#prison abolitionism
Around every 43 minutes, a person is sent to solitary confinement in a New Zealand prison. This means they are locked away from meaningful human contact for 22 to 24 hours per day. In solitary, you are alone in an extremely monotonous physical environment, with almost nothing to do to pass the time. It is not guaranteed that you’ll get natural light or anything other than a thin mattress on a concrete slab. Your control over basic, everyday decisions is taken away. It is at the discretion of Corrections staff how often you get to use the toilet, take a shower, or get fresh air.
Although New Zealand prisons don’t have any specific cells or methods of punishment called “solitary confinement”, international observers have noted that the use of segregation and isolation in New Zealand prisons amounts to just that. No matter what name they might use, its basic character is the same. Corrections will generally justify using solitary confinement in one of four different ways. It either decides that a prisoner is at risk of self-harm, a risk to the safety of the prison or another prisoner, likely to be harmed by another prisoner, or in need of punishment.
In reality, people who are exposed to these horrible conditions, especially for long periods of time, sometimes come out of them with irreparable mental and physical damage. Rather than promoting wellness and good order in the prison, it promotes absolute misery. International evidence suggests that solitary confinement can cause migraine headaches, profound fatigue, heart palpitations, insomnia, back and other joint pain, deterioration of eyesight, poor appetite, weight loss, diarrhoea, lethargy, weakness, tremulousness (shaking), and the aggravation of pre-existing medical problems.
It also has serious psychological effects. Solitary can induce depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and psychosis, and make them worse where they already existed. Even for people with no history of mental illness, it can cause permanent damage that they will carry with them long after they leave.
The evidence also overwhelmingly suggests that solitary actually increases the risk that prisoners will hurt themselves. In the last decade, at least 6 people have taken their own lives while in a solitary confinement cell in a New Zealand prison. Where Corrections sends people to solitary to “manage” their mental health, it’s been found that they come out of it more suicidal than they were before.
There is also evidence to suggest that solitary makes people more likely to hurt others. Because Corrections’ staff often exercise total control over prisoners in solitary, many find it very difficult to reintegrate. Once released from isolation, either back into the general prison population or into society, many prisoners are found to avoid social situations or be prone to violent outbursts. In 2013, a riot broke out in Spring Hill Corrections Facility after prisoners had been locked up for up to 26 hours at a time. Far from providing calm and control in the prison, solitary confinement clearly makes it profoundly more unhealthy, unsafe, and miserable for everyone involved.
No matter how you look at it, removing people against their will from human contact, and other basic human needs, is deeply degrading and dehumanising. In fact, a basic part of being a person is having meaningful interactions with others. We gain our sense of self, who we are and our place in the world from our interactions with other people. When our ability to interact with other people is taken away, we do not only lose a source of comfort and community. We also lose our ability to understand ourselves. It is no wonder that researchers find, again and again, that some isolated prisoners have trouble telling the difference “between reality and their own thoughts, or found reality so painful that they created their own fantasy world.” That means solitary confinement is literally dehumanising. It denies the basic human need to be with others.
These profound psychological and physical effects get worse with each passing day a prisoner is kept in solitary. In New Zealand, around 8% of solitary confinement stays last longer than 15 days, the internationally agreed maximum length. When used for such a prolonged amount of time, the suffering is so immense that, according to international observers, it effectively amounts to torture.
At any given time, more than 300 people are in solitary confinement in New Zealand prisons. On average, Corrections puts people in solitary about 12,000 times per year, and the numbers only keep rising. According to information given to us, the use of solitary confinement is growing even faster than the overall prison population. In December 2009, about 2.11% of the prison population was in solitary. By March 2017, it had increased to 3.38% of the prison population. New Zealand now has one of the highest rates of solitary confinement in the world.
On every level, by any name, the evidence suggests that being in solitary confinement is a miserable, monotonous, and deeply harmful practice. It not only dehumanises and demeans people, but it does so while failing to do anything Corrections says it does. It completely undermines the well-being of prisoners while they’re inside, and makes them more likely to use violence once they are released. It is deeply disturbing that Corrections not only continues to use this horrible practice, but uses it more and more every year.
It’s time to end solitary confinement in New Zealand prisons once and for all. In the coming months, People Against Prisons Aotearoa will be organising a steady stream of actions, events, and publications geared towards this issue. We’ll be launching our campaign on Saturday 14 October, at the Ellen Melville Hall at 6pm. We hope to see you there.
By Aaliyah Zionov and Ti Lamusse
