit an infraction are locked up for 23-hours a day—to no more than 30 days per offense.

The entire article is here.

This Is What Happens When We Lock Children in Solitary Confinement

By Dana Liebelson
Mother Jones
Originally published Jan/Feb 2015

Here are two excerpts:

While in isolation, Kenny—who was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder prior to the sixth grade—wrote to his mother, Melissa Bucher, begging her to make the two-hour drive to visit him. "I don't feel like I'm going to make it anymore," he wrote. "I'm in seclusion so I can't call and I'm prolly going to be in here for a while. My mind is just getting to me in here."

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THE PRACTICE OF ISOLATING PRISONERS is deeply rooted in American history. In 1787, a group of prison reformers joined by Benjamin Franklin argued that if inmates were left alone in silence, they would become repentant. This Quaker-inspired method resulted in the creation, in 1790, of a penitentiary house containing 16 solitary cells in Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail. Some 50 years later, Charles Dickens visited the city's lockups, of which he wrote, "The system here is rigid, strict, and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and wrong." In its most recent census of state and federal adult prisons, in 2005, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that nearly 82,000 men and women were in "restricted housing"—a lowball figure that doesn't include jails or immigration facilities.

The entire article is here.

Thanks to Deborah Derrickson Kossman for this contribution.

Perspectives on Juvenile Detention and Solitary Confinement

By Antonia Cartwright
Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
Originally posted August 27, 2014

Juvenile solitary confinement is a poignant indictment of our dependence on incarceration. The practice is pervasive in the United States, despite the fact that it damages our youth and, by causing higher recidivism, harms our society. Many other countries avoid or prohibit juvenile solitary confinement, viewing it as torture.

Disguised under a barrage of euphemisms, including segregation and secure housing, juvenile solitary confinement is pervasive in the United States, but lacks legal definition and practice guidelines. Recent legislation in California sought to restrict juvenile isolation to addressing urgent risks only. Unfortunately this has stalled, but advocates must continue to address the issue. Many states segregate juveniles for protection or punishment, for weeks or even months at a time.

The entire Op-Ed piece is here.

California Revises Policy on Mentally Ill Inmates

By Erica Goode
The New York Times
August 2, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

The increasing number of mentally ill prisoners in prisons and jails across the country — in 2013, mentally ill prisoners made up just over 28 percent of California’s prison population — has raised questions about their treatment in corrections systems poorly equipped to deal with psychiatric symptoms. Mentally ill inmates, whose challenging behavior often leads to their placement in solitary confinement, are frequent targets for a cell extraction — the forcible removal of an inmate from a cell by a tactical team equipped with Tasers, pepper spray or other less-lethal weapons — or for other uses of force by guards.

Judge Karlton, in his April order, ruled that the use of force and lengthy solitary confinement of seriously mentally ill inmates was unconstitutional and ordered the department to revise its policies.

The entire article is here.

Solitude’s Despair

By Alexander Nazaryan
Newsweek Magazine
Originally published on April 3, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Though daunting, Solitary Confinement is lucid as hell. Lucid about hell, too. Its fundamental premise is that no man is an island, and that throwing inmates into concrete rooms, especially for minor offenses like possessing Black Panther writings or disobeying guards, is an exile no human psyche should (or can) bear. "The absence of even the possibility of touching or being touched by another," Guenther writes, "threatens to unhinge us." Jean-Paul Sartre said hell is other people. Guenther reminds that this hell of Others is far better than the hell of no Others at all. You don't have to care about prisons or prisoners to care about the philosophical valence of the human touch. That, I'm pretty sure, is what this book is really about.

Some researchers have tried to quantify the suffering of solitary confinement. In 2003, Craig W. Haney of the University of California at Santa Cruz published a study of inmates in the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, Calif. He found that 88 percent of those in prolonged isolation suffered from irrational anger; chronic depression plagued 77 percent, while violent fantasies visited 61 percent of these prisoners. Nearly a third (27 percent) wanted to kill themselves.

The entire story is here.

In essence, the author is arguing that solitary confinement is an attack on the "self."

Prisons Rethink Isolation, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity

By Erica Goode
The New Yor Times - US
Originally published March 10, 2012

The heat was suffocating, and the inmates locked alone in cells in Unit 32, the state’s super-maximum-security prison, wiped away sweat as they lay on concrete slab beds.

Kept in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours each day, allowed out only in shackles and escorted by guards, they were restless and angry — made more so by the excrement-smeared walls, the insects, the filthy food trays and the mentally ill inmates who screamed in the night, conditions that a judge had already ruled unacceptable.

So it was not really surprising when violence erupted in 2007: an inmate stabbed to death with a homemade spear that May; in June, a suicide; in July, another stabbing; in August, a prisoner killed by a member of a rival gang.

What was surprising was what happened next. Instead of tightening restrictions further, prison officials loosened them.

They allowed most inmates out of their cells for hours each day. They built a basketball court and a group dining area. They put rehabilitation programs in place and let prisoners work their way to greater privileges.

In response, the inmates became better behaved. Violence went down. The number of prisoners in isolation dropped to about 300 from more than 1,000. So many inmates were moved into the general population of other prisons that Unit 32 was closed in 2010, saving the state more than $5 million.

The transformation of the Mississippi prison has become a focal point for a growing number of states that are rethinking the use of long-term isolation and re-evaluating how many inmates really require it, how long they should be kept there and how best to move them out. Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Ohio and Washington State have been taking steps to reduce the number of prisoners in long-term isolation; others have plans to do so. On Friday, officials in California announced a plan for policy changes that could result in fewer prisoners being sent to the state’s three super-maximum-security units.

The whole story is here.