The Times Union recently published an opinion piece by the president of the prison guards' union responding to a published profile of Jeffrey Rockefeller. Due to a near lifetime of serious mental illness, Rockefeller landed in prison and spent half of his 40-month incarceration in solitary confinement — where he ultimately tried to commit suicide.
Contrary to the assertion that solitary confinement (aka "special housing units") is used to isolate inmates who are a danger to others and themselves, less than 16 percent of the 4,500 people in solitary in 2012 were there for violent behavior.
Brian Fischer, the recently retired corrections commissioner, has admitted that "solitary confinement is overused." The significant reduction or near elimination of the use of solitary by Mississippi, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Ohio and Washington, without any impact on prison safety, belies the statement that "SHUs are the only mechanism for removing dangerous inmates from the general population."
The disconnect here is the failure to differentiate between isolation and separation. Certain individuals need short-term isolation for their own safety or the safety of others, but the rationale for such isolation is to prevent imminent harm, not to impose months, years, or decades of retribution and mental deterioration.
At least one study has shown that the recidivism rate for those who have been subjected to solitary confinement is 23 percent higher than those who have not. More than 95 percent of incarcerated New Yorkers are ultimately released to our communities. We are all safer when formerly incarcerated individuals lead productive lives. Spending time in solitary confinement lessens the likelihood that an individual will be psychologically prepared to do this.