SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IS TORTURE
The scientific consensus is that solitary confinement has dire mental health consequences, even for previously mentally healthy people. Studies show those held in solitary are seven times more likely to self-harm than those in a prison’s general population. It is physically damaging as well.
Solitary – or any kind of isolated or segregated confinement – was thoroughly discredited as a practice declared all but unconstitutional by the end of the 19th century. However, following the 1960s’ birth of the era of mass incarceration in the U.S., solitary became ubiquitous by the mid-1980s. Virtually every prison and jail was using it despite its having no scientific, public/mental health, or even criminal justice value.
More than 80,000 people are held in solitary confinement on any given day in the United States. More than 2,000 of them are in Pennsylvania’s state prisons, and thousands more cycle in and out of these units each year. 1 in 10 Black men born in Pennsylvania between 1986–89 has been in solitary confinement.
Incarcerated people who return to their communities having undergone this brutality bring that additional trauma with them, further harming their communities. This is particularly true for Black and brown communities, whose members are disproportionately both incarcerated and placed in solitary. People in solitary are also deprived of access to any of the programming that would help them develop skills, work on their personal issues, and find resources before returning home. Because roughly 95% of people in prison (and 99% of people in county jails) return to their communities, the widespread use of solitary confinement leads to greater recidivism and less safe communities.
Nor does it improve safety in carceral facilities. Solitary confinement directly increases violence within prisons and creates hostility and tension between corrections officers and incarcerated people. Yet, in part due to ongoing nationwide staffing shortages in the carceral system, solitary is the punishment for everything in prisons now. The most common violation associated with a sentence to segregated housing is “failure to obey an order,” often for things as minor as having too many pencils or ketchup packets.
WE CAN END SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN PA
Straight Ahead works with incarcerated people, their families, and other advocates to push the Pennsylvania state legislature to end this harmful practice. We are currently working to introduce two bills that would strictly limit the use of solitary in carceral facilities for adults and for youth. Join our Solidarity Not Solitary campaign to support the passage of this legislation in 2025.