Mental Health Issues In Prison Special Housing Units
June/July/August 2001
Lauren Pareti
NEW YORK CITY VOICES

EXTRACT:

Psychological experts say even for people with no prior history of mental illness, detainment in a SHU can cause psychiatric symptoms, including depression, paranoia, agitation, manic activity, delusions, and even suicide. Inmates who already have a mental illness are more likely to be held in a SHU, because they may have greater difficulty complying with rules and social norms in the general prison population. Dr. Stuart Grassian, a psychiatrist who has studied how SHU's impact inmates' mental health, submitted the following testimony in a lawsuit against Attica State Prison filed May 29th, 1996: "During the course of my involvement as an expert, I have had the opportunity to evaluate the psychiatric effects of solitary confinement in well over 100 prisoners…I have observed that many of the inmates so housed have histories of psychiatric and/or neurological difficulties, and for many inmates, incarceration in solitary caused either severe exacerbation or recurrence of preexisting illness, or caused the appearance of an acute mental illness in individuals who had previously been free of any such illness."

Doctor Grassian is not the only expert questioning our nation's growing use of SHU's as a disciplinary tool. Human rights groups have argued for years that SHU's meet the definition of torture under international law. In March 2000, the Albany Times Union published a startling special report on the SHU's titled "The Hardest Time." In November 2001, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on crime and criminal justice, which included a statement of opposition to the increasing use of isolation units, "especially in the absence of due process, and the monitoring and professional assessment of the effects of such confinement on the mental health of inmates."