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Speaker 1

00:00

-♪ ♪ -♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ -♪♪ Our main story tonight concerns solitary confinement, a punishment inflicted on prisoners, pet goldfish, and, of course, Lance Armstrong's remaining testicle. It's in there all by itself. It must be so lonely. Most of us have a general idea of what solitary confinement is, although as this TikTok man on the street interview demonstrates, others seem a little unsure.

Speaker 2

00:25

In solitary confinement, how many prisoners are in each cell?

Speaker 3

00:28

11I mean, this is alone, right? It's alone. I'm gonna say I'm gonna go with 1111.

Speaker 1

00:37

Final answer. Yeah, that's right. Okay.

Speaker 1

00:39

I'm glad they got it right, but it did take them an alarming amount of time to triple team that answer. Although, it did also give me a chance to absorb every weird fashion choice there, because you'd think the boldest 1 would be this kid wearing light blue Crocs with a virginity rocks T-shirt, but then, you'd be knowing that this 1 is wearing hashtag shoes. This one's outfit is somehow both too formal and too casual. And this 1 seemingly couldn't decide if he was dressing for the pool or golf, so decided on both.

Speaker 1

01:08

Very basically, every 1 of these human red solo cups is dressed inexcusably wrong in their own unique way. I'm genuinely glad they all found each other, and I hope to never meet any of them under any circumstances. The point is, solitary confinement is a common enough practice that even those bros basically know about it. And the fact is, in this country, facilities from jails and prisons to immigration detention centers isolate a massive number of people.

Speaker 1

01:35

A 2016 government report found that on any given day, an estimated 90, 000 inmates in prison and jail are housed in isolation. And that is almost certainly an undercount given how poor data collection on this is. Yet for how widespread our use of solitary is, some of those in charge of our prison systems have been weedly ignorant on the practicalities of it. Take this amazing exchange from 2014, where then-Senator Al Franken asked the then-head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons a pretty simple question.

Speaker 4

02:05

How big is a cell? How big is the average cell in solitary?

Speaker 5

02:12

You say the average size?

Speaker 4

02:14

Cell, Yeah, the size of the cell. How big is it? What is...

Speaker 4

02:19

I'm trying to get this... It's the human thing we're talking about. We've got a lot of statistics. How big is the cell?

Speaker 5

02:28

The average size of a cell is... I guess I'm trying to find... You're looking for the space of what the...

Speaker 4

02:38

Yes. The dimensions in feet. In inches. The size of the cell that a person is kept in.

Speaker 4

02:49

I want to get some idea of... I don't know... Am I asking this wrong?

Speaker 1

02:54

No! No, you are absolutely not. And honestly, I wish he'd kept going there. Okay, clearly you're confused by feet and inches.

Speaker 1

03:01

How about meters or steps? You know, if you stood at 1 end of the cell, how many steps would it take to walk to the other end? No? How many rabbits could you fit on the floor of 1 of those cells?

Speaker 1

03:11

How many rabbits big is 1 cell? Am I asking this wrong? Because there are literally no other ways to ask this question. For the record, the average size of a solitary cell is 6 feet by 9 feet, which is way too small for a person to be stuck in for days, weeks, months, or even years on end.

Speaker 1

03:30

That level of isolation is why, in 2011, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture declared that considering the severe pain and suffering that solitary confinement can cause, it can amount to torture. They then called on all countries to prohibit indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days, which really is not asking that much, but is also something that we in the U.S. Have to put it mildly, not done. Which is just appalling, as solitary really takes a toll on people, as someone who's actually experienced it can tell you.

Speaker 2

04:02

Ask yourself, can you live in a bathroom

Speaker 6

04:04

for 10 years?

Speaker 2

04:06

It's bad to lock an individual up and just put him in a... In a room, in a closed... You know, nothing to do.

Speaker 2

04:13

It's... I guess you could say inhumane. And I know that we're inmates and all, you're inmate, but excuse my language, it fucks me up.

Speaker 1

04:21

Yeah. Of course it fucks you up. Human beings are not meant to sit in a bathroom for 10 years with nothing to do. You're thinking of retainers.

Speaker 1

04:29

Those are the things that we place into a bathroom and fully neglect for an entire decade. Everybody knows that. So given how prevalent it is, and how damaging it can be, tonight, let's look at solitary confinement. And let's start with the fact that it has its roots in a somewhat unexpected place.

