Solitary: The Inside Story of Supermax Isolation and How We Can Abolish It“When I testify in court, I am often asked: ‘What is the damage of long-term solitary confinement?’ . . . Many prisoners emerge from prison after years in solitary with very serious psychiatric symptoms even though outwardly they may appear emotionally stable. The damage from isolation is dreadfully real.” —Terry Allen Kupers Imagine spending nearly twenty-four hours a day alone, confined to an eight-by-ten-foot windowless cell. This is the reality of approximately one hundred thousand inmates in solitary confinement in the United States today. Terry Allen Kupers, one of the nation’s foremost experts on the mental health effects of solitary confinement, tells the powerful stories of the inmates he has interviewed while investigating prison conditions during the past forty years. Touring supermax security prisons as a forensic psychiatrist, Kupers has met prisoners who have been viciously beaten or raped, subdued with immobilizing gas, or ignored in the face of urgent medical and psychiatric needs. Kupers criticizes the physical and psychological abuse of prisoners and then offers rehabilitative alternatives to supermax isolation. Solitary is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the true damage that solitary confinement inflicts on individuals living in isolation as well as on our society as a whole. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Women Do Not Do Well in Solitary | 121 |
Youth in Isolation | 136 |
The Disruptive Prisoner | 212 |
Notes | 241 |
| 255 | |
| 281 | |
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African American agency Alternative to Solitary American Psychiatric Association antipsychotic Ashker assault Bay State Prison behavior bipolar disorder cell door cell extractions class action lawsuit clinical clinicians consigned correctional mental health court crime culture of punishment Department of Corrections disciplinary disorder effects example experience feel fight gang HARSH PRISON CONDITIONS HUMAN DAMAGE Human Rights Watch immobilizing gas incarceration individuals inmates isolated confinement jails and prisons juvenile Kupers Lexan maximum security medications ment mental health staff mental health treatment parole Pelican Bay pris Prison Rape prison sexual prisoners suffering prisoners with serious psychiatric psychiatric hospital psychiatrist psychosis psychotic PTSD racial rehabilitative attitude released Rikers Island schizophrenia self-harm sentence serious mental illness sexual abuse SHU postrelease syndrome social solitary confinement solitary confinement unit suffering from serious suicide supermax isolation supermax prison supermax unit supermaximum security symptoms talk tion Toch told trauma violence women prisoners youth