“I’ve been alive for almost 40 years and those four weeks in the hole were the worst of my life,” my uncle once said. Those words ring in my ears when I picture solitary confinement. He has one word to describe solitary: torture. Not being able to speak to anyone else. Only being able to do two things: push-ups and reading the Bible. It is painful to hear someone you love talk about something so terrible.
Last week, the City Council overrode the mayor’s veto of a bill to ban solitary confinement. The new law imposes a four-hour limit on isolating inmates who pose an immediate risk of violence to themselves or others in “de-escalation” units. Individuals who are involved in violent incidents can be placed in longer-term restrictive housing, but would have to be allowed out of their cells for 14 hours every day and provided with the same programming available to other inmates.
The city’s current rules about solitary confinement put inmates in a restrictive housing area where individuals are locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day as punishment for violent offenses, although jail officials claim they are offered seven hours out of their cells.
Opponents of the law argue that isolating incarcerated individuals is a critical tool that is used to protect the rest of the incarcerated population and the officers working in the prisons. Mayor Adams argued that “instead of promoting a humane environment within our jails, the Council’s bill would foster an environment of fear and instability,” and “would make it harder to protect people in custody, and the predominantly Black and brown workers charged with their safety, from violent individuals.”
However, studies show that not only does solitary confinement fail to decrease instances of violence, it actually increases them,, as well as self-harm.
More than 150 years of research on solitary confinement show that the practice can lead to serious and long-lasting psychological damage and is especially harmful to individuals with preexisting mental health issues. In New York State, the rate of suicide was five times higher for people in solitary than for people in the general prison population between 2015 and 2019. In addition, out of 200,000 people who were released from prison, those who spent any time in isolation were 78% more likely to die from suicide within their first year out of prison than incarcerated individuals who did not spend any spent time in solitary.
Additional research suggests that the social deprivation faced by people who have been in solitary confinement can “fundamentally alter the structure of the human brain in permanent ways.”
My uncle recalled that by week three, he could sense his mindset changing. He remembered a friend who spent three years of a five-year sentence in isolation and who he “is not a regular person anymore.” Since returning from prison, his friend has been unable to hold down a job for longer than six months and is unable to pay attention to details. My uncle is quick to point out that he sees some benefit to punishment in the form of taking away commissary or other similar measures, but not solitary confinement. In his words, “how is someone expected to have a conversation with a boss or coworker when they’ve spent years on end by themselves?”
Safety for my family and yours—and for all of us—requires us to listen to the research and to formerly incarcerated people who have personally experienced solitary confinement. Now, we just need the federal government to follow suit and pass the End Solitary Confinement Act, which is co-sponsored by Harlem’s own Rep. Adriano Espaillat.
Maya B. is a high school senior and was previously and former intern at the Amsterdam News.