Speaker 7

04:45

It was actually introduced by the Quakers as a noble experiment in rehabilitation. There was a belief that you could put a prisoner in his own solitary cell, freed from the evil influences of modern society, and if you put them in that cell, they would become like a penitent monk, free to come close to God and to their own inner being, and they would naturally heal.

Speaker 1

05:09

It's true. The whole idea of solitary came from Quakers. And on 1 hand, it is not surprising that a form of brutal torture and punishment was invented by a religious group, but on the other, if you gave me 50 guesses for which 1 invented locking people in a small room alone to feel guilty 24 hours a day, I'd have guessed Catholics 50 times in a row.

Speaker 1

05:27

--ROB AND AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING, CHEERING AND WHOOPING- Quakers Basically thought that prisoners isolated in cells with a Bible could use that time to reflect, repent, and eventually reform. That is even where the term penitentiary originated, which is a handy fun fact if you ever want to quickly raise a few red flags on a first date. But by the mid-1800s, the psychological harms of isolation were becoming clear. And by 1890, the Supreme Court declared that solitary confinement made prisoners, quote, violently insane.

Speaker 1

05:58

After that, the practice was largely abandoned until the 1980s, when mass incarceration led to prison overcrowding, which in turn led to a rise in prison violence, and in an effort to preserve order, prison officials started ramping up the use of solitary again. And at this point, it is worth looking at what modern solitary actually consists of. Generally, it involves isolating people for 22 to 24 hours per day in small cells with minimal contact with others, and with little or no access to reading materials or radio and TV. And even if that is pretty much what you assumed, There are additional elements to solitary that you might not expect, like the fact that some cells are lit around the clock, and that there can be a near constant sound of banging, screaming, and moaning.

Speaker 1

06:41

Frontline spent 4 months filming in a solitary confinement unit and released a video just of the noise. And here is just 20 seconds of it. -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Holy shit! How are you supposed to think in there, let alone sleep?

Speaker 1

07:15

There is a reason people fall asleep to sounds of the rainforest and not sounds of 1 of those haunted houses where you have to sign a waiver to get in. So a person could be stuck alone in a cell for 23 hours a day or more with the soundtrack to Stomp playing in the background. And as this man will tell you, filling that time can take some real effort.

Speaker 8

07:35

1 of the things I did in solitary to pass the time was save my bread, put it on the floor, and let the mice come in and eat it and play. It was action, it was something different. Is it gross?

Speaker 8

07:46

Yeah. Disgusting? A little bit? Sure.

Speaker 8

07:48

Better than going insane? Yeah.

Speaker 1

07:52

Right. That makes sense, doesn't it? Because it is a little disgusting, but it is better than going insane. Also, for what it's worth, I don't think I understand what TikTok is.

Speaker 1

08:02

I thought I did, but I clearly don't. I thought it was an app for teens to do the same 8 dance moves that all involve this move... So that the Chinese government can spy on us. I didn't know that frank discussions of the conditions of prisons were part of it, too.

Speaker 1

08:17

But that guy wasn't kidding there. Solitary can irreparably damage people's minds. Studies show that some lasting mental damage is caused after just a few days of isolation. And the effects can be even more acute when children experience it.

Speaker 1

08:31

Oh, yeah. In case I forgot to mention, we subject children to solitary in this country, too.

Speaker 9

08:37

Vicki Reed was shocked by what we found at the Middle Tennessee Juvenile Detention Facility in Murray County. We revealed juveniles often spend 23 to 24 hours a day locked inside their cells.

Speaker 10

08:48

If a parent locks their kid in a closet, and leaves them there, and feeds them 3 times a day, and that's it, we would call that child abuse.

Speaker 1

08:57

Yeah, she's not wrong. If I learned that someone was locking children in a closet all day long, I'd immediately say 2 things. Are those the children from the car for kids commercial?

Speaker 1

09:06

If so, thank you for your service. But if not, then that is child abuse, and you need to stop doing it immediately. So if it is this torturous, and this permanently damaging, why do we put people in solitary? Well, if you ask prison or government officials, the response that you'll often get is, we actually don't.

Speaker 1

09:24

And that is because we have a lot of euphemisms for solitary, like segregation, or protective custody, or referring to themselves as restricted housing units, or security housing units. In Tennessee, where that woman was outraged that kids were being held in isolation, officials there simply called it room restriction. And here is New York Mayor Eric Adams trying to make a similar type of semantic distinction.

