Abstract
Solitary is a powerful and unsettling documentary by filmmaker Kristi Jacobson. The film is a 1-hr-30-min “sentence” to the Red Onion State Prison, a super-maximum security prison in Wise County, Virginia. It is a lucid account of the lives of a small number of segregated inmates and, to a certain extent, of the Correctional Officers who, at least for the duration of their shifts, experience and share the same confined circumstances. The film has the capacity to draw one in, to the point of feeling, almost from the beginning, a disquieting sense of captivity. In a straightforward and unflinching manner, it allows the viewer into the life of a total institution and it effectively describes the multifarious aspects of solitary confinement, also known as segregation, a form of incarceration characterized by long-term isolation of inmates.
The long-term segregation of prisoners came under presidential scrutiny in the United States in 2016 due to its reported overuse. The concerns over its harmful effects and its ineffectiveness in the actual rehabilitation of offenders, alongside the dangers of self-harm consequent to its implementation, particularly in the case of, but not limited to, the mentally ill inmate, alongside the long-lasting consequences of the practice, have resulted in a ban on its use with juvenile offenders, given their developmental stage, and to a gradual decline in its utilization. This, in addition to the inhumane aspects of the type of confinement, presumably also in light of its costs. Not unlike the deinstitutionalization of psychiatry.
Nonetheless, solitary confinement represents a reality which a sizable percentage of the United States prison population, anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000, live daily, and in many, too many instances, for several years. This is certainly the case of the inmates interviewed in this documentary.
Owing to an original Quaker idea of replacement of capital and corporal punishment with the redeeming effects of isolation, solitude, introspection, and Bible reading, which were believed to lead to repentance and reformation, solitary confinement became over time an instrument available to isolate habitual or recidivistic dangerous offenders while serving their sentences. It is also used, almost paradoxically, to protect potentially vulnerable prison populations, at risk, for instance, due to age or sexual orientation. In fact, while being protected from the dangers of prison life, a segregated vulnerable inmate unfairly serves his or her sentence, in a way, twice.
Solitary confinement is known to most penal systems across the world yet with different rules leading to its enforcement.
Countries like Norway, for instance, rarely enforce solitary confinement in their penitentiaries and, if it does indeed need to be used, it is a very brief temporary measure (Ahalt & Williams, 2016). In Italy, on the contrary, so-called Article 41bis, known also as carcere duro (hard prison), is characterized by the abolition of all the progressive provisions of the 1975 penal reform. While initially it was meant to be applied in situations of grave emergency, such as prison revolts, in 1992, in the aftermath of the assassination of antimafia Magistrate Giovanni Falcone and also in light of the substantial personal liberties provided by the reform, it became clear that members of organized crime, while in prison, were able to continue to direct and coordinate criminal activities on the outside world, including the ordering of assassinations (Palermo, 2017).
In 1995, Article 41bis came under the scrutiny of the European Union Committee for the Prevention of Torture. In light of the substantial limitations imposed by the article, such as total isolation from the outside world and from other detainees, the European Union considered it inhumane. As of 2002, Article 41bis can be applied for up to 4 years and be prolonged for 2 years at a time. Initially to be applied to members of organized crime and terrorist networks, it can now also be enforced in felonies such as the production and distribution of child pornography, as well as offering a minor for the purpose of prostitution (Sebastiano, 2007).
The example of Norway may not be generalizable due to the very specific nature of the country’s social system. It may help to remember that when in 2011 Anders Breivik massacred 77 people, Norwegian Criminal Law had limited provisions for dealing with large scale threats. The situation of Italy, on the contrary, is quite different from that of the United States in that the use of solitary confinement, besides its time limit of 4 plus 2 years, is not, as is the case of the United States, a prison staff decision but follows, logically it would seem, a court ruling. This is not a minor point also considering the privatization of detention facilities in the United States with the implicit complications surrounding additional regulatory requirements and public scrutiny or lack thereof. Furthermore, in the United States the use of solitary confinement in addition to acts of violence and danger prevention can also be invoked in light of rule violation or insolence, such as talking back to staff. One very troubling aspect of segregation is indeed its potential arbitrariness.
