In recent years, a small but growing number of neuroscientists, lawyers, and policy-makers have highlighted the dangers of solitary confinement and are campaigning to minimize use of the practice and, eventually, abolish it completely.
The conditions of solitary confinement vary, but typically involve locking prisoners up in a small, windowless cell for 22 to 24 hours a day, with little or no human interaction or other forms of stimulation, often for extended periods of time. A general consensus is emerging that this treatment can be both psychologically and neurologically harmful. [See The Solitary Brain]
Many now deem the practice to be cruel, inhumane, and tantamount to torture, and increased attention to this issue is starting to produce some changes. In a landmark 2015 case, the state of California agreed to scale back its use of solitary confinement. The following year, President Obama banned solitary confinement of juveniles in federal prisons, and Albert Woodfox, the country’s longest-standing solitary confinement prisoner, was released from Louisiana State Penitentiary, after 43 years in almost complete isolation.
[For more on this story by Moheb Costandi, M.Sc, go to http://www.dana.org/News/Using...olitary_Confinement/]
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