Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in U.S Prisons
The central thesis is that solitary confinement seriously harms individuals who already
suffer from pre-existing mental health concerns. There are several pieces of evidence to back this
up, including solitary confinement causes mental illness in prisoners, solitary confinement can
exacerbate mental health symptoms, and the proper treatment is not available.
Prisoners entering solitary confinement might be mentally ill or mentally sound; however,
once they leave, every single prisoner will have mental illness symptoms. The extent of the
symptoms depends on the individual, access to lights/radios, and access to books. Solitary
confinement causes anxiety, depression, anger, psychosis, distortions, obsessive thoughts, and
paranoia. Those who have mental illness have their symptoms exacerbated from their time spent
in solitary confinement. Stress, lack of meaningful contact, and lack of structure contribute to
worsening mental health symptoms. Isolation even leads to an increased risk of suicides and
decompensation, requiring hospitalization and crisis care. Individuals with pre-existing mental
illness conditions will only get worse during their time in solitary confinement, not better.
Treatment for mental health conditions is not widely available in solitary confinement. In
solitary confinement, an individual will receive at most psychotropic meds and "mental health
rounding," which is when someone goes to the door of the cell and asks how a prisoner is doing.
However, to improve the prisoner's mental health, prisons must combine the following methods
with individual/group therapy, life skills, and other therapeutic teachings. These methods,
however, are not feasible in prisons today due to lack of funding, rules requiring inmates to stay
in their cells, and lack of resources. Prisons have become psychiatric facilities without the
necessary treatment. Studies have shown that fifteen percent or more of inmates suffer from
mental health conditions; fifteen to twenty percent of those individuals will require psychiatric
care while incarcerated.
The arguments being made in this article are very accurate and detrimental to someone's
mental health. By backing up many of these claims with statistics, I feel that the arguments were
strong and had no fallacies. Instead of the author's unqualified opinion, statistics prove the
correlation. Without the statistics, the provided ideas would have only qualified as opinions, not
facts.
Overall, the central thesis of this article is that solitary confinement seriously harms
individuals who already suffer from pre-existing mental health concerns is evident throughout
the entire article. Several pieces of evidence make it fact, not fiction, including solitary
confinement causes mental illness in prisoners, solitary confinement can exacerbate mental
health symptoms, and the proper treatment is not available.
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