This commentary is the latest in “The Word from Solitary Watch,” our series of dispatches by Solitary Watch staff and contributors.

•

Earlier this month, I learned from colleagues that October 10 was being marked by the World Health Organization as World Mental Health Day.  My first reaction was that when you live in one of the United States’ 6,000 correctional facilities, challenges to mental health simply come with the territory—not once a year, but every day. The prison environment is unnatural to social norms and mental stability or progress. Psychological trauma is soaked into the fabric of everyday life. The realities of living in prison test families and friendships on both sides of the walls, as communication with the free world drops off and isolation sinks in. .

When that isolation is compounded by solitary confinement, the burden becomes infinitely worse. The relationship between solitary and struggles with mental health is well documented. Data shows that anywhere from one-third to one-half of individuals in solitary have some kind of underlying mental illness. Those who enter solitary without such conditions may quickly develop them. If the compounded risk, despair, and uncertainty that come with isolation don’t lead to substance use disorders and violence, they may lead to self-harm and suicide. Various studies have found that from one-half to two-thirds of all prison and jail suicides occur in solitary confinement cells.

After more than 30 years of incarceration experience, I am convinced that people leave prison unhealthier, mentally, than when they come in, which is vastly intensified for those subjected to solitary confinement. This is evident by the staggering recidivism rates of prisons.

One key study showed that individuals released from solitary confinement units in Washington State prisons committed new felonies at a rate 35 percent higher than individuals released from the general prison population. Another showed that people who had spent time in solitary confinement in Florida state prisons were 18 percent more likely to commit new violent crimes. That’s if they survive long enough to do so: Yet another study showed that people who spent time in solitary were 78 percent more likely to die by suicide, 54 percent more likely to die from homicide, and 127 percent more likely to die from an opioid overdose in the period immediately following their release from prison.

Recently, a troubled man came to me and asked if I could help him with any basic supplies, like toothpaste and soap. He went on to tell me his story. A telephone call to his family stressed him out and drove into a deep depression. “Bad thoughts” entered his mind. He did what the closed-circuit television suggested and went to the mental health department. After telling the clinician about the telephone call and bad thoughts, “everything went downhill.”

Since the crisis beds were at capacity, standard policy sent him on a bus ride to another institution for a mental health evaluation. He was not allowed to take personal property with him. As part of the process, he spent ten days in solitary confinement. The experience, he said, made his condition worse—and he is far from alone. Approximately one in three people held in solitary confinement reported symptoms of severe psychological distress, such as paranoia, anxiety, or substance abuse, according to an analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Now, back at San Quentin, his personal property stored somewhere, he said he didn’t understand the system and would never ask for mental health help again. He’s serving a sentence in one of San Quentin’s dormitories, and will be released shortly. The negative effects of solitary confinement go far beyond immediate suffering, affecting people in all areas of their lives, and can linger long after individuals have returned to the general population or the free world.

This man’s story provides just one example of the disconnect between how custody and even medical staff respond to mental health needs, psychological crises, and threats of self-harm. People in these situations need stability and focused, individualized attention—not dislocation and isolation. 

There are better ways than this to treat people, even behind bars—ways that don’t include solitary confinement. But the real truth is that as long as we continue to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of Americans in overcrowded prisons, these travesties will persist. Treating people with mental illnesses or substance use disorders in the community, prior to incarceration, is simpler, cheaper, and far more effective. Yet, our criminal legal system seeks to solve complex social problems by building more prisons and jails when all the data—and all the personal stories—show that it’s not working, and is contributing incalculably to human suffering.

•

Read selected earlier dispatches:

• What, to the Incarcerated American, Is Your Election Day?
• Trusted Sources: Why Mainstream Media Needs Incarcerated Voices
• Why Counting Everyone in Solitary Confinement Matters
• Prisons Are Where America Buries Its Problems. Solitary Confinement Is Where Prisons Bury Theirs.
• When Solitary Is Used to Silence
• Dismantle Prisons or Improve Conditions? As Someone Inside, I Know We Must Do Both
• Torture Before Trial
• The “Voiceless” Do Have Voices. Are We Listening?
• The Myth of Safety Through Punishment

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter