Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Correctional Solutions at Arizona State University
Our article “Solitary Confinement and the Well-Being of People in Prison” is now available at the link below. We hope our work contributes to continued productive conversation on safe and humane correctional practice. https://lnkd.in/gZ4CYY3A
First: Unfortunately, extremely vocal minority of social justice activists, media and politicians enjoy pontificating to the uninformed masses from their ivory lecterns, criticizing those who support security measures (segregation) in jails and prisons. They rarely mention, “An alternative line of research indicates that placement in solitary confinement has little effect on the mental well-being of people in prison.” Scholars have asserted methodological issues to opposing views. However, “divergent interpretations could be reached within the same data depending on the conceptualization and analytical approach taken to determine the relationship of isolation with well-being.”
Hmmm. Does the status of "solitary confinement" matter if the confined person is of the "wrong " political persuasion? Many of the January 6 protestors/rioters have been in "solitary confinement for years, many without a trial. Paul Manafort, a former Trump campaign manager, was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison and spent months in "solitary confinement" pre trial, for bank and tax fraud and crimes related to his work as a political consultant in Ukraine. There's ample evidence to suggest that Hunter Biden violated much more similar statutes and made millions more from Ukraine as well as Russia and China. I don't ever hear the compassionate reformers wailing about those perceived injustices. So please, don't expect me to get to get worked up about convicted felons who are in "solitary confinement" for far worse offenses, most of them committed while confined in a correctional facility.
I look forward to reading the article.
Thanks for sharing this article Kevin Wright. I correspond with a USMC veteran (former Quantico instructor) currently serving a five-year sentence who has shared personal experience with the impact of solitary confinement.
Look forward to reading this!
Director at Salt River Department of Corrections
11moSecond: The range of polarizing issues relevant to the criminal justice system in the United States is colossal. Every so often an article is presented of the role of segregation, (solitary confinement for the lay person, which by the way is not generally used), in U.S. jails and prisons and has reached passionate and emotional levels, spending considerable time and money cultivating animus towards not only the criminal justice system, as a whole but more specifically corrections. Most articles do not do deep dives and authors act like the ministers of truth and paragons of virtue. They rarely enumerate and define the criteria for segregation on what it consists of, who and why are people exposed to it, what practicality is there for it and what is usually short on specifics but long on emotion and specific narrative and agenda. It’s unfortunate and the height of laziness to measure articles by its headlines and those pushing narratives and agendas know and understands today’s citizenry and they do not read beyond them.