Speaker 11

09:48

I am opposed to solitary confinement. That is a draconian way to protect the city. But what I am saying, you can't be an inmate, sexually assault a correction officer or another inmate, and then stay in general population.

Speaker 11

10:04

Punitive segregation is a humane way of removing dangerous inmates to a location where they can get the services they need so they can stop preying on other inmates, staff, and preying on society.

Speaker 1

10:17

Yeah, Adams doesn't support solitary confinement, but he's all in for punitive segregation. An interesting distinction, considering that the New York Board of Corrections' own website says that punitive segregation is also known as solitary confinement. So, that's a pretty weird stance to take.

Speaker 1

10:35

Although, it probably shouldn't be surprising that Eric Adams did or said something weird. This is the same man who once told a reporter that New York sits on a store of rare gems and stones, which is why there's a special energy that comes from here. Insisted on taking his first paycheck as mayor in crypto, deliberately posed for this photo, and has repeatedly held up a sponge on stage to encourage people to wring out their internal despair, answering the question, what if Mr. Clean was a motivational speaker?

Speaker 1

11:03

-♪ ♪ -♪ But the fact is, whatever you call solitary, the experience for the person going through it is the same. And corrections officers will often justify the use of it by arguing, as Adams just did, that it is a necessary tool to isolate wrongdoers and preserve order. Here is the head of the New York City Corrections Officers Union making that exact point.

Speaker 6

11:26

We have to be able to segregate those people because, You know, if we have a society without consequences, then we'll just have total anarchy.

Speaker 12

11:37

Isn't the problem that many of those in solitary are not the really dangerous criminals? They're people who've broken minor rules or are suicidal?

Speaker 6

11:46

That's just not the case. Minor infractions, people do not end up in solitary... In, punitive segregation.

Speaker 6

11:53

Oh! First,

Speaker 1

11:55

good catch. You almost called it solitary confinement there. And near miss on par with having a mustache that almost makes you look like a John Waters impersonator.

Speaker 1

12:05

But... But second, the claim that people don't end up in solitary for minor infractions is just not true. In general, Researchers have found that violence is typically not the most common reason that people are sent to solitary. In Oregon, researchers once found that disobedience was the infraction resulting in the most solitary confinement sanctions.

Speaker 1

12:26

And nationwide, people who are sent to solitary for reasons including, and these are all real, not making their bed, using Facebook, and having too many envelopes. And as this formerly incarcerated man will tell you, the list does not stop there.

Speaker 13

12:39

I've seen people go to solitary for things as little as handing other people stuff, having too many cigarettes in their pockets. I've seen people go to solitary for talking back. I've seen people go to solitary for not having their

Speaker 14

12:53

shirt tucked in. I've seen people go to solitary for talking back. I've seen people go to solitary for not having their shirt tucked in.

Speaker 13

12:55

I've seen people go to solitary for not having the right shoes in the gym. I've seen people go to the box for a lot of stuff, bro.

Speaker 1

13:02

That is ridiculous. Solitary should not be where we send people who are dressing incorrectly. If it were, I could think of 4 people who'd be in there right now, yet instead they're walking around free, struggling to answer basic questions.

Speaker 1

13:16

So the truth is, petty rule infractions are a very common cause of landing people in solitary, and that is not all. People who are seen as at risk in the general prison population, because they are young, mentally ill, intellectually disabled, gay or transgender, can wind up in there for their own protection. And think how absurd that logic is. The only way we can keep you safe is to inflict enormous harm on you.

Speaker 1

13:42

It's like arguing the only way to keep you hydrated is to waterboard you. 1, it isn't. So, 2, find another fucking way. And if you're thinking, well, what if someone actually is a potential threat to inmates or guards?

Speaker 1

13:55

Shouldn't they then be getting locked up in solitary? Well, you should know that a 2016 report found that there is little evidence that administrative segregation has had any effects on overall levels of violence in correctional facilities. In fact, some researchers found subjecting people to solitary can lead them to become more, not less, violent. And that can obviously be a problem, not just inside prisons, but also after people are released.

Speaker 1

14:20

Even those who have worked within prisons, like this former warden, will tell you just how counterproductive our current system is.

