‘Tormented in the dark’
Should jails ban solitary confinement? Here’s what advocates say.
Nearly 30 years after he stepped out of a dark cell, Hasshan Batts still lives with the memories of the two weeks he spent in solitary confinement.
“I remember my family saying I was never the same,” Batts said. “My mom and brother and them said I had changed. Prison does that, but it was something about being tormented in the dark.”
More than 80,000 inmates are held in solitary confinement on any given day in the U.S. In Pennsylvania, more than 2,000 inmates daily are held in solitary confinement units, with thousands cycling in and out of these units each year.
There’s a growing movement, however, to ban the practice, which critics say is cruel and can lead to or worsen symptoms of mental illness among inmates.
Here in the Lehigh Valley, protests have led to increased attention on the practice, and even some changes at the county jails. But attempts to ban the use of solitary so far have failed.
“We forget that the people in jail are our people, our fellow citizens,” said criminal justice activist Susan Jordhamo of Allentown. “We act like they are not us and we can do anything we want to them. That perspective is bad for public safety. Those people will be back in jail, traumatized. They will not be healthy members of society.”
Batts, now director of a Lehigh Valley nonprofit aimed at combating violence, said he was 11 years old the first time he was arrested, and had his first stay in an adult correctional facility at 15. He was 19 when he landed in solitary confinement for the first and only time, during a 1994 incarceration at Carbon County jail on a probation violation.
Batts said he had written a letter to the warden, complaining that a guard told him he wasn’t allowed to lift weights during his recreation time. It was enough to land him in solitary, where his mental health deteriorated “rapidly.”
He said his solitary cell was a dark room, and his only companion was an encyclopedia of snakes. Batts said to this day he has a real fear of snakes because of the way his perception of reality shifted. There were times in that cell that it felt like he was surrounded by them.
“Solitary breaks people,” he said. “No one comes out the same.”
Solitary confinement in the Lehigh Valley
Solitary confinement was first used in the U.S. in the late 1700s at the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia, according to Terry Kupers, a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, and an expert on solitary confinement. The goal was to rehabilitate inmates in a space where they could reflect on their crimes and correct the course of their lives. Other early adopters included Eastern State Penitentiary, also in Philadelphia, and Auburn Correctional Facility in New York.
Today, solitary confinement is used to separate inmates who have been fighting, discipline a disruptive inmate or remove inmates who otherwise would be in danger in or dangerous to the general population. Inmates under solitary confinement are kept alone in a cell, usually for up to 23 hours a day. Time in solitary varies from a few days, to weeks or even months.
Both Lehigh and Northampton County jails employ some form of inmate segregation, although their policies differ.
Lehigh County Jail’s policy, obtained by The Morning Call, outlines two forms of solitary: administrative segregation and disciplinary segregation. Administrative segregation is meant to protect inmates when a safety concern arises and is not supposed to be used for punitive reasons, while disciplinary is for punishing and correcting behavior.
Northampton County does not have a policy regarding solitary confinement, according to a response to an open records request by The Morning Call.
However, James C. Kostura, the prison’s director of corrections, said some cells are for single prisoners “for particular reasons,” including mental health needs, which is also classified as a “high-risk status.”
“Most of our cells are more than doubled up,” said Kostura, a 30-year employee who rose through the ranks from corrections officer to head of the jail.
“Nobody gets a single cell. We need to, as quickly as we can, treat people and find out what direction they are going in,” he said. “Later, after evaluation and treatment, that is when we can start putting them in the general population. This is not always the case, but we have to find out what we’re dealing with first.”
He said officials will sometimes place prisoners in a single cell for an unspecified time period, describing those who fall into a “high-risk category” such as assaulting staff or other inmates. He said that situation occurs until officials can attempt to find out a cause for a prisoner’s actions with assistance from mental health officials who conduct exams.
He referred to times when prisoners are separated from the general population as “administrative segregation.” Asked if that term is just another name for solitary confinement, Kostura said it is not, because in solitary, a prisoner is kept confined and alone with no other contact.
In administrative segregation, he said, a prisoner is allowed some time for recreation and communication.
Solitary confinement and mental illness
Solitary confinement also commonly is used for medical or suicide observation. It’s meant to provide a safe place away from the general population of the jail so the inmate can receive treatment.
Yet opponents of the practice say the use of solitary against inmates with mental illness can lead to a worsening of their symptoms.
“In ‘observation,’ the individual is usually naked except for a tear-proof robe, has no amenities, not even paper and pencil, is entirely idle and does not even get to go to recreation,” Kupers said. “Staff periodically check on those in observation, but there is little in the way of meaningful communication.”
In a lawsuit filed this year against Lehigh County, Sarah Jackson, who has bipolar disorder, said she was subjected to months of isolation while under observation and disciplinary segregation, and received inadequate treatment in the jail, violating her rights.
The suit, which also names PrimeCare — a third party that provides medical services to both Lehigh and Northampton county jails — states that while under psychiatric observation, Jackson was kept in a room by herself, given less time out of her cell than other inmates under disciplinary segregation, and didn’t receive therapy or mental health counseling.
The suit also states that the only treatment PrimeCare staff provided to alleviate Jackson’s medical condition was prescribing medication, and they did not follow up on the medication’s effectiveness.
And when she complained about her isolation and lack of medical treatment, staff interpreted her behavior as a symptom of her mental illness, according to medical records cited in the suit.
Kupers said few correctional officers are trained or equipped to deal with people with severe mental illness.
That’s troubling given the number of inmates with diagnosed mental illnesses, which has been on the rise. Inadequate mental health services in the community and consistent, incremental cuts to public mental health resources have left jails and prisons as the de facto treatment center for many with severe mental illness, Kupers said.
Nationally, about 44% of people incarcerated in local jails have been diagnosed with a mental illness, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. People with a major mental illness diagnosis are more than 50% more likely to be sentenced for a misdemeanor than those without a mental illness, a 2019 study found.
Data from the Lehigh County Criminal Justice Advisory Board shows that a quarter of all new commitments to the county jail in 2021 were referred to and evaluated for mental health services at the jail. Of those 956 people, a quarter had attempted suicide, and nearly half had a prior psychiatric hospitalization.
Northampton County denied a records request by The Morning Call for data on mental illness diagnoses among inmates.
Once in jail, people with mental illness are more likely to face disciplinary action, including solitary confinement, a 2022 study of Pennsylvania prisons found. Compared with inmates with no mental illness, those with mental illness are issued misconduct tickets more than twice as often, even for just displaying perceived symptoms of their illness.
The study also found that people with mental illness are penalized more harshly than those without, and their stays in solitary confinement are up to three times longer.
“Officers of the law are very obsessed with what the rules are, and what punishment needs to be meted out if you break a rule. In jail that intensifies — there are rules upon rules. People with mental illness tend to break those rules, just like they do in the community and therefore they get punished,” Kupers said. “That’s why they get sent to solitary confinement, which is the most harmful place to put them.”
In addition, self-harm among inmates occurs at a higher rate in solitary than in the general population, as does potentially fatal self-harm, especially among inmates with mental illness, a 2014 study of New York City jails showed.
During the year after release, people who spent time in solitary confinement during their incarceration had a higher rate of dying from all causes, especially suicide, compared to those who spent no time in solitary, a 2019 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found.
That year, Northampton County and Primecare, settled a lawsuit over the death of Kyle Flyte, a 21-year-old man who was held in the jail and killed himself in 2017 after he was placed in solitary confinement in the jail’s behavioral health unit.
The suit claimed PrimeCare and the jail failed to provide proper psychiatric and mental health care while he was a prisoner at Northampton County Prison.
Kupers said that for people with mental illness, solitary confinement is the worst place to be. The longer a person with a mental illness is kept in solitary without adequate treatment, the worse their mental
“You’re angry, you don’t believe in nothing, you can’t even trust the people that work in the jail. You become afraid at some point that you’re going to be stuck there forever. Even if that doesn’t sound realistic, it’s what you feel.” — Victor Santiago, former inmate whose longest stint in solitary confinement was 18 months
illness will become, making it harder to treat later. Once they are released it will also be harder for them to reintegrate into society and it will be more likely they will run afoul of the law again if they are not able to get the treatment they need.
Kupers said he’s had quite a few discussions with sheriffs, jail commanders and others in charge of operations. He’s said he’s asked them all what they do when an inmate is admitted who has serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression.
“They all said ‘We put them in a cell by themselves.’ I said, ‘Why do you do that?’ They said, ‘It makes the operation of the jail go more smoothly.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but doesn’t it cause damage to their emotional condition?’ And the sheriffs and the commanders are clueless. That’s not their job,” Kupers said.
Solitary’s lasting effects
Kupers said more research is needed on the specific psychological and physiological effects of solitary confinement, but some aspects — such as isolation and sleep deprivation — already are well-researched.
Kupers said some people handle solitary confinement better than others. Some will fall apart very quickly, while for others, it takes weeks or months. But spending more than two months in solitary confinement is associated with mental illness, disability and increased mortality.
The U.S. surgeon general sounded the alarm on the subjects of general isolation and loneliness this year, stating that people who report high levels of loneliness and prolonged isolation are at higher risk for many health problems including heart disease, stroke, depression and anxiety, as well as higher rates of suicide and increased overall mortality.
Kupers said without social contact, stress hormones accumulate in the brain and permanent physical changes are possible if enough time passes. The lack of sleep many inmates in solitary experience also causes fatigue, sluggishness, confusion, memory loss and anxiety, and worsens cognitive problems and psychiatric symptoms.
He said paranoia is common, especially after extended time in solitary, even among inmates who are relatively stable. Without someone to converse with, unrealistic beliefs and thoughts go unchallenged, which can lead inmates in solitary to ruminate on and internalize these irrational thoughts.
Victor Santiago of Allentown did his first stint in jail in 1989 for dealing heroin. It’s also where he had his first stay in solitary confinement, 60 days for fighting another inmate.
The longest he spent in solitary confinement was 18 months, at the now-shuttered Graterford State Prison in Montgomery County. He was transferred there after he violated his parole by fighting while part of a job program.
His anger and paranoia worsened the longer he stayed in solitary, he said.
“You’re angry, you don’t believe in nothing, you can’t even trust the people that
work in the jail,” Santiago said. “You become afraid at some point that you’re going to be stuck there forever. Even if that doesn’t sound realistic, it’s what you feel.”
Santiago said being in solitary affected the way his brain processed information.
“Half the time when I was reading, it didn’t even feel like I understood it,” Santiago said. “The whole confinement, things are dark, cold, dirty — it’s horrible. It’s worse than being in a cave.”
Those 18 months of isolation had a profound effect on Santiago: He lost a lot of weight, he was paranoid and he felt like he wanted to fight the first person he saw.
Even after his release from jail, Santiago said it was difficult to leave his room to look for a job or just talk to
people. He said he felt like he needed permission just to do essential daily tasks.
His family noticed the changes.
“Every time I came home I would feel like I was in jail. My family would tell me every time I came home it took me over three months to get right, to feel like I was back home,” Santiago said.
Santiago now is under psychiatric care for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet he said he still lives with the lasting effects of being in solitary confinement.
“To this day I don’t like to be around a lot of people,” Santiago said. “I just don’t feel myself. I get paranoid, I feel like people are looking at me. It just makes me uncomfortable — I get anxiety. This has been built up over the years.”
What is the future of solitary confinement in the Lehigh Valley?
Lehigh County declined to comment for this report, citing Jackson’s lawsuit.
But recently, the jail made changes to its solitary rules, allowing inmates to earn more recreation time and access to leisure books.
In June, Lehigh County Corrections Director Janine Donate announced the following quality of life changes she had approved for solitary confinement at the Lehigh County Jail:
Recreation for disciplinary solitary changed to seven days a week instead of five.
People in disciplinary solitary can now also have up to three leisure books in their cell instead of just religious books.
If someone is placed in disciplinary solitary and has received no misconduct reports in the week before their second weekly review from a case manager, they’ll now receive a 15-minute daily phone call and a weekly 30-minute visit. Those calls previously weren’t permitted except for when speaking with an attorney.
If a person is in solitary while awaiting a disciplinary hearing (such as if two inmates are in a fight), and if that hearing itself results in solitary as a sanction, then the time spent in solitary leading up to the hearing will now count toward that sanction.
The jail review committee that reviews people in their first week in solitary, and determines if they need to remain there, now has their timeframes of review written in policy and has more
“creativity” to make a behavior plan, like allowing someone additional recreation for good conduct.
The changes are based on recommendations made by a community action partnership board for the jail, with members including representatives from Donate’s administration and people who were formerly incarcerated. The recommendations were based on the policies and procedures for solitary confinement that she presented in September, during a meeting in which the public referred to the practice as torturous and discriminatory against people of color.
Last year, Lehigh County residents, with assistance from prison-justice organizers, sought to ban the practice of solitary, saying it is tortuous and discriminates against minorities. Yet an effort to place a referendum on the ballot last year to limit solitary failed to garner enough signatures.
“It was expensive, it was time-consuming, but I would say it was worth it,” said Ashleigh Strange, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania Stands Up, the nonprofit that led the initiative.
She said while organizers obtained about 5,000 signatures to put the referendum on the ballot, they needed 17,000 signatures. But, she said, the effort was successful in raising awareness of the issue
Organizers have no plans to do another referendum, but Strange said they are “staying in touch” with the Lehigh County commissioners’ committee on courts and corrections to change what organizers believe are unjust uses of solitary confinement.
Kupers said rewarding inmates in solitary with incremental improvements in their condition for good behavior is a positive step forward and can help inmates feel like they have more agency in their situations.
But he said actions like those taken by Lehigh County Jail at best should be viewed as transient steps on the way to ending solitary confinement. It only makes solitary somewhat more pleasant, but it doesn’t fix the inherent problems.
At the same time, Kupers said eliminating solitary confinement in and of itself won’t fix the mental health crisis inside or outside of jail.
“It’s not that I think we should turn our jails into mental health centers. I don’t. I think most people like that should be going to a mental health facility, not a jail. But our current situation is that they go to jail today. I think it is our duty to intensively screen them and provide them with the mental health services they need,” Kupers said.
“Something’s terribly wrong and I think what it is, is that everybody is frustrated with the lack of resources and the crowding and they take it out on the most disturbed prisoners.”