Solitary provides a convincing snapshot of a number of elements common to prison life and to segregation in particular. The life stories of the inmates interviewed are common in the offender population, and as is often the case, characterized by difficult upbringings and complex circumstances. One element that transpires is the relative ease in recounting crimes, for the most part serious and at least in one instance heinous and gratuitous. It can be perplexing to witness the apparent tranquility in describing extremes of violence. While one may easily attribute a seemingly bombastic attitude to the exaggeration induced by a brief moment of fame, probable emotional immaturity and dysregulation, or to the likely excitement induced by novelty and a break from unrelenting monotony, one should not forget the reason most individuals are placed under such restrictive conditions, i.e. their dangerousness.
It is tempting, albeit superficial, for an observer to see in the necessary security procedures implemented by the Correctional Officers, or in their apparent mechanical approach, a lack of empathy. Similarly it is easy, to hastily ascribe to some of the offenders incorrigible traits of evilness, as well as impermeability to any act of reforming or rehabilitation.
The truth is that all members of the penitentiary system, in reality, suffer in their own way, on both sides of the bars. While it may seem callous on the part of a Correctional Officer to claim to “love” the combat situation implicit in an emergency takedown, comparing it to the excitement of a home run, this is not dissimilar from other stress-managing mechanisms which are necessary when dealing with extreme circumstances one feels he or she has little control over. The chronic potential for life-threatening violence against them further compounds the Correctional Officers’ stress and what for an angry and bored inmate may represent an existential diversion for the Officer may become a life changing event through serious injury, or even death. And, nonetheless, the same Correctional Officer interviewed is visibly uncomfortable with the fate of the confined inmates.
A displayed attitude of strength on the part of a segregated offender in the face of the complete lack of control over one’s circumstances is at best preposterous and is likely masking despair. Similarly the apparent entitlement relative, for instance, to mail not being delivered or bread lacking on a food tray, is one of the many dynamics which develop in totalistic situations.
The documentary Solitary convincingly questions the very idea of segregation and solitary confinement as an effective penal tool. Primatologists are very familiar with the serious aftereffects of isolation and caging. These are not dissimilar to what happens to the confined human. Self-injurious behavior, sensory deprivation–related hallucinatory phenomena, a retreat into a fantasy world, despair, and anger are all “normal” under these circumstances. The constant background noise audible in the film is likely a motor response to boredom and nothingness, not unlike in other “caged” situations. As are the physical strategies to combat unending time, alongside obsessive but necessary routines, so as to not fall prey to the severe solitude. So-called induced autism secondary to the disruption of human relationality is clearly evident in many longstanding cases of isolation (Gallagher, 2014). This is obviously not acceptable. The very fact that confined individuals are allowed occasional access to a recreational “cage” or that they spend 23 out of 24 hr in a small cell is obviously not acceptable and is tantamount to torture (Kelsall, 2014).
Solitary allows the public unprecedented access to one aspect of the penal system which is controversial and highly charged. The Red Onion super-maximum security prison has opened its doors to the outside world for scrutiny. If one believes, against the current neo-Lombrosian trend of genetic culpability, that our penal systems should rehabilitate and reform, it becomes imperative to assess the effectiveness of an intervention. If crime is a malady, a societal illness, then one must, as in other illness situations, determine if the therapies are efficacious. In the past, bloodletting was considered a treatment for many ailments and used indiscriminately. But was it effective? Did it work? Does solitary confinement work as a deterrent or as a preventive or “curative” measure for the habitual recidivistic violent individual? Or could it reinforce violence, as the interviewees so candidly seem to suggest? Is it “treatment” of a social ailment or is it not, instead, retributive anger? Isolation is at times necessary in medicine to protect an immunocompromised patient for instance or to prevent contagion or contamination. But there are time limits to an intervention.
Of course, one need not forget that solitary confinement is also, and mostly a punishment, not a treatment. And as a punishment segregation is understandably considered by many as cruel and unusual.
It is imperative to protect all involved in prison settings: those serving their sentence and those supervising. But there is an intrinsic problem with the extraordinarily long periods of solitary confinement, and clearly it is representative of the failure of an improbable solution.