Speaker 5

14:28

If I have somebody that comes in with a five-year commitment, You can have them do their whole time in segregation, but

Speaker 14

14:34

I don't want them living next to me when

Speaker 5

14:36

you release them. The reality is, is that 80 percent of these inmates are gonna be hitting the street. Okay, so we can either make them worse, okay, and create more victims when they go on the street, or we can rehabilitate them.

Speaker 1

14:48

Right. And when you frame it as a choice like that, it is hard to pick solitary confinement. It's like saying, for dinner tonight, we can either get pizza, or we could assassinate Paul McCartney. 1 of those choices makes sense, and the other is absolutely horrible for everyone on Earth.

Speaker 1

15:05

And just to be clear, this isn't to say that people who've committed violent acts in prison should just be left in the general population to potentially harm others. They can be separated without being completely isolated. Take North Dakota. Their state prison officials made the bold decision to end the use of solitary there, but in doing so, to also create a less hostile atmosphere overall.

Speaker 1

15:27

So, when prisoners got in trouble for serious infractions like violence, Instead of solitary, they were sent to a brand new unit where they'd get significant out-of-cell time and access to behavioral treatment. And it has had promising results.

Speaker 15

15:42

Jerry Holmes was just released from the new Behavioral Health Intervention Unit, or BIU, in September.

Speaker 3

15:48

Mindset? 100% better. Because you're just not crammed up in a hole like, you know, coming out of the box.

Speaker 15

15:56

Brandon Davis has spent time in the old Administrative Segregation Unit, or ASU, and the new BIU. He says the biggest difference is just having someone to talk to. Now they have interaction and counseling to work toward a solution.

Speaker 16

16:10

Because if you bottle in your issues, it just... It overwhelms the person. Like, because I have my own problems.

Speaker 16

16:18

And, like, when you're isolated and you have these issues... And it's like you have nowhere to release them or no 1 to talk to them about.

Speaker 1

16:27

Of course, you don't have to have been in solitary to understand that talking through your issues with other people is probably better for you than being locked up in a concrete toilet cave. And look, I'm not saying that any of this is easy, because I know that the solution should be simple here. Putting people in solitary is torture, so let's stop doing it.

Speaker 1

16:47

But exactly how we do that is absolutely critical to any reform actually working. Unfortunately, in multiple states, when they've taken steps to limit the use of solitary, corrections officials have found ways around them by doing things like keeping prisoners isolated for just below the threshold set by the state, or creating even more euphemisms to camouflage the practice. 1 key reason that North Dakota's reforms worked is because they came directly from people running the corrections system there. They understood that reducing the use of solitary required a shift in the whole culture of their prisons.

Speaker 1

17:22

And they did have to get rid of staff who weren't on board with the idea so that it could be executed properly. And while it was not easy, There was an initial rise in violence in the prison's general population immediately afterward. They stuck with it. And not only has the overall trend in violence been downward, but both incarcerated persons and staff members reported improvements in their health and well-being, better interactions with 1 another, and less exposure to violence following the reforms.

Speaker 1

17:50

So it can be done if we want to. And I know that some corrections officials will still insist that they need solitary, but I would argue that If you find yourself making the case that you need to torture people to keep your facility safe, that in itself is an admission of catastrophic failure, and you may need to go. Because it is important to remember just how lasting the damage here can be. The voices in this debate are often dominated by corrections officials, but it is worth listening at length to the people who've been harmed by this.

Speaker 1

18:23

Anthony Graves was kept in solitary for 18 years after being wrongly convicted. And just listen to him testify before Congress about what it did to him.

Speaker 17

18:33

I have been free for almost 2 years and I still cry at night because no 1 out here can relate to what I've gone through. I battle with these feelings of loneliness. I've tried therapy, but it didn't work.

Speaker 17

18:53

The therapist was crying more than me. She could not imagine how inhumanely our system were treating people. I haven't had a good night's sleep since I've been out. I only sleep about 2 and a half to 3 hours a night.

Speaker 17

19:10

And then I'm up. My body has not made the adjustment. I have mood swings that just causes emotional breakdowns. I don't know where they come from.

Speaker 17

19:21

They just come out of nowhere. Solitary confinement makes our criminal justice system criminal.

Speaker 1

19:30

He's right. Solitary isn't something we do to people behind bars. It's something we do to them forever.

Speaker 1

19:36

And it needs to be universally understood how utterly indefensible it is. So that maybe, just maybe, 1 day in the future, we can get to a point where even if you