Perception Profiling & Prolonged Solitary Confinement Viewed Through the Lens of the Angola 3 Case: When Prison Officials Become Judges, Judges Become Visually Challenged, and Justice Becomes Legally Blind (original) (raw)
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Supermax institutions and solitary confinement: History, term definition and rationale for spreading
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After short reminding on more than one-century abandoned Philadelphian model of solitary confinement, definition of supermax prison has been given: this is penitentiary institution in which persons deprived of freedom are held in the long cell confinement by a decision of authorities in the conditions of strict control and supervision. By opinion of the author, this definition includes all institutions if they satisfied stated condition, regardless of organizational model, judicial status of persons situated in those institutions, as well as decision and reasons of detention. The birthplace of this institutions are USA, and time of its introduction (the last quarter of 20th century) is characterized by sharpening of criminal reaction in the wave of penal populism and strengthening of retributive models of sentencing which broth to brutal rebellions in the prisons, which has been violently suppressed, and resulted in more serious rebellions. Way out form this circle of violence was traced in institutions in which prisoners are whole day isolated without any human communication. This new solution has been popularized not only by penitential authorities, but also by: workers in the prison industry complex; local communities in which those prisons are situated; and by citizens, to whom has been suggested that is the only way to protect themselves from the most dangerous criminals. At first sight, we can recognize that those arguments are without serious weight. Although those institutions still survive and represent one of the bases of the penitential system in America. This trend, with few exceptions, has spread in the other parts of the world, including Serbia, in which the heaviest crime perpetrators can be sanded to isolation by the court decision.
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A robust scientific literature has established the negative psychological effects of solitary confinement. The empirical findings are supported by a theoretical framework that underscores the importance of social contact to psychological as well as physical well-being. In essence, human beings have a basic need to establish and maintain connections to others and the deprivation of opportunities to do so has a range of deleterious consequences. These scientific conclusions, as well as concerns about the high cost and lack of any demonstrated penological purpose that solitary confinement reliably serves, have led to an emerging consensus among correctional as well as professional, mental health, legal, and human rights organizations to drastically limit the practice.
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This article examines how the prolonged solitary confinement and additional deprivations in supermax prisons measure up against legal protections afforded to those deprived of their liberty. It suggests that if the prohibition against cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment were to be taken at face value, supermax confinement would meet the definition of what constitutes such treatment, and urges the courts to re-examine their position regarding supermax confinement. It also suggests that health professionals are well placed, and ethically bound, to play a more active part in efforts to curtail the use of prolonged solitary confinement in all places of detention.
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Northwestern University Law Review, 2020
T4VX-RSND]) (finding that "under DOC regulations, indefinite confinement in any unit where conditions are substantially similar to those of a DSU entitles an inmate to the protections afforded by the DSU regulations"); Haverty v. Comm'r of Corr., 776 N.E.2d 973, 991 (Mass. 2002) (described at Haverty v. Commissioner of Correction, C.R. LITIG. CLEARINGHOUSE, https://www.clearinghouse.net/detail.php?id=10037 [https://perma.cc/Q9AX-PEP7\]) (finding non-DSU segregation units to be so similar to those of the DSU that state regulations apply).
2020
What aspects of human liberty does incarceration impinge? A remarkable group of Black and white prisoners, most of whom had little formal education and no resources, raised that question in the 1960s and 1970s. Incarcerated individuals asked judges for relief from corporal punishment; radical food deprivations; strip cells; solitary confinement in dark cells; prohibitions on bringing these claims to courts, on religious observance, and on receiving reading materials; and from transfers to long-term isolation and to higher security levels. Judges concluded that some facets of prison that were once ordinary features of incarceration, such as racial segregation, rampant violence, and filth, violated the Constitution. Today, even as implementation is erratic and at times abysmal, correctional departments no longer claim they have unfettered authority to do what they want inside prisons walls. And, even as the courts have continued to tolerate the punishment of solitary confinement in th...