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IMAGES OF HEALTH |
Lorna A. Rhodes is with the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle.
Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Lorna Rhodes, PhD, Department of Anthropology, Box 353100, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195 (e-mail: lrhodes{at}u.washington.edu).
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ABSTRACT |
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 TOP ABSTRACT INTRODUCTIONCONFINEMENT IN SUPERMAXIMUM...CAPTURING THE MINDReferences |
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The drawings of Todd (Hyung-Rae) Tarselli, a prisoner confined in a Pennsylvania "close-security" or "supermaximum" prison, tell a story—one that graphically portrays the devastating effects of a prison on the mental health of its inmates.
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INTRODUCTION |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONCONFINEMENT IN SUPERMAXIMUM...CAPTURING THE MINDReferences |
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CONFINEMENT IN SUPERMAXIMUM PRISONS |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONCONFINEMENT IN SUPERMAXIMUM...CAPTURING THE MINDReferences |
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Exact figures on supermaximum confinement are not available, but we know that the United States has more than 60 such facilities housing a total of well over 20 000 people.2 These facilities, which had been constructed during the expansion of the US prison complex that began in the early 1980s, share the punitive and individualistic philosophy that accompanied that expansion. Behavior in prison, like crime itself, has increasingly come to be understood primarily as a matter of individual choice divorced from its social context. Thus, for example, a supermaximum prisoner deprived of all but the most minimal options is offered the "choice" of returning a meal tray or keeping it in his cell as a gesture of defiance. Defiant behavior is then cited as proof that this form of confinement is necessary.
Many factors, including political pressure for harsh sentencing, the effect of enemployment on rural economics, population pressure inside prison systems, and the internal architectural and staffing features of general-population units, influence the construction and use of supermaximum facilities across the country. Local administrators often have few options for reducing tension among prisoners, rewarding good behavior, or placing disruptive or mentally ill prisoners. These issues, however, are seldom part of public debate about prisons and prison spending. Supermaximum prisons are generally off-limits to the public, and the claim that they house the "worst of the worst" is rarely questioned in the press. Yet although supermaximum inmates are a small percentage of the total prison population, these facilities constitute a pragmatically and philosophically important aspect of the prison system as a whole. We can also see, in the very existence of this intense form of isolation, a concentration of some of the most important negative effects of the entire prison complex.
DECOMPENSATION
Todd based his drawing Decompensation on his observation of prisoners held for years under supermaximum confinement (Image 1
). It depicts what prisoners call "breaking"—that is, losing one’s mind under extreme conditions of deprivation and isolation. Leena Kurki and Norval Morris, describing the Tamms supermaximum facility in Illinois, write that "these are harsh conditions for anyone, but . . . they are formidably harsh . . . for the mentally ill and those teetering on the brink of mental illness."3(p401) Some supermaximum prisoners describe experiences of anxiety, rage, dissociation, and psychosis. One man who had been in and out of isolation for several years said, "Sometimes I see things that is on the wall. . . . Sometimes I hear voices. . . . There is nobody to talk to . . . and vent my frustration and, as a result, sometimes I am violent. Pound on the walls. Yell and scream." Speaking of the possibility of transferring to a mental health facility, he said, "I wanted to die and I wanted some help."1
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Although Washington State provides medium and maximum security psychiatric facilities, the number of mentally ill inmates far exceeds available beds. One consequence is that some disturbed prisoners—often those with multiple mental and physical problems—are held in supermaximum units. While some of these inmates may be sent to specialized treatment units when they deteriorate further, others are considered too dangerous—or perhaps too "manipulative"—for treatment. We found that 20% to 25% of supermaximum inmates showed strong evidence of mental illness.6
Even without a prior clinical condition, however, a prisoner may "break" under supermaximum confinement. Critical accounts of supermaximum prisons emphasize the negative effects of solitary confinement on the mental condition of many prisoners who experience extreme states of rage, depression, or psychosis. For example, social psychologist Hans Toch noted that "The most extreme punitive confinement—supermaximum isolation—most heavily taxes limited coping competence, and leads, literally, to points of no return . . . prison cells become filled with prisoners who have withdrawn from painful reality and quietly hallucinate. Their symptoms, their torpor, incoherent mumbling, restless sleep, and waking nightmares are difficult . . . for casual observers to spot, and noncasual observers are unwelcome in punitive segregation facilities."7(pxii) Even when symptoms are obvious to staff, they may be influenced by a lack of resources, the pervasive emphasis on inmate "manipulation," and distrust of social or psychological explanations of behavior. Staff who hold a strong belief in individual "choice" and who are charged with treating all inmates "equally" may not regard their withdrawn, angry, or delusional charges as needing attention.
