What can be done to reduce the use of solitary confinement in our prisons? The use of this type of TX for our inmates with mental illness is completely inhumane and causes the worsening of symptoms for those already suffering from mental disease.

Mary Lou,
According to the National Commission on Correctional healthcare and other research efforts, isolation does increase risk of suicide and exacerbates other MI symptoms. Our forensic mental health program struggles as well with attempting to assess and successfully maintain inmates who are isolated to due PC status, SAI, or DSU. Unfortunately, there is no alternative for these inmates because of their status as they can not integrate with others. Frequently, many of these inmates struggle with isolation and end up in constant supervision status (suicide watch). For those in isolation who are struggling, we assess them and interview at least three times weekly. That is the best we can do at this point. We continually re-inforce and assess the ability to contract for safety.

We can reduce the use of solitary confinement in prison. In New York reform is occurring through both litigation and legislation. In 2003 mental health and criminal justice advocates joined with family members, mental health consumers, and formerly incarcerated people to push state legislators to pass a bill requiring that people with serious mental illness be removed from solitary confinement and placed in residential mental health treatment units instead. Although the state department of correctional services and office of mental health opposed the bill, legislators and the press supported it because they understood the devastating effects that isolation has on people with psychiatric disabilities. The Governor finally signed the bill in 2008, and it goes into effect in July 2011.
Although the law does allow some individuals with serious mental illness to be placed in solitary confinement under exceptional circumstances, it is definitely a step in the right direction. Because of a lawsuit regarding prison mental health care that was settled in 2007, the state has already opened a 100-bed unit for people with serious mental illness removed from solitary confinement. The law also gives the state agency that monitors mental health treatment in the community the authority to oversee prison mental health care and the removal of people with serious mental illness from solitary confinement.

first of all, I take great pride in being able to respond to solitary confinement, especially since I have personnally experienced it first hand. There are some benefits to solitary confinement depending upon the reasoning for the aforementioned. Introspection is a powerful tool, once it is seen as such! However, on the other hand, if a person is suffering with mental illness, then a more professional approach is needed that would benefit the person in solitary confinement. On some occassions, solitary confinement can make mild mental illness worst, left untreated! And where best to identify any forms of ill-normacies than in the environment where a person lives?!