The use of solitary confinement in prisons became common with the rise of the modern penitentiary during the first half of the nineteenth century and his since remained a feature of many prison systems all over the world. Solitary confinement is used for a panoply of different reasons although research tells us that these practices have widespread negative health effects. Besides the death penalty it is arguably the most punitive and dangerous intervention available to state authorities in democratic nations. Nevertheless, in the United States there is currently an estimated 80-100,000 prisoners in small cells for more than 22 hours per day with little or no social contact and no physical contact visits with family or friends. Even in Scandinavia, thousands of prisoners are placed in solitary confinement every year and with an alarming frequency. These facts have spawned international interest in this topic and a growing international reform movement, which includes researchers, litigators and human rights defenders as well as prison staff and prisoners.
This book is the first to take a broad international comparative approach and to apply an interdisciplinary lens to this subject. In this volume neuroscientists, high level prison officials, social and political scientists, medical doctors, lawyers and former prisoners and their families from different countries will address the effects and practices of prolonged solitary confinement and the movement for its reform and abolition.
Solitary confinement is used for a variety of different reasons in many prison systems all over the world, despite the fact that research shows that these practices have widespread and pronounced negative health effects. Besides the death penalty, solitary confinement is arguably the most punitive and dangerous intervention available to state authorities in democratic nations. This broad and interdisciplinary book draws together research and personal experience fromneuroscientists, high level prison officials, social and political scientists, medical doctors, lawyers, and former prisoners and their families from different countries in order to address the effects and practices of prolonged solitary confinement and to strengthen the movement for its reform andeventual abolition.
The authors of this volume argue eloquently and convincingly, from varied disciplines and perspectives, that it is time to end solitary confinement, and they provide a vision of a carceral system devoid of solitary as well as a road map for getting there. Jules Lobel ... was the lead attorney in a historic class action lawsuit, Ashker v. Governor of California [and t]his volume includes chapters by many of the experts who testified in the Ashker litigation ... This volume is unprecedented in the comprehensiveness and rigor of its treatment of the evidence of negative effects of solitary confinement, and the safe alternatives to solitary that are proven and available. The writing is engaging and accessible. The impact of this book, like the impact of the Ashker litigation, will serve to advance the struggle to end the torture of solitary confinement in the USA and, one hopes, worldwide.