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CAPTURING THE MIND |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONCONFINEMENT IN SUPERMAXIMUM...CAPTURING THE MINDReferences |
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). As he wrote in a letter, "The drawing with the eyes represents how prison makes you view things." An axiom of imprisonment since the beginning of the modern era has been that it works on the mind by means of the body, bringing about penitence or "teaching a lesson" by changing how the prisoner "views things." Some prisoners do, indeed, experience positive changes. Some, like Todd, also find ways to question the social numbing and psychological deterioration they see around them. But Todd’s drawing suggests that a more negative outcome is also possible: the internalization of prison bars and—by implication—of the logic and culture of the prison in the mind of the prisoner.
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). Todd wrote that this represents "both the imprisoned body and the mind. . . . Captive was supposed to be symbolic of the ‘mental blocks’ or limitations that people have [making] them unable to think beyond given boundaries." Prison systems aim to "make people unable to think beyond given boundaries," Todd wrote, in the sense that they see limit-setting and the imposition of boundaries as their primary job. For example, inmates should not be able to think realistically of escape. They are to align their own boundaries with those of the prison and turn their thoughts to self-improvement.
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COLLATERAL DAMAGE
In the drawing Collateral Damage, we see the silhouette of an imprisoned man who appears to be trying to hug a child through the bars, while the child, too, opens his arms (Image 4). While the drawing’s immediate meaning is that the incarceration of parents also harms children, it can also be understood in a larger, more symbolic sense. Many consequences of prison expansion are a form of "collateral damage," including the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C, damage to communities through the incarceration of generations of young people, and the lifetime effects of incarceration on those who have served their sentences. Marc Mauer and Media Chesney-Lind wrote that "Rather than investigating the circumstances of families or communities that enhance social solidarity and communicate shared values, a criminal-justice centered policy applies a reactive, and increasingly punitive, approach to the resolution of social conflict."10 The result is not only that massive incarceration has consequences for prisoners, families, and communities, but that it consumes the resources, energy, and—not insignificantly—creative thinking that might be devoted to other solutions.
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Todd’s drawings can also tell us a larger story. To what extent are these pictures of the pathological effects of the prison also about "us"—even those of us who have no obvious contact with the institutions themselves? These drawings suggest that perhaps, in a country that supports the world’s largest prison system,11 prisons have indeed become embedded in our collective mind. The massive presence of prison as a solution to social problems shapes the boundaries of what we think is possible, narrowing options not only for the incarcerated and their families and communities but also for those of us who imagine ourselves far away from life on the "inside."
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Acknowledgments |
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Accepted for publication May 1, 2005.
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References |
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TOPABSTRACTINTRODUCTIONCONFINEMENT IN SUPERMAXIMUM...CAPTURING THE MINDReferences |
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2. National Institute of Corrections. Supermax Housing: A Survey of Current Practice. Longmont, Colo: US Dept of Justice; 1997.
3. Kurki L, Morris N. The purposes, practices and problems of supermax prisons. In: Tonry M, ed. Crime and Justice: A Review of Research. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press; 2001: 385–424.
4. Kemelka R, Trupin E, Chiles JA. The mentally ill in prison: a review. Hosp Community Psychiatry. 1989; 40:481–485.
5. Lamb HR, Weinberger LE. Persons with severe mental illness in jails and prisons: a review. Psychiatr Serv. 1998; 49(4):483–492.
6. Lovell D, Cloyes C, Allen DG, Rhodes LA. Who lives in supermaximum custody? A Washington State study. Fed Probat. 2000;61:3:40–45.
7. Toch H. Forward. In: Kupers T. Prison Madness: The Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About It. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass Publishers; 1999:ix–xiv.
8. Haney C. "Infamous punishment": the psychological consequences of isolation. Natl Prison Project J. 2003(spring): 2–21.
9. Haney C. Mental health issues in long-term solitary and "supermax" confinement. Crime Delinqu. 2003;49(1): 124–156.
10. Mauer M, Chesney-Lind M. Introduction. In: Mauer M, Chesney Lind M, eds. Invisible Punishment The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment. New York, NY: New Press; 2002:1–12.
11. US Dept of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Prison and jail inmates at midyear 2003. Available at: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm. Accessed July 18, 2005.
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  J. M. Pizarro and R. E. Narag Supermax Prisons: What We Know, What We Do Not Know, and Where We Are Going The Prison Journal, March 1, 2008; 88(1): 23 - 42. [Abstract] [PDF]
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