Solitary confinement and supermax prisons

A supermax is a prison, or a unit within a prison, that is dedicated to keeping all prisoners in solitary confinement. There might be 1,000 solitary confinement cells—as there were in Unit 32 at Mississippi State Penitentiary before that unit was closed following a class action lawsuit several years ago—or 1,500 cells, as there are at Pelican Bay State Prison in California. Prisoners remain alone in a cell for more than 22, even 24 hours per day; they are permitted very few possessions in their cells; and they eat in their cells, inches or a few feet from the toilet. They are allowed an hour several times per week for recreation alone on a ‘yard’ that is typically a fenced off area not much larger than their cell. When I look across a row of outdoor ‘yards’ in a supermax prison, I get the sense of looking at a row of cages in a dog kennel. And the prisoners call them ‘cages’. Solitary confinement units, until recently, were operating at full capacity, some with the forced double-celling that comes with prison overcrowding.

Solitary confinement has very damaging effects on human beings, especially those who are psychotic or suicidal. I am one of the researchers and expert witnesses who have published professional articles and books on the subject and I have testified about this phenomenon in multiple class action lawsuits (Kupers, 2013, 2017). Prominent among the symptoms reported by the denizens of solitary confinement are severe anxiety or panic disorder, disordered thinking including paranoia, compulsive activities including pacing and repeatedly cleaning the cell, difficulty concentrating, memory problems, agitation, irritability, hyperawareness, strong startle reaction, mounting irrational anger, impairment of judgment, despair and suicidal inclinations (Haney, 2003; Scharff-Smith, 2006; Kupers, 2013, 2017). In prisoners with serious mental illness (SMI), the mental illness is greatly exacerbated. Suicide is disproportionately prevalent in solitary confinement settings, fully 50 per cent of all prison suicides—and the suicide rate in prison is at least twice as high as in the community at large—occur among the 4 per cent to 8 per cent of prisoners who dwell in solitary confinement units and supermax prisons (Way, 2005; Mears & Watson, 2006; Patterson, 2008).