It is probably tempting for Western journalists and commentators to focus on Iran for a piece like this. Yet, to the writer's credit, the topic of solitary confinement—especially as practiced in the United States—remains central throughout.
The prison system in the United States is in dire need of reform; some groups even make compelling arguments for the minimization and/or elimination of prisons. However, addressing the policy of solitary confinement would be an immediate improvement.
A recent front-page New York Times piece (Mar. 18) reported on the dramatic increase in violence at the New York City jail complex Rikers Island. One of the largest in the country, it houses around 12,000 inmates. According to the Times piece:
In this environment [at Rikers], mentally ill inmates are particularly vulnerable, experts say. The proportion of inmates with a diagnosed mental illness has grown to 40 percent, from 20 percent, over the last eight years, according to the Correction Department. These inmates are responsible for about two-thirds of infractions at city jails, the department said.
Concerning punitive measures, the article summarizes the conclusions of a psychiatry professor who has studied the situation at Rikers:
... overreliance on solitary confinement and force at Rikers Island and elsewhere perpetuated violence among inmates, particularly the mentally ill, who have crowded the nation’s correctional facilities as mental hospitals and other institutions have closed.
As I have mentioned before on the blog, merely glancing at the numbers renders imprisonment in the United States as suspect. US prisons, as a percentage of population, are the fullest worldwide. While the United States has just over 4 percent of the global population, American prisons claim an appalling 22 percent of the prisoners in the world.
Given the size of the prison populations, the amount of mental illness, and the techniques of management and discipline, it is clear that prisons are something less than "correctional" facilities. They more closely resemble quarantines. And the encouragement is to return upon release.
