Our prisons routinely lock people away from human contact for YEARS at a time.
A recent editorial from Virginia:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/solitary-confinement-in-virginia/2012/01/11/gIQAKAvh1P_story.html
By Editorial Board, Washington Post
DEEP IN THE HEART of Virginia coal country sits a mountaintop prison, its remote location an outward expression of the plight of the inhabitants inside. Some 500 of its 745 inmates are held in solitary confinement — 23 hours a day, seven days a week, some for years — with virtually no human contact or meaningful stimulation. Prison officials estimate that 173 of those in solitary suffer from mental illness. Whether the illness was induced by isolation is not known; what is beyond dispute is that isolation exacerbates the problem.
This is Red Onion State Prison, as described by The Post’s Anita Kumar. Virginia is one of 44 states that enlist solitary confinement as a way to manage some of its prisoners. Virginia officials estimate that as of this fall roughly 1,800 inmates were kept in isolation, comprising a large chunk of the 25,000 or so prisoners nationwide who find themselves in these conditions every day. Prisoners at Red Onion have been kept in solitary confinement from two weeks to seven years, according to Ms. Kumar’s report, with an average length of stay in segregation of 2.7 years.
Virginia officials say that they rely on solitary confinement to manage inmates who are unable to control their rage or who have assaulted corrections officers or other prisoners. Sometimes, they say, a prisoner is placed in a special segregation unit — about the size of a doctor’s exam room — for his own good to avoid being injured by others. Security and safety in a prison must be a top priority, and strategic and limited use of solitary confinement may at time be a necessary tool. But routine reliance on prolonged solitary confinement should never be the default.
Short-term isolation is unlikely to cause serious harm. But prolonged solitary confinement can lead to devastating consequences, including psychosis, reduced brain function, debilitating depression and increased rates of suicide.
(more at link)
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